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 how the tech are you. It's time for the
Speaker 1: tech news for August twenty two, and today we've got
Speaker 1: a lot of news items about hacking because def Con,
Speaker 1: the hacker convention, was just this past weekend. But first
Speaker 1: let's touch on some other news items. The advocacy group
Speaker 1: Global Witness has leveled some pretty nasty accusations against Facebook.
Speaker 1: And I say accusations, but really it sounds like in
Speaker 1: this case the group has a pretty open and shut argument. Now,
Speaker 1: this all has to do with some upcoming elections in Brazil,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure we're all aware of how Facebook has
Speaker 1: been under scrutiny for a few years now for its
Speaker 1: role in carrying and in some cases promoting misinformation, namely
Speaker 1: through its recommendation algorithm in English speaking countries. But in
Speaker 1: countries where the dominant language isn't English, this can be
Speaker 1: even more of a problem. It can go unresolved. So
Speaker 1: how does Global Witness know that Facebook has failed to
Speaker 1: live up to its promised that the platform is quote
Speaker 1: deeply committed to protecting election integrity end quote. When it
Speaker 1: comes to Brazil, well, Global Witness created political ads and
Speaker 1: they inserted outright misinformation into those political ads. Then Global
Speaker 1: Witness submitted those ads to Facebook, and Facebook accepted the
Speaker 1: ads without raising any objections to the content inside them.
Speaker 1: The advocacy group included ads that listed the wrong date
Speaker 1: for the elections. So these were ads that were targeted
Speaker 1: towards specific populations in Brazil. So the concept here is
Speaker 1: that you would be trying to miss need a specific
Speaker 1: target demographic so that they would not participate in voting,
Speaker 1: and you will give them the wrong date. There was
Speaker 1: there were other ads that that called for people to
Speaker 1: use voting methods that aren't sanctioned by Brazil, so an
Speaker 1: example that might be to vote by mail when there
Speaker 1: isn't a vote by mail option. Some of them even
Speaker 1: called into question the validity of the election and the
Speaker 1: election hasn't even happened yet, and Facebook accepted all of them,
Speaker 1: according to Global Witness senior advisor John Lloyd, Now what
Speaker 1: should have happened was that Facebook should have identified the
Speaker 1: misinformation in the ads and then denied the submitted advertisement. Instead,
Speaker 1: Global Witness received notification after notification that the fake ads
Speaker 1: had passed Muster, which the group rightfully points out brings
Speaker 1: into question Facebook's entire content moderation strategy. Brazil's upcoming election
Speaker 1: is likely to be a rough one, with current president
Speaker 1: Bolsonaro seeking out another term in office. He's also been
Speaker 1: accused of spreading disinformation, including calling into question the validity
Speaker 1: of results from certain voting machines. Global Witness points out
Speaker 1: that its experiment wasn't just an exercise to see if
Speaker 1: Facebook is living up to its promise. It's really a
Speaker 1: critical demonstration of Facebook's failure in a high stakes, real
Speaker 1: world scenario, something that is actually playing out right now.
Speaker 1: So yeah, not a good look. Now, let's switch gears
Speaker 1: for a little bit. So, misinformation and disinformation are clearly bad, right,
Speaker 1: Misinformation you want to avoid, and disinformation that that says
Speaker 1: there's a motive behind it where you are specifically seeking
Speaker 1: to mislead people. So we should really seek to eliminate
Speaker 1: misinformation and disinformation from platforms. However, we also have to
Speaker 1: take into account who is making the claim that a
Speaker 1: particular something is in fact misinformation in the first place.
Speaker 1: That requires critical thinking and sometimes it gets really hard
Speaker 1: to know what is true. Right, Like, if someone says
Speaker 1: that's fake news, and they offer no evidence to show
Speaker 1: that the claim is fake, and that the actual claim
Speaker 1: has evidence to show that it's valid, then you can't
Speaker 1: just say, oh, well, it's fake because this person said
Speaker 1: it was fake. Right. And I say all this because
Speaker 1: our next story is about how the Hong Kong Police
Speaker 1: Force has opened a public relations wing that has identified
Speaker 1: the elimination of online quote unquote smearring of police work
Speaker 1: as a high priority. Now, the police force is claiming
Speaker 1: that misinformation campaigns are portraying Hong Kong police in a
Speaker 1: negative way and that that has led to the deterioration
Speaker 1: of the relationship between the public and the police force,
Speaker 1: Whereas some of the critics would say the police using
Speaker 1: uh increased force against citizens is the deteriorating relationship that
Speaker 1: we should be concerned about. So you could argue that
Speaker 1: the Hong Kong Police Force is looking to censor voices
Speaker 1: that criticize the police or bring attention to situations that
Speaker 1: at least seemed to indicate an abuse of power. In
Speaker 1: other words, you could argue the police are using the
Speaker 1: label of misinformation to silence activists and critics in an
Speaker 1: effort to control the narrative. So dealing with misinformation is
Speaker 1: a tricky thing. I don't mean to suggest that it's
Speaker 1: super easy. You always have to examine the validity of
Speaker 1: the claim that something is misinformation to start with. Now,
Speaker 1: in the case of Global Witness, that was obvious, right
Speaker 1: because the group outright inserted falsehoods into political ads. There's
Speaker 1: no denying that they were testing it and saw that
Speaker 1: Facebook failed. But in the case of Hong Kong, it
Speaker 1: looks like it's more of an authoritarian move in order
Speaker 1: to try and limit dissent. So again, while we should
Speaker 1: be aiming to eliminate misinformation, we always have to be
Speaker 1: cognizant of where the claims of misinformation were coming from
Speaker 1: and to weigh them carefully to make sure that this
Speaker 1: isn't just an attempt to silence a critic. According to Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: Apple is looking to insert more ads into the iPhone experience,
Speaker 1: namely within certain first party Apple apps, uh the big
Speaker 1: one being Apple Maps. Now, you might also encounter ads
Speaker 1: within Apple's podcast app, And if that's the case, then
Speaker 1: that means you're going to hear and see ads that
Speaker 1: are not just inside a podcast, but also on the
Speaker 1: podcasting platform itself. That's interesting because the podcast business is
Speaker 1: largely dependent upon ads. I don't know if you've noticed,
Speaker 1: but we've had a couple in our show. Well, Apple
Speaker 1: doesn't get revenue from the ads that are in our show.
Speaker 1: Apple is a way for people to access podcasts. But
Speaker 1: unless the show was actually coming from Apple, then Apple
Speaker 1: doesn't really like revenue from the podcasts that are running.
Speaker 1: You know that it allows people to access, So putting
Speaker 1: ads into the podcast app itself is a way for
Speaker 1: Apple to monetize the podcasting phenomenon. Also, a CNBC article
Speaker 1: points out that Apple now has a huge advantage over
Speaker 1: third party apps on iOS. So you might remember that
Speaker 1: Apple introduced the app Tracking Transparency feature last year. This
Speaker 1: was a little notification that would pop up and let
Speaker 1: users decide whether or not they wanted to opt in
Speaker 1: too targeted tracking from apps. That's the source of stuff
Speaker 1: that lets companies like Meta capitalize on user activity. Now,
Speaker 1: a lot of folks opted out when they got that choice.
Speaker 1: They chose not to have their data shared with these
Speaker 1: third parties, and that's one of the major hits to
Speaker 1: Meta's revenue In the recent past. In fact, the loss
Speaker 1: of that customer data was a huge blow to Meta
Speaker 1: because Meta was heavily dependent upon using that data in
Speaker 1: order to market targeted ads and really make the most
Speaker 1: out of its platforms. But without that piece, without your information,
Speaker 1: then a lot of the value of that service is gone.
Speaker 1: They can't target with such precision. Thus they can't demand
Speaker 1: the same sort of prices from advertisers that they had
Speaker 1: in the past, and the whole thing starts to kind
Speaker 1: of fall apart. Now, Apple still has all that information, right,
Speaker 1: like they've collected that info. It's not, it's just that
Speaker 1: they're not sharing it with third parties. So you could
Speaker 1: imagine a future in which Apple builds out its own
Speaker 1: advertising business, for example, and leverages the data that other
Speaker 1: parties aren't allowed to access, at least not without users
Speaker 1: opting into the experience, right, And that's all speculation on
Speaker 1: my part, of course, It doesn't mean that that's what
Speaker 1: Apple is going to do. If Apple does design an
Speaker 1: advertising business, it doesn't mean that Apple is going to
Speaker 1: rely on that information without giving users the same opportunity
Speaker 1: to opt out with Apple that they had with other apps.
Speaker 1: None of that is is known. One way or the other.
Speaker 1: But if it did happen, it wouldn't surprise me, although
Speaker 1: it would bring more anti competitive scrutiny onto Apple, which
Speaker 1: the company is already dealing with across the world in
Speaker 1: various UH venues. So we'll have to see if that,
Speaker 1: in fact is where we're headed. Bloomberg also reports that
Speaker 1: Apple has once again set a deadline for corporate employees
Speaker 1: to spend at least three days of the work week
Speaker 1: in the office. Reportedly, employees are expected to come in
Speaker 1: on Tuesdays and Thursdays, plus another day that was set
Speaker 1: by their team leaders. So that new deadline, at least
Speaker 1: according to one reporter, is September five. As far as
Speaker 1: I know, Apple has not confirmed that or officially announced that,
Speaker 1: but that's what a reporter's says. Is the plan that
Speaker 1: by September five, all Apple corporate employees will be expected
Speaker 1: to come into the office at least three days a
Speaker 1: week now. Apple has moved this goal post multiple times
Speaker 1: during the pandemic due to lots of reasons, mostly spikes
Speaker 1: in COVID transmission rates, and there have been more than
Speaker 1: a few reports of Apple corporate employees protesting this move.
Speaker 1: In fact, the former head of Apple's machine learning department,
Speaker 1: Ian Goodfellow left Apple reportedly because of this mandate that
Speaker 1: employees would have to return to the office. Of course,
Speaker 1: we're also in a time where a lot of companies
Speaker 1: are looking to downsize, so you could argue that Apple's
Speaker 1: continued insistence that employees returned to h Q might be
Speaker 1: a way to kind of put the squeeze on Apple
Speaker 1: employees and maybe shake out a few folks and slim
Speaker 1: down without actually having to hold layoffs. Of course, that's
Speaker 1: just a possibility. I'm not saying that Apple is doing that.
Speaker 1: I'm saying that their companies are doing that. I just
Speaker 1: don't know if Apple is um and maybe the reason
Speaker 1: for it has nothing to do with that. Maybe there
Speaker 1: is no desire to convince Apple employees, or at least
Speaker 1: some of them, to maybe leave the company. Maybe a
Speaker 1: big part of it is that, I don't know, Apple
Speaker 1: spent billions of dollars to build out this campus and
Speaker 1: barely got any use out of it before the pandemic hit,
Speaker 1: and by gum, Tim Cook once those folks in that
Speaker 1: expensive building, I'm sure the truth of the matter is
Speaker 1: far more subtle, far more nuanced and complicated, But It
Speaker 1: sure is fun to kind of boil these things down
Speaker 1: to an absurd level. Al Right, Well, that's enough absurdity
Speaker 1: for now, let's take a quick break. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll have some more news. Before the break, I was
Speaker 1: talking about Apple asking or telling employees that they need
Speaker 1: to come back to the office. Let's talk about what's
Speaker 1: going on over at A T and T. There's a
Speaker 1: similar battle brewing between employees and management now. Some of
Speaker 1: A T and T s employees have representation with the
Speaker 1: Communications Workers of America UH and the cw A has
Speaker 1: negotiated an extension for work from home operations until the
Speaker 1: end of March two thousand twenty three. However, some A
Speaker 1: T and T employees are saying that there are already
Speaker 1: groups within the company that management has forced to come
Speaker 1: back to the office now, so they're saying it just
Speaker 1: it depends upon which department you work in and what
Speaker 1: team you work for. Now, this has become an issue
Speaker 1: for employee morale because those who have been forced to
Speaker 1: go back into the office are kind of envying the
Speaker 1: departments that continue to work from home. A lot of
Speaker 1: folks have said that working from home had no negative
Speaker 1: impact on productivity, or performance, so there was no downside
Speaker 1: to the company for them work from home, and that moreover,
Speaker 1: workers were saving money on stuff like transportation and other
Speaker 1: expenses that led to a boost in quality of life
Speaker 1: for the workers. So the narrative that we're seeing develop
Speaker 1: across the entire industry is that workers feel the real
Speaker 1: reason employers want them in the office isn't so much
Speaker 1: about contributing to the bottom line. It's not so much
Speaker 1: about performance and productivity and creativity and collaboration. It's more
Speaker 1: about surveillance and control. If the employees are not in
Speaker 1: the office, they can't be watched and they can't be controlled.
Speaker 1: And whether that's a realistic narrative or not, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm certain that most bosses aren't thinking of it in
Speaker 1: those terms, but I know that that's a narrative that
Speaker 1: is growing in in uh in size across the industry. Right.
Speaker 1: You're seeing more and more people essentially boiled down the
Speaker 1: the matter into those kind of terms. It's oh, I
Speaker 1: know that any company out there there really wants to
Speaker 1: bring its employees back into offices needs to be able
Speaker 1: to address that concern in a satisfying way, or then
Speaker 1: that narrative will continue to grow there as well. If
Speaker 1: your employees are convinced that the only reason they're being
Speaker 1: brought back into the office is so that the boss
Speaker 1: can keep an eye on them and that's it, then
Speaker 1: that's not a good narrative, right that that's that's going
Speaker 1: to paint the company as a bad place to work.
Speaker 1: That it's unreasonable. So again, I don't think that that's
Speaker 1: necessarily where most companies are. I can't imagine most bosses
Speaker 1: actually thinking in that that way, but they need to
Speaker 1: get ahead of it if they want people to come
Speaker 1: back into the office and not have it be a
Speaker 1: catastrophic effect on the morale of the employees. Signal, the
Speaker 1: encrypted messaging service, reported that a fishing attack on Twilo
Speaker 1: Incorporated could mean the up to one thousand, nine hundred
Speaker 1: Signal users had their phone numbers revealed to the attackers.
Speaker 1: So here's the breakdown. Twilo is a verification services provider
Speaker 1: and Signal uses Twilo's verification services, so Signal was not compromised.
Speaker 1: The hackers did not target and and compromise Signal. Instead,
Speaker 1: they compromised a company that Signal partners with for the
Speaker 1: verification services. So the good news is that the attackers
Speaker 1: seem to only have been able to get the phone numbers,
Speaker 1: not even like the names of the people that the
Speaker 1: phone numbers correspond to, just the numbers that represent devices
Speaker 1: that have signal installed on them, and it's just nine
Speaker 1: of them. That really limits what the attackers can do
Speaker 1: with that information. They could conceivably attempt to reregister a
Speaker 1: device's number, but that's about it. They didn't have access
Speaker 1: to message history or profile information or anything like that,
Speaker 1: so it could have been much worse. But it does
Speaker 1: bring into focus the interconnected nature of tech companies and
Speaker 1: how challenging it is to create a secure process because
Speaker 1: if you're relying on another party to provide services that
Speaker 1: make your company, you know, services possible, you might not
Speaker 1: have total control over your own security procedures because some
Speaker 1: of them are dependent upon another company entirely. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's complicated. Not long ago, a security researcher named Lenart
Speaker 1: Wilder's and my apologies for butchering the name, revealed that
Speaker 1: he was able to use a homemade device to hack
Speaker 1: into Starlink, the satellite internet service provider arm of SpaceX now.
Speaker 1: Starlink has since congratulated him on his find as it
Speaker 1: you know, it uncovered a vulnerability that the company needed
Speaker 1: to address. And you know he wasn't being a malicious hacker.
Speaker 1: He was testing the security of starlinks technology and found
Speaker 1: a an inroad. And the way I think about this
Speaker 1: is that if researchers did do this and didn't reveal
Speaker 1: their findings, there would be a danger that these vulnerabilities
Speaker 1: would go unpatched, and then someone eventually who has bad
Speaker 1: intentions would discover those vulnerabilities and then do nasty evil
Speaker 1: things with that information. To that end, starlinkin SpaceX have
Speaker 1: announced a bug bounty program inviting security researchers to poke
Speaker 1: and prod and look for vulnerabilities, and if they discover
Speaker 1: and report one, they get rewarded up to twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand bucks, depending upon the nature of the vulnerability, which
Speaker 1: is a responsible way to try and keep systems safe,
Speaker 1: because if you're not supporting some sort of bug bounty,
Speaker 1: you're inviting hackers to make money from those same vulnerabilities
Speaker 1: in more nefarious ways. And finally, this past weekend, as
Speaker 1: I said, was def Con a hacking convention and a
Speaker 1: place where you absolutely want to make sure you're only
Speaker 1: carrying a burner phone that has none of your personal
Speaker 1: information on it, and one of the hackers attending goes
Speaker 1: by the handle sick codes, and among sick codes as
Speaker 1: accomplishments is jail breaking. John dear farm equipment. Now, I've
Speaker 1: talked about this on past episodes, but John Deer installs
Speaker 1: computers and software on its equipment like tractors that not
Speaker 1: only provide extra functionality and features to the equipment, it
Speaker 1: also really restricts how farmers can maintain and repair their stuff.
Speaker 1: In fact, you could argue that really the main reason
Speaker 1: for this technology is to create a closed off ecosystem
Speaker 1: where the farmers have no option but to take their
Speaker 1: equipment to authorize John Deer Associates to have their equipment
Speaker 1: serviced and repaired. And that's why this company comes up
Speaker 1: a lot in conversations around the right to repair, which
Speaker 1: has this radical notion that once you purchase something, you
Speaker 1: should be able to maintain it, repair it, and customize
Speaker 1: it without limitations. Take it to whomever you want, not
Speaker 1: just an authorized dealer you know because you bought the
Speaker 1: ding dang darn thing. But companies like John Deer have
Speaker 1: these systems in place to make that difficult or impossible. Well,
Speaker 1: sick Codes had already demonstrated that he could compromise a
Speaker 1: John Dear piece of equipment that he could hack and
Speaker 1: get control root control of the computer system underneath. But
Speaker 1: this year at dev Coon, he partnered with a Doom
Speaker 1: model named Skelegant or handle Skelegant, and she created a
Speaker 1: version of Doom that you could play on a John
Speaker 1: Dear tractor like it had you mowing down demons in
Speaker 1: a corn field. So great since the humor Skelegon, I
Speaker 1: really dig that and just showed that, Yeah, ultimately, this
Speaker 1: is just a computer system and all you have to
Speaker 1: do is get around the various gates that John Dear
Speaker 1: has put up blocking you from having root access, which
Speaker 1: sick Codes has already demonstrated he can do interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: Well that's it for this episode of tech Stuff. I
Speaker 1: hope you're having a great week and I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio production. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit
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