Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and allow of all things tech. And this is the
Speaker 1: tech news for Thursday, July one, twenty one. We're heading
Speaker 1: into the fourth of July weekend around the world, but
Speaker 1: here in the U s. It's a holiday, and so
Speaker 1: it seems fitting that a lot of my topics today
Speaker 1: have to do with tech and things like liberty and freedom.
Speaker 1: So on Wednesday of this week, the state of Maine
Speaker 1: past into law with unanimous support, a a law that
Speaker 1: places tight restrictions on how state agencies can use facial
Speaker 1: recognition technology. In fact, the restrictions are so tight that
Speaker 1: most state aid agencies are just flat out not allowed
Speaker 1: to use facial recognition technology at all. The state government
Speaker 1: also banned it's used for the purposes of surveillance. Now,
Speaker 1: there are some exceptions that allow certain agencies to use
Speaker 1: facial recognition technology, so law enforcement is allowed to use
Speaker 1: it if they are investigating a serious crime. Uh. The
Speaker 1: state also might use it in order to identify someone
Speaker 1: who is deceased, missing, or endangered, so in cases where
Speaker 1: you're talking about someone's life or safety, that is an
Speaker 1: exception as well. However, for the most part, the state
Speaker 1: is not to use facial recognition technology starting in October
Speaker 1: of this year. That's when the law takes effect. The
Speaker 1: law also requires police to go through proper channels and
Speaker 1: to obtain access to facial recognition technology on a case
Speaker 1: by case basis. UH civil liberties organizations had expressed approval
Speaker 1: of these new measures. They point to main as being
Speaker 1: the leading edge of protecting citizen privacy and shielding them
Speaker 1: from surveillance. The essential argument was that you know this
Speaker 1: is this is technology that has disproportionate ability to do
Speaker 1: harm to someone, and the benefits do not outweigh that
Speaker 1: disproportionate harm. Maybe this will spur similar state laws across
Speaker 1: the country. We have seen a law in Washington that
Speaker 1: didn't go nearly as far as the one in Maine,
Speaker 1: so maybe we'll see other states follow suit. Perhaps will
Speaker 1: even eventually see a federal law that covers this issue
Speaker 1: here in the US. Sticking with tech and civil liberties,
Speaker 1: during a government hearing, attorneys for cloud service companies plus
Speaker 1: one executive from Microsoft spoke to lawmakers about the government's
Speaker 1: practice of seeking personal information of company customers. In addition,
Speaker 1: the discussion included the practice of having such requests hidden
Speaker 1: from public view. They're filed under secret court orders with
Speaker 1: the demand that whatever the cloud service company is, you know,
Speaker 1: like Microsoft, they aren't supposed to acknowledge that any investigation
Speaker 1: is ongoing. Very cloak and dagger kind of approach, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people for years have been raising concerns
Speaker 1: about this kind of thing. This actually follows in the
Speaker 1: wake of a recent revelation that the Department of Justice
Speaker 1: under former President Trump sought phone records of Democratic representatives
Speaker 1: as well as certain reporters, and the d o J
Speaker 1: used secret subpoenas to seek out that kind of information.
Speaker 1: And the cloud service companies, or rather the lawyers representing
Speaker 1: those companies, are arguing that the government should have to
Speaker 1: follow the exact same sort of processes they have to
Speaker 1: follow if they want to access, you know, physical files
Speaker 1: stored in filing cabinets, if you have to have a
Speaker 1: warrant to search at then you need to have the
Speaker 1: equivalent in order to search digital data stored in the cloud.
Speaker 1: The executive from Microsoft, Tom Burt, said that over the
Speaker 1: last five years Microsoft has received between two thousand, four
Speaker 1: hundred to three thousand, five hundred secrecy orders each year,
Speaker 1: so at minimum two thousand, four hundred, at max around
Speaker 1: thirty undred, and that these orders appeared to be quote
Speaker 1: unsupported by any meaningful legal or factual analysis end quote.
Speaker 1: So in other words, there didn't appear to be any
Speaker 1: you know, you know, reasonable purpose for the search orders,
Speaker 1: and yet these companies were being compelled to agree with
Speaker 1: them by the government. So, like the widespread use of
Speaker 1: facial recognition technology, this practice seems to be in violation
Speaker 1: of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The
Speaker 1: Fourth Amendment protects citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures, and
Speaker 1: that amendment states that no warrants shall be issued but
Speaker 1: with probable cause. According to Microsoft, that doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: that was the case in the majority of these secrecy
Speaker 1: orders that the company received. And you know, you could
Speaker 1: argue that if everything is valid and lawful, as in,
Speaker 1: if the government is following a valid and lawful process,
Speaker 1: why would the orders need to be secret. Why would
Speaker 1: these companies be not allowed to even acknowledge that they
Speaker 1: had received the requests. Currently, it sounds as the lawmakers
Speaker 1: on both sides of the aisle are taking these proceedings
Speaker 1: to heart, though obviously we'll have to wait and see
Speaker 1: if any actual legislation follows, if we see the laws
Speaker 1: change as a result of this, But for the time being,
Speaker 1: it sounds like everyone's kind of on the same page
Speaker 1: as saying, yo, this is not in line with the
Speaker 1: basic tenants of US government. Now, we ain't done with
Speaker 1: tech in US politics yet, which seems fitting because of
Speaker 1: heading into that fourth of July weekend. A federal judge
Speaker 1: on Wednesday slapped down a Florida state law that was
Speaker 1: aimed at social networking sites like Facebook. This Florida law
Speaker 1: would have given that state the authority to place enormous
Speaker 1: fines on social networking sites should they ever ban political candidates. Now,
Speaker 1: as you might imagine, this too appears to stem from
Speaker 1: former President Trump, who received bands from Facebook and Twitter,
Speaker 1: among other platforms, for you know, violating platform policies like
Speaker 1: spreading misinformation and swing dangerous rhetoric that was unsupported by
Speaker 1: you know reality. The federal judge in this case said
Speaker 1: that the Florida law ironically was violating the First Amendment.
Speaker 1: That's the amendment that guarantees the freedom of speech here
Speaker 1: in the United States. So see, the Florida legislators were
Speaker 1: arguing that social networks were prov ending the free speech
Speaker 1: of candidates. But here's the problem with that. The amendment
Speaker 1: to the Constitution that only guarantees protection from the government
Speaker 1: infringing upon free speech. It's saying that the government is
Speaker 1: not allowed to do that. Facebook, while it is bigger
Speaker 1: than a lot of governments around the world, is not
Speaker 1: the government. It's not the U. S. Government. So the
Speaker 1: company has the right to decide who can and cannot
Speaker 1: publish on that platform. The federal judge argued that restricting
Speaker 1: Facebook from being able to make that determination would in
Speaker 1: effect violate the free speech of tech companies like Facebook.
Speaker 1: The Florida law would have allowed for fines of up
Speaker 1: to two hundred fifty thousand dollars per day of any
Speaker 1: band that went beyond fourteen days for statewide candidates, you know,
Speaker 1: smaller candidates in local elections would have been a smaller fine,
Speaker 1: but quarter million dollars per day according to that law.
Speaker 1: The federal judge also pointed out that the Florida law
Speaker 1: was clearly unbalanced, I mean, beyond the fact that it
Speaker 1: had this enormous scope. It also had allowances for certain companies,
Speaker 1: like certain companies would not be held to this standard,
Speaker 1: namely companies that operate theme parks in the state of Florida.
Speaker 1: You know, companies like Disney and NBC Universal. So why
Speaker 1: is that, Well, it's because those are huge money makers.
Speaker 1: They bring in lots of cash to the state of Florida.
Speaker 1: So the sacred right of candidates being able to spread
Speaker 1: misinformation and violate social platform policies does not extend to
Speaker 1: big companies that make Florida lots of money. Now you
Speaker 1: might sense that I'm a bit fed up with Florida,
Speaker 1: and You're right. This is honestly just a thinly veiled
Speaker 1: attempt to create a state run media agency, and that
Speaker 1: would not serve the citizens of Florida well at all.
Speaker 1: All right, more laws and tech. This is also in
Speaker 1: the United States. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or
Speaker 1: nht s A has passed a law, or rather a rule.
Speaker 1: It's not a law, but it's a new rule that
Speaker 1: will require all companies that offer semi autonomous driving assist
Speaker 1: features within vehicles to report all crashes in which an
Speaker 1: autonomous or semi autonomous feature was involved. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: if someone is in a Tesla vehicle and they get
Speaker 1: into a wreck and it's determined that the vehicle was
Speaker 1: in autopilot mode, Tesla would be legally required to report
Speaker 1: that crash to the nh T s A. Uh not
Speaker 1: just Tesla, mind you, this rule applies to all companies
Speaker 1: operating vehicles that have autonomous features. Tesla tends to be
Speaker 1: the one that a lot of people single out simply
Speaker 1: because it's the one that's had some of the most
Speaker 1: high profile accidents while in this autopilot mode. The n
Speaker 1: h T s A aims to have a better understanding
Speaker 1: of how safe or unsafe these autonomous systems are, and
Speaker 1: there then we'll be able to identify any that are
Speaker 1: particularly unsafe. So like, statistically, if we were to say
Speaker 1: Tesla actually is more unsafe, we would be able to
Speaker 1: know that because of this information. Right now, it's anecdotal, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, the Tesla accidents are very high profile, so
Speaker 1: at least on the surface level, it seems like you
Speaker 1: could argue that those are potentially the most unsafe, but
Speaker 1: without data across the industry, that's impossible to say for sure.
Speaker 1: It may just be because those happen to be very
Speaker 1: high profile accidents. So it could turn out that like
Speaker 1: you know, way Mo vehicles get into more traffic accidents
Speaker 1: than Tesla does, and that would be, you know, something
Speaker 1: we would be unaware of without this kind of rule. Uh,
Speaker 1: there is a threshold for accidents. The nh T s
Speaker 1: A is not asking for every single accident to get reported.
Speaker 1: It's really interested in tracking the more serious cases, including
Speaker 1: those with quote a hospital treated injury, a fatality, a
Speaker 1: vehicle tow away and air bag deployment, or a vulnerable
Speaker 1: road users such as pedestrian or bic cicklist end quote.
Speaker 1: So it's not about like minor fender benders or paint
Speaker 1: scrapings or something. It's rather ones that represent a potential
Speaker 1: threat to life and safety and property damage. So companies
Speaker 1: are also to submit monthly reports that detail any and
Speaker 1: all incidents with self driving vehicles in that self driving
Speaker 1: mode that include injury or damage to property. If they
Speaker 1: do not submit a monthly report, they will be find
Speaker 1: nearly twenty three thousand dollars per day that they failed
Speaker 1: to respond, up to a maximum of one hundred million dollars. Ideally,
Speaker 1: this sort of reporting will lead to federal and state
Speaker 1: governments having a better understanding of the performance of autonomous
Speaker 1: and semi autonomous vehicles and whether it's wise to allow
Speaker 1: them on public roads, or if new legislation should apply
Speaker 1: to the companies that are operating or offering these kinds
Speaker 1: of vehicles. It will also give a more accurate view
Speaker 1: of how effective or ineffective these technologies actually are, something
Speaker 1: that right now is impossible to do because for the
Speaker 1: most part, these companies keep all of those sorts of
Speaker 1: records internally, and obviously the companies have a vested interest
Speaker 1: in promoting the technologies as being safe because that's you know,
Speaker 1: where they're going to get their revenues. So hopefully this
Speaker 1: new rule add some accountability to the picture and ultimately
Speaker 1: lead to better, safer, and more reliable vehicles. Now, I
Speaker 1: fully believe that the future of cars is autonomous, but
Speaker 1: I also believe that we're still pretty good ways away
Speaker 1: from having vehicles that can safely operate in all scenarios
Speaker 1: that a human driver might find themselves in. So this
Speaker 1: is a good step toward getting more information so that
Speaker 1: we can start to make decisions about when is it
Speaker 1: appropriate to kind of transition to an autonomous vehicle. Uh reality,
Speaker 1: All right, let's keep this train going. So the f
Speaker 1: c C, the Federal Communications Commission here in the United States,
Speaker 1: passed rules to require carriers, that is, like cell phone
Speaker 1: carriers in the US, to combat spoofing. Now, that's when
Speaker 1: someone uses a system to mask a real phone number,
Speaker 1: and typically spoofing involves presenting a number to your caller
Speaker 1: I D that's pretty close to your number. That way,
Speaker 1: when you get a call and you see it's from
Speaker 1: a phone number that's similar to yours, it's in your
Speaker 1: local area code, psychologically, you might be more likely to
Speaker 1: answer that call. You might think, oh, this is probably
Speaker 1: someone I know. I just don't recognize the number. It's
Speaker 1: a pretty scummy way for various entities to try and
Speaker 1: get you on the phone. The FCC said we've had
Speaker 1: enough of this, and they gave a mandate to the
Speaker 1: major carriers to implement systems that would prevent people from
Speaker 1: spoofing numbers. And now all three major carriers in the
Speaker 1: US those being T Mobile, Verizon, and A T and
Speaker 1: T have systems in place to do this. The carriers
Speaker 1: will verify that a number calling into you is in
Speaker 1: fact the actual number of the originating call before allowing
Speaker 1: it to go through. The protocol that the companies are
Speaker 1: using is called stir slash shaken, which feels very James
Speaker 1: Bondy to me. Maybe James Bondage. No wait, no, never mind,
Speaker 1: no scratch that. The deadline for implementing the protocols was yesterday,
Speaker 1: June one, for all the major carriers. Smaller regional carriers
Speaker 1: will actually still have two years to implement the protocols.
Speaker 1: So it's a good thing that the major carriers are compliant,
Speaker 1: or else they would be held liable for it. And
Speaker 1: this is all part of an ongoing battle against robo
Speaker 1: calls and spam calls and and stuff like that. And
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I almost never answer
Speaker 1: my phone. I definitely don't answer it. If I don't
Speaker 1: recognize the number, I just let it go to voicemail.
Speaker 1: And usually there's never you know, it's pretty rare that
Speaker 1: I get a voicemail. Most people just give up, nor
Speaker 1: most robots give up. I don't think it's even people
Speaker 1: most of the time. And that's just to me that
Speaker 1: whomever was trying to call me it wasn't about something
Speaker 1: important because they didn't bother to leave a message. Now,
Speaker 1: all these protocols won't mean the end of nuisance calls.
Speaker 1: I think every little bit helps. We've got a few
Speaker 1: more news items that I want to cover today, but
Speaker 1: we're running a bit long, so let's take a quick break. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back and back. In April, hackers managed to gain
Speaker 1: access to a folder in Sony's network that contained the
Speaker 1: serial I D numbers for PlayStation three consoles, like all
Speaker 1: of them, every number relating to every gamer with a
Speaker 1: p S three that was registered with Sony's network. And subsequently,
Speaker 1: some gamers have noticed that their PlayStation accounts appeared to
Speaker 1: be inaccessible. They receive an error message. That error message
Speaker 1: has a number. That number is eight zero seven one
Speaker 1: zero zero six, and some players, after going to reregister
Speaker 1: and activate two factor authentication, managed to regain control of
Speaker 1: their accounts, but for others it's a bit more complicated.
Speaker 1: So it looks like hackers have started to use some
Speaker 1: of those exposed accounts in order to act as proxies
Speaker 1: for malicious activity, essentially stuff that violates Sony's policies. So
Speaker 1: Sony sees that these particular ideas connected to these particular
Speaker 1: consoles are doing shady stuff. They've gone and started to
Speaker 1: ban those accounts. Unfortunately, that means that the legitimate players
Speaker 1: who had their information exposed are now not able to
Speaker 1: get access to their accounts, even though they didn't do
Speaker 1: anything wrong, and considering that some of those accounts likely
Speaker 1: belonged to players who are miners, that's another really thorny
Speaker 1: element to the story because the information is out there now.
Speaker 1: Knowing that credentials are making the rounds on the dark
Speaker 1: web isn't great. It appears as though Sony took no
Speaker 1: real steps to secure this folder, which made it easy
Speaker 1: pickings for the hackers once they actually gained access to
Speaker 1: Sony systems, and that too has raised some pretty tough questions.
Speaker 1: I have not yet seen a company response from Sony
Speaker 1: to this issue, but I will continue to update the
Speaker 1: story if we learn more. Speaking of data breaches, the
Speaker 1: social network LinkedIn has experienced something similar to one, though
Speaker 1: technically it's not actually a breach. The company saw a
Speaker 1: massive data scrape, that is, someone collected a ton of
Speaker 1: data off of linked In profiles, and that happened back
Speaker 1: in May. Hackers scrape data from half a billion linked
Speaker 1: In user profiles. But now a VPN called privacy Shark
Speaker 1: says that a user with the handle tom Liner showed
Speaker 1: that they have a document that includes seven hundred million
Speaker 1: LinkedIn user records in it. That represents more than of
Speaker 1: all LinkedIn users. So, in other words, if you have
Speaker 1: a LinkedIn account, the odds are very good that your
Speaker 1: information is in that big file. Tomliner, by the way,
Speaker 1: is planning to sell that information off because data has
Speaker 1: a price. Just you know, those of us who are
Speaker 1: actually creating the data rarely get to reap the benefits
Speaker 1: of that data apart from you know, having the privilege
Speaker 1: of using these various online platforms. That is what the
Speaker 1: same ones that are unfortunately allowing that data to roam free.
Speaker 1: The information contained with tom Liner's collection includes stuff like
Speaker 1: full names, phone numbers, addresses, that kind of stuff. It
Speaker 1: does seem that this is the result of entities just
Speaker 1: scraping public data off of LinkedIn files, which is similar
Speaker 1: to something I talked about recently when LinkedIn when after
Speaker 1: another company that essentially did the same sort of thing ing.
Speaker 1: So in a way, you could say that people who
Speaker 1: are selling this information are able to do so simply
Speaker 1: because we as users have allowed this information to be
Speaker 1: public It's just that the people who are collecting this
Speaker 1: information were able to do it at scale, and they
Speaker 1: likely exploited LinkedIn's application interface in order to create an
Speaker 1: app that automatically ended up collecting all this data. Since
Speaker 1: it's not a breach, this gets a little complicated. I mean,
Speaker 1: LinkedIn didn't make our data vulnerable so much as it
Speaker 1: had an ap I that facilitated the mass collection of
Speaker 1: data publicly available on the platform. What does this mean
Speaker 1: for you? If your data was in there? Probably means
Speaker 1: you're gonna end up on a lot of other lists
Speaker 1: for stuff like spam and robo calls, possibly with phishing
Speaker 1: or maybe even spear phishing attacks. Spear Fishing is when
Speaker 1: you've actually got some data about your target to work with,
Speaker 1: which means you can craft your attack to be potentially
Speaker 1: more effective and increase its likelihood of success. It's a bummer. Next,
Speaker 1: the investing platform of robin Hood is going to have
Speaker 1: to pay almost seventy million dollars in fines to the
Speaker 1: Financial Industry Regulatory Authority or finn raw f I n
Speaker 1: r A in order to settle allegations that robin Hood
Speaker 1: caused quote widespread and significant harm end quote to customers
Speaker 1: mostly through misinformation. That misinformation includes charges that the company
Speaker 1: misled customers on how much money they had in their
Speaker 1: accounts UH and whether or not they would be allowed
Speaker 1: to place trades on margin. Finner found that the misinformation
Speaker 1: meant customers collectively lost around seven million dollars, and honestly,
Speaker 1: I think that's supposed to be the opposite of what
Speaker 1: investment firms tend to promise their customers. It's a rare
Speaker 1: thing to see an investment platform say, use us, we
Speaker 1: can lose your money more effectively than anyone else can.
Speaker 1: Robin Hood was in the news earlier this year when
Speaker 1: independent investors were jumping on the game Stop stock roller coaster.
Speaker 1: Robin Hood ended up placing tight restrictions on game Stop
Speaker 1: stock trades, meaning if you were an independent investor and
Speaker 1: you wanted to get in on the game Stop action,
Speaker 1: you hit a major roadblock. The company's official statement at
Speaker 1: that time was that it was trying to protect the
Speaker 1: company and investors UH in a situation that had volderle
Speaker 1: stock trades and also some regulatory issues, But some skeptical
Speaker 1: investors argued that major parties that own a stake in
Speaker 1: robin Hood had a vested interest in game Stop stock
Speaker 1: going down and value, and thus the company was acting
Speaker 1: in a conflict of interest with its customers. Google is
Speaker 1: rolling out a new feature for Android users starting in
Speaker 1: the United States that will let them store a digital
Speaker 1: vaccine card called a COVID card. It will also support
Speaker 1: storing COVID test results. The card will include information such
Speaker 1: as where you received your vaccination, when that vaccination happened,
Speaker 1: and possibly some other information sation like which vaccine you received.
Speaker 1: Google designed the system so that the information remains on
Speaker 1: your device, so, in other words, there's no copy of
Speaker 1: this information sent to the cloud that could represent a
Speaker 1: possible privacy risk. Google will collect some meta information about
Speaker 1: the app, such as how frequently you actually use the card.
Speaker 1: This could come in handy should vaccine cards become a
Speaker 1: requirement for certain things, you know, like travel to specific
Speaker 1: countries or attending specific events, though here in the US
Speaker 1: we're seeing an awful lot of resistance to those sort
Speaker 1: of things, going so far as to have some state
Speaker 1: governors declare that a vaccination requirement will not be tolerated
Speaker 1: for big events because I guess it's just more important
Speaker 1: for potentially sick people to be able to go to
Speaker 1: these public events than it is to ensure the safety
Speaker 1: of those who are already in attendance. I don't know,
Speaker 1: because I can't see the logic in it. Next half
Speaker 1: a century ago, Stephen Hawking proposed a theorem that stated
Speaker 1: a black holes event horizon, that is the boundary around
Speaker 1: the black hole that marks the point of no escape.
Speaker 1: If you cross the event horizon, you will be pulled
Speaker 1: into that black hole. You cannot escape. That theorem says
Speaker 1: that the event horizon would never shrink. The math worked
Speaker 1: out that way, but that was all you could say
Speaker 1: about it, is that mathematically it makes sense. And for
Speaker 1: fifty years that's all we had to go on because
Speaker 1: we had no real means of making observations that could
Speaker 1: either confirm or deny that theorem. But that has changed.
Speaker 1: Scientists at M I T and a few other research
Speaker 1: facilities announced in a paper that was published in Physical
Speaker 1: Review Letters that they have observed gravitational waves that confirm
Speaker 1: Hawking's theorem for the first time. Now, I wish I
Speaker 1: could explain the process of how they did this, but
Speaker 1: I read over it about three or four times and
Speaker 1: it's well beyond my ability to really understand it. So
Speaker 1: rather than attempt to explain something and then get it
Speaker 1: all wrong, I'm instead just going to report that the
Speaker 1: scientists say they have a confidence that their observations mean
Speaker 1: that Hawking's theorem is correct. This is another example of
Speaker 1: how super deeper smart people have looked at the world
Speaker 1: and the universe and they've used mathematics to describe it
Speaker 1: and then predict something that is unobservable or at least
Speaker 1: unobservable at the time, and then later we found out
Speaker 1: it proved to be true. Einstein is famous for this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, and it really floors me. And I
Speaker 1: suppose it shows that there is a logical order when
Speaker 1: you get down to the nuts and bolts of the universe,
Speaker 1: and if there weren't, then stuff like math just wouldn't work. Really,
Speaker 1: nothing would work the way we understand it. Reality would
Speaker 1: be fundamentally different. I may see if I can get
Speaker 1: an expert on tech stuff at some point to talk
Speaker 1: about this in greater detail and to kind of answer
Speaker 1: questions about it and the actual process of validating or
Speaker 1: or confirming Hawking's theorem, because I would love to learn
Speaker 1: more myself, and I just know that I lack the
Speaker 1: understanding necessary to be able to explain it properly. More
Speaker 1: than a decade ago, I wrote an article for How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works about quantum computers, talking about stuff that's difficult
Speaker 1: to understand. At the time when I wrote the article,
Speaker 1: there were only a few very rudimentary quantum computers even
Speaker 1: in development. A quantum computers basic unit of information is
Speaker 1: the cubit or quantum bit. So a normal bit is
Speaker 1: either a zero or a one. It has to be
Speaker 1: one or the other. Cubits can be different. They can
Speaker 1: technically inhabit both values simultaneously. In fact, they can technically
Speaker 1: inhabit all values in between zero and one. That means
Speaker 1: that with the right kind of computational problems, a quantum
Speaker 1: computer could arrive at solutions far faster and more reliably
Speaker 1: than a classical you know computer could. It wouldn't be
Speaker 1: great for everything, right, A quantum computer would not be
Speaker 1: better than a classical computer in every application. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to use a quantum computer to run the latest
Speaker 1: version of Call of Duty, for example, But for this
Speaker 1: subset of computer problems it could change the world. Now,
Speaker 1: IBM has become the first company to make practical use
Speaker 1: of a quantum computer in a way that proves it
Speaker 1: is advantageous over classical computing. The researchers at IBM published
Speaker 1: their work in Nature Physics in an article titled Quantum
Speaker 1: advantage for Computations with limited space, which sounds like they
Speaker 1: were trying to use a computer in my old dorm
Speaker 1: room at college, but no. They performed an experiment in
Speaker 1: which they pitted a classical computer against a quantum computer.
Speaker 1: They tried to control for as many variables as possible,
Speaker 1: and they found that for a specific subset of computational problems,
Speaker 1: the quantum computer could perform flawlessly, while the classical computer
Speaker 1: would have at best an error rate of around twelve percent.
Speaker 1: Quantum computers have the potential to disrupt fields like encryption,
Speaker 1: because a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could be able to
Speaker 1: brake encryption essentially through brute force, in a fraction of
Speaker 1: the time it would take a classical computer. For classical computers,
Speaker 1: you might be looking at, you know, tens of thousands
Speaker 1: of years to do this, whereas a quantum computer might
Speaker 1: do it in a few minutes. Now, if that's the case,
Speaker 1: if that in fact does come to pass, then this
Speaker 1: will necessitate a massive change in how we encrypt digital information,
Speaker 1: because it's effectively the same thing as handing out skeleton
Speaker 1: keys for all the locks that are out there, which
Speaker 1: is both scary and exciting stuff. Finally, Tim Burner's leave
Speaker 1: recently auction off and n f T or non fungible
Speaker 1: token representing the original source code for the Worldwide Web.
Speaker 1: This n f T sold for five point four million
Speaker 1: dollars at auction and quick reminder and n f T
Speaker 1: is kind of like a receipt or a certificate of ownership.
Speaker 1: It doesn't actually give anyone access to the thing it
Speaker 1: represents necessarily, nor does it prevent anyone from making copies
Speaker 1: of that thing. It's more like the representation of ownership.
Speaker 1: And he might ask the question, well, what practical good
Speaker 1: is that? And my response is, oh, n f T
Speaker 1: s have become a bit of a commodity. However, I
Speaker 1: would say they aren't quite in the same space as
Speaker 1: they were a couple of months ago when people were
Speaker 1: really going gaga for them. That's when the popularity really spiked.
Speaker 1: They are built on top of a blockchain. That means
Speaker 1: it is easy to trace and authenticate the ownership of
Speaker 1: an n f T, so While you might not be
Speaker 1: able to do anything practical with the thing that the
Speaker 1: n f T represents, you could at least point to
Speaker 1: the blockchain and say, but I for reals own it,
Speaker 1: and you can see right here because it's part of
Speaker 1: the blockchain of transactions. So I don't know. Humans are weird.
Speaker 1: And that wraps up the news for Thursday, July one,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. I hope all of you out there
Speaker 1: in the United States have a safe Fourth of July
Speaker 1: weekend as you celebrate. Do be careful if you are celebrating.
Speaker 1: For those of you with dogs, I wish you a
Speaker 1: quiet night or quiet weekend because I know how my
Speaker 1: dog is with fireworks going off nearby, so my heart
Speaker 1: goes out to you. For everyone everywhere else, obviously, have
Speaker 1: a safe weekend a happy one. You just probably won't
Speaker 1: be celebrating Fourth of July. And if you have any
Speaker 1: suggestions for future topics of tech stuff, reach out to me.
Speaker 1: Do so on Twitter. The handle is text stuff h
Speaker 1: s W and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more
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