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 is time for
Speaker 1: the tech news for Thursday, February three, twenty two. So
Speaker 1: Meta slash Facebook held it's quarterly earnings call yesterday and
Speaker 1: things did not go well for the company. So a
Speaker 1: lot of today's news will be about, you know, breaking
Speaker 1: all of that down. But let's get the big ticket
Speaker 1: item out the way first. The collective bad news and
Speaker 1: that earnings call prompted a more than drop in Facebook's
Speaker 1: stock price and then meant the company lost nearly two
Speaker 1: hundred billion dollars in value. Uh I'll repeat the way
Speaker 1: New York Magazine put it because it's mind boggling. So
Speaker 1: at three pm yesterday Meta the company was worth around
Speaker 1: nine hundred billion dollars and by four thirty pm, it
Speaker 1: was worth seven hundred twenty billion dollars. And actually, as
Speaker 1: I started work on this episode, the valuation of the
Speaker 1: company was sitting at around six hundred seventy billion dollars.
Speaker 1: So it's even worse than what was being reported late
Speaker 1: yesterday afternoon. That's how badly that earnings call went, because
Speaker 1: a lot of that news was just the kind of
Speaker 1: stuff investors don't want to hear. Now. One of the
Speaker 1: many big issues covered during that Meta earnings call was
Speaker 1: that for the first time Facebook, the platform saw a
Speaker 1: decline in daily users in North America, which represents the
Speaker 1: number one market where Facebook rakes in the advertising cash.
Speaker 1: You know, Facebook has more than a billion user as
Speaker 1: we hear it all the time, nearly two billion users,
Speaker 1: but the ones in America are the ones that are
Speaker 1: really the the profit making, the revenue generating users for
Speaker 1: the company. Well, it turns out that they recently lost
Speaker 1: about a million users in North America, which is bad
Speaker 1: news for Meta because it hasn't seen much success in
Speaker 1: attracting new young users. Now, there's no doubt in my
Speaker 1: mind that the whole reason the company was developing Instagram
Speaker 1: apps for the under thirteen crowd was because the apps
Speaker 1: that Meta has right now, that being Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp,
Speaker 1: are not bringing in new users at a pace that
Speaker 1: is going to give investors confidence. And this kind of
Speaker 1: touches on something that drives me nuts when it comes
Speaker 1: to big business, and that is this. This applies to
Speaker 1: big business businesses in general, but it's if you are
Speaker 1: not growing, you're effectively dying. So you need growth quarter
Speaker 1: over quarter and year over year to demonstrate value to
Speaker 1: investors who want to return on their investment. Which you
Speaker 1: know that makes sense, right, Like you invest in something,
Speaker 1: you're probably doing it because you're hoping to get a
Speaker 1: return on it. Maybe you're doing it because you believe
Speaker 1: in whatever the company is or whatever. That's great. If
Speaker 1: you're doing it for that reason and not because you're
Speaker 1: hoping for a return, that's a different story. But generally speaking,
Speaker 1: people are hoping that they get more money out than
Speaker 1: they put in. But all this means constantly having to
Speaker 1: find ways to expand, even when you start pushing up
Speaker 1: against tough borders around your business. You folks probably know
Speaker 1: that at one time one of the companies that owned
Speaker 1: Hell Stuff Works was Discovery Communications. So at that time
Speaker 1: I saw in the cable channel industry that companies tried
Speaker 1: to get a presence in more countries. They tried to expand,
Speaker 1: introducing services in countries where they didn't already exist because
Speaker 1: they had pretty much saturated the markets where they already were,
Speaker 1: Like in Europe and the United States. They could not
Speaker 1: expanded to more households because they had pretty much touched
Speaker 1: everyone they could in those countries, so they had to
Speaker 1: look elsewhere in order to continue to grow. And pretty
Speaker 1: much every big industry faces this same challenge, and with Facebook,
Speaker 1: so much of that gets wrapped into dominating users time
Speaker 1: and keeping them on the various meta platforms for as
Speaker 1: long as possible, as frequently as possible. Well, you tend
Speaker 1: to hit a limit there as well, which means you
Speaker 1: really do need to get more users into the pool
Speaker 1: because you know eventually you're going to be dominating as
Speaker 1: much of people's time as you possibly can, So you
Speaker 1: need more people in order to continue to grow, and
Speaker 1: Meta just hasn't been doing a good job at bringing
Speaker 1: in new users. The Verge published a Great Beast by
Speaker 1: Alex Heath about Facebook's challenges when it comes to reaching
Speaker 1: young folks, and he cites a Facebook researcher that found
Speaker 1: that Facebook's reach with teenagers in the United States declined
Speaker 1: by between two thousand nineteen to two thousand twenty one.
Speaker 1: This was specifically with regard to the Facebook app, and
Speaker 1: that the the researchers were projecting a drop of another
Speaker 1: forty in teenager reach over the next two years. Heath
Speaker 1: also says research shows that while Instagram is still popular
Speaker 1: with younger users, the level of engagement with the app
Speaker 1: is on the decline. So this is all bad news
Speaker 1: for the long term and really for the short term
Speaker 1: too for Meta, but we're not done yet. Another big
Speaker 1: issue in that earnings call was about how other companies
Speaker 1: are affecting Meta's revenue and numbers. For example, Apple made
Speaker 1: a change to its iOS system that introduced new privacy settings,
Speaker 1: and that has hit Meta hard. Has hit other company
Speaker 1: is hard to, but Meta in particular was really upset
Speaker 1: about this. Uh. Those settings allow iOS users to opt
Speaker 1: out of what is called app tracking. Now, generally speaking,
Speaker 1: app tracking would let a developer create an app that
Speaker 1: collects data about the user's activities on that device, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of like how websites can use cookies to
Speaker 1: track browser activities across the web, except this was more
Speaker 1: about tracking what an iOS user was up to. Meta
Speaker 1: was using that data to build out its massive amount
Speaker 1: of information about folks, you know, users, Facebook users, and
Speaker 1: then it could use that information when making ad deals
Speaker 1: with advertisers and could serve up more targeted ads to
Speaker 1: those users. So the reason Meta pulls in the big
Speaker 1: box is because the company knows what it's users like.
Speaker 1: You just you know, look at their activities on the
Speaker 1: various platforms or in this case, by tracking what they're
Speaker 1: doing on their as devices or in their browsers, and
Speaker 1: then you can draw conclusions about what they like. And
Speaker 1: that means advertisers can have their ads more effectively reach
Speaker 1: target audiences. So Facebook is able to command very high
Speaker 1: ad prices for this service, and the advertisers see their
Speaker 1: businesses benefit right because they see more activity because people
Speaker 1: who are more likely to react to their ads are
Speaker 1: getting their ads. And all of this just costs a
Speaker 1: tiny bit, okay, let's be fair, a lot of user privacy,
Speaker 1: and everybody wins. Except then Apple had to go and
Speaker 1: upset the the Apple cart by letting users actually choose
Speaker 1: to opt out of those services. When using an app.
Speaker 1: They could turn off permissions for app tracking and Meta
Speaker 1: would no longer get that juicy, juicy data that was
Speaker 1: just so mean of you, Apple, You hurt poor little Meta,
Speaker 1: which predicts that this change in Apple's policy is going
Speaker 1: to create a quote unquote headwind. That's quote on the
Speaker 1: order of ten billion dollars end quote, according to Meta
Speaker 1: CFO Dave Winner. In other words, because Meta will not
Speaker 1: have access to those users data, the company will not
Speaker 1: make ten billion dollars That should rightfully be Meta's all
Speaker 1: because users want privacy. I mean, how unreasonable, right I
Speaker 1: guess y'all can probably tell I'm not feeling much empathy
Speaker 1: for Meta here. The company protested Apple's announcement about this
Speaker 1: numerous times, taking out full page ads in newspapers to
Speaker 1: cry out about it, and also using the argument you're
Speaker 1: gonna hurt small businesses because they won't be able to
Speaker 1: reach their customers because we can't track everything that their
Speaker 1: potential customer are doing, and using small business to be
Speaker 1: like your straw man argument is pretty low. Not surprising,
Speaker 1: but low, and uh, you know, keep in mind, app
Speaker 1: tracking is not totally gone. It's not like Apple got
Speaker 1: rid of it. It's just that users will be presented
Speaker 1: the option to opt out of it, and some people
Speaker 1: won't opt out, so I mean it's not totally drying
Speaker 1: up though. Um. You know, if you are presented with
Speaker 1: the option to opt out of app tracking, I recommend
Speaker 1: you do that. Anyway, let's talk about something else. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about Meta's division called Reality Labs. That's the part
Speaker 1: of Meta that's actually focused on building out Meta's version
Speaker 1: of a metaverse, whatever that ends up being. Reality Labs
Speaker 1: also covers hardware like the meta quest VR system. Well,
Speaker 1: in the Reality Labs division brought in about two point
Speaker 1: to seven billion dollars in revenue, and that is a
Speaker 1: lot of money. Two point to seven billion. However, it
Speaker 1: had a net loss of ten point one nine billion
Speaker 1: dollars Yoza so in and in that loss of six
Speaker 1: point six two billion dollars, and then a year earlier
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen that had a loss of four point
Speaker 1: five billion dollars. So Reality Labs is growing in terms
Speaker 1: of how much money it's losing the company year over year. However,
Speaker 1: we have to keep in mind we are talking about
Speaker 1: division that's trying to build something totally new, and there
Speaker 1: are only a few avenues for revenue right now out
Speaker 1: of that division. So the whole value proposition four Reality
Speaker 1: Labs is that the metaverse is presumably going to be
Speaker 1: the future of online activity, and it will cover everything
Speaker 1: from commerce to entertainment, to socializing to how businesses conduct themselves.
Speaker 1: But for that to happen, it has to be built first,
Speaker 1: and that means you should expect to see losses from
Speaker 1: that kind of division because Meta the Company has to
Speaker 1: pour in the resources to actually make the ding darn
Speaker 1: thing first. So the ten billion dollars, while a shocking number,
Speaker 1: makes sense, it would have been far more perplexing if
Speaker 1: Reality Labs had reported a profit because they don't really
Speaker 1: have anything to sell yet apart from some hardware. Dave Winner,
Speaker 1: remember that's metas CFO or chief financial officer, said that
Speaker 1: the losses will quote likely increase meaningfully in the quote
Speaker 1: this year because they're still building this thing, So that
Speaker 1: I'm guessing scared off some investors as well. Because the
Speaker 1: metaverse is most likely a long term project. It's not
Speaker 1: something that we're going to see launched by the end
Speaker 1: of two A lot of folks are pegging it as
Speaker 1: being another decade or so before we get anything, you know,
Speaker 1: significant in the space of Metaverse. Meanwhile, Meta the company
Speaker 1: is showing a decline in users. As we just mentioned
Speaker 1: people fewer people are using at least Facebook. Some of
Speaker 1: the other apps are doing fine, but in the North
Speaker 1: America of kind of flatlined. Uh. Then you also have
Speaker 1: the problem that Meta is seeing difficulty in reaching new users,
Speaker 1: and you've got these massive losses building out the next
Speaker 1: big thing like they're accumulating, and the next big thing
Speaker 1: is probably not gonna be ready for ten years or so.
Speaker 1: This collective message probably told a lot of investors, you know,
Speaker 1: that this was a dangerous or at least a very
Speaker 1: long term plan, and a lot of them probably just said, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I'm just gonna peace out for now and
Speaker 1: I'll check back later. Okay, let's wrap up the meta
Speaker 1: Facebook stuff before we go to break. Nikita Beer posted
Speaker 1: a great tweet which The Verge shared in an article
Speaker 1: about this earnings call, and in that tweet, Nikita laid
Speaker 1: out some of Facebook's big challenges, a couple of which
Speaker 1: we have actually touched on already, and Zuckerberg and his
Speaker 1: fellow executives covered a few of these during that earnings call.
Speaker 1: One of those challenges is that a lot of folks
Speaker 1: have turned to alternatives when it comes to spending their
Speaker 1: time online, uh namely the TikTok platform. When we'll talk
Speaker 1: more about TikTok much later in this episode. So Meta
Speaker 1: has tried to fight back against that trend by introducing
Speaker 1: TikTok like features on platforms like Instagram, but it hasn't
Speaker 1: really made a huge difference for younger users in particular.
Speaker 1: This also seems to mark a shift in user preferences
Speaker 1: in general. Zuckerberg said that people are showing more of
Speaker 1: a tendency to shift away from interacting with their friends online,
Speaker 1: which is kind of the bedrock of Facebook's model, and
Speaker 1: more toward consuming content that's made by others, which is
Speaker 1: something you might expect on a platform like TikTok or YouTube. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, instead of sharing stuff with friends, folks
Speaker 1: are watching TikTok stars do whatever folks are doing on TikTok. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I deleted TikTok off my phone ages
Speaker 1: ago because I'm old and I don't understand kids, which
Speaker 1: we understand is the law. Nikita also pointed out that
Speaker 1: a tried and true method of growth among big companies,
Speaker 1: that is mergers and acquisitions like the stuff we're seeing
Speaker 1: with Microsoft. Will talk more about that a bit too.
Speaker 1: That kind of thing is a lot more difficult for
Speaker 1: Meta because we're now in an era where antitrust measures
Speaker 1: have regained some importance. We're seeing more regulatory bodies around
Speaker 1: the world examined proposed acquisitions and push back against big companies,
Speaker 1: particularly big tech companies, So that avenue isn't really accessible
Speaker 1: to Facebook, right. If Facebook made a move to buy
Speaker 1: up another competitor like TikTok, they would likely face strong
Speaker 1: opposition among regulators around the world. So, oh, that's one
Speaker 1: method of growth Facebook just can't can't touch. Uh. And
Speaker 1: as we've seen in lots of different companies, especially like
Speaker 1: cable companies. I remember when I talked about Comcast. Comcast's
Speaker 1: main method of growth through most of its history has
Speaker 1: been to acquire other cable companies. That's how Comcast really grew.
Speaker 1: It wasn't so much organically growing the business as it
Speaker 1: was gobbling up regional competitors. So that's something that Facebook
Speaker 1: can't really do anymore because of this increased level of scrutiny.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Meta has got some big obstacles in the way. Now.
Speaker 1: I am not saying that the company is at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the end, because it's still raked in thirty
Speaker 1: nine billion dollars in profit in one not revenue profit
Speaker 1: nearly forty billion dollars. It would be ludicrous to suggest
Speaker 1: a company that has that kind of profit is really
Speaker 1: in danger of going under. But it's definitely at a
Speaker 1: point where the company is possibly too big to get
Speaker 1: much bigger, and that's not great from an investor standpoint. Well,
Speaker 1: we've got a lot more to talk about, but let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break. Okay. Over in Europe, there's a
Speaker 1: little thing called g DPR that stands for General Data
Speaker 1: Protection Regulation and it applies across the European Union. Now,
Speaker 1: the purpose of this regulation is to provide protections to
Speaker 1: EU citizens with regard to how companies can collect and
Speaker 1: use those citizens private data, uh, you know online, particularly
Speaker 1: like the idea being we want to give citizens more
Speaker 1: control over their personal information and not unknowingly just hand
Speaker 1: that over to various parties on the internet. So, generally speaking,
Speaker 1: g d PR requires companies to give citizen in the
Speaker 1: EU the opportunity to opt out of data collection, and
Speaker 1: the companies are also supposed to be transparent about how
Speaker 1: they use you know, user data. So if a company
Speaker 1: does collect data through things like cookies, it's supposed to say, well,
Speaker 1: we collect your your information and this is how we
Speaker 1: use it and if you're cool with that, just consent.
Speaker 1: And if you're not cool with that, hit this other
Speaker 1: button and you know, well, part as friends well. The
Speaker 1: Interactive Advertising Bureau of Europe or i a B Europe
Speaker 1: represents advertisers and marketers with businesses in the EU, and
Speaker 1: as part of i a B Europe's services, the group
Speaker 1: developed the Transparency and Consent Framework or TCF, which essentially
Speaker 1: acts as a liaison for various companies, including big ones
Speaker 1: like Google, Microsoft and Amazon, and creates methods too. You know,
Speaker 1: present pop ups, and those pop ups are designed to
Speaker 1: get those users consent for data tracking and such. But
Speaker 1: now the Belgian Data Protection Authority or d p A
Speaker 1: says that the TCF is not doing a good job,
Speaker 1: that it is violating gdp R. The d p A
Speaker 1: says that the pop up notifications designed to get consent
Speaker 1: are not sufficiently clear or transparent enough, so a visitor
Speaker 1: is unable to make an informed decision about granting their
Speaker 1: consent in regard for data tracking, which is a big
Speaker 1: no no. Like. The idea is that the average person
Speaker 1: should understand immediately what is being requested and be able
Speaker 1: to make a decision about whether or not they're cool
Speaker 1: with it, and according to the dp A, they're saying
Speaker 1: these pop ups are not doing that. In addition, the
Speaker 1: d p A argues that the TCF serves as a
Speaker 1: data controller. Now that's just kind of a formal designation
Speaker 1: within g d p R. It would mean that TCF
Speaker 1: would be held accountable for keeping personal data safe. And
Speaker 1: tc f A said, well, well, well we are. We're
Speaker 1: not a data controller. All we're doing is facilitating these
Speaker 1: consent requests. But one of the things TCF has been
Speaker 1: doing is that it records user responses to consent requests
Speaker 1: and shares that information with other companies that are part
Speaker 1: of the TCF ecosystem. So, in other words, if someone
Speaker 1: in the EU visits let's say Amazon dot com, and
Speaker 1: Amazon presents this consent request to the user and the
Speaker 1: user agrees to it, well, TCF might share that information
Speaker 1: with say Google, And the d p A argues that
Speaker 1: this practice, which includes storing a cookie on the end
Speaker 1: users device, that makes the end user personally identifiable, and
Speaker 1: that means that the consent data constitutes personal information and
Speaker 1: TCF has not been a responsible steward of that information.
Speaker 1: The d p A find I A B Europe two
Speaker 1: fifty thousand pounds, which the organization can appeal, and the
Speaker 1: d p A has also demanded that TCF be brought
Speaker 1: into compliance with g DPR. So many acronyms and initialisms. Anyway,
Speaker 1: they're saying, you have to get this service in compliance
Speaker 1: with g d p R within two months, and that
Speaker 1: all the organizations that are currently using the TCF services
Speaker 1: have to delete that consent data quote without undue delay
Speaker 1: end quote. Now, this decision could force some really big
Speaker 1: changes and how companies have been obtaining consent for the
Speaker 1: use of cookies and such in the EU, which I
Speaker 1: imagine will be nearly as disruptive as the actual ratification
Speaker 1: of g d p R was in the first place.
Speaker 1: Now Here in the United States, Apple is trying to
Speaker 1: convince lawmakers to vote against a bill that would force
Speaker 1: Apple to allow users to download apps that are not
Speaker 1: in the actual Apple Store app store. Uh So, this
Speaker 1: is a practice that we usually call sideloading. That you
Speaker 1: have your you know, standard approved method of getting apps
Speaker 1: that is going through the official store, but that you
Speaker 1: can also side load apps that are not in the
Speaker 1: store onto your device. That's something that Android users can do.
Speaker 1: Google often advises caution for people to sideload apps because
Speaker 1: there's no protection system in the way. That means that
Speaker 1: you might be more likely to encounter malware, but you
Speaker 1: can do it on Google devices. But Apple has long
Speaker 1: maintained that the only way was the Apple way. So
Speaker 1: since the launch of the App Store for the iPhone,
Speaker 1: which happened way back in two thousand eight, Apple has
Speaker 1: served as the gatekeeper for all apps on iOS devices.
Speaker 1: Developers have to submit their apps to Apple for review,
Speaker 1: and the company can choose to reject submissions for pretty
Speaker 1: much any reason they like. Sometimes it's practically impossible to
Speaker 1: figure out what that reason was, or sometimes even if
Speaker 1: there were a reason in the first place. But Apple
Speaker 1: says that this practice protects users and that without it,
Speaker 1: people would develop malicious apps for iOS devices and then
Speaker 1: try to trick iOS users into downloading those apps, which
Speaker 1: would compromise those users safety and privacy in the process.
Speaker 1: It would also mean the Apple would lose a lucrative
Speaker 1: source of revenue for all those sideloaded apps, because the
Speaker 1: company in most regions anyway, currently forces app developers to
Speaker 1: use Apple's own payment system for all in app purchases,
Speaker 1: and Apple takes a cut out of each and every
Speaker 1: in app purchase. So if you could sideload apps on
Speaker 1: your iOS device. Well, the developers of those apps might
Speaker 1: have their own in app purchasing systems that don't use
Speaker 1: Apple's approach, and Apple would not get a cut of
Speaker 1: those transactions. Um. Also, I feel like it's necessary to
Speaker 1: point out there's already malware for iOS devices that are
Speaker 1: out there. There are some malicious apps that have made
Speaker 1: it through the App store, so Apple's argument about protecting
Speaker 1: privacy loses a little bit of credence there. That being said,
Speaker 1: I do happen to agree that sideloading will likely mean
Speaker 1: we'll see a big spike in malware targeting iOS users
Speaker 1: in the future if Apple is in fact forced to
Speaker 1: allow it. Uh, that's just gonna happen. So I generally
Speaker 1: avoid side loading apps. I have done it a few
Speaker 1: times in the past, usually to use an app that's
Speaker 1: in an early stage of development and hasn't yet been
Speaker 1: finalized and released, and I trusted the developers. But I
Speaker 1: do not, as a rule do it, even though even
Speaker 1: though I'm aware that I could get access to stuff
Speaker 1: that wouldn't make it through say the original the actual
Speaker 1: Android Store. I UH, I don't feel comfortable sideloading a
Speaker 1: lot of apps, largely because they can be pretty dicey
Speaker 1: and shady, So that part I actually do agree with
Speaker 1: Apple with However, I think that the main motivation has
Speaker 1: always been this, uh, this revenue stream that Apple gets
Speaker 1: through all the in app purchases. Of course, there are
Speaker 1: judges that have demanded Apple allow developers to offer alternative
Speaker 1: payment systems that would side step Apple's process. That's something
Speaker 1: that the company is currently appealing. So we'll have to
Speaker 1: wait and see where that goes. And we'll also have
Speaker 1: to see where this sideloading issue goes. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: something else that is kind of a malware that involves Apple,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't involve, you know, people downloading a malicious app.
Speaker 1: So last year I talked a lot about Pegasus. That's
Speaker 1: a product from an Israeli company called the ns A Group,
Speaker 1: and it is a product that compromises iOS devices. Now, again,
Speaker 1: this is not a malicious app. It doesn't involve tricking
Speaker 1: someone into downloading an app that's actually a back door
Speaker 1: vulnerability for that device. Pegasus instead would let someone activate
Speaker 1: malware on another person's iOS device by sending a message
Speaker 1: through I message, so the person didn't have to open
Speaker 1: the eye message. They didn't have to click on a
Speaker 1: link and they just had to receive it, and this
Speaker 1: would trigger a vulnerability in the iOS system and the
Speaker 1: attacker would be able to do everything from track a
Speaker 1: person's phone activity to even activating the phone's cameras and
Speaker 1: microphones and turn the phone into a surveillance device from
Speaker 1: a are And um, yeah, creepy, creepy stuff. That alone
Speaker 1: was a huge story. But then n S A group
Speaker 1: was upping the anti by selling this product to various
Speaker 1: government bodies and figures who many of which would go
Speaker 1: on to target folks like activists and journalists with this malware.
Speaker 1: Like it was being sold as an anti terrorist tool,
Speaker 1: but a lot of these governments are authoritarian in nature,
Speaker 1: is a kind way to put it, and they were
Speaker 1: making use of it to try and target anyone who
Speaker 1: perhaps disagreed with their authoritarian approach. Anyway, recently news broke
Speaker 1: that a second Israeli company, this one called Quadream that's
Speaker 1: qu a Dream, was selling a similar tool that also
Speaker 1: exploited this same I message vulnerability, and that this company
Speaker 1: was operating at the same time as n s O group.
Speaker 1: Quadream also developed its product with government clients in mind. Now.
Speaker 1: According to ns A Group, the two companies didn't coordinate together,
Speaker 1: and if that's true, it would mean that you had
Speaker 1: two different companies independently able to develop a tool that
Speaker 1: leveraged this vulnerability in Apple's iOS. Now. Apple has since
Speaker 1: pushed out an update last September that neutralized both Pegasus
Speaker 1: and quadreams surveillance malware. I'm not sure what quadream called
Speaker 1: its product. That company, like, I said, much lower profile
Speaker 1: than n s A Group, and Apple is currently suing
Speaker 1: an s O group for violating the company's user terms
Speaker 1: and services agreement. But there's no telling if Apple will
Speaker 1: pursue similar legal action against the lower profile Quadream. We've
Speaker 1: got a couple more news stories to get through before
Speaker 1: we get to that. Let's take another quick break. Okay,
Speaker 1: I've got another story that involves bowl and malware. Microsoft
Speaker 1: researchers reported recently that a malicious piece of software called
Speaker 1: update Agent has been out in the world and infecting
Speaker 1: Mac computers for perhaps as long as fourteen months, so
Speaker 1: more than a year, and initially the malware appeared to
Speaker 1: be focused on stealing information like the infected machines, model
Speaker 1: number and what version of Mac OS it was running
Speaker 1: and such, which you know, that's concerning, but not not
Speaker 1: in the grand scheme of things. The scariest outcome of malware.
Speaker 1: And also it appeared to be fairly simple in its
Speaker 1: initial form, but over time the malware developers fleshed out
Speaker 1: update agents, so now it does all sorts of stuff,
Speaker 1: including giving it the ability to facilitate a payload delivery
Speaker 1: two infected computers that could potentially allow backdoor access to machines. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, this was like getting the foot in
Speaker 1: the door and then a subsequent delivery of a payload,
Speaker 1: which would be you know, it would be difficult to
Speaker 1: prevent because the machine has already been compromised, but the
Speaker 1: subsequent payload would give hackers potential administrative access to infected machines.
Speaker 1: That's really bad. But even before that, the malware was
Speaker 1: redirecting AD traffic so that infective computers, whenever they were
Speaker 1: supposed to have ads served up by legitimate you know, servers,
Speaker 1: they were getting ads from the hackers servers instead, So
Speaker 1: they were redirecting streams of AD traffic and effectively stealing
Speaker 1: traffic from legitimate AD servers. Trust me. Using the phrase
Speaker 1: legitimate ad servers has kind of an irony that is
Speaker 1: not lost upon me. And according to Microsoft, the malware
Speaker 1: poses as typically like a legitimate apps such as say
Speaker 1: a video app for the Mac, and it also sounds
Speaker 1: like a user. A Mac user first has to be
Speaker 1: tricked into installing the malware first, Like this isn't a
Speaker 1: zero click vulnerability. It's more like you get a pop
Speaker 1: up ad that says, hey, we've got this new video
Speaker 1: app that will work great on your Mac. Download it blease,
Speaker 1: and it turns out that this is just the gateway
Speaker 1: to download and install the Update Agent malware. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting because I remember a time when Mac enthusiasts.
Speaker 1: One of the big things they would uh say was
Speaker 1: made Max a superior platform to Windows based machines was
Speaker 1: that the Mac was effectively immune to malware. Now, it's
Speaker 1: true that very there was very little malware that was
Speaker 1: designed for Mac computers, especially compared to Windows based computers. However,
Speaker 1: you also have to remember that back in those days,
Speaker 1: the Mac market share of you know, computer users was
Speaker 1: really small. I guess there were lots of people who
Speaker 1: loved Mac computers, but they were dwarfed in number by
Speaker 1: Windows machine owners, which meant that if you were developing
Speaker 1: malware and you wanted to target as many people as possible,
Speaker 1: you were going to be developing for Windows based machines.
Speaker 1: So a lot of the immunity was through what we
Speaker 1: sometimes call security through obscurity. Uh, not that you know,
Speaker 1: Mac didn't have other anti malware systems in place, but
Speaker 1: you know, it just it didn't make sense to develop
Speaker 1: malware for the Mac platform if you really want to
Speaker 1: hit as many people as possible. Now Max have enough
Speaker 1: of a user base where the that immunity is gone. Uh.
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean that Mac is incredibly vulnerable to malware, but
Speaker 1: rather it's now worth the time to develop malware that
Speaker 1: can affect a Mac computer. So we're likely to see
Speaker 1: those kinds of things continue in the future. Now. Earlier
Speaker 1: in this episode, I mentioned TikTok, and if you'll remember
Speaker 1: here in the United States, TikTok was under a ton
Speaker 1: of scrutiny during Donald Trump's administration. TikTok's parent company is
Speaker 1: byte Dance and that is based out of China, and
Speaker 1: the Trump administration began to push for bite Dance to
Speaker 1: sell TikTok to an American company, citing concerns that a
Speaker 1: popular social networking app in the United States, which presumably
Speaker 1: would end up collecting a lot of personal information of
Speaker 1: US users, might send that data on back to China,
Speaker 1: something TikTok denied, and several analysts also pointed out that
Speaker 1: Trump's administration at the time was deep in a trade
Speaker 1: war with China and that perhaps the pressure on TikTok
Speaker 1: had more to do with the trade war than a
Speaker 1: genuine concern for US citizen private to see. But either way,
Speaker 1: it looks like the government was dead set on TikTok
Speaker 1: saying bye bye to byte Dance or shutting down, except
Speaker 1: people kept pointing out that there might not be any
Speaker 1: legal grounds or legal enforcement that can make that happen,
Speaker 1: and ultimately the whole thing fell through. But there is
Speaker 1: pressure on TikTok again, this time from the Biden administration
Speaker 1: and not just TikTok. There's a proposed regulation of the
Speaker 1: Commerce Department here in the US that, if past, would
Speaker 1: require apps that originate out of foreign countries to share
Speaker 1: source code and datalogus with a third party auditor named
Speaker 1: by the Commerce Department in order to make sure that
Speaker 1: the app is not, you know, siphoning US citizen data
Speaker 1: for nefarious or exploitative purposes, because come on, that's a
Speaker 1: right that we reserve for US companies to do to
Speaker 1: US citizens. We don't cotton to ding dang furriners doing
Speaker 1: it to us too. No, we want American companies stealing
Speaker 1: our information. That was my sad attempt at satire. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the Commerce Department identifies China as a quote unquote foreign adversary,
Speaker 1: so presumably any app originating from China would qualify for
Speaker 1: this kind of regulation. I'm looking at you, ten cent now.
Speaker 1: Earlier this week, I talked about how Sony is acquiring
Speaker 1: video game studio Bungee for more than three point five
Speaker 1: billion dollars. And of course, Microsoft is currently biting its
Speaker 1: nails as it waits for approval from regulators around the
Speaker 1: world so that it can close its deal on Activision Blizzard.
Speaker 1: But whither, I hear you ask goes Nintendo. Is Nintendo
Speaker 1: also gearing up to purchase various game companies around the
Speaker 1: world in an attempt to keep pace with Sony and
Speaker 1: Microsoft In a word, No, that's according to Nintendo president
Speaker 1: Shintaro Fukawa, who said the company's philosophy is to pursue
Speaker 1: organic growth rather than growing through acquisitions. He said, quote
Speaker 1: our brand was built upon products crafted with dedication by
Speaker 1: our employees, and having a large number of people who
Speaker 1: don't possess Nintendo DNA and our group would not be
Speaker 1: a plus to the company. End quote. Now, dismissing for
Speaker 1: a moment that this particular phrasing, which I should add
Speaker 1: could be the result of interpretive translation, gets a little
Speaker 1: bit creepy. I mean, it kind of sounds like Nintendo
Speaker 1: has some sort of genetic purity issues going on from
Speaker 1: that phrasing. We can put that aside. I think that
Speaker 1: this is an interesting approach to business. So way back
Speaker 1: in the day, before I was a podcaster or even
Speaker 1: a writer for How Stuff Works, I was employed at
Speaker 1: a human resources consulting firm. If you've seen office space,
Speaker 1: you might remember the characters of the Bob's, the consultants
Speaker 1: who come into help clear out the infotechs employee list
Speaker 1: or whatever. I worked for a company that was effectively
Speaker 1: the Bob's, and through that company, I saw a lot
Speaker 1: of cases where you would have, say, a big company
Speaker 1: acquiring a smaller company, and the two companies would have
Speaker 1: very different corporate cultures. So inevitably you had a culture
Speaker 1: clash following that would be an awkward period in which
Speaker 1: the two entities tried to find some common ground, and
Speaker 1: it almost always went poorly, or at least it created
Speaker 1: lots of rough patches. There's a lot of friction. So
Speaker 1: from that perspective, I do see how focusing on your
Speaker 1: in house workforce and growing that way by hiring more people,
Speaker 1: and you're just constantly feeding into a uniform corporate culture
Speaker 1: that can make a lot of sense. It removes the
Speaker 1: need to find that common ground with another company that
Speaker 1: has its own history and its own culture, because if
Speaker 1: you just keep it all in house, everyone's already on
Speaker 1: the same ground to start with. Anyway, I also feel
Speaker 1: like this is the most Nintendo of Nintendo approaches, so
Speaker 1: it makes sense from that perspective. Now, I also think
Speaker 1: that Nintendo is like you could say, yes, Nintendo, Sony,
Speaker 1: and Microsoft are all in the video game space, which
Speaker 1: makes them all competitors with each other, But in many
Speaker 1: ways I don't think of Nintendo as competing with Sony
Speaker 1: and Microsoft. There it's almost like they're playing a different
Speaker 1: kind of game to Sony and Microsoft, and that they
Speaker 1: focused more on creating uh unique user experiences, some of
Speaker 1: which appeal to me and some of which don't. But
Speaker 1: that seems to be their their course of action, as
Speaker 1: opposed to Sony and Microsoft, which are constantly pushing like
Speaker 1: the bleeding edge of what is possible on video game platforms.
Speaker 1: Two very different approaches. I'm not saying one is automatically
Speaker 1: better or worse than another. I like a lot of
Speaker 1: Nintendo's approaches, um, but I also like a lot of
Speaker 1: what Sony and Mike so typically do as well. So
Speaker 1: I think there's a place for everybody anyway. That wraps
Speaker 1: up the tech news for Thursday, February three two. This
Speaker 1: was a long one. I blame Facebook, because I blame
Speaker 1: Facebook for everything. Let's be honest. If you have suggestions
Speaker 1: for topics I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: whether it's a trend in tech, a company, a person
Speaker 1: who's important in tech. Maybe it's a specific technology and
Speaker 1: you just want to learn about its history and how
Speaker 1: it works. Let me know. Send me a message via
Speaker 1: Twitter to handle for the show is tech Stuff hs W,
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff
Speaker 1: is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.