1 00:00:02,480 --> 00:00:03,520 Speaker 1: All Zone Media. 2 00:00:05,400 --> 00:00:08,440 Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host ed Zichron. 3 00:00:20,360 --> 00:00:24,200 Speaker 2: Now you may have forgotten, but about a month or 4 00:00:24,239 --> 00:00:28,480 Speaker 2: two ago we had a huge, complete meltdown of the 5 00:00:28,520 --> 00:00:31,760 Speaker 2: computer systems of the world when CrowdStrike failed. I did 6 00:00:31,760 --> 00:00:34,200 Speaker 2: an episode on it, and well we've all just kind 7 00:00:34,200 --> 00:00:37,680 Speaker 2: of forgotten about it. And today I'm joined by Christokal Walker, 8 00:00:37,760 --> 00:00:42,680 Speaker 2: who's an author, journalist, lecturer and starting new column at 9 00:00:42,680 --> 00:00:43,400 Speaker 2: The Guardian as well. 10 00:00:43,400 --> 00:00:46,800 Speaker 1: Aren't you yeah for a whole weeknad, I'm a whole month. 11 00:00:46,840 --> 00:00:49,880 Speaker 1: I'm taking over tech space, which will be very exciting 12 00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:51,680 Speaker 1: for the month of September. 13 00:00:52,080 --> 00:00:53,640 Speaker 2: But the reason I brought you on is you wrote 14 00:00:53,640 --> 00:00:56,320 Speaker 2: a great article for The Independent back at the end 15 00:00:56,400 --> 00:00:59,160 Speaker 2: of July about how CrowdStrike isn't the only cyber company 16 00:00:59,200 --> 00:01:01,120 Speaker 2: that could trigger a glow, will melt down the second 17 00:01:01,120 --> 00:01:03,560 Speaker 2: they fail. And this is a subject that fascinates me 18 00:01:03,640 --> 00:01:08,720 Speaker 2: because I love disaster movies and also this article was terrifying, 19 00:01:09,200 --> 00:01:10,960 Speaker 2: So why don't you walk me through it? 20 00:01:11,959 --> 00:01:15,920 Speaker 1: Yeah, So, basically, back in July we had that odd 21 00:01:15,920 --> 00:01:20,039 Speaker 1: outage that people might remember. Basically people woke up in 22 00:01:20,880 --> 00:01:25,160 Speaker 1: Asia Australia and then eventually the UK and encountered blue 23 00:01:25,160 --> 00:01:28,240 Speaker 1: screens of death on Microsoft Windows, which is something amazing 24 00:01:28,319 --> 00:01:32,039 Speaker 1: that you know. I'm thirty five now and I remember 25 00:01:32,080 --> 00:01:34,080 Speaker 1: that happening when I was a kid, and then it's 26 00:01:34,280 --> 00:01:37,120 Speaker 1: never happened since, like for all that, you know, people 27 00:01:37,160 --> 00:01:40,560 Speaker 1: make fun of Microsoft. Actually their PCs are decent, but 28 00:01:40,680 --> 00:01:44,399 Speaker 1: then suddenly everything went to hell in the handbasket. So 29 00:01:44,880 --> 00:01:47,080 Speaker 1: it turns out that, you know, CrowdStrike, which is one 30 00:01:47,080 --> 00:01:51,440 Speaker 1: of the big service providers for kind of antivirus tools 31 00:01:51,480 --> 00:01:56,520 Speaker 1: and software, had mist configured basically the thing that protects 32 00:01:56,600 --> 00:01:58,920 Speaker 1: us so that it actually harmed us, which is just 33 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:01,320 Speaker 1: the ultimate in fantastic arriagories. 34 00:02:01,520 --> 00:02:05,200 Speaker 2: And it turned out that it was actually within CrowdStrike, 35 00:02:05,400 --> 00:02:08,920 Speaker 2: the thing that was bugged failed because the bug checking 36 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:11,640 Speaker 2: thing had a bug in it, which is so good. 37 00:02:12,120 --> 00:02:14,440 Speaker 2: It's so good that we have everything built on. 38 00:02:15,840 --> 00:02:18,200 Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is this is this is the thing, 39 00:02:18,280 --> 00:02:21,800 Speaker 1: right it is? And I guess this is This is 40 00:02:21,919 --> 00:02:25,160 Speaker 1: something that a lot of your listeners and others will 41 00:02:25,240 --> 00:02:27,880 Speaker 1: chime with because you share a similar sensibility to me, 42 00:02:27,960 --> 00:02:30,720 Speaker 1: which is that we have built a huge thing which 43 00:02:30,800 --> 00:02:33,120 Speaker 1: is kind of like on a house of cards that 44 00:02:33,520 --> 00:02:36,760 Speaker 1: is actually hiding the fact that humans are involved in this, 45 00:02:36,840 --> 00:02:40,720 Speaker 1: and humans screw up frequently. Yet we think that actually, 46 00:02:41,520 --> 00:02:43,480 Speaker 1: because this is wiz bang tech, you don't have to 47 00:02:43,480 --> 00:02:47,040 Speaker 1: worry about it. It will worry of automation, Yeah, precisely, 48 00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:49,919 Speaker 1: And yet it's not as some guy who's overworked, overtired 49 00:02:50,480 --> 00:02:53,320 Speaker 1: and can't type properly and has fat fingers like you mean. 50 00:02:53,880 --> 00:02:57,440 Speaker 2: Yeah, And a combination of private software companies like CrowdStrike, 51 00:02:57,560 --> 00:03:00,560 Speaker 2: and then as you'll get into open source solutions that 52 00:03:00,760 --> 00:03:03,560 Speaker 2: are a lot of people doing them for the love 53 00:03:03,600 --> 00:03:07,280 Speaker 2: of the game, which is wonderful. But at the same time, 54 00:03:07,880 --> 00:03:10,360 Speaker 2: we've got this patchwork system that holds up the Internet 55 00:03:10,360 --> 00:03:12,600 Speaker 2: and a lot of the tech we rely on and 56 00:03:12,639 --> 00:03:14,680 Speaker 2: we don't really know, and the fact that so much 57 00:03:14,680 --> 00:03:16,720 Speaker 2: of it is automated is also terrifying. 58 00:03:17,320 --> 00:03:20,120 Speaker 1: Yeah, And this is the thing that that update was 59 00:03:20,240 --> 00:03:23,640 Speaker 1: sent out to millions of PCs over the course of 60 00:03:23,680 --> 00:03:27,560 Speaker 1: an evening while people were sleeping, and people didn't realize 61 00:03:27,560 --> 00:03:29,240 Speaker 1: that it was a massive issue with it until they 62 00:03:29,320 --> 00:03:32,000 Speaker 1: started to wake up, and at that point it is 63 00:03:32,120 --> 00:03:34,280 Speaker 1: essentially too late. And the best part of this story, 64 00:03:34,320 --> 00:03:37,920 Speaker 1: I think, is that to fix the issue, and we 65 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:40,200 Speaker 1: have kind of fixed the issue a couple months on. 66 00:03:40,680 --> 00:03:41,960 Speaker 1: For a lot of them, you had to actually get 67 00:03:41,960 --> 00:03:44,960 Speaker 1: individual people to go out to either a computer or 68 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:48,360 Speaker 1: a terminal somewhere and put in the actual updates to 69 00:03:49,160 --> 00:03:52,400 Speaker 1: unscrew up the problem that had existed initially, but you 70 00:03:52,480 --> 00:03:55,920 Speaker 1: highlighted there to kind of the issue of how much 71 00:03:55,960 --> 00:04:00,000 Speaker 1: of this is seen as kind of public utilities nowaday 72 00:04:00,200 --> 00:04:03,320 Speaker 1: is like the plumbing of our kind of entire world, 73 00:04:03,360 --> 00:04:05,400 Speaker 1: and yet it is kind of really rickety and hell 74 00:04:05,480 --> 00:04:08,160 Speaker 1: together with scotch tape and a little bit of chewing gum. 75 00:04:08,400 --> 00:04:11,280 Speaker 1: I did think a story a decade ago about how 76 00:04:11,960 --> 00:04:13,880 Speaker 1: we had a similar issue with a thing called heartleaed, 77 00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:18,960 Speaker 1: which was another co So basically it was another similar 78 00:04:18,960 --> 00:04:21,320 Speaker 1: thing where there was an update to a thing called 79 00:04:21,320 --> 00:04:25,840 Speaker 1: open SSL, which is the software tool that encrypts all 80 00:04:25,880 --> 00:04:29,800 Speaker 1: the data that is sent through payment systems and passwords 81 00:04:29,800 --> 00:04:31,520 Speaker 1: and so on and so forth. So whenever you see 82 00:04:31,520 --> 00:04:35,919 Speaker 1: that kind of yellow lock on your web browser, that 83 00:04:36,160 --> 00:04:39,680 Speaker 1: is usually running open SSL, and there was an issue 84 00:04:39,720 --> 00:04:42,640 Speaker 1: with it, which essentially meant that all of the information 85 00:04:42,680 --> 00:04:46,240 Speaker 1: that people thought was being shared in encrypted form was 86 00:04:46,279 --> 00:04:48,880 Speaker 1: actually being shown in plain texts. So someone could in 87 00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:52,559 Speaker 1: theory come along and snoop on everything that you're putting 88 00:04:52,560 --> 00:04:55,120 Speaker 1: in there, from bank account details to passwords and so 89 00:04:55,200 --> 00:04:58,520 Speaker 1: on and so forth. The reason why that happened is essentially, 90 00:04:58,600 --> 00:05:00,880 Speaker 1: the Internet at the time and to a certain extent 91 00:05:00,920 --> 00:05:03,480 Speaker 1: now or less so, was being run by two guys 92 00:05:03,560 --> 00:05:06,320 Speaker 1: named Steve. The whole thing was developed by a guy 93 00:05:06,320 --> 00:05:10,040 Speaker 1: called Steve Marquess and his friend who was also called Steve. 94 00:05:10,720 --> 00:05:14,400 Speaker 1: They were kind of this weird transatlantic romance where they 95 00:05:14,520 --> 00:05:18,080 Speaker 1: kept going open SSL. It was this initial volunteer run 96 00:05:18,120 --> 00:05:20,960 Speaker 1: project that kind of became a key part of the 97 00:05:20,960 --> 00:05:24,880 Speaker 1: Internet that frankly, these multi billion dollar companies used day in, 98 00:05:24,960 --> 00:05:27,120 Speaker 1: day out, but they decided that they didn't really want 99 00:05:27,120 --> 00:05:29,720 Speaker 1: to pay a penny for the upkeep and. 100 00:05:29,760 --> 00:05:33,520 Speaker 2: Open SSL is one of the named kind of things 101 00:05:33,560 --> 00:05:36,320 Speaker 2: that could break the entire Internet. From your article as. 102 00:05:36,160 --> 00:05:39,479 Speaker 1: Well, Yeah, this is kind of the key part of 103 00:05:39,520 --> 00:05:41,680 Speaker 1: the Internet's plumbing. And there are loads of these, right Like, 104 00:05:41,800 --> 00:05:45,320 Speaker 1: this is the thing that we don't realize until things 105 00:05:45,360 --> 00:05:48,159 Speaker 1: go wrong, and generally in it, people want to have 106 00:05:48,279 --> 00:05:51,960 Speaker 1: ninety nine point nine nine nine percent up time until 107 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:55,880 Speaker 1: you have that kind of miniature final element where actually 108 00:05:56,240 --> 00:05:59,120 Speaker 1: something does screw up and actually you start to recognize 109 00:05:59,120 --> 00:06:02,200 Speaker 1: that this thing is held together pretty precariously. We don't 110 00:06:02,240 --> 00:06:06,240 Speaker 1: realize it, but there is a sort of cabal of 111 00:06:06,520 --> 00:06:10,640 Speaker 1: half a dozen or so companies whose job is essentially 112 00:06:10,680 --> 00:06:14,240 Speaker 1: to keep this stuff running, and sometimes they do screw. 113 00:06:14,080 --> 00:06:17,839 Speaker 2: Up and open SSL. How was that actually funded? Is 114 00:06:17,880 --> 00:06:20,200 Speaker 2: it donations or Yeah? 115 00:06:20,240 --> 00:06:22,360 Speaker 1: So Initially at the time, back in twenty fourteen, when 116 00:06:22,360 --> 00:06:26,520 Speaker 1: heartle was Hartleed was kind of an issue. They were 117 00:06:26,720 --> 00:06:29,679 Speaker 1: essentially relying on to nations. This was open source software 118 00:06:29,680 --> 00:06:32,320 Speaker 1: and that it's kind of the basic principle of the web. 119 00:06:32,320 --> 00:06:35,080 Speaker 1: We often forget about this. Actually it is hobbyists that 120 00:06:35,240 --> 00:06:38,760 Speaker 1: set this thing up alongside a huge military industrial. 121 00:06:38,400 --> 00:06:41,680 Speaker 2: Company XKCD comic, which is everything's held up by a 122 00:06:41,680 --> 00:06:42,360 Speaker 2: guy called Runk. 123 00:06:42,880 --> 00:06:45,200 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it turns out it was actually Steve but 124 00:06:45,560 --> 00:06:49,359 Speaker 1: basically the same sort of thing, and that is the 125 00:06:49,400 --> 00:06:52,000 Speaker 1: problem is they weren't fully funded. I did a follow 126 00:06:52,080 --> 00:06:56,040 Speaker 1: up story back in twenty fourteen because Hertleed kind of 127 00:06:56,120 --> 00:06:58,320 Speaker 1: drew the attention to this. And it comes back to 128 00:06:58,360 --> 00:07:01,400 Speaker 1: that idea of how when you started our podcast here 129 00:07:01,440 --> 00:07:04,840 Speaker 1: where you said this thing happened, this huge chaotic thing, 130 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:07,039 Speaker 1: and you've probably forgotten about it because it's been two 131 00:07:07,040 --> 00:07:10,840 Speaker 1: months and we moved on same thing with heartleads. This happened, 132 00:07:10,960 --> 00:07:13,760 Speaker 1: there was this huge outcry. They got a bit of 133 00:07:13,760 --> 00:07:16,040 Speaker 1: funding around about a million dollars that was meant to 134 00:07:16,120 --> 00:07:18,280 Speaker 1: kind of make them back on an even keel and 135 00:07:18,280 --> 00:07:21,240 Speaker 1: so that they could be sustainable. Reality is kind of 136 00:07:21,360 --> 00:07:22,160 Speaker 1: didn't work. 137 00:07:23,240 --> 00:07:24,720 Speaker 2: What do you mean it didn't work. 138 00:07:24,960 --> 00:07:27,120 Speaker 1: Well in the sense of they still had this issue 139 00:07:27,200 --> 00:07:30,120 Speaker 1: happen again and again. So what was meant to be 140 00:07:30,280 --> 00:07:33,400 Speaker 1: kind of a fronting up. I suppose of big tech 141 00:07:33,440 --> 00:07:36,920 Speaker 1: companies saying, actually, you know what, we recognized that this 142 00:07:37,360 --> 00:07:42,520 Speaker 1: hobbyist service is a vital part of our internet's running. 143 00:07:42,680 --> 00:07:46,960 Speaker 1: We will fund it so it is sustainable. Didn't necessarily happen, 144 00:07:47,760 --> 00:07:49,960 Speaker 1: not to the extent that we've had another heartlead from 145 00:07:49,960 --> 00:07:54,160 Speaker 1: open SSL. But they do struggle still to kind of 146 00:07:54,360 --> 00:07:58,200 Speaker 1: keep things going. And that is I think the big problem, 147 00:07:58,480 --> 00:08:04,239 Speaker 1: which is the news agenda moves on. People forget very quickly, 148 00:08:04,560 --> 00:08:07,760 Speaker 1: and because there is then not a problem for a 149 00:08:07,800 --> 00:08:12,400 Speaker 1: little while longer, we kind of lurch from one catastrophic 150 00:08:12,640 --> 00:08:13,760 Speaker 1: near miss to another. 151 00:08:14,720 --> 00:08:18,160 Speaker 2: So open SSL what does it actually do? Though? I 152 00:08:18,200 --> 00:08:21,720 Speaker 2: know you it's the little padlock on browsers. But what 153 00:08:21,880 --> 00:08:24,320 Speaker 2: is its foundational point? 154 00:08:25,280 --> 00:08:30,480 Speaker 1: Yeah, so it basically it shepherds across data from from 155 00:08:30,640 --> 00:08:37,679 Speaker 1: a user to kind of a service provider. So if 156 00:08:37,720 --> 00:08:41,000 Speaker 1: you think about it as kind of you input text 157 00:08:41,480 --> 00:08:44,800 Speaker 1: on your laptop, your phone, wherever you are. It will 158 00:08:44,840 --> 00:08:48,400 Speaker 1: then encrypt it. It will transfer it over to a 159 00:08:48,440 --> 00:08:54,480 Speaker 1: payment provider, to your bank, to frankly also pretty much 160 00:08:54,520 --> 00:08:56,760 Speaker 1: anywhere that you put a password in and it will 161 00:08:56,840 --> 00:08:59,920 Speaker 1: ensure that that is encrypted all away. But there was 162 00:09:00,200 --> 00:09:02,480 Speaker 1: an issue with the coding of it, which meant that actually, 163 00:09:03,920 --> 00:09:08,400 Speaker 1: again comes back to fat fingers, some elements of what 164 00:09:08,520 --> 00:09:12,560 Speaker 1: was being transferred went into kind of excess memory, which 165 00:09:12,559 --> 00:09:15,000 Speaker 1: basically meant that bits of it were encrypted, but then 166 00:09:15,280 --> 00:09:17,720 Speaker 1: large parts of it weren't. So if you were unlucky, 167 00:09:18,520 --> 00:09:21,120 Speaker 1: then the bits that weren't encrypted could be your credit 168 00:09:21,120 --> 00:09:24,280 Speaker 1: card details, your sort code, and your account number and 169 00:09:24,320 --> 00:09:27,400 Speaker 1: a CBC number. And that's why there was kind of 170 00:09:27,440 --> 00:09:30,800 Speaker 1: this big red flashing light back in a decade or 171 00:09:30,840 --> 00:09:35,079 Speaker 1: so ago where people thought, you know what, actually, this exploit, 172 00:09:35,280 --> 00:09:39,720 Speaker 1: if left unchecked, could become a massive issue and a 173 00:09:39,760 --> 00:09:42,920 Speaker 1: real boon for cyber criminals. I think actually had it 174 00:09:42,960 --> 00:09:45,679 Speaker 1: happened in twenty twenty four, we would have seen much 175 00:09:45,880 --> 00:09:49,480 Speaker 1: more of a sort of significant issue in terms of 176 00:09:49,559 --> 00:09:53,040 Speaker 1: second third or more ramifications because cybercriminals would have been 177 00:09:53,040 --> 00:09:54,040 Speaker 1: all over that stuff. 178 00:09:54,960 --> 00:09:59,080 Speaker 2: And if open SSL breaks again, and that just means 179 00:09:59,080 --> 00:10:01,640 Speaker 2: that the Internet it is not really encrypted, but every 180 00:10:01,840 --> 00:10:05,000 Speaker 2: place that uses it is kind of at risk every 181 00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:06,199 Speaker 2: transaction on every place. 182 00:10:07,320 --> 00:10:09,240 Speaker 1: Yeah, and that is that is the issue, that is 183 00:10:09,320 --> 00:10:12,840 Speaker 1: the high wire act that is the Internet. And we've 184 00:10:12,880 --> 00:10:17,439 Speaker 1: seen outages like this come and go time and time again. 185 00:10:17,760 --> 00:10:22,160 Speaker 1: You know, we've had the crowd strike instant where you 186 00:10:22,200 --> 00:10:26,200 Speaker 1: can actually get onto your desktop or your laptops. We've 187 00:10:26,320 --> 00:10:32,360 Speaker 1: had outages on major payment platforms. We've had banks going offline, 188 00:10:32,520 --> 00:10:36,640 Speaker 1: we've had social networks kind of disappearing for hours at 189 00:10:36,640 --> 00:10:40,560 Speaker 1: a time. And invariably, this is just a very simple 190 00:10:40,679 --> 00:10:44,240 Speaker 1: error that snowballs repeatedly and we're kind of doomed to 191 00:10:44,280 --> 00:10:46,560 Speaker 1: repeat it. And I guess the challenge is, like, how 192 00:10:46,600 --> 00:10:49,679 Speaker 1: do we put the web on a firmer footing that 193 00:10:49,800 --> 00:10:51,520 Speaker 1: prevents this from happening again and again. 194 00:10:52,080 --> 00:10:56,000 Speaker 2: It feels like funding the open SSL movement of foundation 195 00:10:56,160 --> 00:11:00,000 Speaker 2: would probably be a good start, But let's I imagine 196 00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:02,480 Speaker 2: and that's not happening. We need to build the computer 197 00:11:02,520 --> 00:11:05,760 Speaker 2: that makes pictures of Garfield with a gun exactly. This 198 00:11:05,800 --> 00:11:06,040 Speaker 2: is the thing. 199 00:11:06,080 --> 00:11:08,680 Speaker 1: Commercial interests always come into this, and the reality is, 200 00:11:09,760 --> 00:11:11,520 Speaker 1: as you and I both know, and as many of 201 00:11:11,559 --> 00:11:16,200 Speaker 1: our listeners will know, companies tech companies in particular, will 202 00:11:16,360 --> 00:11:18,640 Speaker 1: take action when they realize that the spotlight is on 203 00:11:18,679 --> 00:11:21,160 Speaker 1: them and that there is this kind of intrinsic demand 204 00:11:21,200 --> 00:11:23,600 Speaker 1: for them to do that as soon as it's off, 205 00:11:23,840 --> 00:11:26,319 Speaker 1: they're actually doing the same old thing. They are happy 206 00:11:26,720 --> 00:11:28,160 Speaker 1: with the status quo as it is. 207 00:11:28,720 --> 00:11:31,520 Speaker 2: Which is crazy as well, because what worries me about 208 00:11:31,600 --> 00:11:36,080 Speaker 2: open SSL is that nobody will really be to blame 209 00:11:36,240 --> 00:11:39,439 Speaker 2: and thus nobody will really feel responsible. They might kick 210 00:11:39,480 --> 00:11:42,640 Speaker 2: in some money here and there. Google especially very reliant 211 00:11:42,640 --> 00:11:45,760 Speaker 2: on them, but I just don't see them doing it. 212 00:11:46,679 --> 00:11:48,600 Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is the thing that the only people 213 00:11:48,640 --> 00:11:52,040 Speaker 1: that I really noticed when I was reporting out that 214 00:11:52,080 --> 00:11:55,880 Speaker 1: story a decade ago who felt any kind of like 215 00:11:56,559 --> 00:12:02,800 Speaker 1: guilt or personal alarm kind of just like even responsibility 216 00:12:02,880 --> 00:12:06,000 Speaker 1: for it were actually those two Steves, like they were 217 00:12:06,200 --> 00:12:11,160 Speaker 1: they will gut it. The story I did, Yeah, the 218 00:12:11,160 --> 00:12:15,199 Speaker 1: story I did for bus you back then was it 219 00:12:15,240 --> 00:12:18,200 Speaker 1: was very difficult to report out because they had been 220 00:12:19,679 --> 00:12:23,160 Speaker 1: taken out of not to overly stereotype, but they were 221 00:12:23,200 --> 00:12:27,120 Speaker 1: like super tech, nuity people like they they were very 222 00:12:27,160 --> 00:12:30,640 Speaker 1: happy being in the background tinkering with this thing. They 223 00:12:30,679 --> 00:12:33,040 Speaker 1: realized that it was important and they took their jobs 224 00:12:33,160 --> 00:12:36,000 Speaker 1: very seriously, but they had never been put in a spotlight, 225 00:12:36,080 --> 00:12:38,680 Speaker 1: and they were initially very wary of speaking to me 226 00:12:38,760 --> 00:12:43,360 Speaker 1: because suddenly this thing happened. And it's over the course 227 00:12:43,400 --> 00:12:45,680 Speaker 1: of like hours that they got kind of thrust into 228 00:12:45,679 --> 00:12:48,200 Speaker 1: the limelight. They had the daily mail knocking at their door, 229 00:12:48,240 --> 00:12:50,559 Speaker 1: which was one of the reasons why they were the 230 00:12:50,679 --> 00:12:53,079 Speaker 1: super wary of talking to me. So it took actually 231 00:12:53,520 --> 00:12:55,600 Speaker 1: a few days of winning them over and saying, you 232 00:12:55,640 --> 00:12:58,480 Speaker 1: know what, like this isn't going to be a hit job, 233 00:12:58,600 --> 00:13:01,680 Speaker 1: Like I'm not looking to kind of hold you up 234 00:13:01,720 --> 00:13:05,680 Speaker 1: and say this is the person responsible for this happening. 235 00:13:06,360 --> 00:13:09,480 Speaker 1: It's more I wanted to tell the story of why 236 00:13:09,520 --> 00:13:13,160 Speaker 1: this has happened, why it's an issue, and why we 237 00:13:13,200 --> 00:13:17,559 Speaker 1: shouldn't have the ability for kind of slight errors in 238 00:13:17,720 --> 00:13:23,080 Speaker 1: upkey do cause catastrophic effects. 239 00:13:31,600 --> 00:13:36,800 Speaker 2: It almost feels like people getting mad at the homeless 240 00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:39,720 Speaker 2: to some extent where it's like, oh, this person is 241 00:13:39,760 --> 00:13:42,360 Speaker 2: on the street and there are problems that are happening 242 00:13:42,720 --> 00:13:45,440 Speaker 2: around them, and they are and you blame the person 243 00:13:45,480 --> 00:13:47,640 Speaker 2: who is the victim here. You blame the fact that 244 00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:50,760 Speaker 2: when you look at the Internet right now and it's instability, 245 00:13:50,800 --> 00:13:53,280 Speaker 2: you're like, oh, well, these open source people who are 246 00:13:53,280 --> 00:13:55,120 Speaker 2: doing it for free, it's therefore because they should have 247 00:13:55,120 --> 00:13:58,160 Speaker 2: fucking they should have been better at doing this thing 248 00:13:58,200 --> 00:14:00,960 Speaker 2: for free. That holds up the entire versus the fact 249 00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:05,000 Speaker 2: that the problem is that the entire Internet relies on 250 00:14:05,040 --> 00:14:07,960 Speaker 2: this underfunded group of people, and it really is. I 251 00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:10,319 Speaker 2: just want to be clear for listeners and Chris you 252 00:14:10,400 --> 00:14:13,000 Speaker 2: of course know this. When I say this holds up 253 00:14:13,040 --> 00:14:16,000 Speaker 2: the entire Internet, I do actually mean that. It's very 254 00:14:16,040 --> 00:14:18,880 Speaker 2: easy to fall vout to hyperbole sometimes, but this is 255 00:14:19,320 --> 00:14:23,160 Speaker 2: genuinely that level. When Heartbleod happened, it sounds like it 256 00:14:23,160 --> 00:14:24,880 Speaker 2: could have been truly catastrophic. 257 00:14:26,280 --> 00:14:29,400 Speaker 1: Good. It really good. And this is the thing that 258 00:14:29,440 --> 00:14:36,360 Speaker 1: we overlook is either there are kind of not amateurs, 259 00:14:36,360 --> 00:14:38,240 Speaker 1: because these people are super professional in terms of what 260 00:14:38,280 --> 00:14:40,360 Speaker 1: they do and they take their jobs around seriously, but 261 00:14:40,400 --> 00:14:43,360 Speaker 1: they are either not paid or they're paid a pittance, 262 00:14:43,440 --> 00:14:47,120 Speaker 1: particularly in comparison to the total compensation packages that you 263 00:14:47,200 --> 00:14:50,960 Speaker 1: see washing around Silicon Valley. And yet there is this 264 00:14:51,040 --> 00:14:56,000 Speaker 1: kind of super extractive approach from big tech companies of 265 00:14:56,560 --> 00:14:59,280 Speaker 1: we will kind of roll in whatever it is that 266 00:14:59,320 --> 00:15:02,000 Speaker 1: you provided us soften open source. And this is the 267 00:15:02,120 --> 00:15:04,720 Speaker 1: kind of big secret right of A large part of 268 00:15:04,720 --> 00:15:08,520 Speaker 1: big techs success is they rely on these open source 269 00:15:08,600 --> 00:15:12,920 Speaker 1: developments that have kind of underpinned key parts of their tech, 270 00:15:13,280 --> 00:15:17,600 Speaker 1: and if things go wrong, they can always shift the 271 00:15:17,600 --> 00:15:20,440 Speaker 1: blame onto those open source things and say, well, this 272 00:15:20,480 --> 00:15:23,840 Speaker 1: isn't actually our fault, this is the fault of our supplier, 273 00:15:24,000 --> 00:15:26,760 Speaker 1: the thing that came second or third order down the line. 274 00:15:27,400 --> 00:15:29,840 Speaker 2: And you've got this big movement in cloud as well 275 00:15:29,840 --> 00:15:33,240 Speaker 2: towards like composable architecture, which involves a lot of slotting 276 00:15:33,240 --> 00:15:36,800 Speaker 2: in open source solutions as well. It's just it almost 277 00:15:36,840 --> 00:15:40,320 Speaker 2: feels like we need a big tech mutual aid thing 278 00:15:40,400 --> 00:15:43,680 Speaker 2: for open source. I wish that. I don't think there's 279 00:15:43,720 --> 00:15:45,440 Speaker 2: any way we could get a government to do this, 280 00:15:45,520 --> 00:15:47,840 Speaker 2: but I think they should force big tech to put 281 00:15:48,280 --> 00:15:52,080 Speaker 2: like a percentage of revenues, not profits, into open source 282 00:15:52,120 --> 00:15:56,320 Speaker 2: and have very defined lairs for them, because otherwise you 283 00:15:56,400 --> 00:15:58,880 Speaker 2: get situations where I don't know, the entire Internet is 284 00:15:58,920 --> 00:15:59,920 Speaker 2: underpinned by two steeves. 285 00:16:01,960 --> 00:16:06,000 Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And I think this is this is the 286 00:16:06,080 --> 00:16:09,240 Speaker 1: unfortunate thing is that should be the lesson that we learned. 287 00:16:09,320 --> 00:16:11,120 Speaker 1: It should have been a lesson that we learned from 288 00:16:11,160 --> 00:16:13,800 Speaker 1: heart bleed. It should have been the lesson that we 289 00:16:13,920 --> 00:16:17,120 Speaker 1: learned from xe utils, which was another issue that we 290 00:16:17,240 --> 00:16:20,920 Speaker 1: encountered relatively recently, where there was it turned out, we 291 00:16:21,040 --> 00:16:24,960 Speaker 1: believe a bad actor kind of deliberately inserting milicious code 292 00:16:25,000 --> 00:16:27,800 Speaker 1: into another thing that kind of underpinds large parts of 293 00:16:27,800 --> 00:16:30,440 Speaker 1: our digital lives. Turns out that the volunteers that were 294 00:16:30,480 --> 00:16:33,480 Speaker 1: running that couldn't keep track of it. One of them 295 00:16:33,680 --> 00:16:35,880 Speaker 1: literally talked about their burnout and how they've kind of 296 00:16:35,880 --> 00:16:40,400 Speaker 1: taken a step away from the project. And yeah, we 297 00:16:40,480 --> 00:16:42,920 Speaker 1: always see these things kind of passing by in the 298 00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:45,800 Speaker 1: rearview window. We say, oh, you know what, isn't that 299 00:16:45,840 --> 00:16:48,080 Speaker 1: such a shame? We ought to do something about that, 300 00:16:48,400 --> 00:16:50,120 Speaker 1: And then we move on to the next thing, and 301 00:16:50,200 --> 00:16:50,880 Speaker 1: we don't. 302 00:16:50,640 --> 00:16:54,280 Speaker 2: Pay attention taking a step back. What was exe utils 303 00:16:54,280 --> 00:16:57,960 Speaker 2: for the American listeners, ex for British and Canadian what 304 00:16:58,160 --> 00:16:58,960 Speaker 2: happened there? 305 00:16:59,400 --> 00:17:03,880 Speaker 1: Yeah, this is kind of again another bit of free software. 306 00:17:05,080 --> 00:17:10,040 Speaker 1: This was back in sort of spring of twenty twenty four. 307 00:17:12,080 --> 00:17:17,960 Speaker 1: A kind of malicious hacker had, we think, basically socially 308 00:17:17,960 --> 00:17:22,600 Speaker 1: engineered their way into the upkeep of this bit of 309 00:17:22,600 --> 00:17:25,960 Speaker 1: open source utility, which is essentially designed to kind of 310 00:17:25,960 --> 00:17:28,520 Speaker 1: compress data. So the idea was that it would kind 311 00:17:28,560 --> 00:17:31,000 Speaker 1: of take a big file, chunk it up, make it smaller, 312 00:17:31,200 --> 00:17:33,720 Speaker 1: get rid of the bits that you don't need. And 313 00:17:33,800 --> 00:17:35,399 Speaker 1: it was kind of in the same way as you 314 00:17:35,480 --> 00:17:40,760 Speaker 1: talked about cloud architecture slotting in lots of really useful 315 00:17:40,800 --> 00:17:44,639 Speaker 1: open source tools, this is a similar thing where you 316 00:17:44,680 --> 00:17:49,840 Speaker 1: could slot in exit utails x utails into whatever you're 317 00:17:49,840 --> 00:17:54,520 Speaker 1: building and it would be fantastic. This guy had kind 318 00:17:54,560 --> 00:18:01,080 Speaker 1: of offered to volunteer at a time when the original developers, 319 00:18:01,200 --> 00:18:05,240 Speaker 1: the custodians of this tool were feeling very burned out, 320 00:18:05,880 --> 00:18:09,600 Speaker 1: said I will help. The original person then took their 321 00:18:09,640 --> 00:18:13,720 Speaker 1: eyes off the ball. This malicious actor started putting in 322 00:18:14,400 --> 00:18:17,480 Speaker 1: back doors intentionally the ways of accessing kind of the 323 00:18:17,560 --> 00:18:20,840 Speaker 1: data within. And it was only spotted basically by a 324 00:18:20,880 --> 00:18:24,080 Speaker 1: Microsoft developer who happened to come across. 325 00:18:23,720 --> 00:18:26,160 Speaker 2: This, and I said, and just to be clear, though 326 00:18:26,160 --> 00:18:29,040 Speaker 2: exit utils looks like it's a big part of Linux, 327 00:18:30,080 --> 00:18:33,160 Speaker 2: which is a bit which people who use the smosftware 328 00:18:33,280 --> 00:18:37,800 Speaker 2: may not realize is basically underpinning most server architects. Like 329 00:18:37,840 --> 00:18:40,320 Speaker 2: a ton of server architecture, a ton of web architecture. 330 00:18:40,400 --> 00:18:48,080 Speaker 1: Right, yeah, so servers, web servers, cloud hosting tools, lovely webcams, 331 00:18:48,240 --> 00:18:51,280 Speaker 1: basically anything that connected. Probably your fridge, if you have 332 00:18:51,800 --> 00:18:54,400 Speaker 1: an Internet of Things fridge, if you are that frivolous, 333 00:18:54,680 --> 00:18:57,320 Speaker 1: then that will be connected in some way to Linux. 334 00:18:57,359 --> 00:18:59,240 Speaker 1: I hope not. I hope that your diet coke is 335 00:18:59,280 --> 00:19:01,400 Speaker 1: not being kept cold by an IoT fridge. 336 00:19:01,440 --> 00:19:03,800 Speaker 2: And there's someone who knows me so. But so this 337 00:19:03,960 --> 00:19:06,919 Speaker 2: Microsoft developer found it. And so it turns out that 338 00:19:07,080 --> 00:19:10,440 Speaker 2: just the corruption of open source happen like it can 339 00:19:10,560 --> 00:19:14,040 Speaker 2: happen as well with these open source projects, particularly I 340 00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:16,360 Speaker 2: imagine when they're underfunded and the people get burned out. 341 00:19:16,840 --> 00:19:19,040 Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is this is the thing is again 342 00:19:19,080 --> 00:19:22,639 Speaker 1: it's another example of a kind of hobby project that 343 00:19:22,800 --> 00:19:29,760 Speaker 1: turned into something bigger. Nobody who has the money either 344 00:19:29,840 --> 00:19:32,639 Speaker 1: realized or decided that it was important enough to fund 345 00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:37,160 Speaker 1: directly the people involved who are often you know, again, 346 00:19:37,240 --> 00:19:39,080 Speaker 1: I don't want to stereotype, and I don't want to 347 00:19:39,160 --> 00:19:42,600 Speaker 1: kind of make them seem too much like a victim here, 348 00:19:43,040 --> 00:19:47,960 Speaker 1: But these folks are often super humble, super helpful, just 349 00:19:48,600 --> 00:19:53,000 Speaker 1: trying to keep their heads above water, essentially because they've 350 00:19:53,080 --> 00:19:56,760 Speaker 1: made something that has proved very, very useful, and they 351 00:19:56,760 --> 00:19:59,879 Speaker 1: don't want to trouble people by shouting for help. In 352 00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:03,520 Speaker 1: In this case, same thing happened. Single person in charge 353 00:20:03,640 --> 00:20:07,240 Speaker 1: of this tool didn't want to shout too loudly about 354 00:20:07,280 --> 00:20:09,760 Speaker 1: the problems that it would cause him in his life. 355 00:20:10,520 --> 00:20:13,000 Speaker 1: He kind of took a step away, decided to get 356 00:20:13,040 --> 00:20:16,520 Speaker 1: help from someone. Turned out they were bad, and nobody 357 00:20:16,560 --> 00:20:19,159 Speaker 1: decided to shout about it. So again this one was 358 00:20:19,200 --> 00:20:20,800 Speaker 1: This one was more deliberate rather than the fucker. 359 00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:24,119 Speaker 2: I would also say they are victims. These people are 360 00:20:24,359 --> 00:20:26,720 Speaker 2: doing some of the most important work in the world 361 00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:30,200 Speaker 2: while san Dhar Pashai gets two hundred million dollars a year. 362 00:20:31,200 --> 00:20:34,679 Speaker 2: That I see these people as heroes and victims at 363 00:20:34,680 --> 00:20:35,720 Speaker 2: the same time. 364 00:20:36,200 --> 00:20:38,919 Speaker 1: Yeah, and I agree, I think. I think what I 365 00:20:38,960 --> 00:20:41,879 Speaker 1: mean by that is they would not want to be 366 00:20:42,040 --> 00:20:45,280 Speaker 1: seen as either the hero or the victim in the piece, right. 367 00:20:45,440 --> 00:20:51,119 Speaker 1: They don't. They don't they have I think to be 368 00:20:51,280 --> 00:20:55,720 Speaker 1: involved in open source software more generally, you have to 369 00:20:55,760 --> 00:21:01,920 Speaker 1: have a very kind of uh it's almost quaint, right, 370 00:21:01,960 --> 00:21:06,920 Speaker 1: You have to be very, very community minded, very kind 371 00:21:06,920 --> 00:21:09,280 Speaker 1: of I am doing this for the good of everybody, 372 00:21:09,320 --> 00:21:12,639 Speaker 1: but I also don't want the praise for it, and 373 00:21:12,720 --> 00:21:15,480 Speaker 1: so either kind of being presented as like this hero 374 00:21:15,600 --> 00:21:18,080 Speaker 1: defending us against all of the bad stuff, or being 375 00:21:18,119 --> 00:21:21,760 Speaker 1: presented as the victim who is you need pity. I 376 00:21:21,760 --> 00:21:23,800 Speaker 1: think that's the thing they don't want. They don't want right, 377 00:21:24,000 --> 00:21:24,919 Speaker 1: but they just want money. 378 00:21:25,480 --> 00:21:27,800 Speaker 2: And I think we get back to the systemic problem then, 379 00:21:27,840 --> 00:21:29,719 Speaker 2: because I don't see them as like any kind of 380 00:21:30,119 --> 00:21:32,760 Speaker 2: pathetic thing or indeed, I mean that I think that's 381 00:21:32,800 --> 00:21:34,919 Speaker 2: something heroic about what they're doing. But I think what 382 00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:37,439 Speaker 2: they're doing is cool. I think what the problem is 383 00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:42,280 Speaker 2: the systemic lack of support for them. We blame these things, 384 00:21:42,480 --> 00:21:45,720 Speaker 2: we don't but people may blame these projects for breaking 385 00:21:46,119 --> 00:21:48,480 Speaker 2: Oh it didn't work as well as it should, But 386 00:21:48,560 --> 00:21:51,920 Speaker 2: it turns out that it's just we we put all 387 00:21:51,960 --> 00:21:55,679 Speaker 2: of this pressure and these requirements on these people and 388 00:21:55,760 --> 00:21:58,520 Speaker 2: on these projects and then don't give them the sport 389 00:21:58,520 --> 00:22:00,520 Speaker 2: at all. So naturally, I'm going to say to my listeners, 390 00:22:00,560 --> 00:22:03,840 Speaker 2: please go and fund your open source movements. Brought on 391 00:22:03,920 --> 00:22:07,879 Speaker 2: Molly with Wikipedia. Molly Molly White of course about Wikipedia 392 00:22:07,960 --> 00:22:10,320 Speaker 2: very early on in the show. Fund these projects because 393 00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:12,919 Speaker 2: they deserve it. But the funny thing is is that 394 00:22:13,960 --> 00:22:16,440 Speaker 2: some of the sometimes I've seen very stupid idiots say 395 00:22:16,480 --> 00:22:18,919 Speaker 2: things like, well, if they were fun, if they were 396 00:22:18,960 --> 00:22:22,040 Speaker 2: private and corporate entities, they'd be fined and nothing would 397 00:22:22,080 --> 00:22:24,960 Speaker 2: go wrong. Except we look at CrowdStrike and it's the 398 00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:26,000 Speaker 2: complete opposite. 399 00:22:26,800 --> 00:22:30,359 Speaker 1: Yeah, And the worst thing is with CrowdStrike is it's 400 00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:33,800 Speaker 1: they thought they knew better, right, like this is this 401 00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:37,760 Speaker 1: is the key thing. They thought that they were doing 402 00:22:37,880 --> 00:22:43,480 Speaker 1: everything perfectly. They kind of crowed about how good their 403 00:22:43,520 --> 00:22:46,679 Speaker 1: tools were, how well they could protect people, and then 404 00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:49,240 Speaker 1: they didn't. And this is kind of the endemic thing 405 00:22:49,359 --> 00:22:56,120 Speaker 1: is you you can't introduce profit to the equation because 406 00:22:56,160 --> 00:23:01,400 Speaker 1: if you do your kind of you're looking to cut corners. 407 00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:06,160 Speaker 1: Now we still don't really fully you know why this happened, 408 00:23:06,200 --> 00:23:09,440 Speaker 1: and crowdstrikeer is still taking a hit to its business. 409 00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:13,400 Speaker 1: It still has the threat of legal action from those 410 00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:15,760 Speaker 1: customers who were affected, and they were an awful lot. 411 00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:19,320 Speaker 1: You know, airlines were knocked off for basically an entire 412 00:23:19,359 --> 00:23:22,399 Speaker 1: week in the United States, you couldn't get anywhere on 413 00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:26,400 Speaker 1: some airlines because the systems were just so completely broken. 414 00:23:28,080 --> 00:23:30,320 Speaker 1: But the idea that you can just kind of throw 415 00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:33,840 Speaker 1: money at it through a big tech lens doesn't really 416 00:23:33,880 --> 00:23:39,840 Speaker 1: work because you need that idea, that kind of ethos 417 00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:43,720 Speaker 1: of I'm doing this not for profit, not for myself 418 00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:46,119 Speaker 1: and not for the company that I work for, but 419 00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:48,000 Speaker 1: I'm doing it for kind of the greater good. And 420 00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:51,399 Speaker 1: I think the problem if you brought this into a 421 00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:54,520 Speaker 1: Google or even a crowd strike or whatever, is that 422 00:23:55,400 --> 00:23:58,479 Speaker 1: you end up looking at the bottom line and realizing, actually, 423 00:23:58,520 --> 00:24:00,639 Speaker 1: I need to acquire customers. I need to keep them. 424 00:24:00,800 --> 00:24:03,320 Speaker 1: That's going to be my focus, not just making good 425 00:24:03,359 --> 00:24:05,080 Speaker 1: stuff and making it work. 426 00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:08,879 Speaker 2: So onto profit seeking entities. One of the others you 427 00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:13,240 Speaker 2: mentioned is Fastly, so fastly. Let's why do you walk 428 00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:16,120 Speaker 2: me through Fastly? Because I know there are other companies 429 00:24:16,119 --> 00:24:16,880 Speaker 2: in this realm too. 430 00:24:17,640 --> 00:24:21,440 Speaker 1: Yeah, so fastly is it's kind of what you would 431 00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:25,879 Speaker 1: call an edge cloud provider. So that is basically an 432 00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:30,159 Speaker 1: attempt to try and bring the internet speeds up a 433 00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:32,560 Speaker 1: little bit, make them a bit quicker. So the idea 434 00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:36,439 Speaker 1: of bringing files out are commonly used, or websites that 435 00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:40,879 Speaker 1: they're commonly used closer to where the users want to 436 00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:43,000 Speaker 1: request them. The thing that people often overlook is that, 437 00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:47,919 Speaker 1: you know, the web is essentially still a data transmission system, 438 00:24:48,040 --> 00:24:52,080 Speaker 1: and so you have to If I was to pull 439 00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:54,680 Speaker 1: up a YouTube video from my home in the UK, 440 00:24:55,840 --> 00:24:57,639 Speaker 1: it would be very silly for me to put that 441 00:24:57,720 --> 00:25:02,120 Speaker 1: request through YouTube servers in United States because I would 442 00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:04,399 Speaker 1: have to send the request to the United States, the 443 00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:06,960 Speaker 1: request would have to be fulfilled, YouTube would have to 444 00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:08,800 Speaker 1: go looking for the video, It would then have to 445 00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:10,760 Speaker 1: send the video back to me, and then it would 446 00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:12,960 Speaker 1: have to be played. Now we're really talking about kind 447 00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:14,800 Speaker 1: of a fraction of a second there, but it can 448 00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:18,600 Speaker 1: be done quicker by serving it closer to me physically. 449 00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:21,560 Speaker 2: A content delivery network like vastly exactly. 450 00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:25,800 Speaker 1: So that is what Vastly does. The problem is that 451 00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:31,240 Speaker 1: it went wrong around about three years ago, again like 452 00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:34,439 Speaker 1: crowd strike, a misconfigured file got pushed out of the 453 00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:38,880 Speaker 1: company systems. Because fastly is used by Amazon, by read, 454 00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:43,639 Speaker 1: by Twitch, by the UK government, by PayPal, all of 455 00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:50,720 Speaker 1: those platforms were affected, which is kind of a big issue. 456 00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:56,560 Speaker 1: This guy you know who runs Fastly, hugely wealthy man 457 00:25:57,440 --> 00:25:59,840 Speaker 1: and you know, has done an awful lot of good 458 00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:02,400 Speaker 1: makes the Internet faster. But the problem is a game. 459 00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:05,320 Speaker 1: It is a private company. It is a single point 460 00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:08,040 Speaker 1: of failure for many many platforms and many websites that 461 00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:10,320 Speaker 1: we use day in, day out, and so if something 462 00:26:10,359 --> 00:26:13,560 Speaker 1: goes wrong, it goes really really wrong. 463 00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:17,960 Speaker 2: And what's weird about that is you'd think that Amazon, 464 00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:20,920 Speaker 2: for example, would have their own CDN. 465 00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:25,800 Speaker 1: And they do have their own CDNs in some ways, 466 00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:28,960 Speaker 1: but they still the part of the thing is these 467 00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:31,760 Speaker 1: companies are so sprawling and these services that they provide 468 00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:35,840 Speaker 1: are so huge that they tend to try and bucket 469 00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:39,800 Speaker 1: them in different ways. And so while you know, the 470 00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:43,040 Speaker 1: fast the element went down, they still had other bits, 471 00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:46,159 Speaker 1: but it was kind of very much concentrate on Fastly. 472 00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:47,959 Speaker 1: So that's why we had those outages there. 473 00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:52,200 Speaker 2: And there are other companies like this, like Achimaize the 474 00:26:52,280 --> 00:26:56,440 Speaker 2: other one, where if they buckle or fall, just chunks 475 00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:57,800 Speaker 2: of the Internet fall offline. 476 00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:05,879 Speaker 1: Yeah, and again it goes back to around about maybe 477 00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:11,439 Speaker 1: got the late nineties early two thousands. We took a 478 00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:15,600 Speaker 1: series of decisions that essentially decided we are going to 479 00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:18,240 Speaker 1: take this thing that was previously like a kind of 480 00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:24,320 Speaker 1: hobbyist's home developed by frankly amateurs but actually kind of worked. 481 00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:26,560 Speaker 1: And we're going to turn this into like a massive 482 00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:29,720 Speaker 1: profit making machine, and we're going to privatize large parts 483 00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:34,240 Speaker 1: of it, and we're going to simultaneously have you know, 484 00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:39,640 Speaker 1: big business and also kind of you know, public goods 485 00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:43,960 Speaker 1: and services being transacted on it. And we've kind of 486 00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:47,520 Speaker 1: existed in that awkward space forever, and you've done episodes 487 00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:50,720 Speaker 1: in the past about loads of parts of social media 488 00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:52,520 Speaker 1: and the fact that there is this kind of challenge 489 00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:56,600 Speaker 1: of this is as Eezylon Musk's favorite raisor de facto 490 00:27:56,640 --> 00:27:59,600 Speaker 1: public square, but it is based on essentially private land. 491 00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:03,280 Speaker 1: And as soon as you kind of take what was 492 00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:08,960 Speaker 1: initially kind of like an educational base communications network and 493 00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:12,840 Speaker 1: you turn it into something that is for profit, you 494 00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:18,479 Speaker 1: really complicate things in a way that means you have 495 00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:21,680 Speaker 1: single points of failure and a lot of banks on 496 00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:25,399 Speaker 1: those things working, and when they don't, it causes big. 497 00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:43,120 Speaker 2: Issues and it's it. It is a bit worrying, and 498 00:28:43,280 --> 00:28:45,800 Speaker 2: I try not to do too much fud on this show, 499 00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:48,160 Speaker 2: but this is the stuff that actually keeps me up 500 00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:51,520 Speaker 2: at night. This is the thing, especially as we have 501 00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:55,400 Speaker 2: the increasing electricity use of AI as, especially as we 502 00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:57,880 Speaker 2: have any basic strain on these companies that hold up 503 00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:00,560 Speaker 2: the Internet. The other thing I think about is what 504 00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:02,520 Speaker 2: if there are problems with I mean, we've seen this 505 00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:05,400 Speaker 2: tons of times with Amazon Web Services, with Microsoft as 506 00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:08,840 Speaker 2: your Google Cloud and so on and so forth. They 507 00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:12,360 Speaker 2: feel like also a huge point of failure. 508 00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:15,760 Speaker 1: Yeah, and you see kind of rumblings of this right, 509 00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:21,440 Speaker 1: Like down detector is constantly pinging with things. Down Detector 510 00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:23,719 Speaker 1: is kind of the website that everybody goes to whenever 511 00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:27,520 Speaker 1: something either isn't working or isn't responding, to see whether 512 00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:30,120 Speaker 1: or not other people are noticing these sorts of issues. 513 00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:35,680 Speaker 1: It's strange, right because it's like we have and it 514 00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:38,440 Speaker 1: happens every month or two. We have kind of like 515 00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:45,440 Speaker 1: pretty significant tremors that put cracks in our walls, and 516 00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:46,880 Speaker 1: we kind of go, oh, you know what, let's just 517 00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:49,160 Speaker 1: plaster them up and I'll be okay, well okay, and 518 00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:52,920 Speaker 1: we kind of overlook it, and it's it's I suppose 519 00:29:52,920 --> 00:29:55,760 Speaker 1: the question is to what extent are those tremors kind 520 00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:58,600 Speaker 1: of like the pre warnings of like a massive rupture, 521 00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:02,040 Speaker 1: A huge kind of that is going to affect things 522 00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:05,320 Speaker 1: or are we able to just kind of keep it 523 00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:07,720 Speaker 1: ticking over and we have occasional outages and we fix 524 00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:09,920 Speaker 1: it and that's okay. Yeah. 525 00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:11,960 Speaker 2: I was speaking with Burial in the other day. He's 526 00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:17,040 Speaker 2: an anti monopoly expert and he kind of made this point. Though. 527 00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:22,680 Speaker 2: We also have absolutely no public kind of measurement of 528 00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:25,680 Speaker 2: success or efficacy or indeed safety with any of these 529 00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:28,200 Speaker 2: cloud providers. We have it for power plants, we have 530 00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:30,920 Speaker 2: it for sewerage, we have it for water. We don't 531 00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:35,240 Speaker 2: treat despite those utilities, but really cloud services are utilities too, 532 00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:38,760 Speaker 2: and we just don't. We have no idea, We don't know, 533 00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:42,680 Speaker 2: and we have no quality standards. So who even knows 534 00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:48,080 Speaker 2: as they push these massive data centers whether they stay up. 535 00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:52,280 Speaker 2: And it terrifies me, it really does. 536 00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:57,760 Speaker 1: Yeah. I think what's interesting is any data that we 537 00:30:57,800 --> 00:30:59,880 Speaker 1: do have is also provided by them, and it's kind 538 00:30:59,920 --> 00:31:02,320 Speaker 1: of it's bundled into marketing materials. Right They say we 539 00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:05,240 Speaker 1: have like six digit up time, which is that kind 540 00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:09,680 Speaker 1: of six nines after ninety nine points to highlight how 541 00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:13,760 Speaker 1: how well they maintain their services and how likely it 542 00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:16,120 Speaker 1: is that you will never encounter an outage. But the 543 00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:20,000 Speaker 1: reality is even that kind of point, not not one percent, 544 00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:23,000 Speaker 1: over a long course of time, can be quite a 545 00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:26,760 Speaker 1: significant outage. And if it's the thing, you know, if 546 00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:30,400 Speaker 1: it's if it's an outage that happens that is, you know, 547 00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:34,320 Speaker 1: keeping a hospital online or keeping your banking system online 548 00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:38,640 Speaker 1: at a time when everybody needs it. Even the smallest 549 00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:42,520 Speaker 1: outage on these kind of too big to fail services 550 00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:46,720 Speaker 1: can be huge, and we don't we don't realize them because, 551 00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:49,160 Speaker 1: as you say, there is no centralized record of this 552 00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:51,520 Speaker 1: is when we've had outages. This is when we've had issues. 553 00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:54,320 Speaker 1: They just come along every couple of months. They kind 554 00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:56,240 Speaker 1: of grab the attention. In the case of crowd strike, 555 00:31:56,320 --> 00:31:58,680 Speaker 1: it grabbed the attention because it was quite so massive 556 00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:01,880 Speaker 1: and quite so visual and visceral. But then we move 557 00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:04,360 Speaker 1: on and we forget about it, and actually we're only 558 00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:07,640 Speaker 1: ever reminded the next time, and by that point we're 559 00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:11,080 Speaker 1: so far beyond it that we forget actually how significant 560 00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:13,760 Speaker 1: it was. I mean, people couldn't go to work on 561 00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:17,440 Speaker 1: that Friday because they couldn't use their computers. 562 00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:23,760 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just really terrifying. This is the actual crisis, 563 00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:26,800 Speaker 2: and I feel as if it's almost it feels like 564 00:32:26,800 --> 00:32:28,800 Speaker 2: screaming into the void at times. One of the reasons 565 00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:30,520 Speaker 2: I wanted to do this episode was because of this, 566 00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:33,920 Speaker 2: because I don't think most people realize how brittle everything is. 567 00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:36,680 Speaker 2: You've got, oh the way that most transactions are in 568 00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:40,640 Speaker 2: crypto on the Internet, that's by two steves and everything 569 00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:42,840 Speaker 2: holding everything up is like a patchwork of a few 570 00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:46,960 Speaker 2: companies that are pretty much do not have They don't 571 00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:51,320 Speaker 2: get held accountable until something breaks. It's it's very bad, 572 00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:54,480 Speaker 2: but let's get it. Let's make it worse. So the 573 00:32:54,560 --> 00:32:57,040 Speaker 2: last two you brought up in your article, I can 574 00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:00,520 Speaker 2: and vera sign when you talk about why, they're also 575 00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:01,400 Speaker 2: very worrying. 576 00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:09,000 Speaker 1: Yeah, so I currently is it's how do I describe this? Basically, 577 00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:13,800 Speaker 1: I can't at its heart run to what are called DNS, 578 00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:16,680 Speaker 1: the domain name system, which is kind of the address book. 579 00:33:16,760 --> 00:33:22,440 Speaker 1: So you type in a URL to your web browser 580 00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:26,000 Speaker 1: that is not machine readable, so it gets converted into 581 00:33:26,040 --> 00:33:29,560 Speaker 1: an IP address, which is a bunch of digits essentially, 582 00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:33,960 Speaker 1: and that gets rooted through what is called the DNS, 583 00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:37,520 Speaker 1: which is essentially a massive address book, and it's run 584 00:33:37,720 --> 00:33:40,280 Speaker 1: many of them, not all of them, three of the 585 00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:42,880 Speaker 1: kind of dozen or so that exists are run by 586 00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:49,520 Speaker 1: i can, which is a sort of nonprofit that is 587 00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:55,520 Speaker 1: one of the kind of earliest major organizations and involved 588 00:33:55,520 --> 00:33:59,440 Speaker 1: in kind of the early web, and also VeriSign, which 589 00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:03,560 Speaker 1: is kind of a private company. So if these things 590 00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:09,520 Speaker 1: go offline, then like everything breaks, because if the DNS, 591 00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:12,320 Speaker 1: if the kind of the address system of the Internet 592 00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:17,359 Speaker 1: of the Web is corrupted in some way. I don't 593 00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:19,520 Speaker 1: know about you, but I don't remember the IP address 594 00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:21,400 Speaker 1: of like the BBC News website. 595 00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:25,080 Speaker 2: I remember my own phone number and nobody else's. That's 596 00:34:25,120 --> 00:34:27,640 Speaker 2: that should tell you everything. And just to be clear, 597 00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:31,160 Speaker 2: every website you visit, without exception, is actually just the 598 00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:35,280 Speaker 2: an IP address which has then gone through DNS. That's 599 00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:36,040 Speaker 2: that's good. 600 00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:40,080 Speaker 1: Yeah. And so unless you are I don't know, some 601 00:34:40,160 --> 00:34:46,600 Speaker 1: sort of amazing memory, powerful individual who can remember every 602 00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:48,040 Speaker 1: single IP address. 603 00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:50,399 Speaker 2: Who's also who also knows them because we don't get 604 00:34:50,400 --> 00:34:54,840 Speaker 2: exposed to them by the nature of the DNS system. DNS. 605 00:34:55,120 --> 00:34:56,759 Speaker 1: Yeah, you just you just type it and it works, 606 00:34:56,800 --> 00:34:58,560 Speaker 1: and that is you know, it's one of those things. 607 00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:02,840 Speaker 1: It's we've we've traded off convenience for actually understanding how 608 00:35:03,239 --> 00:35:06,319 Speaker 1: this technology works, which is great because it works, but 609 00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:09,640 Speaker 1: if it doesn't work, then we're in real trouble. And 610 00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:12,640 Speaker 1: I think that is if you think about kind of 611 00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:15,920 Speaker 1: the economic impacts of crowd striking, the outages because they 612 00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:19,120 Speaker 1: couldn't people couldn't get onto their devices. Think about what 613 00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:22,640 Speaker 1: happens if people can get onto their devices, but they 614 00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:24,520 Speaker 1: don't know how to access their bank or they don't 615 00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:26,680 Speaker 1: know how to access the websites that they need for 616 00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:31,759 Speaker 1: day to day working. That is the really interesting thing. 617 00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:35,359 Speaker 1: And you know, I CAN is nonprofit. It has around 618 00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:38,080 Speaker 1: about four hundred staff, so like it is well staffed. 619 00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:41,920 Speaker 1: This isn't too Steves and a dog, but it is. 620 00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:49,560 Speaker 1: I suppose four hundred seems fewer people than you need 621 00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:52,240 Speaker 1: for something as important as this, right when you consider 622 00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:55,040 Speaker 1: the huge numbers that are employed by big tech companies, 623 00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:56,560 Speaker 1: you would think that I CAN would have. 624 00:35:56,560 --> 00:35:59,000 Speaker 2: More than Well, the un has thirty six thousand people 625 00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:01,880 Speaker 2: working for it, and this is probably the size that like, 626 00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:04,560 Speaker 2: this is a probably a little bit more important than 627 00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:06,120 Speaker 2: the u N if you really think about it. 628 00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:09,560 Speaker 1: Yeah, the website would not work without these things, and 629 00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:10,759 Speaker 1: so that is the. 630 00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:12,480 Speaker 2: Email would email break as well? 631 00:36:13,680 --> 00:36:16,879 Speaker 1: That's a good question. I think it would be. 632 00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:18,960 Speaker 2: If you were accessing through through the webit world. 633 00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:22,960 Speaker 1: Yeah, and also presumably I would I don't fully know 634 00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:25,040 Speaker 1: the answer, but I would presume that actually, yeah, because 635 00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:29,600 Speaker 1: you're putting in a a kind of domain name something 636 00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:32,120 Speaker 1: at something dot com or dot co, dot UK or 637 00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:35,200 Speaker 1: dot net or whatever, that it would still be routed 638 00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:36,680 Speaker 1: through the same systems. 639 00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:38,840 Speaker 2: So yeah, And a quick Google says that that's the 640 00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:41,840 Speaker 2: case too. This is how I learned things. And also 641 00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:44,080 Speaker 2: another website I wonldn't be able to access the DNS 642 00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:46,399 Speaker 2: was down. That's that's so good. 643 00:36:46,880 --> 00:36:51,120 Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, this is the thing you would sometimes It's 644 00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:53,160 Speaker 1: happened when I used to work prior to journals, I 645 00:36:53,239 --> 00:36:55,840 Speaker 1: used to work in an office and sometimes the like 646 00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:58,480 Speaker 1: the actual router would fail and you would just kind 647 00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:00,279 Speaker 1: of be stuck there twiddling your thumbs and things, Well, 648 00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:05,680 Speaker 1: what can I do? Like imagine that but everybody in 649 00:37:05,719 --> 00:37:09,040 Speaker 1: the world, all at once unable to do the most 650 00:37:09,040 --> 00:37:12,360 Speaker 1: basic stuff. And think about how reliant we are on 651 00:37:12,440 --> 00:37:17,200 Speaker 1: all of the the internet connected services and tools that 652 00:37:17,239 --> 00:37:19,840 Speaker 1: we use, and then think about what would be the 653 00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:23,239 Speaker 1: impact if all of those stopped suddenly and we didn't 654 00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:24,399 Speaker 1: know what to do afterwards. 655 00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:27,759 Speaker 2: And it says here in your article. There's thirteen of 656 00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:30,239 Speaker 2: the largest DNS servers a run by i CAN. So 657 00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:33,440 Speaker 2: three of the three of the thirteen largest run by 658 00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:35,960 Speaker 2: i CAN. So if you took if someone took out 659 00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:38,920 Speaker 2: I CAN, it would still function, but I imagine there'd be 660 00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:41,840 Speaker 2: a massive outage just kind of connecting the bits. 661 00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:44,680 Speaker 1: Yeah, so they all have different route service, which is 662 00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:48,080 Speaker 1: kind of like the they have kind of the original 663 00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:50,319 Speaker 1: phone books as it were. You can get copies of 664 00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:54,200 Speaker 1: copies of copies of copies, which are increasingly less reliable. 665 00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:58,239 Speaker 1: It kind of generally seems to work geographically, so it 666 00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:01,600 Speaker 1: would probably affect parts of of the world rather than 667 00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:05,160 Speaker 1: the entire world, depending on which way you were served 668 00:38:05,200 --> 00:38:08,640 Speaker 1: through in terms of which quote unquote phone book you got, 669 00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:14,080 Speaker 1: which root server. But it's it's kind of a huge issue, 670 00:38:14,120 --> 00:38:20,040 Speaker 1: and the problem is we don't fully understand and wouldn't 671 00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:23,880 Speaker 1: fully understand until it happened, what the impact could be 672 00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:27,560 Speaker 1: because we know, okay, if it affected those three servers, 673 00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:31,759 Speaker 1: those three root servers, fine, but is there something on 674 00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:36,319 Speaker 1: the other root servers, or the websites or the back 675 00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:40,040 Speaker 1: ends of the organizations that operate the other root servers 676 00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:43,960 Speaker 1: that relies on those root servers to get access to 677 00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:48,600 Speaker 1: Like it's kind of could the domino effect start to 678 00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:52,360 Speaker 1: play out here where actually one pretty significant error anyway 679 00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:55,240 Speaker 1: could actually spread further and further and further. 680 00:38:56,200 --> 00:39:00,400 Speaker 2: It's yeah, it's almost as if everyone It's would be 681 00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:03,120 Speaker 2: like if they one forgot how to speak. Yeah, you 682 00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:06,560 Speaker 2: could perhaps write letters, but speaking was off the table. 683 00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:11,160 Speaker 2: It's terrifying. And again, three of them are held up 684 00:39:11,160 --> 00:39:15,440 Speaker 2: by nonprofits. It's which is good, but all of them 685 00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:18,719 Speaker 2: should be. It's so strange. As countries we can all 686 00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:22,279 Speaker 2: get together to go to war or help support a 687 00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:26,240 Speaker 2: war perhaps, but we genocide, I guess in that case. 688 00:39:26,600 --> 00:39:29,480 Speaker 2: But we are in this situation where it's fucking we 689 00:39:29,520 --> 00:39:32,719 Speaker 2: can't put the money together to support the literal way 690 00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:34,920 Speaker 2: that people communicate online. 691 00:39:36,160 --> 00:39:40,840 Speaker 1: Which is because we get through Yeah. 692 00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:41,839 Speaker 2: It must works right now. 693 00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:46,160 Speaker 1: Yeah, it works right now, and when it goes wrong, 694 00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:49,719 Speaker 1: it hasn't gone completely wrong one hundred percent all over 695 00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:51,960 Speaker 1: the world, and so we kind of go, well, that's 696 00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:54,919 Speaker 1: a whoopsie, Okay, we can deal with it and move on. 697 00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:58,719 Speaker 1: Hopefully it won't happen again. Fingers crossed. Let's hope that's 698 00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:01,240 Speaker 1: all okay, and that the way that it's kind of working. 699 00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:02,880 Speaker 1: That's the status quote a minute. 700 00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:06,040 Speaker 2: I guess there's nothing. It's one of these I like 701 00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:08,560 Speaker 2: to end episodes by being like, what can regular people do? 702 00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:10,040 Speaker 2: It doesn't feel like we can. 703 00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:12,880 Speaker 1: And you have read some of my journalism, you know 704 00:40:12,960 --> 00:40:15,160 Speaker 1: that I'm one of the most pessimistic people. I do 705 00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:19,200 Speaker 1: a radio slot here in the UK where I introduce 706 00:40:19,239 --> 00:40:21,879 Speaker 1: tech stories to people who don't necessarily know lots about tech, 707 00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:25,240 Speaker 1: and every single week I get harangued by the hosts 708 00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:28,640 Speaker 1: because I always end with depressing notes, and unfortunately that 709 00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:29,399 Speaker 1: is the case here. 710 00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:33,239 Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, I think that something I like to 711 00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:35,880 Speaker 2: come back to though, is knowledge is power. I think 712 00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:38,360 Speaker 2: that I wonder if there is This is one of 713 00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:40,600 Speaker 2: the dumber things I've thought up, but I wonder if 714 00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:42,799 Speaker 2: there is actually a way of most people downloading the 715 00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:46,600 Speaker 2: phone book of DNA with DNS phone book just distributed. 716 00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:49,440 Speaker 1: It could be crypto far off. I can be on 717 00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:50,560 Speaker 1: a blockchain. 718 00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:52,400 Speaker 2: Bit of crypto. And it is funny as well, because 719 00:40:52,440 --> 00:40:54,680 Speaker 2: you see all of this AI bullshit and you got 720 00:40:54,719 --> 00:40:57,080 Speaker 2: the crypto bullshit and they're like, yeah, this is the future. 721 00:40:57,320 --> 00:41:00,799 Speaker 2: This is so cooled important. Objectively, DNA is cool, like 722 00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:03,359 Speaker 2: this stuff is that it's actually insane. The Internet works 723 00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:03,719 Speaker 2: at all. 724 00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:07,400 Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I wrote a book called The History of 725 00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:10,640 Speaker 1: the Internet in bite sized Trucks, And as I said, 726 00:41:10,640 --> 00:41:14,760 Speaker 1: I'm thirty five. I kind of I joined the Web 727 00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:19,400 Speaker 1: when I was about ten or eleven, and yeah. 728 00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:21,240 Speaker 2: I'm thirty eight, by the way, so we're right there. 729 00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:23,600 Speaker 1: They go kind of got interested in it and found 730 00:41:23,640 --> 00:41:29,200 Speaker 1: it incredible, but forgot that, like I lost that wonder 731 00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:33,120 Speaker 1: because we don't see how it works anymore. You don't 732 00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:36,120 Speaker 1: see the crankshafts, you don't see the gears working in 733 00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:38,600 Speaker 1: the way that you used to. Kids nowadays don't know 734 00:41:38,640 --> 00:41:42,400 Speaker 1: how to store files on a computer because they just 735 00:41:42,400 --> 00:41:45,719 Speaker 1: have cloud storage. It's just always accessible easily there. They 736 00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:48,080 Speaker 1: don't have to structure a file system or something like that. 737 00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:52,359 Speaker 1: And so we take it for granted that these things 738 00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:55,600 Speaker 1: work and we just assume that like it's all okay. 739 00:41:55,640 --> 00:41:58,759 Speaker 1: But actually, yeah, knowledge is power. And knowing that there 740 00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:02,040 Speaker 1: is a person behind this, Knowing that there is a 741 00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:03,880 Speaker 1: system behind this and kind of getting a sense a 742 00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:07,279 Speaker 1: little bit of how it works means that you understand 743 00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:10,920 Speaker 1: more perhaps when things go wrong, and importantly, you can 744 00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:14,040 Speaker 1: kind of advocate maybe for how to make sure that 745 00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:15,920 Speaker 1: it doesn't go wrong again in the future. 746 00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:18,839 Speaker 2: Chris, thank you so much for joining me. Where can 747 00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:19,440 Speaker 2: people find you? 748 00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:23,000 Speaker 1: They can unfortunately find me on X that stokel that 749 00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:26,480 Speaker 1: is my am. I'm going down with that ship long 750 00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:29,600 Speaker 1: li SD Okay. 751 00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:33,239 Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, thank you so much. Chris. You've been 752 00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:35,080 Speaker 2: listening to Better Offline. You know where to find me. 753 00:42:35,120 --> 00:42:37,040 Speaker 2: There's the same thing that comes on after it that 754 00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:38,919 Speaker 2: you'll complain because they haven't changed it in a wow, 755 00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:40,919 Speaker 2: thank you for listening everyone, and then it's gonna say 756 00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:51,360 Speaker 2: thank you for listening again. Thank you for listening to 757 00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:52,239 Speaker 2: Better Offline. 758 00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:54,799 Speaker 3: The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song 759 00:42:54,880 --> 00:42:57,520 Speaker 3: is Metasowski. You can check out more of his music 760 00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:01,200 Speaker 3: and audio projects at Metasowski dot com, M A T 761 00:43:01,200 --> 00:43:05,640 Speaker 3: T O S O W s ki dot com. You 762 00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:08,200 Speaker 3: can email me at easy at Better Offline dot com, 763 00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:10,560 Speaker 3: or visit Better Offline dot com to find more podcast 764 00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:13,960 Speaker 3: links and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend 765 00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:15,920 Speaker 3: you go to chat dot where's youreaed dot at to 766 00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:18,320 Speaker 3: visit the discord, and go to our slash. 767 00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:21,239 Speaker 2: Better Offline to check out our reddit. Thank you so 768 00:43:21,320 --> 00:43:21,719 Speaker 2: much for. 769 00:43:21,719 --> 00:43:25,360 Speaker 3: Listening Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media. 770 00:43:25,520 --> 00:43:28,359 Speaker 3: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool 771 00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:30,319 Speaker 3: zonemedia dot com, or check us 772 00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:33,320 Speaker 1: Out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 773 00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:34,520 Speaker 1: get your podcasts.