Speaker 1: From the heart of where innovation, money and power CALLI
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley and beyond. This is Bloomberg Technology with
Speaker 1: Emily Jay. I'm Caroline Hyde in New York in Family
Speaker 1: chang and this is going to make technology coming up
Speaker 1: in the next hour US equates rose for a second day.
Speaker 1: That's his economic data and will actually some hopes surrounding
Speaker 1: Russia's war with Ukraine started to impact investors choices. We'll
Speaker 1: bring you the latest in terms of the market moves,
Speaker 1: plus the growing cyber threat out of Russia after Ukraine's
Speaker 1: institutions were attacked. How big of a risk is there
Speaker 1: for the West as well? More than that later, and
Speaker 1: the amount of misinformation spreading online in the wake of
Speaker 1: Russia's invasion is growing. How platforms are handling their role
Speaker 1: in urgeoning wall We'll get to all of that in
Speaker 1: but a moment, But first, the prospect of talks between
Speaker 1: Russia and Ukraine has been cast well hope, then doubt
Speaker 1: the Kremlin saying Kiev stops responding after rejecting Moscow's initial
Speaker 1: offer for a meeting in Minsk, Belarus. The most amory
Speaker 1: hooden is here with more and in an odd way,
Speaker 1: the market seemed to grasp on to this hope that
Speaker 1: there could be talks between Ukraine and Russia. But tell
Speaker 1: us about the real truth here. Well, if there were
Speaker 1: to be, really the timing and the location would be
Speaker 1: incredibly important. So Russia first decided that they would like
Speaker 1: to hold these tasks in Minsk, Belarus, but that's not
Speaker 1: going to happen given the fact that Lukoshenko has allowed
Speaker 1: Russian troops to stay in Belarus and use that as
Speaker 1: a base to then invade on Ukraine. From the northern
Speaker 1: border and the Belarus border to the capital of Kiev
Speaker 1: is about two and a half hours or three hours
Speaker 1: spending on which side of that river you you drive upon.
Speaker 1: So this is going to be incredibly interesting if these
Speaker 1: talks or to happen. But of course, one thing on
Speaker 1: the tables that President Putumont is a veto on Ukraine
Speaker 1: joining NATO basically neutralize Ukraine in terms of whether or
Speaker 1: not it will join NATO or not. And Ukraine has
Speaker 1: constantly said they want to maintain that path to NATO
Speaker 1: membership and keep that door open. Meanwhile, that for next
Speaker 1: steps that you're going to be paying attention to, is
Speaker 1: we head towards the weekend. We've had so much of
Speaker 1: a global narrative China Wang and we've looked at other
Speaker 1: key leaders in the UK and NATO leaders, what next
Speaker 1: in terms of next steps for you? So today was
Speaker 1: really about upping the sanctions against Russia. So we saw
Speaker 1: that European capitals as well as the White House just
Speaker 1: confirming about a hour ago at Press Secretary Jensaki talking
Speaker 1: about the fact that they are going home with sanctioning
Speaker 1: slav Roth, that Russian foreign minister, as well as President
Speaker 1: Putin himself. But this is largely symbolic, giving most of
Speaker 1: his assets are relatively skimmed, that's official assets. But what's
Speaker 1: going to happen for the weekend, I think is really
Speaker 1: going to depend on what happens on the ground in Ukrane.
Speaker 1: I imagine if there's anything on the diplomacy front, it
Speaker 1: will be a lot of phone calls, but they'll probably
Speaker 1: wait until Monday. Caroline, is any more of this upping
Speaker 1: of the risk or are the potential penalties for Russia
Speaker 1: when it comes to sanctions? And Marie Horden, one of
Speaker 1: the busiest women out there this week, We hope you
Speaker 1: managed to get some rest. Thank you so much for that. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: of course the conflict in Ukraine has been tom of
Speaker 1: mine all week, but investors maybe taking a breath ahead
Speaker 1: of the weekend, maybe trying to reallocate, and men would
Speaker 1: have been a significant sell off during Thursday's trade to
Speaker 1: then rally higher. Ed Ludlow bring us the Friday big
Speaker 1: moves for US. Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. Position
Speaker 1: This is hope rather than substance on the talks between
Speaker 1: Ukraine and Russia. But a lot of green on the screen.
Speaker 1: You see the sp the main gage of US equities
Speaker 1: up two point to is the biggest jump in a month,
Speaker 1: and it almost makes you forget the volatility of the
Speaker 1: week right such big declines over Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday sessions
Speaker 1: because of what we saw in Ukraine. Then as that
Speaker 1: one though very tech heavy and there it's kind of
Speaker 1: underperforming because don't forget traders are trying to make up
Speaker 1: their mind. Now where we stand with the Fed in
Speaker 1: the outlook for rates, and note the US tenure yield
Speaker 1: there at one had been a little higher earlier and
Speaker 1: Friday were off by about a basis points softer by
Speaker 1: a basis point, so a lot to consider going into
Speaker 1: the weekend. But a sigh of relief, which is interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go ahead to semi conductor. Semi conductor
Speaker 1: is really interesting one. A big focus on Thursday's sanctions
Speaker 1: package was restricting access to technology for Russia, semi conductors
Speaker 1: being a big part of that. You see the socks. Yes,
Speaker 1: we underperform the SP five. We're still at one point
Speaker 1: six percent UM. Well, those that are willing to discuss it,
Speaker 1: semi conducts covering this is saying, well, if suppliesn't go
Speaker 1: to Russia, we have a long list of customers waiting
Speaker 1: for chips, will just send it somewhere else. Demand is
Speaker 1: so great and video also interesting. They coming out with
Speaker 1: statements saying that they have had some kind of hack
Speaker 1: to their internal systems, not doing too much for the
Speaker 1: stock actually rose and sort of late gain and Fridays
Speaker 1: session up one and forward up four percent, despite idling
Speaker 1: one of its most profitable lines in Kansas City for
Speaker 1: the one ye Caroline shortage of semi conductors. Very quickly,
Speaker 1: let me talk about Dell, because twenty four hours ago
Speaker 1: you and I were so focused on Russia Ukraine. This
Speaker 1: is Dell. Over the last six days, six straight days
Speaker 1: of declined we had earnings for the fourth quarter of
Speaker 1: Thursday night, a weak profit outlook. Why supply chain disruptions,
Speaker 1: rising costs, they can't service demand. I'm going to be mean.
Speaker 1: I know I shouldn't do this on a Friday, but
Speaker 1: let me just read to you this long list of superlatives.
Speaker 1: The biggest drop since April for the stock on Friday,
Speaker 1: at one point it was facing the biggest drop on record.
Speaker 1: The stock is at its lowest level since September of
Speaker 1: six September, and this run of six days of declines
Speaker 1: is the worst streak of declines since October twenties, so
Speaker 1: something clearly not going right. For del of course, such
Speaker 1: a legacy name in the world of technology, you might
Speaker 1: have missed that one. For everything that's going on the
Speaker 1: world in the last twenty four hours, well for shining
Speaker 1: a light on it, because there's plenty where sing amid well,
Speaker 1: what is a turbulent time in geopolitics, And indeed the
Speaker 1: market said loudly, we thank you, let's get even more
Speaker 1: insight on the tech sector. Is slightly remarkable moves don
Speaker 1: ives a web Bush, who, of course, at the beginning
Speaker 1: this week, had said that really the situation you were
Speaker 1: playing couldn't have come at a worse time for tech.
Speaker 1: And then the bounce back, what is this? Is this
Speaker 1: that you know we've seen so many bear respects put on,
Speaker 1: that we've seen so many shorts already that we sort
Speaker 1: of see the bounce back. Now. Look, I think it's
Speaker 1: the most oversold. It's the most oversold that I've seen
Speaker 1: tech stocks in the last six years. And I think
Speaker 1: that's essentially what's what's really playing out here. I think
Speaker 1: it was oversold in terms of tech, and now you're
Speaker 1: really starting to see a bounce, like especially with the
Speaker 1: tap wind defend, it's gonna be a slower fed hike
Speaker 1: that's starting to get factored in fifty bits off the table,
Speaker 1: and it's oversold in terms of tech. That's where we
Speaker 1: show the bounce back. Therefore, if we start to reassess
Speaker 1: what happens mark six, because we don't think we're going
Speaker 1: to get a double hiker fifty basis point move, but
Speaker 1: we start to tamper down our expectations for six seven
Speaker 1: right hikes over the course of the year, who wins
Speaker 1: them in the tech sector. I think it's a combat.
Speaker 1: I think you've got to look at this two large
Speaker 1: traps are gonna be safe. The names like Microsoft, Apple, Intel,
Speaker 1: Cisco safety blanket names, and you see more and more
Speaker 1: rotation towards tech. I think you're starting to see a
Speaker 1: little more of a risk on dipping the toe in
Speaker 1: the water. And then you look at cybersecurity. I think
Speaker 1: some of these cybersecurity names, I in my opinion it's
Speaker 1: going to be the sector of tech that PIOUP performs
Speaker 1: the most, not just because I think valuations to go
Speaker 1: overall growth. And then you look at the Ukraine situation,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be a potentially two to three tellent names
Speaker 1: like pow out or CrowdStrike, z scale or ACT among others.
Speaker 1: And then then that's why this is one you go
Speaker 1: into the weekend, despite the horrific situation in Ukraine, at
Speaker 1: least from a style market perspective, TEX feels like that
Speaker 1: over sold and I think we we're starting to put
Speaker 1: at some sort of bottom in here at with some untech. Okay, interesting,
Speaker 1: And I'm your perspective in terms of you know, the
Speaker 1: allocation to big tech has a haven or not. Do
Speaker 1: you think that it rides that wave in some way
Speaker 1: or is this really about trying to understand the valuation
Speaker 1: element to it all. I think part of it valuations
Speaker 1: are way over sold, you know, relative obviously, from the
Speaker 1: beginning of the year, we've seen most techdown twenty percent.
Speaker 1: Oh out of these down relative to growth, I think
Speaker 1: it's some of the most attractive valuations we've seen going
Speaker 1: back two thousand sixteen. But I think when you look
Speaker 1: at overall growth, which is important, that's not changing because
Speaker 1: of the situation here. And I think when you look
Speaker 1: at overall tech that's really really what I think resoning
Speaker 1: with investors in terms of some of these levels. And lastly,
Speaker 1: it will sort of been over perhaps there's also some
Speaker 1: of the A is syncratic news, some of the M
Speaker 1: and A news, you know, zendesque and terminating deals. Are
Speaker 1: we expecting fewer combinations here? Consolidation here is there's still
Speaker 1: plenty of opportunity to be had when we're thinking of
Speaker 1: those sorts of eventualities to make us want to get
Speaker 1: into certain tech names. Oh, I think there's going to
Speaker 1: be actually an acceleration M and A because of what
Speaker 1: you're seeing on some of the oversawled names. From evaluation perspective,
Speaker 1: I think names like Microsoft are going to be aggressive
Speaker 1: when it comes to specifically areas like cybersecurity, I think
Speaker 1: you'll see strategic eminate as well as financial And this
Speaker 1: is something I think behind the scenes you have a
Speaker 1: lot of investors really focused on which are some of
Speaker 1: these oversawled names you'd be looking at. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of PE names like cybersecurity and some of the
Speaker 1: cloud names in particular, just way oversold. Don I's on
Speaker 1: the technicals as well as some of the fundamentals at play.
Speaker 1: We thank you so much of web Bush. He has
Speaker 1: just been a fun of knowledge when it comes to
Speaker 1: check out. Was on the Bloomberg terminal as well. Amid
Speaker 1: these dramatic days, you don't have to move tanks, you
Speaker 1: don't have to move armories. You can just use your
Speaker 1: keyboard to get across, which you think as an active
Speaker 1: art of war in an asymmetric manner. So it's also
Speaker 1: something very difficult to move back against. So, for example,
Speaker 1: and Fresher strikes us with a cyber blow, what is
Speaker 1: the US going to do? And so that's definitely what
Speaker 1: he conceives as an excellent use of his arsenal. That
Speaker 1: was forming US Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security, Matt Hayden.
Speaker 1: They're talking about the threat of cyber attacks from Russia,
Speaker 1: not just on Ukraine but also here in the West.
Speaker 1: Let's begin Mandian's head of Global Intelligence, Sundra Joyce, to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about that. The most phenomenal
Speaker 1: resume in terms of the amount of well Master's degrees
Speaker 1: that you hold in cyber policy and international affairs. Just
Speaker 1: talk to us in here and now, Sandra. What you
Speaker 1: are telling your clients, how would they need to be well,
Speaker 1: what we're telling them is that they need to be prepared,
Speaker 1: but not to panic. The fact of the matter is
Speaker 1: that Russian cyber aggression has been going on for many years,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the preparations that organizations are making
Speaker 1: for ransomware and other attacks that are the same preparations
Speaker 1: that we're asking them to make today. Any industry groups
Speaker 1: that are more vulnerable than others, or indeed that you
Speaker 1: feel could be undergreater threat than others, well, the risk
Speaker 1: of of reciprocal action against or cyber action against US businesses.
Speaker 1: The risk of that does go up with the application
Speaker 1: of sanctions, and when we're looking at reciprocity, a lot
Speaker 1: of the sanctions are based on financial effects. We might
Speaker 1: expect to see some action against the financial sector, but
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be just limited to the financial sector if
Speaker 1: it were to happen. And that's because cyber attacks can
Speaker 1: create effects across all industries, um and and that is
Speaker 1: really what I believe the Russian aggression is about. It's
Speaker 1: about creating fear, doubt, uncertainty, um and that's going to
Speaker 1: be very powerful if they can actually get that done.
Speaker 1: Feared doubt, uncertainty was certainly increased in Ukraine amid that
Speaker 1: were not one but two cyber attacks. It seemed to
Speaker 1: be more d d OS distributed denial of service attacks
Speaker 1: and an inability to communicate, particularly with their front lines.
Speaker 1: But I'm interested in what types of attacks you might
Speaker 1: see in Ukraine would also perhaps close to home. Isn't
Speaker 1: that sort of attack or is it more ransomware that
Speaker 1: we need to fear? Well, what we should be thinking
Speaker 1: about is what is the effect that the Russian government
Speaker 1: would be trying to to get. So they could use
Speaker 1: a very low sophistication technique like a DIDOS attack, but
Speaker 1: what is accompanying with that or things like text messages.
Speaker 1: We saw this in Ukraine, text messages going out to
Speaker 1: banking customers telling them that the banks were down, that
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be able to get their money. That is
Speaker 1: an effect that's really cognitive, it's psychology iCal. I think
Speaker 1: that what we're going to be seeing from that Russian
Speaker 1: playbook is as psychological attachment to any of the cyber
Speaker 1: actions that they're taking trying to drive down the resolve
Speaker 1: the people. The application of sanctions and their effectiveness is
Speaker 1: really driven by the willingness of the people to support them.
Speaker 1: And if Russia can get uh, you know, their target population,
Speaker 1: whether it's in Ukraine or elsewhere, to start doubting their
Speaker 1: government to weaken their resolve, then they will have achieved
Speaker 1: the effect that they're looking for. Okay, so give us
Speaker 1: as a consumer, but also the clients that you speak
Speaker 1: to as sort of quick one. I one of what
Speaker 1: we should be looking for how we should be acting
Speaker 1: in this carent environment. Well, really what we need to
Speaker 1: be doing is looking for anomalies in our networks. We
Speaker 1: should already be practicing cyber hygiene. Um, what run that playbook?
Speaker 1: If you know that you're going to be taking actions
Speaker 1: separating networks or segmenting them, who's responsible for that is
Speaker 1: your general counsel part of your tabletop exercises. If not,
Speaker 1: they should be. And a lot of this will also
Speaker 1: require a connection to your your PR or media relations team,
Speaker 1: because if you are a target of significance, there certainly
Speaker 1: is going to be a lot of messaging around that.
Speaker 1: In fact, you can expect things like defacements or a
Speaker 1: narrative come out that could be completely fabricated. So really
Speaker 1: what organizations need to be doing is to prepare in
Speaker 1: the way that they would have been preparing for any
Speaker 1: ransomware attack or any type of other breach of their network.
Speaker 1: Get the playbook in place, and then remediate and press
Speaker 1: on because our resilience is very important here. It's essential
Speaker 1: not to panic. Companies get breached every day and they
Speaker 1: do continue once the remediation is complete. We of course
Speaker 1: talk a lot about defense, but we started for I
Speaker 1: feel at the first time to hear from the potentially
Speaker 1: the administration to talk about offense when it comes to
Speaker 1: cyber well attack to ascent degree, what do you think
Speaker 1: could be deployed to be a will to, you know,
Speaker 1: take it back upon Russia in some way. Well, the U.
Speaker 1: S Military of course has every option available to them,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't need to be a cyber response. In fact,
Speaker 1: if military action UM were to come, they would there
Speaker 1: will be quite a few different options. But one thing
Speaker 1: to remember here is there are multiple instruments of national power.
Speaker 1: If the United States decides that it's going to go
Speaker 1: on offense, it can go on offense in many ways, diplomatically, economically, UM.
Speaker 1: Even in within the breadth of military tools. There are
Speaker 1: low level UM you know, things that can be done
Speaker 1: all the way to some of the more sophisticated UM
Speaker 1: attacks that could happen. But really it's not about the
Speaker 1: mode and mean of it what it is. It's about
Speaker 1: the effect. What effect do you want to reach and
Speaker 1: how is the most efficient application UM that you can
Speaker 1: put out there to gain that effect? And quickly, Sandra,
Speaker 1: the people, Well, the places these attacks coming from is
Speaker 1: becoming easier and easier to identify very quickly, because that
Speaker 1: seemed to have been one of the case, was to
Speaker 1: ensure that we knew that these are coming from Russia,
Speaker 1: even if it wasn't exactly from the government itself. Well,
Speaker 1: we do know quite a bit about the Russian threat
Speaker 1: is cyber threat apparatus over this several years that they
Speaker 1: have been conducting attacks UM. Not only the governments, but
Speaker 1: also commercial companies like my own have enumerated a lot
Speaker 1: of their capabilities, and so we know quite a bit
Speaker 1: about them. They've been operating in safe harbor in Russia
Speaker 1: or in adjacent areas for quite a number of years,
Speaker 1: so a lot is known about them. Uh. The the
Speaker 1: thing that gets tricky is that it is they've been
Speaker 1: operating in an area where we have thus far not
Speaker 1: had jurisdiction or a lot of options in order to
Speaker 1: stop the activity. Really great to get your expertise amid
Speaker 1: this current environment. Sandra Joyous many and executive vice president
Speaker 1: and had a global intelligence Pretty busy women, I think.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile coming up, YouTube massively popular in Russia, and now
Speaker 1: Google is facing pressure to cut back on ties to
Speaker 1: pro Russian channels sase countries continue to sanction Russia. Will
Speaker 1: discuss the knock on effect for some US based businesses.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. So with sanctions on Russia ramping up
Speaker 1: following its invasion of Ukraine, certain companies like well Google's
Speaker 1: YouTube are under pressure to remove or cut commercial ties
Speaker 1: with some of its most prolific pro Russian channels. For
Speaker 1: more on this story, I'm joined by Bloomberg's Mark Bergen,
Speaker 1: who covers Google of course Alphabet the parent company, and
Speaker 1: done a great deep dive on this just how deep
Speaker 1: do these relationships run? Mark, You know, that's that's hard
Speaker 1: to say. It's kind of a repeat of seventeen. If
Speaker 1: you remember, there was a lot of criticism around Russia
Speaker 1: Today and Russian influence after the sixteen election that clearly
Speaker 1: a lot of that was around some of the bought
Speaker 1: networks that hit Facebook and Twitter. But on YouTube, you know,
Speaker 1: Russia Today advertiser itself. You can go look at their
Speaker 1: English page as the world's most popular news channel on YouTube.
Speaker 1: They're tremendously successful for formula subscribers. They've built up UH
Speaker 1: in part with the very aggressive digital strategy, and they're
Speaker 1: part of a network. There's some analysts that estimate close
Speaker 1: to a hundred channels that have commercial ties to entities
Speaker 1: that are under the under lesser sanctions prior to this
Speaker 1: past week UH, and now there are you know, the
Speaker 1: EU and the UK and the US are introducing new
Speaker 1: section sanctions that impact individuals either prominent TV journalists that
Speaker 1: have YouTube channels or members of the close to the
Speaker 1: Kremlin that have connections with media, and a lot of
Speaker 1: Russian media is very popular on YouTube. Interesting, So how
Speaker 1: does one go about cutting it? I mean before we
Speaker 1: see them label indeed sort of some of these sorts
Speaker 1: of state funded videos and channels. But do you just
Speaker 1: cut it off in tally? How how do you control it? Uh? So,
Speaker 1: you know, at this point, YouTube has only kind of
Speaker 1: come out and said that they're looking, they're paying a
Speaker 1: lot of attention to misinformation, and that's been something we
Speaker 1: saw Senator Warner kind of call it out his his
Speaker 1: turn with propaganda. The clearer I think commercial ties with
Speaker 1: with YouTube is they run ads, right, they have a
Speaker 1: revenue split with all their YouTube channels, and so every
Speaker 1: ad you go and see, you know, I was just
Speaker 1: looking earlier this morning. You know a lot of these,
Speaker 1: at least in the US there they had they run commercials.
Speaker 1: That's a split with with YouTube. YouTube could decide to
Speaker 1: demonetize and no longer run ads on those channels which
Speaker 1: they have on in some cases. Uh, they're clear list
Speaker 1: even some former Google lawyers that are sort of calling
Speaker 1: for them to make more drastic measures and actually cut
Speaker 1: those channels off Entirely interesting. Once again, very difficult conversations
Speaker 1: I'm sure being having at an executive level. Marked is
Speaker 1: the response. Also, though, if it's not on Alphabet's own YouTube,
Speaker 1: it's being forced elsewhere. How much are we seeing still
Speaker 1: YouTube being used by such news organizations or indeed state
Speaker 1: funded organizations, or are they going on to other parts
Speaker 1: of the internet. It's a YouTube and prominent What the
Speaker 1: interesting thing about YouTube is that it's both popular in
Speaker 1: Russia for a lot of the state backed media and
Speaker 1: sort of pro Kremlin media. It's also been a huge
Speaker 1: asset for the opposition. Uh naval one whose opposist and
Speaker 1: leader has a massively popular YouTube channel. YouTube Boston likes
Speaker 1: to point out that in a country with take controls
Speaker 1: of state media and broadcast, YouTube does offer avenues for criticism,
Speaker 1: and I think that's a fair and valid point. What's
Speaker 1: also happening is that they are under incredible amount of pressure,
Speaker 1: even prior to this past week from the Russian government
Speaker 1: around there's been this contention around a particular YouTube channel
Speaker 1: that that YouTube blocked. That was and then there was
Speaker 1: a court fine, and now they're paying a regular daily fine.
Speaker 1: Google is um they're under increasing pressure along with Facebook
Speaker 1: and Twitter to take down accounts that the Russian government
Speaker 1: has has told them or either extremist or or using
Speaker 1: the guys of misinformation Mark Bergen, It's a great story,
Speaker 1: Go and read it. Google faces sanctions dilemma with pro
Speaker 1: Russia YouTube channels. We thank you so much breaking all
Speaker 1: down for us. Stay well, this is technology. I'm Caroline
Speaker 1: Hyde in New York. Now, as we headed into the
Speaker 1: end of what was a pretty tense week, to say
Speaker 1: the least, investors still making sense of how to navigate
Speaker 1: the situation of course between Russia and Ukraine, and Ludlow
Speaker 1: is here with what has been a remarkable rally actually
Speaker 1: into the end of the week. Yeah, has and you're
Speaker 1: you're trying to work out what your exposure is in
Speaker 1: financial markets. You're also trying to work out which companies
Speaker 1: and stocks are going to be impacted in the short
Speaker 1: and long term. And this is a discussion we've got
Speaker 1: to have around social media, Meta, parent company of Facebook
Speaker 1: and also Twitter, of course, you know Meta coming out
Speaker 1: saying that Russian authorities ordered them to stop fact checking
Speaker 1: and labeling posts on the Facebook platform by state run media,
Speaker 1: to which Facebook declined to do so. An interesting and
Speaker 1: list at Bloomberg Intelligence jumped on this really quickly, saying
Speaker 1: that in the case of Meta, you could see one
Speaker 1: or two percentage points of a hit to daily active users.
Speaker 1: But which company might benefit here? Twitter really interesting? We
Speaker 1: know this from the Olympics, right, we know this from
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl. Twitter is an event driven platform and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence estimating they could actually get a short term
Speaker 1: boost for their active users from what's going on on
Speaker 1: the ground in the Russian Ukraine. No matter how tense
Speaker 1: and difficult it is to see for a far, it's
Speaker 1: also interesting to see where capital is flowing. We look
Speaker 1: at some of the e t F, so I love
Speaker 1: to take a look at the ETS space on a Friday.
Speaker 1: Caroline arcis a name so familiar to us, right, this
Speaker 1: is the big fund, Kathy word and Arc money has
Speaker 1: been going into this fund the last couple of days.
Speaker 1: Big gains over a two day based I think ten
Speaker 1: and a half percent over the last for the eight
Speaker 1: hours or so. But if you compare that to the
Speaker 1: Van Eck Russia ETF, which also saw a big rebound
Speaker 1: on Friday and saw influence, you have to ask about
Speaker 1: what the psychology of investors is here, because this was
Speaker 1: a big rebound right in the van k ETF that
Speaker 1: was a massive drop Wednesday Thursday. This is an e
Speaker 1: t F that tracks Russian equities. Now you have people
Speaker 1: coming in. Are these bottom feeders? Are these guys coming
Speaker 1: in trying to buy the bottom or are they looking
Speaker 1: at shorting Russian equity? Short interest in that et F
Speaker 1: gaining as well. But what's the rationale is going into
Speaker 1: arc if you look at the performance of these ets
Speaker 1: relative to their fifty two week highs all over the
Speaker 1: last twelve months. In other words, we bring up the
Speaker 1: next board. There's a real difference in what's going on here.
Speaker 1: These are two very different e t s tracking very
Speaker 1: different basket of stocks, but on a fifty two week
Speaker 1: basis or a draw down from a fifty two week high,
Speaker 1: we are in pretty much the same place. So the
Speaker 1: point I'm making his investors seemed to take stock on
Speaker 1: Friday and say, I'm going to go back into technology stocks.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go back a little bit into this
Speaker 1: e t F that's tracking Russian equities and see what
Speaker 1: my exposure is going forward. And Ludlowe, great way to
Speaker 1: wrap up an extraordinary We thank you so much. Now
Speaker 1: we want to turn our attention to the role of
Speaker 1: social media and what's currently occurring in Ukraine. Russia, of
Speaker 1: course no stranger to peddling this and disinformation, especially now
Speaker 1: as it tries to shape the narrative of the war
Speaker 1: it created, announced that it was restricting use of Facebook
Speaker 1: due to the company fact checking content posted by state
Speaker 1: run media. In a statement Metters, Nick Clegg wrote in part,
Speaker 1: ordinary Russians are using Matters apps to express themselves and
Speaker 1: organize for action. We want them to continue to make
Speaker 1: their voices heard, share what's happening, and organize for more
Speaker 1: on all of this, and very pleased to be joined
Speaker 1: by Margherita Kniev, which is the Associate director for the
Speaker 1: Center of Security and Emerging Technology, along with Brett Schaffers,
Speaker 1: a senior fellow at the Allie and the Securing Democracy Waits.
Speaker 1: The first and foremost, what's the playbook we're currently seeing
Speaker 1: out of Russia at the moment. I think it's been
Speaker 1: a standard combination of things that we've seen before with
Speaker 1: an influx of some new messaging. It is a reiteration
Speaker 1: of the narrative that NATO expansion has driven Russia to
Speaker 1: defend itself, which is obviously a disinformation taxing designed to
Speaker 1: justify the current attacks and a lot of the probably
Speaker 1: atrocities that will be seeing increasingly. So another emphasis is
Speaker 1: being put at dissuading raordinary Russians from taking a stand
Speaker 1: against the conflict and against the war. And I think
Speaker 1: we're soon are also going to be seeing an argument
Speaker 1: that those domestic protests are being driven by external uh
Speaker 1: CI A fermented uh those points that we've seen before,
Speaker 1: So in combination of targeting domestic audiences as well as
Speaker 1: looking externally, it's tools that Russia as honed in its
Speaker 1: previous disc information and disupervision compans in Ukraine and then
Speaker 1: in Sey area, and now we're seeing it repeated again
Speaker 1: in a way that it's been difficult to tackle for
Speaker 1: those media companies that you discussed Everlire, Yeah, Brett, difficult
Speaker 1: to tackle, and particularly when Russia's sort of saying no
Speaker 1: longer wants to be using the metal platform in that respect.
Speaker 1: How do you see social media companies such as YouTube
Speaker 1: by Google, Alphabet Matters, Facebook and Instagram, how do you
Speaker 1: how do you see them being able to respond to
Speaker 1: this in the real time? Yeah, I think it's going
Speaker 1: to be a real moment of reckoning for the US
Speaker 1: social media companies. I mean, for years they have tried
Speaker 1: to be neutral platforms where they have allowed different perspectives
Speaker 1: to exist. Yes, they have labeled Russian state media outlets
Speaker 1: as being Russian state media outlets, but they've also labeled
Speaker 1: US government the state media outlets. I think at some
Speaker 1: point they may be forced into taking sides here, and frankly,
Speaker 1: that choice may not be theirs, because I think the
Speaker 1: Russian government is going to continue to crack down on
Speaker 1: Western social media companies. Of course we saw that today,
Speaker 1: but I think it's it's possible, if not likely, at
Speaker 1: some point that the Russian government, if this content, if
Speaker 1: this conflict continues to escalate, that they will just cut
Speaker 1: off access to Twitter, Facebook, Google for their own domestic population.
Speaker 1: And to that end we to how effective would that be.
Speaker 1: Of course, we will know a VPN when we want
Speaker 1: to use one, But I'm interested is to what outlets
Speaker 1: already people are using. How much perhaps Ukraine Russian people
Speaker 1: have preempted the fact that it might be hard to
Speaker 1: to access set in Western providers. Absolutely, and I think
Speaker 1: in modern society you can never really hermetically seal a
Speaker 1: country anymore, especially a country that has already been integrated
Speaker 1: into um the outside world, We're not talking about North
Speaker 1: Korea here or even China. We're talking about a country
Speaker 1: has been Ukraine itself has been fully integrated into Europe,
Speaker 1: and even the great parts of Russia are been European facing.
Speaker 1: So the apps that even if we're seeing, you know,
Speaker 1: reduced access to Facebook, we just talked about YouTube being
Speaker 1: a meaningful platform that regular Russians follow. They're also use
Speaker 1: WhatsApp and Telegram, and those are apps that will continue
Speaker 1: to be a way for people to communicate. In the
Speaker 1: same time imlently, we're also seeing the spread of disinformation there.
Speaker 1: So I don't think Russia will be able to gramatically
Speaker 1: seal um the internet as we know here, but there's
Speaker 1: no argument that they will try to control the information
Speaker 1: that is reaching Russian citizens much more tightly. And Brett
Speaker 1: to that point, you know, how, how is it a
Speaker 1: good way of layman terms to be ensuring that you're
Speaker 1: not being targeted by misinformation that we're not. I mean,
Speaker 1: we just heard of the cyber attacks that could have
Speaker 1: the ways in which they're sending text messages to people
Speaker 1: and there like, how do you feel that from a
Speaker 1: social media despite if people couldn't really try to with
Speaker 1: rigor understand what's true what's not. Russia has significant information capabilities,
Speaker 1: and that starts, of course, with their state media outlets
Speaker 1: that are very active. They're very successful across multiple social
Speaker 1: media platforms. Those are the easy ones to deal with
Speaker 1: because we know what they are. They're attributable, so they
Speaker 1: can be labeled. UH information consumers understand where the information
Speaker 1: is coming from and the intent behind it. What gets
Speaker 1: a little bit trickier is Russia also has significant capabilities
Speaker 1: in the covert space. So we know that they've run
Speaker 1: troll farms, They've run pages presenting themselves as being sort
Speaker 1: of genuine American political opinion of pages, but of course
Speaker 1: have been connected back to Russia, so they have ways
Speaker 1: of messaging and capability that doesn't make it entirely clear
Speaker 1: where the information is coming from. This is even very
Speaker 1: difficult for the social media companies to ferret out, so
Speaker 1: it's information can humors. I think we just have to
Speaker 1: remain vigilant and very skeptical because Russia has ways of
Speaker 1: reaching us that don't necessarily come through outlets that identify
Speaker 1: themselves as having a connection to the Russian government and
Speaker 1: reached it very briefly. The amount that's been spent by
Speaker 1: certain companies to beef up the AI to ensure they
Speaker 1: can take down volts too, you know, to be a
Speaker 1: fact checker of choice. Do you think that's enough? Is
Speaker 1: there still so much work to be done? Or have
Speaker 1: they manage done on they can to a stain extent.
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot more to be done, and
Speaker 1: not just in the that automatic uh false actor bot space.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to be done in an area that
Speaker 1: we're uncomfortable to deal with. And it is the fact
Speaker 1: that you know, like Bread mentioned, there are what appears
Speaker 1: to be legitimate Western political obinionformers that are then later
Speaker 1: discovered to be Russian boats or Russian influencers masquerading somebody else.
Speaker 1: At the same time, we are also dealing with actual,
Speaker 1: real people in the West who are of political influence
Speaker 1: one way or another, who are, whether intentionally or unintentionally,
Speaker 1: end up amplifying a lot of the Russian messaging. And
Speaker 1: there is something that I think Americans and people throughout
Speaker 1: Europe should be much more cargnizant of hold ourselves to
Speaker 1: account to Margarita, can I if we thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Brett Shaefer, We expertise from you both. We thank you
Speaker 1: for it. Have a good weekend. Meanwhile, coming up the
Speaker 1: fight of a control for information in the conflict between
Speaker 1: Russia and Ukraine, we're talking with are We've, decentralized storage
Speaker 1: network built on a blockchain like data structure, and it's
Speaker 1: designed to provide permanent data storage saved from state censorship.
Speaker 1: We'll discuss this is bring back now. Of course, crypto
Speaker 1: has been a focus throughout the Ukraine Russia attention, in
Speaker 1: large part because of the price moves, but also because
Speaker 1: of the ways in which maybe some oligarchs could or
Speaker 1: could not be using the technology. But also let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about how we could use the technology
Speaker 1: underlying technology, not in nearly ideally blockchain per se, but
Speaker 1: this time block We've is something that we could be
Speaker 1: looking at. Are Weave as a Berlin based blockchain startup
Speaker 1: that built an archival platform for permanent data storage as
Speaker 1: a means to actually counter state censorship of online information sources.
Speaker 1: Are we founder Sam Williams joins us now and very
Speaker 1: pleased to say so do does our lead in our
Speaker 1: crypto discussions. But mentionality back second, Galie, I want you
Speaker 1: to take it away first with Sam yes, Sam, you know,
Speaker 1: I think this situation Ukraine is such an interesting example
Speaker 1: of where storage decentralized could be applicable. Or can you
Speaker 1: explain what's happening when it comes to Ukraine and the
Speaker 1: types of information you're able to store in a decentralized way. Yes, well,
Speaker 1: we think that in order to learn from the past effectively,
Speaker 1: we need to store the past in such a way
Speaker 1: that it's not going to be altered over time. So
Speaker 1: we've built a ledger. It is decentralized in natures throws
Speaker 1: this information in hundreds, if not thousands of places across
Speaker 1: the world um and then back to that storage where
Speaker 1: the sustainable endowment UM And essentially what our community has
Speaker 1: done has created archiving box that are putting approximately a
Speaker 1: million pieces of data a day into this system and
Speaker 1: replicating it around the world such they can't be altered
Speaker 1: in essentially forever. Can you tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about whether or not we're already seeing your technology being used.
Speaker 1: How are you deploying effectively an ability to ensure that
Speaker 1: what is currently being written in history remains so well,
Speaker 1: we use cryptography to back the system in to make
Speaker 1: sure that information can be changed once is put inside
Speaker 1: the network and then we have a system similar to
Speaker 1: proof of work with bitcoin, except we use storage essentially
Speaker 1: story and the data set as the work in the system,
Speaker 1: and that proves that the data has not changed over
Speaker 1: a large period of time. I'm wondering how people use
Speaker 1: the data after its stored. You have this instance, for example,
Speaker 1: where Senator pat to Me had talked about are weaves
Speaker 1: use of the technology in order to store work when
Speaker 1: it comes to Apple Daily in China and the inability
Speaker 1: for the government to erase the information that surrounded Apple Daily.
Speaker 1: So how then does the US or other people and
Speaker 1: actors and governments start to take a look at the
Speaker 1: data that is being stored. Well, I think the key
Speaker 1: thing is that that information is available all across the
Speaker 1: not just from the US. So when a piece of
Speaker 1: data is stored inside are we, you can collect that
Speaker 1: data from hundreds, if not thousands, of different places. So
Speaker 1: while China may have successfully unfortunately removed the stand or
Speaker 1: or Apple Daily from the Internet, they really can't remove
Speaker 1: access to are we even any serious fashion. And that
Speaker 1: means that information is still available to local populists if
Speaker 1: they want to access. Just remind us of of course,
Speaker 1: with every of the protocol tends to come and token
Speaker 1: and the all we've token And in particular, how's it
Speaker 1: as incentivizing people to be using your your particular provision.
Speaker 1: How many people are using it on the UH story
Speaker 1: side or on the posting side? If so? Well, either
Speaker 1: way it's it's about hundreds of thousands, if not millions
Speaker 1: of people on the story side, UM, and then there's
Speaker 1: hundreds of two thousands depending on the time, about nine
Speaker 1: hundred right now, I think data stories that are replicating
Speaker 1: their information around the world. Well, speaking of funds, and
Speaker 1: you're announcing fundraise, right, so what will you do with
Speaker 1: the funds? You know, you have some really interesting large
Speaker 1: backers and recent Heroitz blockchain capital coin based ventures. To
Speaker 1: what degree can you grow using the new funds? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean we've we've taken the destent from many a
Speaker 1: few people over over the years, and also many of
Speaker 1: those people that you just mentioned will support the tokens
Speaker 1: just from the open market. But UM, the key thing
Speaker 1: for us, they think is backing the new founders UM
Speaker 1: in the ecosystem. They using the technology that we've created
Speaker 1: two new use cases. So for example, our drive producing
Speaker 1: the rub Ecosystem just raates eighteen million dollars in order
Speaker 1: to create enterprise solutions on top of the system that
Speaker 1: allow businesses to store their data into vacuity as well,
Speaker 1: which of course it's very important for compliance reasons. Sometimes
Speaker 1: we want to be thanking you for your time. Sam Williams,
Speaker 1: of course are we founder, and we want to thank
Speaker 1: Shanelli Bassa for bringing having us bring that interview. And
Speaker 1: clearly some use cases currently being evolved as we look
Speaker 1: between the Russia and Ukraine invasion. With Russia's invasion of Ukraine,
Speaker 1: it's been of course accompanied by cyber attacks actually pre
Speaker 1: emptying it to a certain extent, and now the question arises,
Speaker 1: how do you prepare for cyber conflict? Can you glean
Speaker 1: hints from history? Our next guest has some insights into
Speaker 1: just that. Znowski is a threat hunter of sorts as
Speaker 1: security software companies so farce it's great to have some
Speaker 1: time with you and talk to us about what we've
Speaker 1: learned in previous years and previous I mean we've learned
Speaker 1: what perhaps sanctions due to Russia in their response, what
Speaker 1: has their response been in terms of cyber well, it's
Speaker 1: been quite a history, you know, most nation states haven't
Speaker 1: really been caught doing too much, but with Russia there
Speaker 1: was a lot of information to mine. There were you know,
Speaker 1: they started doing cyber attacks against Estonia back in two
Speaker 1: thousand seven and followed that with attacks against Georgia a
Speaker 1: little after that. Of course, there were attacks during the
Speaker 1: Crimean invasion U we've even seen them mess with Kurzakhstan
Speaker 1: and other countries as well, and so we were kind
Speaker 1: of able to kind of put together a bit of
Speaker 1: a map of things as you see there on the screen,
Speaker 1: and depending on the types of attacks, there's always a
Speaker 1: bit of a pattern to it, which is what we
Speaker 1: call denial of certain risk, but in essence taking down
Speaker 1: you know, news and government websites, that kind of thing
Speaker 1: to create confusion, followed by a lot of other types
Speaker 1: of attacks told to us about the other types because
Speaker 1: we've seen the DIDs attacks so far, in particular affecting Ukraine.
Speaker 1: But what next, Well, you know, we we saw a
Speaker 1: little bit of activity earlier this week, just before the
Speaker 1: land invasion, which is again something we've seen before in
Speaker 1: Russian operations, which are not attributed to Russia yet by
Speaker 1: any government agency, but it's suspected these white so called
Speaker 1: wiper attacks, which in essence is a computer virus that
Speaker 1: gets on your computer and instead of stealing information or
Speaker 1: things like that, it simply wipes the hard disks so
Speaker 1: the computer is inoperable to sort of disrupt things. Uh,
Speaker 1: and we did see some of that on Wednesday this week,
Speaker 1: right before the land invasion. Interesting and we're just talking
Speaker 1: to Sam Williams. Well, we've about how to be protecting
Speaker 1: your data and enshowing it can be stored for longer
Speaker 1: periods of time, and what about people in terms of
Speaker 1: how stress the systems already are by the fact that
Speaker 1: many of it are working from home at the moment.
Speaker 1: Is that I haven't got the level of cybersecurity that
Speaker 1: we should have. Have we learned the lessons of past.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately we're our cybersecurity is not in good shape anywhere globally,
Speaker 1: and particularly in Ukraine where resources were more limited than
Speaker 1: perhaps we have in the West as financially. But the
Speaker 1: pandemic has not helped this either. Right, We've we've opened
Speaker 1: more remote doors to provide access to our networks and
Speaker 1: our information then we normally would have, say publicly facing
Speaker 1: and as a result that is that many more opportunities
Speaker 1: for criminals or nation states to exploit that that openness.
Speaker 1: And in past we've of course talked about the vulnerability
Speaker 1: of infrastructure, in particular power of structure and the like.
Speaker 1: Is that what we should be suspecting this time? What
Speaker 1: does history tell us about where we should look vulnerabilities
Speaker 1: going forward? It's really hard to say. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: not a political scientist, so I don't want to comment
Speaker 1: too much on the politics of it, but it would
Speaker 1: certainly seem at this point we've moved into a phase
Speaker 1: where sort of nonstate actors are taking over as sort
Speaker 1: of patriotic hackers, if you will. Um, the Ukrainian president
Speaker 1: Zelinsky called on Ukrainian patriots to try to hack back
Speaker 1: at Russia. UM, we've already throughout the day today, it's
Speaker 1: been evolving. We've seen several criminal groups that are largely
Speaker 1: believed to be based in Russia make probably public proclamations
Speaker 1: that they're going to come after US and Western assets
Speaker 1: and retribution uh for the sanctions or whatever other penalties
Speaker 1: were imposing on Russia. And so that's ransomware? Is it
Speaker 1: that they'll be coming off? Do do do you think certainly
Speaker 1: ransomware groups of the ones that have been chattering, that's
Speaker 1: for sure. They're not limited to ransomware necessarily. The one
Speaker 1: particular ransomware group known as Kanti has, in our experience
Speaker 1: uh performed some of these wiping attacks when they weren't
Speaker 1: paid the ransom in a previous ransom attempts. So they
Speaker 1: could certainly get even nastier than taking our data and
Speaker 1: simply abuse access. They may have already footholds that they
Speaker 1: have inside of Western assets and just delete things to
Speaker 1: be disruptive. Chat. How many cools are you getting at
Speaker 1: the moment? So what are you doing to help your clients? Uh, Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's a busy time, and you know, the the
Speaker 1: challenge for each individual organization is identifying what their weaknesses
Speaker 1: are and on short notice, what they may be able
Speaker 1: to do to try to mitigate some of the risk
Speaker 1: of being victimized. And so there's been a lot of long,
Speaker 1: well thought conversations with some of the larger clients, just
Speaker 1: having conversations about what can you do right now to
Speaker 1: make the best of the situation. What do you watch
Speaker 1: for to know that something may be underway where you
Speaker 1: may want to batten down the hatches. One thing that
Speaker 1: we should look for. Well, certainly, um, we've seen a
Speaker 1: lot of abuse of unpatched networking equipment. So back to
Speaker 1: that COVID pandemic question. All of us working from home
Speaker 1: with VPNs and things, the Russians have persistently abused those
Speaker 1: flaws when they're not fixed, and so certainly making sure
Speaker 1: those fixes are applied, and monitoring the network very careful
Speaker 1: for unusual activity, especially things that may involve the you know,
Speaker 1: large quantities of data being transported at off hours are
Speaker 1: often signs of an extortion or ransomware attack. Chat. Really
Speaker 1: good to speak with you, Thank you so much, checks
Speaker 1: very much, principal research scientist at so Fast. Meanwhile, that
Speaker 1: does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. You want
Speaker 1: to stick around though all Street Week. It's up next
Speaker 1: my colleague David Weston of course leading that as always
Speaker 1: Larry Summers there to discuss and a real deep dive
Speaker 1: into an extraordinary week and when we actually saw us
Speaker 1: benchmarks closed them week higher. He's going to be joined
Speaker 1: by Jane Harmon, president of the Wilson Center, alongside Kate Morricy,
Speaker 1: a black Rock Global Allocation team and former Trasury sectary.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned, Larry Summers stay with him From a
Speaker 1: clearer New York, wishing you all a well weekend. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg