WEBVTT - Tech News: The Rise of the Robocall 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:14.800 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:18.000 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:20.720 and I love all things tech and it is time 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:26.400 for the news for Tuesday, February twenty one. Let's get 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:29.520 to it, and we will begin with an update on 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:33.240 the Solar Winds hack, a massive supply chain hack that's 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:38.839 had a critically dangerous effect on numerous companies and governmental agencies, 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:41.959 with the potential for a lot more damage further down 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:46.040 the road. Solar Winds makes I T system management software, 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:49.479 so you know, the type of stuff that network administrators 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.960 might use to monitor and control really complicated computer networks. 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:58.440 Hackers likely backed by Russia, compromised a piece of software 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:03.120 called Ryan on the Solar Winds side of everything, and 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:07.560 they inserted malware into the software code for the Orion product. 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:11.560 So when solar Winds pushed out updates to Orion, Solar 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:15.840 Winds customers who accepted those updates because solar Winds as 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.760 a trusted partner, they unknowingly infected their own systems with 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:24.840 a trojan type of malware. That attack hit thousands of 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:27.840 customers but the hackers actually only followed up with a 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:31.319 few dozen of them to further infiltrate and spy on 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:35.440 targets that ranged from Microsoft to the United States Department 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:39.600 of Homeland Security. Now, Microsoft says that after analyzing the 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:43.440 code found in Orion, researchers reckon that maybe as many 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:47.120 as a thousand or more developers had worked on that 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:51.680 malicious code, which itself consisted of four thousand, thirty two 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:55.120 lines of code. Now more than a thousand developers, that 0:01:55.280 --> 0:02:00.840 is a truly huge endeavor, something far beyond independent hacking groups. 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:04.800 Microsoft president Brad Smith indicated that this sort of attack 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:08.520 was new to the United States, but Russia had previously 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:12.480 employed a similar approach in cyber attacks on systems located 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:15.880 inside the Ukraine. If you want to learn more about 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:19.400 the Solar Winds hack, I had a an episode with 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:23.600 hacker extraordinaire Shannon Morrise she joined tech Stuff. The episode 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:27.399 is titled the Solar Winds Hack. It published on February one, 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.440 and Shannon and I explored the scope of the Solar 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:33.760 Winds attack and what it all actually means. Spoiler alert, 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:39.040 It's not good. And now let's switch to a collection 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:42.240 of stories that I like to call eat the Rich. 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:45.920 And we've got some more updates on that story of 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:49.280 Wall Street Bets and the game Stop stock, this time 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:51.960 looking at how the United States government is getting involved, 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:56.280 so quick refresher. Some hedge funds decided to short sell 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.480 shares a game Stop. That's when you borrow shares of stock, 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:02.280 you sell them at whatever the current market value is 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:05.840 for that stock. Then you buy back those borrowed shares 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:08.440 so you can return them to the original owner. And 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:10.480 what your hope is is that the price of the 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:13.360 shares will drop so that you make money on the deal. 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:16.320 So let's say you sell some borrowed stock for twenty 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:18.480 bucks a pop, and you buy it back when it's 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:21.720 at ten dollars a share. You just made ten dollars 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:24.640 a share as you return the stock to the person 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:27.880 you borrowed it from. But a group of independent investors 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:32.200 day traders, communicating on forums like Reddit and a subreddit 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:35.800 called Wall Street Bets, decided to foil this plan by 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:39.680 buying up game Stop shares and encouraging others to do so. 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:44.120 Now that pushed the price of the game Stop shares up, 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:48.960 not down. Then you had hedge funds freaking out because 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:51.880 they were going to be obligated to buy back those 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:54.760 shares they have to in order to return them, and 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:57.440 now they would have to pay more money than they 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:00.240 made when they sold off those borrowed shares, and the 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:03.760 Wall Street bets folks kept buying up more stock as 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:07.080 soon as it would become available, which pushed the price 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:10.560 even higher, creating a short squeeze. It hit a high 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:15.360 of around four three dollars per share. Uh this was 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:18.279 well above the twenty dollars a share that it was 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:22.240 at before all this happened, and that share price has 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:24.840 actually settled off quite a bit. Right now, as a 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:28.120 record this it's around fifty two dollars per share, but 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:30.240 that's still more than twice what it was when all 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:33.320 this started. And the U S House of Representatives wants 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:35.960 to talk to a few people about everything that's been 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:39.480 going on. Among those people are Steve Hoffman, the CEO 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:43.839 of Reddit, and Vlad Tinev, the co CEO of robin 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:47.719 Hood that's an app that allows its customers, it's users 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.080 to buy stocks through the app. And also they want 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:53.760 to talk to Keith gil who has the online moniker 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:57.599 of Roaring Kitty he's been invested heavily in game stuff 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.640 since back in twenty nineteen, an he posted about it frequently. 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:04.760 The Senate also wants to get involved. They want to 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:07.160 determine if there was any manipulation of the stock market 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.400 going on here. But on the surface, that doesn't seem 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:13.599 to be the case, at least not for the price 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:17.360 to go up. Sure, there were independent investors all working 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:20.359 together to buy up shares of stock, but that in 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:24.680 itself isn't manipulation. In fact, the Wall Street Bets Crew 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:29.080 maintains that hedge funds that short cell companies frequently engage 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:33.120 in activities that are specifically meant to devalue that company's 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:37.919 share price. That seems to fall more under the manipulation umbrella. 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:40.800 Also on the table or talks about robin Hood, which 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.560 famously put a freeze on how many shares of game 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.440 Stop users could actually purchase, and in some cases they 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:50.520 just stopped anyone from being able to buy game Stop 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:53.600 shares at all through robin Hood. The House will examine 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:57.080 if robin Hood broke any federal regulations in the process 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:00.760 of that. As numerous media outlets have shared a major 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:04.159 hedge fund owns a significant stake in Robin Hood and 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:06.840 the Wall Street Bets Crew has maintained that the app 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:09.080 is kind of part of a system that rewards the 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:12.719 wealthy at the expense of everybody else. The U S. 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:15.240 Senate is also looking into the current state of the 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:17.920 stock market in general, and the hearing in the House 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:21.440 of Representatives should take place on February eighteenth, starting at 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:24.680 noon Eastern time. They'll also be streaming it live just 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:28.560 in case you know you're interested in tuning in. Researchers 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:32.080 with the Duke University School of Business published a report 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:35.279 that an elite group of companies are responsible for more 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:40.000 than half of all the revenue generated from the ocean economy. 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:43.400 So we're talking about around a hundred companies responsible for 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:48.680 one point one trillion dollars in revenues, or about six 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:53.960 of all revenue from ocean based economic activities. This is 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:56.360 based off data that's actually a couple of years old, 0:06:56.360 --> 0:07:00.240 so it might even be more dramatic than that. In now, 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:03.320 if you're like me, you might have had a pretty 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:07.000 rough reaction to that news. I mean, that's an enormous 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:11.680 amount of influence with a very small number of organizations. 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:14.840 But luckily for me, the researchers provide a voice of 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:18.360 cautious optimism about all this. One of the authors of 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:21.400 the study has said, quote, one of our biggest challenges 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:26.040 is to sustain healthy ocean ecosystems as economic use increases 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:30.840 and climate impacts accelerate. This study confirms that a relatively 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.880 small number of companies will be central to this challenge 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:37.720 and have a real opportunity for leadership end quote. So 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:41.040 with that perspective, you could argue that it's actually easier 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:44.600 to convince a relatively small number of companies to make 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:48.360 some big changes that could have enormous benefits for millions. 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:50.560 Then it would be a lot easier to do that 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:53.800 than to try and convince a ton of smaller companies 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:57.200 that each have a smaller amount of influence and thus 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.080 have a small stake in a very big pool, as 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.320 it were. Companies in the study included oil and gas 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:09.120 companies that conduct you know, offshore mining operations, seafood production 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:14.280 and processing, shipping, cruise tourism, offshore wind companies, and more. 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:17.440 The lion share of that one point one trillion dollars 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:21.120 of revenue actually falls, into surprise, surprise, the oil and 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.800 gas company slice of the pie. These companies had a 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:30.600 combined revenue of eight hundred thirty billion dollars or of 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:34.320 the whole thing. Yoza. Now, will these companies make the 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:38.840 major changes to address sustainability challenges? Well, if shareholders demand 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:41.800 it and pressure the companies to do so, or if 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:45.080 the leadership of those companies takes these issues like ocean 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:50.360 sustainability and climate change really seriously. Perhaps I withhold judgment 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.160 only because I've seen a lot of companies act in 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:57.400 short term self interest over long term viability. But I 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:02.360 hope the attitude of the researchers us reflect reality. All right, 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:06.679 how about instead of wealthy corporations, I talked about wealthy criminals, 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.640 And yes there is some overlap in that ven diagram, 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:13.200 but I am focusing on people who are engaged in 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:17.240 illegal activities and then turning to stuff like cryptocurrency in 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:20.360 an effort to launder money so that you know, they 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:24.840 can actually use the money they stole. That's the whole 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:28.800 purpose of money laundering. You take illegally obtained money, whether 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:32.320 it was stolen or it came from illegal transactions, you know, 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:35.920 like drug sales, that kind of stuff or whatever, and 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:38.400 you take that money, you mix it with cash from 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:42.440 an otherwise legitimate enterprise in order to hide the ill 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:45.440 gotten gains. Now, this gets pretty tricky if you're talking 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:49.840 about truly large amounts of money, because regulators noticed that 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:53.840 kind of stuff. If a humble business, let's say it's 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:58.400 literally a launderer, were to brake in, you know, a 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:01.920 hundred times more revenue than that normally would, that might 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:05.559 raise some eyebrows. But anyway, an analysis company called chain 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:09.720 Analysis published a report recently saying that fifty five percent 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:13.760 of all the money laundering happening with cryptocurrency can be 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:17.880 traced to just two D seventy block chain addresses. Beyond 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:20.840 this core group of two D seventy blockchain addresses, you've 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:24.760 got another fifteen hundred addresses or so that is responsible 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:28.760 for sevent of all money laundering in the cryptocurrency world. Now, 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:32.559 this kind of concentration of laundering could pose a big 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.400 problem for the batties out there, because with a bottleneck 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:39.480 and cryptocurrency processing, law enforcement agencies around the world can 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:42.880 narrow their focus on some of the most active addresses 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:46.640 to identify and go after groups of criminals, and if 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:51.240 cryptocurrency exchanges detect that, they could be targeted for investigations, 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:55.080 they might actually take more proactive steps to enforce anti 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:59.360 money laundering policies against users and shut down criminal activity 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:02.640 ahead of official legal action. One of the things you 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:06.160 learned when you start looking into big money criminal enterprises 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:10.120 is that crime does pay, but it can sometimes be 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:14.000 really hard to cash out without getting caught. Over at 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:17.679 the New York Times, journalist Cade Mets has written an 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:20.640 incredible piece about a movement that has really taken hold 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:25.040 in the tech space, particularly among leaders in Silicon Valley. 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:29.120 The pieces titled Silicon Valleys Safe Space, and it's about 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:33.439 a blog that was called slate Star codex. Gets explains 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:37.440 that a psychiatrist named Scott Siskin who used the pseudonym 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:40.600 Scott Alexander, created the blog and used it to write 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:44.000 about a lot of big topics. As Gets says, quote, 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:48.120 the blog explored everything from science and medicine to philosophy 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:51.720 and politics to the rise of artificial intelligence end quote. 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:55.280 Now I recommend reading the whole piece over on the 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:58.920 New York Times. Uh They it's really well done, and 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:01.800 I just want to give a kind of general overview 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:04.800 without diving too much into the piece. Much of it 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:07.640 focused on a school of thought that many of the 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:11.120 leaders in Silicon Valley have been, you know, following or 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:16.880 subscribed to. It's called rationalism, which sounds you know reasonable, right, 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:21.319 I mean rationals in the name. Ideally, the philosophy examines 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:25.160 issues with a sort of scientific approach. The goal is 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:29.640 to gain an understanding of issues and solutions using a 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:33.320 rational line of thinking. But there's a tone that starts 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:37.920 to pop up in rationalism that I personally find rather troubling, 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:42.400 and it's a tendency to overlook consequences of certain actions 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:47.760 or policies. I detect a tendency for privileged people to 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:51.480 ignore the effects of their rationalism on those who are 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:55.640 not part of that privileged class. Free speech is frequently 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:59.120 cited as a critical element of rationalism, but there also 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:01.400 seems to be a fail eire to address a problem 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:04.280 I see, which is that those who have the strongest 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:08.199 platform from which to speak freely are those who already 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:11.800 enjoy a great deal of privilege. In other words, if 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:15.719 you aren't one of the lucky few who are privileged, 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:19.840 then freedom of speech doesn't mean as much because you 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:23.360 aren't given the same platform that allows you to, you know, 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:26.960 get your message to be heard. You aren't elevated, and 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:31.360 your volume isn't amplified the way the folks who do 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.760 belong to that class experience. Now you can probably tell 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:38.280 I'm not totally on board with rationalism. I respect a 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:41.800 lot of what it's about in theory, but I also 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:45.120 have fundamental problems with it in practice. And it's kind 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:48.920 of why when I talk about critical thinking, I tend 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:52.400 to pair it with compassion when I advocate it to 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:56.480 you guys, my listeners. I find that compassion without critical 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:59.720 thinking that's terrible at least some bad decisions that leads 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:03.080 to magical reasoning. If you don't allow critical thinking and 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:06.640 you just follow compassion, you're gonna make some bad choices. 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:10.840 But I find that critical thinking without compassion leads to 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:14.440 decisions that can have really negative consequences for a lot 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:17.440 of people. And Gets does a pretty good job of 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:20.360 handling this matter with a very objective point of view, 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:25.440 particularly considering that Gets himself became the target of harassment 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:30.600 as a result of this journalistic endeavor he pursued. So 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:34.080 if you find my own perspective frustrating because of my 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:37.280 own point of view, you should really read the original 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:40.600 piece because there's a lot in there, including the way 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:44.320 that various leaders have treated the concept of artificial intelligence, 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.480 and our AI really does post some significant challenges from 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:52.280 an ethical and existential point of view, So highly recommend 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:55.320 you check it out. Okay, we have some more stories 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:58.000 to get to, but first let's take a quick break. 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:10.280 We're back. The Anti Defamation League released a study last week. 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:14.000 They found videos on YouTube that promote extremist views like 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:19.000 you know, white supremacy are still not only found on YouTube, 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:24.320 but also the site's algorithm is still recommending those videos. Uh, 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:27.520 if you happen to have watched other extremist videos, so 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:32.080 if you watch one, you're likely to be recommended others. Now, 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:36.120 this falls into a general problem of algorithms that potentially 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:40.960 could be exacerbating radicalization. The purpose of the algorithm ultimately 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:43.840 is just to keep people on the platform for as 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:47.360 long as possible, because more time on the platform means 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:51.440 more advertising dollars going to that company, so you want 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:53.760 to maximize the amount of time people are spending there. 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.280 So if you click on a video on YouTube, the 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.400 algorithm will take into account which video you chose and 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.200 then pull up videos with related material In them and 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:04.880 serve them up to you. Now. Many years ago, the 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:08.960 comedian Patton Oswald had a bit about the DVR device 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:11.960 TiVo and how he was having problems with it. According 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.200 to the bit, he said he decided to watch some Westerns, 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:18.560 and TiVo then interpreted that to mean that what Patton 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:25.160 really liked were horses, and so suddenly TiVo was automatically 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:29.240 recording programs that had anything to do with horses and 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:31.760 presenting those two patent as, Hey, you liked you like 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:35.640 that other horse thing, watch this horse thing. Well, that's 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:38.520 kind of what YouTube's algorithm does. If you watch videos 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.200 about people rescuing animals, you're going to get a lot 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:44.680 more of those videos recommended to you. I know, because 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:48.160 that's what dominates my YouTube recommendations. But when it comes 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:52.520 to indoctrine Nation into extremist views, this algorithmic approach can 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:55.920 be a huge problem. It's like YouTube is doing the 0:16:56.000 --> 0:17:01.400 recruitment on behalf of these extremist groups population recommendations with 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:06.760 propaganda that persuades more people toward harmful extremist ideas. And 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:11.280 also terms like extremism and radicalism are a little too vague. 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:14.800 I think you can have an extreme view and it's 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:18.800 not necessarily harmful, but we're generally talking about philosophies like 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:24.320 white supremacy that is undeniably harmful. The study found that 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:27.720 YouTube's algorithm was likely to serve up more videos designed 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:30.600 to appeal to these sorts of world views if you 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:33.760 had watched a video already. Now that being said, you 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:36.840 are not likely to stumble across one of these videos 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:40.280 and your recommendations without doing some of that work on 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:43.359 your own. Google has really been working to limit hate 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:46.560 speech on the YouTube platform. That is helping out a bit. 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:50.080 In fact, according to Google, it's reduced the consumption of 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:52.720 those types of videos by as much as eighty percent. 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:56.400 But if you actually do seek out the videos, then 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:59.960 you can find them, and you might find that YouTube's 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:02.639 starts recommending more of them to you, and that remains 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:05.400 a problem. I hope to do a more thorough episode 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:07.520 on this general topic in the future, and I have 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:10.160 a special guest in mind who might help me talk 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:14.520 about it, So stay tuned for that. Parlor or parlay 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:19.160 if you prefer, has returned, the social network ostensibly dedicated 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:23.000 to free speech, but effectively the place of refuge for 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:27.560 the far right of the political spectrum Online was homeless 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:31.360 for a while. That was after Amazon Web Services booted 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:34.760 the company from their servers. But now the site has 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:37.919 a new host, a company called Epic E p i 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:41.960 K that's also known as a harbor for other far 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.040 right websites and services that have had a trouble, you know, 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:49.360 finding a home elsewhere. While those who have existing Parlor 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:53.359 accounts can access the site, the messages that once populated 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:58.240 the forums before Amazon evicted them, those are not yet back, 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:01.480 so those who are already members can go there. They 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:04.880 can start you know, posting in forums again, but they 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:08.760 can't access older threads. Parlor in general has had a 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:12.000 lot of changes. Researchers were able to scrape tons of 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:15.000 data off of Parlor before it was banished, and there 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:17.919 is no shortage of critics who will say that the 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:21.720 company has proven to be extremely careless with user information, 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.520 so a lot of people say that Parlor is is 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:28.600 kind of a doxing tool all by itself. The former CEO, 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:32.520 John Matt's has said that Rebecca Mercer, who provided much 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:36.359 of the funds to launch Parlor, fired him earlier this month, 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:39.640 and Mark Mechler, best known for co founding the Tea 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:43.359 Party is now serving as interim CEO while the company 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:46.400 seeks out a permanent one. It's too early to say 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:49.240 if users are going to return to the site in 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:53.520 droves or if they will have migrated to other services. 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:57.240 And I guess now it's time for me to talk 0:19:57.280 --> 0:19:59.960 about Clubhouse. And I'm sure most of you have heard 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:01.800 about it, and a lot of you may have even 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:05.560 used it. Me not so much, not cool like that. 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.720 But Clubhouse is an app that launched last March. It's 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:12.480 an app that was created by Paul Davison and Rowan 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:15.840 Seth after they tried to make a podcasting app, and 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:20.119 it's really blowing up now after lots of early influencers 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.440 and celebrities embraced the platform. Now I'm still the ground 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:26.800 old man who hasn't joined in. But the app creates 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:29.600 audio chat rooms, which just makes me think of the 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:32.320 old party lines you used to see advertised about all 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:35.040 sorts of stuff back in the nineties. And you use 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:37.760 the app to log into, you know, various chat rooms. 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:39.640 You can bounce around if you want, and you're able 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:43.320 to converse over voice with other users about all sorts 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:46.440 of things. And some of those users include famous people 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:50.520 like people like Lindsay Lohan and Elon Musk, and the 0:20:50.560 --> 0:20:53.960 topics of conversation could be really broad, with some rooms 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:58.120 dedicated to celebrity gossip, some might be dedicated to quantum physics. 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:02.360 It's pretty wild stuff. It's an invitation only platform, and 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:05.200 I've never received an invite, which is not a complaint. 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:07.760 It's probably for the best. I mean, I record so 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:11.200 many podcasts a week. I suspect most people here as 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:14.639 much from me as they would like, and in many cases, 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:17.280 I'm sure it's more than that. Also, there's no Android 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:19.959 version of the app yet, but it is on the way, 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:23.399 according to the company. However, since it is invite only, 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:25.760 that means that clubhouse has a sort of air of 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:29.520 exclusivity around it, which automatically makes it more attractive for 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:33.399 some people. Plus, in the middle of a pandemic where 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:36.040 most of us are stuck at home, it represents a 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:39.080 way to chat with other people safely and about all 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:42.760 sorts of interesting or mundane topics. Everyone wants to be 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:44.800 in the club they can't get in. I guess I 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:47.600 don't know at all. All sounds kind of stressful to me, Honestly, 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:50.760 I think I mostly end up just being quiet there, 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:54.240 believe it or not, So an invitation is wasted on me. 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:57.080 If you have an invitation, give it to someone you 0:21:57.119 --> 0:21:58.640 think would get the most out of it. I guess 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:00.480 that is what I'm saying. The fact you can just 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:02.680 go in there and talk with folks has already led 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:06.119 China to say, hey, we don't want that here, because 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:09.080 the Chinese government cracks down hard on any form of 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:13.000 communication that is outside of its own authority. And Clubhouse 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:19.119 is also already at the center of other conversations about exclusion, harassment, misinformation, 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:21.440 you know, the sort of stuff that we see on 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:24.639 all social networks. Really, I'm not think saying it's it 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:26.919 should come as a surprise that it's over at Clubhouse too. 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:30.920 It's it's an issue that has been a problematic for 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:34.240 every platform. Now, there have been some pretty nasty stories 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:37.480 about bullying over at Clubhouse, but I think every social 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:41.320 platform faces these issues. It's really how they respond to 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:45.000 those problems that's worth talking about. And Clubhouse is still 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:47.840 in the process of formulating its strategy for that, like 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:51.600 getting moderators and that kind of thing. I imagine all 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:54.000 that is going to have to change soon. It's gonna 0:22:54.040 --> 0:22:56.800 have to be less loosey goosey, but I'm sure I'll 0:22:56.840 --> 0:22:59.600 also do a full episode about Clubhouse in the future, 0:22:59.640 --> 0:23:03.680 so it tuned for that as well. Several financial institutions 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:07.200 are now joining initiatives in which they will share intellectual 0:23:07.240 --> 0:23:09.800 property in the form of patents, all in an effort 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:13.720 to avoid patent trolls. This stems from a recent lawsuit 0:23:13.800 --> 0:23:16.520 in which a company called U S a A filed 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:20.639 a patent infringement lawsuit against Wells Fargo, and one the case, 0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:24.119 they received a reward of more than three million dollars 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:26.560 for a pair of cases. Actually, at the heart of 0:23:26.560 --> 0:23:29.320 the matter was an innovation in which bank customers can 0:23:29.359 --> 0:23:32.199 deposit checks by taking the photo of the check with 0:23:32.240 --> 0:23:35.000 their phone and then using their banking app to transfer 0:23:35.080 --> 0:23:37.440 money to their accounts, something that a lot of banks 0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:40.280 do these days. Now, the whole story behind that is 0:23:40.320 --> 0:23:42.840 actually pretty complicated. There was a company called in fact, 0:23:42.840 --> 0:23:45.480 there is a company called me Tech, which Wells Fargo 0:23:45.640 --> 0:23:50.120 uses for its mobile deposits, and USA A both holding 0:23:50.240 --> 0:23:53.800 patents related to mobile deposits. So you had Metech with 0:23:53.840 --> 0:23:56.320 some patents, U S a A with other patents. They 0:23:56.320 --> 0:23:59.040 got into a big legal battle, they sell it out 0:23:59.040 --> 0:24:01.359 of court, they retain the rights of their patents, and 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:05.439