WEBVTT - Tech News: Hacking a Tractor to Play Doom 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.120 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:17.200 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio. 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:19.520 And how the tech are you. It's time for the 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:24.280 tech news for August twenty two, and today we've got 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:27.480 a lot of news items about hacking because def Con, 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:30.920 the hacker convention, was just this past weekend. But first 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:35.160 let's touch on some other news items. The advocacy group 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:40.560 Global Witness has leveled some pretty nasty accusations against Facebook. 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:44.159 And I say accusations, but really it sounds like in 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:48.240 this case the group has a pretty open and shut argument. Now, 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:51.919 this all has to do with some upcoming elections in Brazil, 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:55.680 and I'm sure we're all aware of how Facebook has 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:58.160 been under scrutiny for a few years now for its 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:02.880 role in carrying and in some cases promoting misinformation, namely 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:07.399 through its recommendation algorithm in English speaking countries. But in 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:10.959 countries where the dominant language isn't English, this can be 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:15.800 even more of a problem. It can go unresolved. So 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:19.520 how does Global Witness know that Facebook has failed to 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:23.039 live up to its promised that the platform is quote 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:27.080 deeply committed to protecting election integrity end quote. When it 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:32.520 comes to Brazil, well, Global Witness created political ads and 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:38.400 they inserted outright misinformation into those political ads. Then Global 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:42.920 Witness submitted those ads to Facebook, and Facebook accepted the 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:47.080 ads without raising any objections to the content inside them. 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:50.320 The advocacy group included ads that listed the wrong date 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.520 for the elections. So these were ads that were targeted 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.760 towards specific populations in Brazil. So the concept here is 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:01.160 that you would be trying to miss need a specific 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:05.200 target demographic so that they would not participate in voting, 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:08.360 and you will give them the wrong date. There was 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:11.840 there were other ads that that called for people to 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:16.000 use voting methods that aren't sanctioned by Brazil, so an 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:19.200 example that might be to vote by mail when there 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:22.760 isn't a vote by mail option. Some of them even 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:25.720 called into question the validity of the election and the 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:30.800 election hasn't even happened yet, and Facebook accepted all of them, 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:34.600 according to Global Witness senior advisor John Lloyd, Now what 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:38.639 should have happened was that Facebook should have identified the 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:43.920 misinformation in the ads and then denied the submitted advertisement. Instead, 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:47.440 Global Witness received notification after notification that the fake ads 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:51.160 had passed Muster, which the group rightfully points out brings 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:57.280 into question Facebook's entire content moderation strategy. Brazil's upcoming election 0:02:57.360 --> 0:02:59.960 is likely to be a rough one, with current president 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.680 Bolsonaro seeking out another term in office. He's also been 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:08.079 accused of spreading disinformation, including calling into question the validity 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:11.880 of results from certain voting machines. Global Witness points out 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:15.200 that its experiment wasn't just an exercise to see if 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:19.280 Facebook is living up to its promise. It's really a 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:23.600 critical demonstration of Facebook's failure in a high stakes, real 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.840 world scenario, something that is actually playing out right now. 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:31.160 So yeah, not a good look. Now, let's switch gears 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:36.560 for a little bit. So, misinformation and disinformation are clearly bad, right, 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:41.320 Misinformation you want to avoid, and disinformation that that says 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:46.480 there's a motive behind it where you are specifically seeking 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:51.000 to mislead people. So we should really seek to eliminate 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:56.840 misinformation and disinformation from platforms. However, we also have to 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:00.600 take into account who is making the claim that a 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:05.360 particular something is in fact misinformation in the first place. 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:10.120 That requires critical thinking and sometimes it gets really hard 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:13.120 to know what is true. Right, Like, if someone says 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:18.000 that's fake news, and they offer no evidence to show 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:21.240 that the claim is fake, and that the actual claim 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:25.119 has evidence to show that it's valid, then you can't 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:27.920 just say, oh, well, it's fake because this person said 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:30.040 it was fake. Right. And I say all this because 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:32.719 our next story is about how the Hong Kong Police 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:36.640 Force has opened a public relations wing that has identified 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:40.760 the elimination of online quote unquote smearring of police work 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:43.960 as a high priority. Now, the police force is claiming 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:48.240 that misinformation campaigns are portraying Hong Kong police in a 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:51.280 negative way and that that has led to the deterioration 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.400 of the relationship between the public and the police force, 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:57.360 Whereas some of the critics would say the police using 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:03.720 uh increased force against citizens is the deteriorating relationship that 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.560 we should be concerned about. So you could argue that 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:10.520 the Hong Kong Police Force is looking to censor voices 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:14.000 that criticize the police or bring attention to situations that 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.520 at least seemed to indicate an abuse of power. In 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:20.560 other words, you could argue the police are using the 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:25.040 label of misinformation to silence activists and critics in an 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:29.520 effort to control the narrative. So dealing with misinformation is 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:32.680 a tricky thing. I don't mean to suggest that it's 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:35.560 super easy. You always have to examine the validity of 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:39.680 the claim that something is misinformation to start with. Now, 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.240 in the case of Global Witness, that was obvious, right 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:47.000 because the group outright inserted falsehoods into political ads. There's 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:50.200 no denying that they were testing it and saw that 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:54.120 Facebook failed. But in the case of Hong Kong, it 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.080 looks like it's more of an authoritarian move in order 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:02.760 to try and limit dissent. So again, while we should 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:07.719 be aiming to eliminate misinformation, we always have to be 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:12.800 cognizant of where the claims of misinformation were coming from 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:15.920 and to weigh them carefully to make sure that this 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:21.560 isn't just an attempt to silence a critic. According to Bloomberg, 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:25.320 Apple is looking to insert more ads into the iPhone experience, 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:29.360 namely within certain first party Apple apps, uh the big 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:33.400 one being Apple Maps. Now, you might also encounter ads 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:37.159 within Apple's podcast app, And if that's the case, then 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:39.760 that means you're going to hear and see ads that 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:42.320 are not just inside a podcast, but also on the 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:46.880 podcasting platform itself. That's interesting because the podcast business is 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:49.880 largely dependent upon ads. I don't know if you've noticed, 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:53.080 but we've had a couple in our show. Well, Apple 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:55.839 doesn't get revenue from the ads that are in our show. 0:06:56.520 --> 0:07:00.240 Apple is a way for people to access podcasts. But 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:03.440 unless the show was actually coming from Apple, then Apple 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:07.240 doesn't really like revenue from the podcasts that are running. 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:10.720 You know that it allows people to access, So putting 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:14.960 ads into the podcast app itself is a way for 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:20.280 Apple to monetize the podcasting phenomenon. Also, a CNBC article 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:23.240 points out that Apple now has a huge advantage over 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:27.000 third party apps on iOS. So you might remember that 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:31.480 Apple introduced the app Tracking Transparency feature last year. This 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:33.760 was a little notification that would pop up and let 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:36.400 users decide whether or not they wanted to opt in 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:40.440 too targeted tracking from apps. That's the source of stuff 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:44.040 that lets companies like Meta capitalize on user activity. Now, 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.080 a lot of folks opted out when they got that choice. 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:49.840 They chose not to have their data shared with these 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:52.840 third parties, and that's one of the major hits to 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:56.320 Meta's revenue In the recent past. In fact, the loss 0:07:56.360 --> 0:08:00.360 of that customer data was a huge blow to Meta 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:04.520 because Meta was heavily dependent upon using that data in 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:08.520 order to market targeted ads and really make the most 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:12.680 out of its platforms. But without that piece, without your information, 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:16.840 then a lot of the value of that service is gone. 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.920 They can't target with such precision. Thus they can't demand 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:24.120 the same sort of prices from advertisers that they had 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:26.720 in the past, and the whole thing starts to kind 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:31.400 of fall apart. Now, Apple still has all that information, right, 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.360 like they've collected that info. It's not, it's just that 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:38.720 they're not sharing it with third parties. So you could 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.680 imagine a future in which Apple builds out its own 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:45.439 advertising business, for example, and leverages the data that other 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:49.400 parties aren't allowed to access, at least not without users 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:53.240 opting into the experience, right, And that's all speculation on 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:55.360 my part, of course, It doesn't mean that that's what 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:58.600 Apple is going to do. If Apple does design an 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:02.200 advertising business, it doesn't mean that Apple is going to 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:06.599 rely on that information without giving users the same opportunity 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:09.600 to opt out with Apple that they had with other apps. 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:12.400 None of that is is known. One way or the other. 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:17.839 But if it did happen, it wouldn't surprise me, although 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:21.400 it would bring more anti competitive scrutiny onto Apple, which 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:25.040 the company is already dealing with across the world in 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:29.640 various UH venues. So we'll have to see if that, 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:32.920 in fact is where we're headed. Bloomberg also reports that 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:36.400 Apple has once again set a deadline for corporate employees 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.800 to spend at least three days of the work week 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:42.880 in the office. Reportedly, employees are expected to come in 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:46.600 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, plus another day that was set 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:51.600 by their team leaders. So that new deadline, at least 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:54.760 according to one reporter, is September five. As far as 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:58.160 I know, Apple has not confirmed that or officially announced that, 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.560 but that's what a reporter's says. Is the plan that 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:05.240 by September five, all Apple corporate employees will be expected 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:07.000 to come into the office at least three days a 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:10.720 week now. Apple has moved this goal post multiple times 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:14.960 during the pandemic due to lots of reasons, mostly spikes 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:18.000 in COVID transmission rates, and there have been more than 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:21.720 a few reports of Apple corporate employees protesting this move. 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:25.120 In fact, the former head of Apple's machine learning department, 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:30.040 Ian Goodfellow left Apple reportedly because of this mandate that 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:32.920 employees would have to return to the office. Of course, 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:35.559 we're also in a time where a lot of companies 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:39.360 are looking to downsize, so you could argue that Apple's 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:43.760 continued insistence that employees returned to h Q might be 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:47.160 a way to kind of put the squeeze on Apple 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:50.600 employees and maybe shake out a few folks and slim 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:55.280 down without actually having to hold layoffs. Of course, that's 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:59.280 just a possibility. I'm not saying that Apple is doing that. 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:02.080 I'm saying that their companies are doing that. I just 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:06.440 don't know if Apple is um and maybe the reason 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:08.480 for it has nothing to do with that. Maybe there 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:13.160 is no desire to convince Apple employees, or at least 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:17.520 some of them, to maybe leave the company. Maybe a 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:20.800 big part of it is that, I don't know, Apple 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:24.800 spent billions of dollars to build out this campus and 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:27.800 barely got any use out of it before the pandemic hit, 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:30.840 and by gum, Tim Cook once those folks in that 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:34.440 expensive building, I'm sure the truth of the matter is 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.640 far more subtle, far more nuanced and complicated, But It 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:41.480 sure is fun to kind of boil these things down 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:45.319 to an absurd level. Al Right, Well, that's enough absurdity 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:47.560 for now, let's take a quick break. When we come back, 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:58.559 we'll have some more news. Before the break, I was 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:02.200 talking about Apple asking or telling employees that they need 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:04.600 to come back to the office. Let's talk about what's 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:06.920 going on over at A T and T. There's a 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:10.560 similar battle brewing between employees and management now. Some of 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:13.319 A T and T s employees have representation with the 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:17.600 Communications Workers of America UH and the cw A has 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:21.680 negotiated an extension for work from home operations until the 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:26.120 end of March two thousand twenty three. However, some A 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.000 T and T employees are saying that there are already 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:32.200 groups within the company that management has forced to come 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.960 back to the office now, so they're saying it just 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:38.640 it depends upon which department you work in and what 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:41.720 team you work for. Now, this has become an issue 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:44.640 for employee morale because those who have been forced to 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:47.920 go back into the office are kind of envying the 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:50.560 departments that continue to work from home. A lot of 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:53.120 folks have said that working from home had no negative 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:58.200 impact on productivity, or performance, so there was no downside 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:01.600 to the company for them work from home, and that moreover, 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:04.640 workers were saving money on stuff like transportation and other 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:07.440 expenses that led to a boost in quality of life 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:11.240 for the workers. So the narrative that we're seeing develop 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:16.840 across the entire industry is that workers feel the real 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:21.439 reason employers want them in the office isn't so much 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:24.360 about contributing to the bottom line. It's not so much 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:29.560 about performance and productivity and creativity and collaboration. It's more 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:32.880 about surveillance and control. If the employees are not in 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:35.720 the office, they can't be watched and they can't be controlled. 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:41.360 And whether that's a realistic narrative or not, I don't know. 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.720 I'm certain that most bosses aren't thinking of it in 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:47.880 those terms, but I know that that's a narrative that 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:53.240 is growing in in uh in size across the industry. Right. 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:57.239 You're seeing more and more people essentially boiled down the 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:00.280 the matter into those kind of terms. It's oh, I 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.560 know that any company out there there really wants to 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:07.320 bring its employees back into offices needs to be able 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:10.440 to address that concern in a satisfying way, or then 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:13.040 that narrative will continue to grow there as well. If 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.040 your employees are convinced that the only reason they're being 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.480 brought back into the office is so that the boss 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:23.280 can keep an eye on them and that's it, then 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:27.640 that's not a good narrative, right that that's that's going 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.440 to paint the company as a bad place to work. 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:34.840 That it's unreasonable. So again, I don't think that that's 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:38.800 necessarily where most companies are. I can't imagine most bosses 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:42.640 actually thinking in that that way, but they need to 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:45.240 get ahead of it if they want people to come 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:48.920 back into the office and not have it be a 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:53.400 catastrophic effect on the morale of the employees. Signal, the 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:57.880 encrypted messaging service, reported that a fishing attack on Twilo 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:01.440 Incorporated could mean the up to one thousand, nine hundred 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:05.400 Signal users had their phone numbers revealed to the attackers. 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:10.320 So here's the breakdown. Twilo is a verification services provider 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:17.360 and Signal uses Twilo's verification services, so Signal was not compromised. 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:22.640 The hackers did not target and and compromise Signal. Instead, 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:26.920 they compromised a company that Signal partners with for the 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:30.479 verification services. So the good news is that the attackers 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.120 seem to only have been able to get the phone numbers, 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:35.680 not even like the names of the people that the 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:39.920 phone numbers correspond to, just the numbers that represent devices 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:42.520 that have signal installed on them, and it's just nine 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.240 of them. That really limits what the attackers can do 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:50.240 with that information. They could conceivably attempt to reregister a 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:53.760 device's number, but that's about it. They didn't have access 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:58.120 to message history or profile information or anything like that, 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:00.960 so it could have been much worse. But it does 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:04.400 bring into focus the interconnected nature of tech companies and 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.600 how challenging it is to create a secure process because 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:11.800 if you're relying on another party to provide services that 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:16.480 make your company, you know, services possible, you might not 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:21.080 have total control over your own security procedures because some 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:26.040 of them are dependent upon another company entirely. So yeah, 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:30.720 it's complicated. Not long ago, a security researcher named Lenart 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:34.200 Wilder's and my apologies for butchering the name, revealed that 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:36.320 he was able to use a homemade device to hack 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:41.560 into Starlink, the satellite internet service provider arm of SpaceX now. 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:46.040 Starlink has since congratulated him on his find as it 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:49.080 you know, it uncovered a vulnerability that the company needed 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:52.480 to address. And you know he wasn't being a malicious hacker. 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:55.880 He was testing the security of starlinks technology and found 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:58.440 a an inroad. And the way I think about this 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:01.600 is that if researchers did do this and didn't reveal 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:04.880 their findings, there would be a danger that these vulnerabilities 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:08.480 would go unpatched, and then someone eventually who has bad 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:12.480 intentions would discover those vulnerabilities and then do nasty evil 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:16.000 things with that information. To that end, starlinkin SpaceX have 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:20.080 announced a bug bounty program inviting security researchers to poke 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:23.159 and prod and look for vulnerabilities, and if they discover 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:26.639 and report one, they get rewarded up to twenty five 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:29.920 thousand bucks, depending upon the nature of the vulnerability, which 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:32.280 is a responsible way to try and keep systems safe, 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:35.479 because if you're not supporting some sort of bug bounty, 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.760 you're inviting hackers to make money from those same vulnerabilities 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.800 in more nefarious ways. And finally, this past weekend, as 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:45.040 I said, was def Con a hacking convention and a 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:47.200 place where you absolutely want to make sure you're only 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:49.480 carrying a burner phone that has none of your personal 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:53.320 information on it, and one of the hackers attending goes 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:56.560 by the handle sick codes, and among sick codes as 0:17:56.560 --> 0:18:00.560 accomplishments is jail breaking. John dear farm equipment. Now, I've 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:04.200 talked about this on past episodes, but John Deer installs 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:08.119 computers and software on its equipment like tractors that not 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:11.720 only provide extra functionality and features to the equipment, it 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:15.560 also really restricts how farmers can maintain and repair their stuff. 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:19.240 In fact, you could argue that really the main reason 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:22.000 for this technology is to create a closed off ecosystem 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:24.080 where the farmers have no option but to take their 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:28.400 equipment to authorize John Deer Associates to have their equipment 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.760 serviced and repaired. And that's why this company comes up 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.720 a lot in conversations around the right to repair, which 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:37.320 has this radical notion that once you purchase something, you 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:39.800 should be able to maintain it, repair it, and customize 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:43.520 it without limitations. Take it to whomever you want, not 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:46.359 just an authorized dealer you know because you bought the 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:49.080 ding dang darn thing. But companies like John Deer have 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:53.680 these systems in place to make that difficult or impossible. Well, 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:58.480 sick Codes had already demonstrated that he could compromise a 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:01.880 John Dear piece of equipment that he could hack and 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:06.399 get control root control of the computer system underneath. But 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:10.680 this year at dev Coon, he partnered with a Doom 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:15.720 model named Skelegant or handle Skelegant, and she created a 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.680 version of Doom that you could play on a John 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:24.000 Dear tractor like it had you mowing down demons in 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:27.119 a corn field. So great since the humor Skelegon, I 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:31.560 really dig that and just showed that, Yeah, ultimately, this 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:34.080 is just a computer system and all you have to 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:39.360 do is get around the various gates that John Dear 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:43.000 has put up blocking you from having root access, which 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:47.199 sick Codes has already demonstrated he can do interesting stuff. 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:50.800 Well that's it for this episode of tech Stuff. I 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:53.119 hope you're having a great week and I'll talk to 0:19:53.119 --> 0:20:02.440 you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:06.280 Radio production. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:09.359 the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:10.800 listen to your favorite shows.