Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. And this is the
Speaker 1: tech news for Thursday, September second, two thousand twenty one.
Speaker 1: Earlier this week, I talked about how thousands of subreddits
Speaker 1: on the site Reddit are calling on Reddit to crack
Speaker 1: down on COVID nineteen misinformation and disinformation that is otherwise
Speaker 1: proliferating across the site. Reddit had quarantined a subreddit called
Speaker 1: our slash No New Normal, meaning Reddit had effectively cut
Speaker 1: off access to the subreddit for new users, but had
Speaker 1: not actually shut it down. But now that's changed. Reddit
Speaker 1: has subsequently banned the No New Normal subreddit completely, and
Speaker 1: as warantined, more than fifty other subreddits also found to
Speaker 1: have spread and promoted COVID misinformation. So it looks like
Speaker 1: Reddit is making a shift, at least when it comes
Speaker 1: to matters of public health. As I said earlier this week,
Speaker 1: the official stance of the company had been let's just
Speaker 1: let the users kind of hash out what to believe,
Speaker 1: very similar to what Mark Zuckerberg said about content on Facebook.
Speaker 1: And you know that can be fine if you're talking
Speaker 1: about different points of view that have validity to them. Right,
Speaker 1: If you have two people who disagree about something, but
Speaker 1: they have valid reasons for that disagreement, letting them hash
Speaker 1: it out, that makes sense and not taking sides until
Speaker 1: we get that. But when it comes to truth versus misinformation,
Speaker 1: it's a different matter entirely. Anyway, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: go down that rabbit hole again. You already heard me
Speaker 1: say that earlier this week. Instead, I'll say that Reddit
Speaker 1: won't allow posts that promote quote falsifiable health information that
Speaker 1: encourages or poses a significant risk of physical arm to
Speaker 1: the reader end quote. I think that's the ethical choice here,
Speaker 1: as this is not, you know, a case of the
Speaker 1: dresses blue and black. No, you're an idiot, The dress
Speaker 1: is white and gold. This is really about people spreading
Speaker 1: narratives that have potentially tragic consequences, with more people getting sick,
Speaker 1: hospitals becoming overwhelmed, and ultimately more people dying as a result.
Speaker 1: I think Reddit's response is a good one. I also
Speaker 1: think it was a necessary response, not just because it
Speaker 1: was the right thing to do, as I believe it was,
Speaker 1: but also because the subredits that were protesting all this
Speaker 1: misinformation in the first place, We're starting to use some
Speaker 1: pretty guerrilla warfare tactics to disrupt the subredits that we're
Speaker 1: spreading misinformation going in there and like posting not safe
Speaker 1: for work content and such in order to necessitate a
Speaker 1: change in that subreddit status. And if Reddit had not
Speaker 1: stepped in, the whole platform could have descended into a
Speaker 1: chaotic mess. Samsung has entered used a new sensor for
Speaker 1: mobile devices that has a resolution of two hundred megapixels.
Speaker 1: That's pretty incredible stuff, but let's break down what that means.
Speaker 1: Super Fast digital images when you zoom way way way in,
Speaker 1: are made up of tiny little points of light called pixels,
Speaker 1: and collectively, these pixels appear to us as you know,
Speaker 1: photographs and videos and stuff when we're looking at them
Speaker 1: on screens, and generally speaking, the more pixels you can
Speaker 1: cram into a certain size frame, the more detail you
Speaker 1: can capture in that image. Now, once you get beyond
Speaker 1: a certain resolution, the human eye is going to have
Speaker 1: a lot of trouble picking out any extra detail. So
Speaker 1: if you're just looking at a full size image, you're
Speaker 1: not likely to see the difference. So megapixels and cameras
Speaker 1: really only matter up to a point unless you're looking
Speaker 1: for a specific use case. So, for example, let's say
Speaker 1: that you're a photographer and you want to take photos
Speaker 1: of stuff that you later intend to enlarge so that
Speaker 1: you can make movie poster sized print outs of it. Well,
Speaker 1: in that case, you want a camera that has sensors
Speaker 1: that can, yeah, you know, capture a lot of megapixels,
Speaker 1: because otherwise, as you enlarge the image, you start to
Speaker 1: lose that detail. If you've got, you know, are very
Speaker 1: high megapixel camera, you can enlarge an image to a
Speaker 1: pretty impressive degree and not lose any noticeable detail as
Speaker 1: a result. So this means that in the future, if
Speaker 1: you happen to buy one of these phones that's going
Speaker 1: to have a two D megapixel image sensor, you could
Speaker 1: theoretically snap a photo with your phone and then later
Speaker 1: you could digitally zoom way, way way in on the
Speaker 1: image to look at something specific, and you could even
Speaker 1: crop the photo and have it take you know, a
Speaker 1: full size photo as if you were you know, right
Speaker 1: up on something as opposed to really far back from it,
Speaker 1: and you don't lose any detail. In the image. That's
Speaker 1: pretty cool, especially if you want to take photos of
Speaker 1: stuff that you cannot get close to. Let's say like
Speaker 1: you're taking a picture of a historic building and there's
Speaker 1: a barrier where you're not supposed to cross, and you
Speaker 1: want to get really fine detail on a specific part.
Speaker 1: You can only zoom in so much with most digital cameras,
Speaker 1: if especially if you don't have a telephoto lens. So
Speaker 1: this is something that can help you with that, where
Speaker 1: that pixel density can allow you to capture detail that
Speaker 1: otherwise you might lose. Something else. The sensor does that
Speaker 1: I think is really neat is it adapts to take
Speaker 1: images in low light situations. So camera sensors are all
Speaker 1: about capturing light when you get down to it, and
Speaker 1: some digital cameras, whether they're in smartphones or otherwise, have
Speaker 1: some trouble in dim light situations and they produce grainy
Speaker 1: images as a result. The Samsung sensor will have blocks
Speaker 1: of sixteen pixels essentially teaming up to act like a
Speaker 1: single pixel. So in this case, the overall image would
Speaker 1: get reduced to twelve point five megapixels instead of two
Speaker 1: hundred because those blocks of sixteen would be acting as
Speaker 1: one reducing it down to twelve point five megapixels, but
Speaker 1: that those sixteen pixels will be able to more effectively
Speaker 1: capture the light that's in the scene and thus produce
Speaker 1: better low light photos as a result. So, yeah, there'll
Speaker 1: be fewer megapixels, you won't be able to zoom in
Speaker 1: as far without losing detail, but you'll be able to
Speaker 1: get a better image out of a low light situation. Now,
Speaker 1: there's no word yet on when we might expect to
Speaker 1: see phones that actually have these sensors in them. I
Speaker 1: imagine they'll be popping up after a generation or two
Speaker 1: of new devices, So we're probably looking at you know,
Speaker 1: not maybe not by early next year, but maybe mid
Speaker 1: to late next year, maybe we start seeing devices that
Speaker 1: have these kind of sensors in it. I think that's
Speaker 1: pretty neat. You know. I've talked a lot this year
Speaker 1: about data breaches and hackers in ransomware. I wish I
Speaker 1: didn't have to talk about it so much, but it's
Speaker 1: been happening a lot. Well, we're gonna get to some
Speaker 1: similar stuff right now. Bleeping Computer, it's a website, has
Speaker 1: a piece that says the ransomware hacker group lock Bit
Speaker 1: two point oh is actively trying to recruit folks who
Speaker 1: work inside large corporations and the whole purpose is to
Speaker 1: try and help this ransomware group plant malware on corporate
Speaker 1: machines to kind of act as like an in road
Speaker 1: for the hackers. See, when we think about hackers and malware,
Speaker 1: we often think about someone finding like, you know, a
Speaker 1: technical backdoor vulnerability. They're on their computer, they're typing quickly,
Speaker 1: you know, they type in a password a couple of
Speaker 1: times to get access to a system. Or maybe we
Speaker 1: think about someone using social engineering to convince a person
Speaker 1: who is authorized to access systems to hand over that
Speaker 1: access by tricking them. This is the classic. Hey, I'm
Speaker 1: from I T and I need to install some new
Speaker 1: software in your machine and it should only take a
Speaker 1: few minutes if you want to go in, you know,
Speaker 1: take a coffee break. That is more common than you
Speaker 1: might think. But sometimes the malware is coming from inside
Speaker 1: the house. Sometimes employees of these companies can be convinced
Speaker 1: to turn on their employers and help out a ransomware group. Now,
Speaker 1: ransomware gangs typically demand some pretty high prices to return
Speaker 1: systems to their rightful owners. And in case you're not
Speaker 1: really familiar with what ransomware is. It's usually some software
Speaker 1: that will encrypt data on a computer system or a
Speaker 1: full computer network so that that data becomes inaccessible unless
Speaker 1: you happen to have the decryption key, and then the
Speaker 1: ransomware group demands a ransom be paid in order for
Speaker 1: them to turn over that decryption key, and so a
Speaker 1: lot bit two point oh is saying that insiders stand
Speaker 1: to earn quote millions of dollars end quote if they
Speaker 1: go along with it. But let me say a couple
Speaker 1: of things before some of you all decide that you're
Speaker 1: going to stick it to the man and and become
Speaker 1: the infection vector for malware to hit your company's systems. First,
Speaker 1: the general advice that companies receive whenever they're hit with
Speaker 1: ransomware is that they should not pay the ransom because one,
Speaker 1: there's no guarantee that they will have control returned to them.
Speaker 1: And to every single payout is a message that goes
Speaker 1: out to the hacking community that says ransomware is a
Speaker 1: good way to make money. So, in other words, paying
Speaker 1: ransoms encourages future attacks, So that could mean you could
Speaker 1: go through the trouble of performing a criminal act on
Speaker 1: behalf of this ransomware group, putting yourself at risk and
Speaker 1: your company at risk, and your company might never pay
Speaker 1: out that ransom, so you end up making nothing for
Speaker 1: that anyway, which means you've got a very high risk
Speaker 1: in other words. But another reason not to do it
Speaker 1: is that, let's say that the group is ready to
Speaker 1: commit a crime and extort money out of a target, Well,
Speaker 1: then what's to stop that same group from screwing over
Speaker 1: the person and who gave them access in the first place.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not like you could come forward and say, hey,
Speaker 1: those hackers that attack the systems, they promised to give
Speaker 1: me money if I gave them access, and now they
Speaker 1: stiffed me. You can't do that. It would be admitting
Speaker 1: that you were part of the attack. So there's no
Speaker 1: guarantee you would even get paid out. You know, don't
Speaker 1: he help out ransomware gangs. And you know what, even
Speaker 1: if they did pay you out, even if you did
Speaker 1: get millions of dollars, you don't have to figure out
Speaker 1: how to hide all that cash because trust me, organizations
Speaker 1: like the I r S and law enforcement are really
Speaker 1: gonna wonder how you got so flush with cash out
Speaker 1: of nowhere. So long story short, don't pay ransoms and companies,
Speaker 1: don't burn your employees and make them resent you, because
Speaker 1: that's really what makes these sorts of schemes tempting. In fact,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about more of along those lines in just
Speaker 1: a moment, but before we get to that, let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break. Okay, before the break, I was talking
Speaker 1: about how companies need to be careful because if they
Speaker 1: burn their employees, then they can create the sort of
Speaker 1: environment where those employees would say, yeah, why don't I
Speaker 1: screw over the company because they're screwing me over and
Speaker 1: you don't want that. Well, let's talk about the story
Speaker 1: of Julianna Barile, who recently pled guilty to charges that
Speaker 1: she illegally accessed the computer systems of a New York
Speaker 1: credit union and subsequently deleted more than twenty gigabytes of data.
Speaker 1: So Bill was once an employee of this credit union
Speaker 1: in New York, but she found her employment terminated this
Speaker 1: past May. Now, someone in the I T department was
Speaker 1: supposed to revoke her access to the credit union's computer systems,
Speaker 1: which is pretty standard operating procedure when someone leaves a company,
Speaker 1: whether it's through termination, or residue nation or retirement or
Speaker 1: whatever it might be. It's just good info sec practice
Speaker 1: to revoke system access when someone is no longer employed
Speaker 1: by the company. But yeah, that didn't happen. And when
Speaker 1: Barrill found out that she could still access the credit
Speaker 1: Union system, she did, and then she started deleting stuff,
Speaker 1: and that included like loan application folders and such. And
Speaker 1: as someone who not too long ago went through the
Speaker 1: process of applying for a loan, I could tell you
Speaker 1: that any hiccup along the way is stressful and it's frustrating,
Speaker 1: but having the whole thing wiped out by a disgruntled
Speaker 1: former credit Union employee would make things way worse. According
Speaker 1: to court documents, Burrile deleted some twenty thousand files and
Speaker 1: more than three thousand directories in about forty minutes. The
Speaker 1: credit Union has been able to restore some files from
Speaker 1: backup and estimates that the cost for recovery has been
Speaker 1: more than ten thousand dollars. And here's an example of
Speaker 1: the sort of thing groups like lock a bit two
Speaker 1: point oh that I talked about before the break. This
Speaker 1: is what they're on the lookout for. People who have
Speaker 1: access to a system and an ax to grind against
Speaker 1: their company. What Brill did was wrong. She probably caused
Speaker 1: more harm to the end the customers of the Create
Speaker 1: Union than the Create Union itself, like all those people
Speaker 1: who had loans in process. It's incredibly disruptive. Now. I
Speaker 1: don't have the details around her termination, like why she
Speaker 1: was let go, but obviously whether the reasons for that
Speaker 1: termination were justified or not, we can all say that
Speaker 1: the credit union really should have revoked her access straight away.
Speaker 1: As soon as she was terminated, that access should have
Speaker 1: been shut down. So there are you know, she's at fault,
Speaker 1: certainly because she's the one who did the crime, but
Speaker 1: the CREB union also bears some responsibility. I would not
Speaker 1: be surprised if some credit Union customers sought action against
Speaker 1: the Create Union for failing to protect their you know,
Speaker 1: their information and their assets. Speaking of cybersecurity, let's talk
Speaker 1: about cables for a second. Now. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't consider cables as you know, a cybersecurity
Speaker 1: element that they need to worry about, particularly when you've
Speaker 1: got tons of people connecting to public WiFi without running
Speaker 1: a VPN or anything like that. But yeah, cables can
Speaker 1: trip you up and uh, I don't just mean literally,
Speaker 1: although they can do that too. Happens to be pretty
Speaker 1: much once a day, but no. A cybersecurity researcher who
Speaker 1: uses the handle MG has been creating cables that hide
Speaker 1: sneaky hardware inside them for a while now, and he
Speaker 1: calls them, oh MG cables cute, right, And he's recently
Speaker 1: unveiled a new one that uses the USBC form factor,
Speaker 1: which was something a lot of people thought wouldn't be
Speaker 1: possible because if you look at one of those cables,
Speaker 1: it has a very small plug at the end of it,
Speaker 1: and you would think there's not a whole lot of
Speaker 1: space for you to hide any secret tech in that
Speaker 1: form factor. And for this to work, for these cables
Speaker 1: to be a security threat, you have to be able
Speaker 1: to hide specialized chips inside that cable, and you have
Speaker 1: to do it effectively so that it doesn't look like
Speaker 1: it's out of place. So what is so special about
Speaker 1: these cables what makes them a security threat? Well, for
Speaker 1: one thing, MG has incorporated a WiFi transceiver chip inside
Speaker 1: the cable itself. So if you connect one of these
Speaker 1: cables to a device like your phone or a tablet
Speaker 1: or a computer, a remote hacker can see that WiFi
Speaker 1: spot because the cable will have activated the WiFi hot spot,
Speaker 1: it creates the power necessary to run it. The hacker
Speaker 1: can log in through that WiFi hot spot to gain
Speaker 1: access to the devices the cable connects to, and they
Speaker 1: can start deploying payloads like a keystroke logger, which will
Speaker 1: keep track of everything you type on that device, so
Speaker 1: if you're typing out like passwords and stuff, they can
Speaker 1: collect those passwords. The implications of this are pretty scary,
Speaker 1: and it really drives home the fact that you should
Speaker 1: not trust any cables that are not your own. Just
Speaker 1: imagine someone quote unquote testing these cables by leaving them
Speaker 1: in heavily trafficked areas like airport charging stations or a
Speaker 1: coffee shop or whatever. The variations on these cables include
Speaker 1: USBC two lightning connectors, which means you're not safe if
Speaker 1: you're on a PC, an Android device, or an iOS
Speaker 1: device if you are using one of these cables. And
Speaker 1: like I said, from the outside, they look like just
Speaker 1: normal USB or lightning cables. There's nothing about them that
Speaker 1: would set you off and make you think, oh, well,
Speaker 1: this is sus But they really are an incredibly effective
Speaker 1: security penetration tool if the right person is making use
Speaker 1: of them. The security company Hack five has partnered with
Speaker 1: MG to sell these cables, which are now in mass production,
Speaker 1: and the stated purpose. In fact, what hack five always
Speaker 1: says is that this is all to provide security researchers
Speaker 1: penetration testers with the tools they need to do various
Speaker 1: testing and security measures. And to be fair, if something
Speaker 1: is possible, even if you were to say, like, oh,
Speaker 1: but you're making cables that could cause an enormous amount
Speaker 1: of harm if they fell into the wrong hands, well,
Speaker 1: the fact that we know it's possible just means that
Speaker 1: someone sooner or later was going to make one for
Speaker 1: nefarious purposes. So while while you might like feel weird
Speaker 1: about the fact that a security researcher has creates something
Speaker 1: that's a real security threat, in another way, you could
Speaker 1: say it's a good thing because now we know that
Speaker 1: this is possible, so we can be on the lookout
Speaker 1: for stuff when we encounter it. Um Still, you know,
Speaker 1: just knowing these things are out there kind of gives
Speaker 1: me the heavy GEVs. So maybe I will get Shannon
Speaker 1: Morris back on the show to talk about this, because
Speaker 1: it's pretty incredible stuff, And again, don't trust anyone's cables
Speaker 1: but your own, right unless you purchase stead and you
Speaker 1: feel pretty good about it, don't use some other cable.
Speaker 1: You never know what kind of tech it might be hiding.
Speaker 1: It's also possible to have chips that could deploy malware
Speaker 1: directly to a device if you plugged it in using
Speaker 1: that cable. So word to the wise, be careful. Now
Speaker 1: let's move over to India to talk about how that
Speaker 1: country continues to make moves that I think are fairly
Speaker 1: authoritarian when it comes to tech and digital information. I've
Speaker 1: already taught about how the country's government has pressured social
Speaker 1: networking platforms to either suppress messages that criticize the government
Speaker 1: or to step back from enforcing misinformation policies when government
Speaker 1: officials post stuff that appears to violate those policies. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, like if a politician were to post
Speaker 1: something that fact checkers thought was misleading or misinformation, then
Speaker 1: Twitter might tag that post with a label that says
Speaker 1: as much. And India has really objected to Twitter taking
Speaker 1: that step, in fact, catting to the point where they
Speaker 1: said we're shutting down Twitter in India. However, on top
Speaker 1: of all those things I have not taught about VPNs
Speaker 1: or virtual private networks, so vp ns are really legitimately useful.
Speaker 1: A good VPN protects you from folks snooping on your business.
Speaker 1: So you might use a vp N if you wanted
Speaker 1: to connect to stuff like say your bank account, or
Speaker 1: medical insurance, or any of a million things that are sensitive.
Speaker 1: So essentially, you log into a server that's acting as
Speaker 1: your virtual private network, and the server will then go
Speaker 1: on to fetch all the stuff that you're wanting to
Speaker 1: look at online and everything is encrypted. So let's say
Speaker 1: you wanted to look at your bank statement, you would
Speaker 1: send the command, it would go to the VPN first encrypted,
Speaker 1: and then the VPN would go and send the request
Speaker 1: to your bank, and the return would go through the
Speaker 1: VPN before it came back to you, and from an
Speaker 1: went outside, it would just look like all you were
Speaker 1: doing was communicating with this one VPN server, but they
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to see what was happening. Beyond that point,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't know what you were really looking at. As
Speaker 1: long as the VPN is on the up and up,
Speaker 1: which is an important point, and as long as the
Speaker 1: VPN does you know good practices like purging user histories
Speaker 1: that things are relatively secure and private. By the way,
Speaker 1: you should be using a VPN pretty much any time
Speaker 1: you're not on your own network, and if you don't
Speaker 1: want your i sp knowing what you're looking at. For example,
Speaker 1: let's say that you're shopping around for different I s
Speaker 1: p s, Well, you might want to use a VPN
Speaker 1: even on your home network as well. But India's Parliamentary
Speaker 1: Standing Committee on Home Affairs wants a countrywide block on VPNs.
Speaker 1: Why Well, the committee claims that VPNs are facilitating piracy
Speaker 1: and illegal commerce and that it provides a haven for
Speaker 1: hackers so that they can attack targets without fear of
Speaker 1: being tracked down because all the attacks would seem to
Speaker 1: originate from the VPN, not the hacker. But India also
Speaker 1: recently liberalized VPNs. They noted that VPNs were really important
Speaker 1: for people to be able to work remotely and log
Speaker 1: into company systems. A lot of companies run their own
Speaker 1: VPNs because it is a good security measure. It helps
Speaker 1: protect proprietary or trade secret information from getting out into
Speaker 1: the world at large. So VPNs do play a valid
Speaker 1: and important role. So we have kind of a a
Speaker 1: disconnect here, right, we have another example of governments trying
Speaker 1: to get control of stuff that inherently is designed to
Speaker 1: resist that kind of intrusion. And we'll have to see
Speaker 1: how this one plays out. I've got a few more
Speaker 1: stories for us to cover before we get to that.
Speaker 1: Let's take another quick break. Okay, we're back and over
Speaker 1: here in the United States, the Government Accountability Office recently
Speaker 1: released a report, in fact, it was just last week
Speaker 1: that revealed numerous federal agencies continued to use and even
Speaker 1: plan on increasing the use of facial recognition technology. This
Speaker 1: is disturbing because, as I have reported several times, even
Speaker 1: if you're okay with the idea of this level of surveillance,
Speaker 1: in general, this technology is imperfect and frequently there is
Speaker 1: an inherent bias within the technology itself which leads to
Speaker 1: false positives and misidentifications, particularly among populations of non white people. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, this technology can lead to an increased
Speaker 1: discrimination against non white groups. And there have already been
Speaker 1: several cases in which, you know, law enforcement has relied
Speaker 1: upon facial recognition technology that was later found to have
Speaker 1: misidentified people of interest. And obviously, if the authorities have
Speaker 1: tagged you as being someone they want to talk to
Speaker 1: in connection with a crime that's pretty darn stressful and
Speaker 1: can be incredibly disruptive to your life. And when you
Speaker 1: have nothing to do with that crime, like you have
Speaker 1: no connection to it whatsoever. It's just that this technology
Speaker 1: has misidentified you, and then law enforcement is putting the
Speaker 1: burden on you to somehow prove you had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with a crime. Well, that's an injustice, and the
Speaker 1: potential for such injustices appears to be on the rise.
Speaker 1: According to this report, The g a O survey twenty
Speaker 1: four different federal agencies and departments and found that eighteen
Speaker 1: of them currently rely on facial recognition technology in some capacity,
Speaker 1: and ten of them plan to use it even more
Speaker 1: in the future. Now, this isn't just concerning to me.
Speaker 1: The problem caused by facial recognition tech has been bad
Speaker 1: enough that some major companies, including IBM, have stopped selling
Speaker 1: that technology to law enforcement and regulation agencies. They have
Speaker 1: essentially noted that this technology is it stands to do
Speaker 1: more harm than good. Some states, like Maine have passed
Speaker 1: laws that restrict the use of the tech, and there's
Speaker 1: a debate at the federal level on issuing essentially a
Speaker 1: nationwide ban on it, and here's hoping we see progress
Speaker 1: here and less reliance on the technology that, at least
Speaker 1: for some groups, has the capacity to cause a disproportionate
Speaker 1: amount of harm. Facial recognition tech. I think it's great
Speaker 1: if you're trying to unlock a phone, because if it
Speaker 1: doesn't work, you can just put in your pen. You're fine.
Speaker 1: It's irritating that it doesn't work in those cases, and
Speaker 1: it does speak to a problem with bias, but that's
Speaker 1: an inconvenience when we're talking about law enforcement using it
Speaker 1: as justification to disrupt the lives of people who may
Speaker 1: be completely innocent and have no connection to the matter
Speaker 1: at hand. That's another issue entirely. It starts to get
Speaker 1: close to some constitutional problems. Okay, time for some cryptocurrency talk.
Speaker 1: So one problem with cryptocurrency isn't really the text fault.
Speaker 1: And I know I come down on cryptocurrency pretty hard,
Speaker 1: pretty frequently, But one thing that you know, I can't
Speaker 1: really fault the tech for is that the technology itself
Speaker 1: is so poorly understood that it gives scam artists the
Speaker 1: opportunity to pull a fast one and cheat people out
Speaker 1: of their money, or sometimes cheat entire businesses out of
Speaker 1: their money. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC,
Speaker 1: has charged a man named Satish Kombani of violating various
Speaker 1: registration laws meant to protect investors from scams. Kombani had
Speaker 1: been the founder of bit Connect, a cryptocurrency exchange platform
Speaker 1: that no longer exists because it was, you know, a
Speaker 1: den of scumming villainy. I guess at the heart of
Speaker 1: the matter is that Kombani fraudulently raised around two billion
Speaker 1: dollars worth of investments from various retail companies in a
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency investment scam. And as part of the scam, Kombani
Speaker 1: showed potential investors fictitious returns of investment of around three
Speaker 1: thousand seven annual return. So, in other words, let's say
Speaker 1: that this was a real thing, that it was totally working,
Speaker 1: and on January one, you invested one dollar into the
Speaker 1: the strategy. January one, the following year, you would have
Speaker 1: three thousand, seven hundred dollars. And if you invested ten grand,
Speaker 1: or a hundred grand or a million, what you get
Speaker 1: the idea, it's an astronomical return. Further, Kombani claimed that
Speaker 1: bit connects own cryptocurrency which was called bit connect coin,
Speaker 1: which isn't confusing at all, was a stable and safe
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency that no one was gonna have to worry about.
Speaker 1: Uh that failing only it totally wasn't stable and safe,
Speaker 1: as the cryptocurrencies value plummeted by pent in January, and
Speaker 1: that Kambani was doing the old Ponzi scheme. So that
Speaker 1: involves getting a round of investors to give you money.
Speaker 1: So you've got your initial flush of cash. Then when
Speaker 1: it comes time to pay out the first investors, you
Speaker 1: go find a second round of investors to give you
Speaker 1: more money. You use the money from the second round
Speaker 1: of investors to pay out your first round of investors.
Speaker 1: But then you've got to go after a third round
Speaker 1: of investors to help pay off that second round, and
Speaker 1: so on. So ponzi schemes can break in huge amounts
Speaker 1: of cash. They don't have to be connected at all
Speaker 1: with cryptocurrency. But we have seen a lot of cryptocurrency
Speaker 1: scams that are essentially Ponzi schemes in recent history, and
Speaker 1: one common element about all of them is that they
Speaker 1: always eventually come crashing down because sooner or later you
Speaker 1: run out of folks who are willing to invest, and
Speaker 1: it's time to pay the piper. Now. Maybe by then
Speaker 1: you've made enough to make your escape, but it ain't
Speaker 1: exactly the best get rich plan. Finally, Amazon and SpaceX
Speaker 1: are having a fight down here on Earth over stuff
Speaker 1: that's meant to float around in space. Specifically, the fight
Speaker 1: revolves around Starlink, space X's satellite Internet communications system that
Speaker 1: the company has had in beta testing for a while now.
Speaker 1: So SpaceX's goal is to launch thousands of satellites up
Speaker 1: into orbit to provide consistent satellite Internet coverage down here
Speaker 1: on Earth. We're talking like thirty thousand satellites are more.
Speaker 1: But SpaceX says that Amazon has been filing objections to
Speaker 1: various SpaceX proposals in attempt to hinder SpaceX because, as
Speaker 1: SpaceX puts it, Amazon's own satellite Internet solution, called Kiper,
Speaker 1: is running behind schedule. So according to SpaceX, Amazon has
Speaker 1: decided to try and slow down the competition while it
Speaker 1: tries to get its own system up and running. Amazon, however,
Speaker 1: filed complaints with the FCC saying that space X was
Speaker 1: not following the proper rules when it comes to submitting
Speaker 1: proposals for putting more satellites in orbit, and like I said,
Speaker 1: we're talking about thousands of satellites here. And Amazon's complaint
Speaker 1: is that SpaceX's proposal actually has two different configurations of
Speaker 1: satellites in it, and you can't have two different ones
Speaker 1: at the same time. Obviously, you can only have one.
Speaker 1: And so Amazon says this is against the rules. The
Speaker 1: rules require proposals to have no internal inconsistencies. You can't
Speaker 1: say we might do it this way, or maybe we'll
Speaker 1: do it this other way instead, according to Amazon, anyway,
Speaker 1: the rules say you should commit to a single approach
Speaker 1: in your proposal before the process can move forward. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: SpaceX is like, now, uh, you just want us to
Speaker 1: not be able to go to the public comment phase.
Speaker 1: And anyway, the public comment phase is where we could
Speaker 1: hash all this out. It would all be fine. Now.
Speaker 1: I am not on the side of either Amazon or
Speaker 1: SpaceX in this matter. Personally, I actually worry about the
Speaker 1: thousands of satellites that will be needed for both the
Speaker 1: Starlink and the Amazon Keiper system to work. That is
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff whizzing around out there in low
Speaker 1: Earth orbit which could potentially become space junk and thus
Speaker 1: interfere with other spacecraft. It can also interfere with astronomical
Speaker 1: observations here on Earth. So I'm not super fan of
Speaker 1: either of these things right now. But anyway, that's not
Speaker 1: the point. The point is that Amazon and space X
Speaker 1: are totes in a space fight just here on Earth,
Speaker 1: and that's it. Those are all the stories I have
Speaker 1: for you on Thursday, September two, two twenty one. I
Speaker 1: hope you are well and safe. And for those of
Speaker 1: you in the United States, I hope you have a
Speaker 1: wonderful Labor Day weekend. And if you have any suggestions
Speaker 1: for topics I should cover on tech Stuff, reach out
Speaker 1: to me. The best way to do that is to
Speaker 1: use Twitter, and I use the handle text stuff h
Speaker 1: s W and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.