Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech
Speaker 1: are you. I'm having a rough recovery day. I'm still
Speaker 1: getting over COVID. I'm no longer testing positive for COVID,
Speaker 1: but there's been some lingering symptoms and some days are
Speaker 1: better than others. This is not one of the better days.
Speaker 1: But it is a Thursday, which means it's in tech
Speaker 1: News day. So we're going to cover the tech news
Speaker 1: for October twelfth, twenty twenty three, and like Tuesday's news episode,
Speaker 1: we're going to start off with a bunch of Twitter
Speaker 1: slash x news. So first up, I mentioned that a
Speaker 1: lot of people from media outlets to government agencies to
Speaker 1: watchdog groups have been directing criticism at X for the
Speaker 1: proliferation of misinformation and disinformation, specifically in the wake of
Speaker 1: the ongoing war in Israel. It did not take long
Speaker 1: at all for bad information to flood the platform after
Speaker 1: Hamas launched attacks within Israel, and that bad information included
Speaker 1: everything from photos and footage of past conflicts being passed
Speaker 1: off as if they were from the most recent circumstances,
Speaker 1: to some accounts claiming that footage that was taken from
Speaker 1: modern video games actually represented circumstances in either Israel or Gaza.
Speaker 1: One critic who raised concerns about the platform in general
Speaker 1: was Thierry Breton or Breton, I apologize for my pronunciation,
Speaker 1: but we're talking about a European Union commissioner who said
Speaker 1: that X was a place for people to quote disseminate
Speaker 1: illegal content and disinformation end quote. That could mean that
Speaker 1: X could be found guilty of viol leading the EU's
Speaker 1: Digital Services Act, or DSA. So the DSA went into
Speaker 1: effect earlier this year, back in August, and it covers
Speaker 1: a lot of ground when it comes to a platform's responsibilities.
Speaker 1: The DSA expects that large platforms ones like x Slash,
Speaker 1: Twitter or Facebook, or even platforms like Google and Amazon,
Speaker 1: have to take an active role in content moderation. Unlike
Speaker 1: the United States, which has Section two thirty, the EU's
Speaker 1: DSA holds these platforms at least somewhat accountable for the
Speaker 1: material that users post to those platforms, and the DSA
Speaker 1: gives the EU government the authority to find companies that
Speaker 1: failed to comply with the law, they can get hit
Speaker 1: with a really hefty penalty, up to six percent of
Speaker 1: their global turnover, which for the purposes of this episode,
Speaker 1: will just kind of reference as revenue. It's there's a
Speaker 1: slight distinction there, but you'll get the idea. So last year,
Speaker 1: Twitter's global revenue was around four point four billion dollars,
Speaker 1: so the DSA essentially says they could take six percent
Speaker 1: of that. They could find Twitter six percent of that
Speaker 1: for failing to comply with the DSA. That would be
Speaker 1: around two hundred and fifty million dollars. That's not a
Speaker 1: small fine. Plus. If the EU finds out that a
Speaker 1: platform continues to fall short of the DSA's requirements, the
Speaker 1: EU has the authority to suspend that platform's operations within
Speaker 1: the European Union, which of course would also mean the
Speaker 1: loss of even more revenue. If you can't operate in
Speaker 1: a major part of the world, you're missing out on
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of revenue. Ex's CEO Linda Yakarino has
Speaker 1: posted that Twitter has removed hundreds of accounts affiliated with
Speaker 1: hamas and removed or labeled quote unquote tens of thousands
Speaker 1: of pieces of content also said that Twitter slash X
Speaker 1: has not received any information from europoll about illegal content
Speaker 1: on the platform. She's saying, well, we're being accused of something,
Speaker 1: but no one has actually come to us with these concerns.
Speaker 1: It's the first we're hearing about. Essentially, the company is
Speaker 1: relying on the quote unquote community, which essentially means volunteers
Speaker 1: who are flagging posts that might violate the DSA or
Speaker 1: x's own policies. But then X kind of has to
Speaker 1: rely on volunteers because Elon Musk effectively gutted the content
Speaker 1: moderation team by laying off most of them in the
Speaker 1: wake of his acquisition The Federal Anti Discrimination Agency or
Speaker 1: FADA THODA is leaving X. This German anti racism group
Speaker 1: explained the decision to bounce off the platform. They claim
Speaker 1: that incidents of hate speech have quote increased, particularly end quote,
Speaker 1: ever since Elon Musk took control of Twitter. FADA said
Speaker 1: that cases of anti trans and homophobic content, and racism, misogyny,
Speaker 1: anti semitism, and other examples of hateful speech are all
Speaker 1: on the rise, and that ultimately this forced the leaders
Speaker 1: of FADA to ask the question, does it make sense
Speaker 1: to stay on X? Is it providing more of a
Speaker 1: benefit than a cost. And clearly the endecision was that
Speaker 1: it just wasn't worth sticking around, or, as Fada's statement
Speaker 1: puts it, quote in our opinion, X is no longer
Speaker 1: an acceptable environment end quote. Now I've said this before,
Speaker 1: but in the years past, Twitter, which by the way,
Speaker 1: has always been a deeply flawed platform. It's not like
Speaker 1: Elon Musk took it over and then it went from
Speaker 1: being a shining beacon to the absolute worst. It had
Speaker 1: problems well before Elon Musk entered into the picture. It's
Speaker 1: just those problems have magna fight arguably since Musk took over. Anyway,
Speaker 1: back in the day, if you will, Twitter was put
Speaker 1: to effective use by various activists and humanitarian groups and
Speaker 1: news outlets. It was a scene as a very useful
Speaker 1: tool and worth the investment of time it takes to
Speaker 1: create and cultivate and maintain a Twitter account. But Musk's
Speaker 1: capricious leadership and the massive changes the he's made to
Speaker 1: X have convinced a lot of those entities just to
Speaker 1: pull up stakes and leave X behind. They're saying it
Speaker 1: no longer makes sense to stay there. And now we're
Speaker 1: actually starting to see what effect this has had on
Speaker 1: the organizations that decided to leave. So let's take NPR
Speaker 1: National Public Radio, for example. So in April of this year,
Speaker 1: NPR made the decision to leave X. This is right
Speaker 1: around the time that Musk actually renamed Twitter to X.
Speaker 1: And to be clear, MP made this decision for the
Speaker 1: official NPR accounts. They did not mandate that for everybody
Speaker 1: who works for NPR, but they decided they were going
Speaker 1: to stop their accounts on Twitter or X. The platform
Speaker 1: at that time had appended a label to NPR, and
Speaker 1: the label was US state affiliated Media. Now, Twitter's own
Speaker 1: definition for state affiliated media was quote outlets where the
Speaker 1: state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct
Speaker 1: or indirect political pressures, and or control over production and
Speaker 1: distribution end quote. So clearly that definition is meant to
Speaker 1: designate media outlets that are serving as a mouthpiece for
Speaker 1: a government. So the content produced by those types of
Speaker 1: outlets tends to be heavily biased in favor of whichever
Speaker 1: government is in charge. I mean, that's clear, right. It's
Speaker 1: the kind of designation that you might give to a
Speaker 1: media outlet in places like Russia or China, where you
Speaker 1: have authoritarian leaders who crack down on any voices that
Speaker 1: oppose the state. Now, MBR does receive money directly from
Speaker 1: the US federal government, but it makes up less than
Speaker 1: one percent of its budget, and it is clear that
Speaker 1: the government doesn't have any influence on the content that
Speaker 1: INPR produces. So the crux of what makes a media
Speaker 1: outlet a state affiliated media outlet wasn't there, but that's
Speaker 1: what Twitter was labeling in PR. So NBR decided that's it,
Speaker 1: we don't have to deal with this, We're a gone,
Speaker 1: and that it leaves. It was clear that Musk had
Speaker 1: an axe to grind against NPR, So six months later,
Speaker 1: now that we're in present day, leadership at NBR has
Speaker 1: circulated a memo to the company's staff. In that memom,
Speaker 1: the leaders addressed the impact that the organization has seen
Speaker 1: since leaving X and it's not that much so, according
Speaker 1: to Niemann Reports, The NPR memo says that traffic to
Speaker 1: NPR has dropped by only a single percentage point as
Speaker 1: a result of leaving Twitter slash X. NPR also pointed
Speaker 1: out that even before all this kerfuffle, traffic from Twitter
Speaker 1: amounted to less than two percent of all of NPR's traffic,
Speaker 1: and that explains how the organization found the decision to
Speaker 1: leave Twitter to not be difficult at all. The message
Speaker 1: is one that X definitely does not want to hear
Speaker 1: that staying on Twitter just isn't worth the effort. The
Speaker 1: negligible amount of traffic NPR got from Twitter was not
Speaker 1: worth the frustration of operating on Twitter. I suspect other
Speaker 1: media outlets may also reevaluate their position on the platform,
Speaker 1: particularly as it deals with more allegations of hosting disinformation
Speaker 1: and illegal content. But obviously it's not going to be
Speaker 1: the same for everybody, right, some media outlets may say, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but we have a more significant percentage of our traffic
Speaker 1: coming from Twitter. That's going to be a much harder
Speaker 1: decision to leave. In fact, I would be surprised if
Speaker 1: a media outlet chose to leave in the wake of
Speaker 1: a revelation that Twitter was providing a significant percentage of
Speaker 1: traffic to the media outlet. But for those that are
Speaker 1: in a position similar to NPR, I would not be
Speaker 1: surprised to see more of those outlets follow suit. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick break. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to have some AI news, the other big
Speaker 1: story that continues to unfold throughout twenty twenty three. But
Speaker 1: first let's take a break to thank our sponsors. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back, so let's talk about artificial intelligence in general
Speaker 1: and generative AI in particular. So first up, open ai
Speaker 1: has plans to make it less expensive for developers to
Speaker 1: build applications on top of open AI's models. So, as
Speaker 1: it turns out, using artificial intelligence, like using it and
Speaker 1: incorporating it into your work, tends to be really expensive
Speaker 1: because AI requires a lot of computational resources in order
Speaker 1: to work, and that goes all up and down. The
Speaker 1: computational resources gamut from processing power to computer memory to
Speaker 1: things like storage. Not every developer has easy access to
Speaker 1: all of those things. It's entirely possible to come up
Speaker 1: with a potentially brilliant idea on how to incorporate AI
Speaker 1: into an app, but not be able to afford the
Speaker 1: costs of bringing that idea to life. So open ai
Speaker 1: plans to offer options that can mitigate some of those costs,
Speaker 1: like offering memory storage, for example, which is a huge
Speaker 1: cost apparently for developers who are working in the field
Speaker 1: of AI. So that's just part of open AI's strategy.
Speaker 1: The company also plans to unveil some computer vision tools,
Speaker 1: which can make it possible for developers to create applications
Speaker 1: that include some element of image analysis in them. You know,
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy for humans to describe stuff that's included
Speaker 1: inside an image. It tends to be a pretty heavy
Speaker 1: lift for a computer, and the computer vision tools simplify
Speaker 1: this and gives developers access to capabilities that otherwise they
Speaker 1: likely wouldn't be able to create on their own. According
Speaker 1: to various news outlets, the company is going to roll
Speaker 1: out these features around November sixth. That's during the company's
Speaker 1: first ever developer conference, which is taking place in San Francisco, California,
Speaker 1: on November sixth. And this matters to you and me
Speaker 1: because it likely means we're going to be seeing a
Speaker 1: rush of new applications that incorporate AI, at least to
Speaker 1: some extent in the not too distant future. So like
Speaker 1: it or not, the AI revolution is going to intensify
Speaker 1: before much longer. Now that's going to have some hefty
Speaker 1: real world consequences. Even if we assume that every AI
Speaker 1: application is benign or goodness, let's say that it's even helpful.
Speaker 1: Let's be super optimistic. Let's say that the incorporation of
Speaker 1: AI is genuinely helpful in all of its implementations, there
Speaker 1: would still be consequences we would have to face even
Speaker 1: with like perfect AI. Tech Spot reported on a research
Speaker 1: paper written by Alex Devrie titled the Growing Energy Footprint
Speaker 1: of Artificial Intelligence, and Devree argues that while much research
Speaker 1: has been focused on how much energy AI language large
Speaker 1: language models require during their training phase, it's a lot
Speaker 1: like when you are training a large language model, you're
Speaker 1: spending a great deal of money just on electricity to
Speaker 1: power that process. However, less studied, but just as important, arguably,
Speaker 1: is the amount of electricity needed during normal operations. Like
Speaker 1: you've stopped training now you're just deploying applications built on
Speaker 1: top of those large language models. Defrie is saying, well,
Speaker 1: that's going to still put a pretty hefty demand on
Speaker 1: electricity generation, especially as more and more of these apps
Speaker 1: are deployed, are developed and deployed. So an analysis firm
Speaker 1: called semi Analysis estimated that if Google were to incorporate
Speaker 1: AI into every single search, which it cannot do. I
Speaker 1: want to be clear about that, it lacks the physical
Speaker 1: capability of powering that. But if Google were to try
Speaker 1: and do that, it would require electricity equivalent to somewhere
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood of twenty nine point two tarawatt hours
Speaker 1: on an annual basis, which is pretty much the same
Speaker 1: amount of electricity that Ireland uses per year. So to
Speaker 1: power AI enhanced Google searches, you would need the same
Speaker 1: amount of electricity that Ireland needs for a full year.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. It also reminds me a lot of cryptocurrency mining.
Speaker 1: Like we talked a lot about how the process of
Speaker 1: mining crypto coins, particularly proof of work crypto coins requires
Speaker 1: a ton of electricity. Proof of stake less so, but
Speaker 1: still requires some proof of work requires a lot. That's
Speaker 1: the kind that like bitcoin uses. And we have already
Speaker 1: talked about how in the past, at least mining operations
Speaker 1: worthy creating the power need equivalent of what we would
Speaker 1: see for some nations in Europe on an annual basis
Speaker 1: pretty crazy. Well, same thing is true of AI, but
Speaker 1: as I said, Google doesn't have that capability. This is
Speaker 1: more of a theoretical kind of discussion. Google lacks the
Speaker 1: equipment that would be needed to be able to do this,
Speaker 1: and in fact, the companies that make the equipment, like
Speaker 1: make the processors that would power this kind of thing,
Speaker 1: they aren't producing chips at that scale, Like they could
Speaker 1: not produce enough chips in the short term anyway to
Speaker 1: power that. So this is really again just a hypothetical situation.
Speaker 1: But the point is that AI is a power hungry technology,
Speaker 1: not in the sense of you know, sky net taking
Speaker 1: over the world, but in the sense of it requires
Speaker 1: a ton of power for it to work. And it's
Speaker 1: something that people like defriethink developers need to really take
Speaker 1: into consideration. Does it make sense to incorporate AI into
Speaker 1: an application knowing the energy demands of that particular application,
Speaker 1: And if it makes sense, then sure. But if it
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense, then don't just throw it in there
Speaker 1: just to have AI as part of your value proposition
Speaker 1: of your app, because you're going to be costing yourself
Speaker 1: a lot more money due to the fact that there's
Speaker 1: so much electricity needed to power the darn thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: moving on to some other news. Microsoft got some bad
Speaker 1: news in the mail last month, which we are now
Speaker 1: learning about due to a filing with the Securities and
Speaker 1: Exchange Commission up the United States Internal Revenue Service. The
Speaker 1: dreaded IRS sent a notice to Microsoft that the company
Speaker 1: had failed to pay a few bills. It was called
Speaker 1: a notice of Proposed adjustment, which is a, you know,
Speaker 1: a fairly benign sounding term, but it had some massive consequences.
Speaker 1: According to the IRS, Microsoft ows about twenty nine billion
Speaker 1: dollars twenty eight point nine billion to be more specific,
Speaker 1: and that's in back taxes from the two thousand and
Speaker 1: four to twenty thirteen period, as well as penalties associated
Speaker 1: with a failure to pay those back taxes over the years.
Speaker 1: Microsoft says the whole thing's a misunderstanding. In fact, they
Speaker 1: say they outright disagree with the Notices of Proposed Adjustment
Speaker 1: aka NOPA, So I guess they're saying NOPA to NOPA.
Speaker 1: They're going to pursue an appeals process with the IRS,
Speaker 1: and if that doesn't go Microsoft's way, they plan on
Speaker 1: bringing the whole matter to court. It would be shocked
Speaker 1: if this doesn't ultimately go to court at some point.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's going to take a minute for all
Speaker 1: that to hash out, so we'll have to check back.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, like five years or so, the
Speaker 1: State of Utah has filed a lawsuit against TikTok, and
Speaker 1: the charges are probably pretty much what you would expect.
Speaker 1: So first and foremost, Utah's Governor, Spencer Cox, argues that
Speaker 1: TikTok children both by getting them hooked on the platform
Speaker 1: so that they're spending countless hours on it, and also
Speaker 1: by serving up harmful material. The lawsuit cites research that
Speaker 1: links social media activity, like prolonged activity on social media,
Speaker 1: with poor mental health. However, I think it is very
Speaker 1: important to note the distinction between causation and correlation here.
Speaker 1: So does staying on social media for a long time
Speaker 1: lead to poor mental health? Possibly, But it's also possible
Speaker 1: that people who have poor mental health tend to use
Speaker 1: social media for longer than other people do, and that
Speaker 1: would mean that using social media a lot doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: lead to poor mental health. But perhaps poor mental health
Speaker 1: makes you more inclined to use social media. It's similar
Speaker 1: to how people who commit violence may also play a
Speaker 1: lot of violent video games, but that doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: that playing violent video games makes you violent. Again, there
Speaker 1: could be a correlation, but no causation there. We don't know,
Speaker 1: is my point. So I think making legislation on something
Speaker 1: where there's not a clear causal link is problematic. You're
Speaker 1: not likely to actually address whatever underlying issue is at stake,
Speaker 1: But anyway, Alex Horrik of TikTok contested the charges brought
Speaker 1: against the platform by the state of Utah. He said
Speaker 1: that TikTok quote has industry leading safeguards for young people,
Speaker 1: including an automatic sixty minute time limit for users under
Speaker 1: eighteen and parental controls for teen accounts end quote, So
Speaker 1: he's saying we already have protections in place. These are
Speaker 1: here to prevent young people from being harmed by TikTok.
Speaker 1: According to AP News, the lawsuit also brings up a
Speaker 1: concern that we've seen many, many times from lawmakers here
Speaker 1: in the United States that is related to the relationship
Speaker 1: between TikTok, the American company, and Byte Dance, TikTok's Chinese
Speaker 1: parent company, arguing that maybe there are deeper links there
Speaker 1: than what TikTok claims. This is a song we've seen
Speaker 1: again and again, so not a big surprise here, but
Speaker 1: we'll keep an eye on where this lawsuit goes and
Speaker 1: how it unfolds in the future. Got one more than
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell before we get into another quick
Speaker 1: break it has been a hot minute since I've talked
Speaker 1: about FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange that famously went up in
Speaker 1: flames almost a year ago. Next month will be a
Speaker 1: year since FTX went under. Fdx's co founder Sam Bankman
Speaker 1: freed AKASBF is in court to face charges that he
Speaker 1: committed several fraud related crimes in his role as CEO
Speaker 1: of FTX. Yesterday, Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alimator Research,
Speaker 1: which was intrinsically connected to FTX, testified that FDx engaged
Speaker 1: in some pretty darn shifty behavior, including an attempt to
Speaker 1: bribe a Chinese official. So, as Ellison tells the story,
Speaker 1: Chinese authorities brows ftx's funds on the OKX and quea
Speaker 1: by exchanges. So apparently someone at Alibator Research, which by
Speaker 1: the way, was an investment company that specialized in the
Speaker 1: crypto market and had been co founded by SBF. Apparently
Speaker 1: this person unnamed person ended up doing business with some
Speaker 1: someone else who was suspected of money laundering. So the
Speaker 1: Chinese authorities locked down around a billion dollars worth of
Speaker 1: FTX assets, and this prompted folks at FTX to try
Speaker 1: and come up with various strategies on how to free
Speaker 1: up that money that otherwise was just locked away. It
Speaker 1: sounds like first they started off with some fairly reasonable
Speaker 1: and more importantly legal options, but apparently those did not
Speaker 1: get any results. So the leaders, including SBF himself, began
Speaker 1: to consider alternatives, and while they did not necessarily approve
Speaker 1: them initially, further down the line they did, and that
Speaker 1: ultimately resulted in offering a one hundred and fifty million
Speaker 1: dollars bribe to a Chinese official to grease the wheels
Speaker 1: and get that money unlocked. Not only did the company
Speaker 1: apparently actually do this, it also listed the expenditure in
Speaker 1: its State of Alameda documentation. Now, they didn't go so
Speaker 1: far as to label it bribery costs that might have
Speaker 1: been a red flag. Instead, it was filed under notable
Speaker 1: slash idiosyncratic PNL stuff. And here's the wild thing, y'all.
Speaker 1: The bribery thing isn't even one of the legal charges
Speaker 1: brought again SBF. Right, that's not even a material component
Speaker 1: of this trial. The whole story really just becomes part
Speaker 1: of establishing SBF's character and leadership decisions and willingness to
Speaker 1: engage in illicit activities. Ellison, for her own part, has
Speaker 1: pled guilty to several fraud charges already, so things are
Speaker 1: not looking so great for SBF at the moment. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to take another quick break. When we come back,
Speaker 1: I've got you know, I got quite a few more
Speaker 1: news stories, so stick around. We'll be right back. Okay,
Speaker 1: we have come back, and now for a couple of
Speaker 1: stories about how the US government is trying to make
Speaker 1: companies be more transparent when it comes to stuff like
Speaker 1: you know, bills, service fees. So first up is the
Speaker 1: Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, which has taken aim at
Speaker 1: so called junk fees. So these are those hidden fees
Speaker 1: that won't pop up in a transaction until it's right
Speaker 1: at the moment of purchase. So the customer might get
Speaker 1: a price quote on a product or a service and
Speaker 1: then they'll start the whole process of purchasing it or
Speaker 1: agreeing to it, and right when they're getting at that
Speaker 1: last moment to complete a transaction, a bunch of weird
Speaker 1: fees pop up and the cost increases, sometimes significantly. So
Speaker 1: this happens in lots of different kinds of transactions. Personally,
Speaker 1: I see it most whenever I use a ticket broker
Speaker 1: to purchase a seat for an event, whether it's a
Speaker 1: show or a concert or whatever it may be, sometimes
Speaker 1: the fees end up being as much as the cost
Speaker 1: of the ticket itself, so it doubles the amount I
Speaker 1: would have to spend if I wanted to, I don't know,
Speaker 1: go see thump Asaurus performs Strutton Live. Actually, that's probably
Speaker 1: a bad example because thump Asaurus tends to play small
Speaker 1: to medium venues. Those are less dependent on ticket brokers.
Speaker 1: But you get what I'm saying. You can also find
Speaker 1: it in other places, like vacation rentals, right, so Airbnb
Speaker 1: has been brought in as a possible perpetrator of these
Speaker 1: kinds of junk fees or car rentals. It can be
Speaker 1: like that too, where you'll see one price quoted as
Speaker 1: you log into a car rental company, but as you
Speaker 1: go through it suddenly balloons as you get further into
Speaker 1: the process. Not all car rental companies are like that,
Speaker 1: by the way, I've noticed that a few have started
Speaker 1: to already post what the full price would be on
Speaker 1: that initial screen, and I think that's admirable because not
Speaker 1: every one of them does that. A lot of them
Speaker 1: starts off with a price where you're like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: it's like eighty bucks for the full week. That's not bad.
Speaker 1: Then you click through and you're like, oh wait, it's
Speaker 1: actually like two hundred and seventy dollars for the full
Speaker 1: week once you add all these fees in. So the
Speaker 1: FTC would force companies to include any additional fees within
Speaker 1: the advertised prices themselves. They could no longer hide it
Speaker 1: until the end, and they have to explain in what
Speaker 1: those fees are actually for, like why does that fee exist?
Speaker 1: What is that fee going to? Like? Those convenience fees
Speaker 1: drive me nuts because I'm wondering who the heck is
Speaker 1: this convenient for, because it's not me anyway. It's also
Speaker 1: supposed to indicate which, if any, fees could be refundable.
Speaker 1: So all of this has to be done if FTC
Speaker 1: adopts these rules. I'm sure the companies are not eager
Speaker 1: to comply with any rule like this if it is
Speaker 1: in fact adopted. But as a consumer, I am personally
Speaker 1: fully in favor of making companies be more transparent when
Speaker 1: it comes to costs to customers. Now, on a related note,
Speaker 1: the US Federal Communications Commission or FCC has transparency rules
Speaker 1: that are going to impact the major Internet service providers
Speaker 1: in the United States starting on or in April of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. So starting then, providers will have to
Speaker 1: include a broadband consumer label, and this label will break
Speaker 1: down the provider's services. It has to include the service's features,
Speaker 1: its limitations, any restrictions that are in place, as well
Speaker 1: as the price for the service. So that means the
Speaker 1: label should show customer stuff like what broadband speed is
Speaker 1: available in their area, how much is the introductory rate
Speaker 1: for enrolling in that service, what are the actual rates
Speaker 1: once you're done with the introductory period. Are there any
Speaker 1: data allowances or data caps? If you prefer on that service,
Speaker 1: it would need to have all of that listed out,
Speaker 1: plus any other fees that would come into place, and that,
Speaker 1: in theory, should make it easier for customers to do
Speaker 1: some comparison shopping. However, I should also add that for
Speaker 1: a lot of folks in the United States, comparison shopping
Speaker 1: is more of a dream than a reality. It's not
Speaker 1: a luxury for a lot of people because a lot
Speaker 1: of locations, including where I live, there's not much choice. Technically,
Speaker 1: I have two providers in my area that provide for
Speaker 1: actual broadband speed service, and only one of them can
Speaker 1: provide service at greater than fifty megabits per second. The
Speaker 1: other one, I think max is out right at twenty five,
Speaker 1: which I think is even I think that is the
Speaker 1: threshold for broadband. So it's not like I even have
Speaker 1: a different option to go with if I wanted to,
Speaker 1: at least not one that would work for what I
Speaker 1: do for a living, So that's kind of a bummer,
Speaker 1: But at least I would have a better understanding of
Speaker 1: what I'm spending my money on and what all those
Speaker 1: fees are going to, and also things like how much
Speaker 1: would it cost to terminate the service early maybe suddenly
Speaker 1: I get a different opportunity to use a different ISP,
Speaker 1: how much would it cost for me to cancel my
Speaker 1: agreement with my current provider? And as you might suspect,
Speaker 1: the broadband companies have pushed hard against this move. They've
Speaker 1: claimed that it would be too difficult to implement, and
Speaker 1: that really just gives the FCC more ammunition, right, because
Speaker 1: if listing out all your fees is something that you
Speaker 1: say is too complicated, there's definitely a lack of transparency
Speaker 1: going on among other issues. So I don't think it
Speaker 1: is an argument that does the broadband service much favor.
Speaker 1: Next up, we've got a story about eBay and a
Speaker 1: potential two billion with a b dollar fine for the company.
Speaker 1: So what did eBay do that would warrant such a
Speaker 1: hefty fine. Well, it all has to do with the
Speaker 1: facilitation of sales of products that violate environmental laws in
Speaker 1: the United States, namely defeat devices aka gadgets that, when
Speaker 1: you install it in a diesel powered vehicle, gives the
Speaker 1: driver the ability to quote unquote roll coal. So if
Speaker 1: you've ever seen a car or a truck blast out
Speaker 1: a huge cloud of black exhaust all in one burd first,
Speaker 1: that is rolling coal. I had not even heard about
Speaker 1: that practice until just one day someone did it to me.
Speaker 1: I had been walking back from our office back when
Speaker 1: it was at Pont City Market, and it was a
Speaker 1: three mile walk, and it was a hot day, and
Speaker 1: I was taking a little break, and as I was
Speaker 1: sitting down on a bench, a big old pickup truck
Speaker 1: drove past me and then belched out a ton of
Speaker 1: black smoke rolling coal. Well, here's the thing. These devices
Speaker 1: violate the Clean Air Act, and if authorities find a
Speaker 1: retailer selling them, they can find that retailer five eighty
Speaker 1: dollars per sale, so it's accumulative, and the EPA has
Speaker 1: set its sites on eBay. Now, eBay has said the
Speaker 1: lawsuit is quote unquote entirely unprecedented. Now that might be true.
Speaker 1: It might be entirely unprecedented, but that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: it's unwarranted. It also doesn't mean that the EPA won't
Speaker 1: continue to do that sort of thing with other companies.
Speaker 1: But eBay also claims it has actively removed listings for
Speaker 1: such illegal devices for years and that it has a
Speaker 1: ban on those kind of devices. Those are not allowed
Speaker 1: to be sold on eBay, according to eBay's representatives. So
Speaker 1: we'll have to see where this goes from here and
Speaker 1: whether or not it actually ends up going to trial,
Speaker 1: and whether eBay actually has the receipts to show that
Speaker 1: it has cracked down on this practice, or if, as
Speaker 1: the EPA alleges, eBay has allowed for the sale of
Speaker 1: these devices. Google announced it stopped a distributed denial of
Speaker 1: service attack or d DOS that was the largest ever
Speaker 1: on record. In fact, according to Google, this attack was
Speaker 1: seven and a half times larger than the previous record holder,
Speaker 1: and the attack was blasting targets with three hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety eight million requests per second. So, just in case
Speaker 1: you don't know what a denial of service attack is,
Speaker 1: it's basically a tactic meant to overwhelm a target server
Speaker 1: a web server. So in its most basic form, a
Speaker 1: denial of service attack will see attackers send out requests
Speaker 1: to a target. The target is compelled to respond to
Speaker 1: the requests because that's how the Internet works. So by
Speaker 1: sending millions or even hundreds of millions, or even billions
Speaker 1: of requests to a target, the target can get locked
Speaker 1: up trying to respond to all these requests. It can
Speaker 1: even shut down as a result of this. A distributed
Speaker 1: denial of service attack is the same thing, except the
Speaker 1: attacks are distributed across a network of attackers. It's not
Speaker 1: just one source of attack, and that makes it a
Speaker 1: much more effective means of attacking a target because if
Speaker 1: the attacks were coming from one source, the target might
Speaker 1: identify that source and then block traffic coming from that
Speaker 1: source and then protect itself. If it's distributed across lots
Speaker 1: of machines, it can be more challenging to actually protect
Speaker 1: yourself against that kind of attack. Google says it detected
Speaker 1: the attack and then launched mitigation efforts, and that included
Speaker 1: reaching out to peers and started to patch a vulnerability
Speaker 1: in the HTTP slash two protocol stack. The attackers were
Speaker 1: leveraging this vulnerability and it's present in some but not
Speaker 1: all servers. So server administrators have been informed they should
Speaker 1: check to see if their machines are vulnerable, and if
Speaker 1: those machines are vulnerable, to be on the lookout for
Speaker 1: a security patch from whatever vendor made that machine in
Speaker 1: order to close off this route of attack. And finally,
Speaker 1: for some sky is falling news, the US Federal Aviation
Speaker 1: Authority or FAA has a warning about all those satellites
Speaker 1: that were putting up in orbit. So I talked earlier
Speaker 1: this week about how companies like SpaceX and Amazon are
Speaker 1: launching thousands of satellites constellation of satellites up into orbit.
Speaker 1: And the warning that the FAA is giving us is
Speaker 1: the old saying what goes up must come down, even
Speaker 1: if it happens to be in low Earth orbit. So
Speaker 1: the FAA did an analysis and estimates that up to
Speaker 1: twenty eight thousand pieces of satellite could fall to Earth
Speaker 1: each year based upon how much stuff we're putting up there,
Speaker 1: and that these could potentially represent an actual threat to
Speaker 1: people in property. So the FAA estimates that the chance
Speaker 1: of being hurt or worse from a piece of falling
Speaker 1: satellite equipment could be point six per year, and that
Speaker 1: means that it could possibly happen every two years or so,
Speaker 1: just when you look at the big picture of statistics.
Speaker 1: And if that's not scary enough, the FAA also indicated
Speaker 1: that falling satellite pieces could potentially be a threat to
Speaker 1: aircraft in mid flight, though this represents an even smaller likelihood.
Speaker 1: The FAA indicated that regulation could limit some of this risk.
Speaker 1: So if some regulations were put into place that would
Speaker 1: restrict how many satellites companies can put into orbit or
Speaker 1: how they operate those satellites, maybe that would end up
Speaker 1: helping this. But the FAA also stressed it only has
Speaker 1: authority to do that kind of thing here in the
Speaker 1: United States. There are other nations that are launching satellites
Speaker 1: into orbit, and so there is potentially a need for
Speaker 1: some sort of international body that could set global regulations
Speaker 1: on satellites and launches and that kind of thing. And
Speaker 1: the proliferation of space debris. SpaceX, by the way, says
Speaker 1: that the FAA's analysis is flawed and that the company's satellites,
Speaker 1: they're Starlink satellites are far more likely to burn up
Speaker 1: on entry because they're not terribly big. So they're like,
Speaker 1: this is a moot point, because if our satellites are falling,
Speaker 1: they're not going to make it to the ground. They
Speaker 1: will burn up before they reach that far, and so
Speaker 1: there would be nothing significant landing on Earth afterward. They've
Speaker 1: also raised some other objections, so again, interesting, scary. My
Speaker 1: guess is that there's the truth is somewhere in the
Speaker 1: middle here. I do think that the odds of being
Speaker 1: struck by space debris are pretty darn low if you're
Speaker 1: not in space, probably somewhere along the same lines as
Speaker 1: getting struck by lightning. Although obviously you can help avoid
Speaker 1: getting hit by lightning by not being out and about
Speaker 1: while there's a lightning storm. It's a lot harder to
Speaker 1: predict when a piece of a satellite's going to come
Speaker 1: plummeting down, So I get it. It is kind of scary.
Speaker 1: Now before I go, I do have an article to recommend.
Speaker 1: This article is titled how AI reduces the World to Stereotypes.
Speaker 1: It was written by Victoria Turk and it was published
Speaker 1: in Restofworld dot org. So Turk is mainly talking about
Speaker 1: generative AI and how text to image systems tend to
Speaker 1: perpetual wait and amplify biases and stereotypes. So the article
Speaker 1: follows an experiment in which a team at rest of
Speaker 1: World use the text to image generative AI tool mid
Speaker 1: journey to produce pictures associated with specific places or types
Speaker 1: of people, and then analyze those images and looked for
Speaker 1: the inclusion of elements that reinforce biases and stereotypes. So
Speaker 1: I recommend that article again. It's titled how AI reduces
Speaker 1: the World to Stereotypes by Victoria Turk at Restofworld dot org.
Speaker 1: That's it for me today. I hope you are all well.
Speaker 1: Stay safe out there, take care of yourselves both physically
Speaker 1: and mentally. It is a really tough time right now,
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff
Speaker 1: is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
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