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 iHeart Radio. And
Speaker 1: how the tech are you Today? Is Thursday, February twenty two.
Speaker 1: Let us get to the tech news. Should be a
Speaker 1: nice quake episode today. And by now, I'm sure you've
Speaker 1: all heard how Mark Zuckerberg has gifted his underlings I'm sorry, peons,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry employees with a new designation. Yes, they are
Speaker 1: called meta mats. Now thanks, I hate it. He also
Speaker 1: said that a new corporate value for the company goes
Speaker 1: something like this meta meta mates me, which means that
Speaker 1: employees should think about what's important in that order, namely,
Speaker 1: first comes the company, then come the co workers, then
Speaker 1: comes yourself. And I just want to say, that's kind
Speaker 1: of messed up. All right, It's it's Jonathan soapbox time.
Speaker 1: You all get out the popcorn. We're gonna go early today.
Speaker 1: So you have likely heard the phrase the show must
Speaker 1: go on, which is an old theater phrase and it's
Speaker 1: toxic as all get out. So let me explain. The
Speaker 1: phrase suggests that the most important element here is the
Speaker 1: show that the show is more important than the people
Speaker 1: who are involved in making the show happen. So if
Speaker 1: you are a performer and you're sick or you're hurt,
Speaker 1: you gotta suck it up because the show must go on.
Speaker 1: The show is way more important than your personal health
Speaker 1: and well being. And if you happen to have the
Speaker 1: temerity to think that your own welfare is at least
Speaker 1: as important as the show, then you are an egomaniacal diva.
Speaker 1: Well I've got news for you. All actors are egomaniacal divas.
Speaker 1: We just are. It's just the ones who value their
Speaker 1: own welfare can often be portrayed as being the real jerks. Now,
Speaker 1: to be fair, some of them are real jerks. Some
Speaker 1: of them go beyond valuing their welfare and they think
Speaker 1: that the world revolves around them. But that's beside the
Speaker 1: point anyway. I feel this show must go on. Mentality
Speaker 1: has kind of benefited organizations at the cost of their
Speaker 1: own employees health and wellness for like ever, and I
Speaker 1: don't think that's a good mindset. And that doesn't even
Speaker 1: take into account the fact that meta mates is an
Speaker 1: awful thing to call here employees that seems dehumanizing to me,
Speaker 1: maybe because I'm still reeling from Meta's commercial during the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl, and I guess I shouldn't be surprised. So
Speaker 1: I think we could say that the spirit of the
Speaker 1: message is that an organization really only succeeds if the
Speaker 1: people who are working in that organization are working together
Speaker 1: toward a common goal, and that if everyone had a
Speaker 1: more kind of self centered approach, then nothing would get accomplished.
Speaker 1: And I can get behind that. I can understand that
Speaker 1: the idea that, hey, this enterprise only works if we
Speaker 1: all work together. I get that. It's just that this
Speaker 1: particular phrasing doesn't read that way to me. It almost
Speaker 1: sounds more like this is what's important, and you are
Speaker 1: like third on the list. Yuck. Earlier this week, I
Speaker 1: talked about how research shows a significant percentage of hacker
Speaker 1: activity originates out of Russia. No big surprise there. Well, yesterday,
Speaker 1: the US intelligence community published an alert saying that Russian
Speaker 1: hackers have been compromising defense contractors and subcontractors in an
Speaker 1: effort to steal information regarding US defenses. The alert said
Speaker 1: that a pattern of regular targeting of these companies dates
Speaker 1: back to at least January twenty twenty, and according to
Speaker 1: the alert, the data in question relates to quote US
Speaker 1: weapons platforms, development and deployment timelines, vehicle specifications, and plans
Speaker 1: for communications, infrastructure, and information technology end quote. That is
Speaker 1: really bad news for the United States. And I'm definitely
Speaker 1: not surprised at this thing, at the fact that Russia
Speaker 1: has been targeting those systems. Cyber warfare is just a
Speaker 1: fact of life right now. Also, I can guarantee you
Speaker 1: that the United States is trying and potentially succeeding at
Speaker 1: doing the exact same thing to Russia. We just don't
Speaker 1: hear about that typically, But I I would be shocked
Speaker 1: to learn that we don't have anything related to those
Speaker 1: kinds of activities going on here in the States. The
Speaker 1: upsetting thing is hearing how these attacks have actually been effective,
Speaker 1: because a lot of them apparently are using bay sick
Speaker 1: tactics that could easily be defeated with just the bare
Speaker 1: minimum amount of attention and care. Stuff that folks should
Speaker 1: be aware of by now, Like spear phishing attempts. You
Speaker 1: know what phishing attempts are. That's when someone's trying to
Speaker 1: trick you into giving up information. Spear Fishing is a
Speaker 1: little bit more targeted, right, You are using what you
Speaker 1: know about your target to improve the chances of fooling
Speaker 1: them into giving you information. And you would think that
Speaker 1: defense contractors would have a pretty good process to identify
Speaker 1: and prevent that kind of thing from happening. But I
Speaker 1: guess it just proves that people continue to be the
Speaker 1: weakest link in any security system. Uh So we won't
Speaker 1: have a perfect information security system until we get rid
Speaker 1: of people, I guess, is what I'm saying, Not that
Speaker 1: I want to get rid of people. That kind of
Speaker 1: ends up making the whole thing moot. If you live
Speaker 1: in an apartment in the United States, well, the fc
Speaker 1: CE just gave you more options when it comes to
Speaker 1: Internet service providers. And here's the sitch. Sometimes landlords someone
Speaker 1: who owns a multi tenant building of some sort, they
Speaker 1: will make a sweetheart deal with a specific Internet service
Speaker 1: provider and that makes that I s P the only
Speaker 1: provider for that building. So anyone living inside the building
Speaker 1: has no choice when it comes to an I s P.
Speaker 1: They either pay for service from that one provider that
Speaker 1: the landlord made an agreement with, or they have to
Speaker 1: go without internet service. Now, technically this was already against
Speaker 1: the rules in the United States, but there were various
Speaker 1: loopholes that landlords and I s p s could use
Speaker 1: to assentially ignore the rules. Now the f c C,
Speaker 1: which is the Federal Communications Commission, has passed a four
Speaker 1: to zero vote to close those loopholes. That is awesome,
Speaker 1: particularly since the CC currently has an equal split of
Speaker 1: Democrat and Republican reps sitting at it. So it's very
Speaker 1: rare to find a topic where both of those parties
Speaker 1: will actually align and support it in an a unanimous vote.
Speaker 1: That like never happens, So that's nice. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: there's still one empty seat on the f c C.
Speaker 1: That's something that a lot of people are kind of
Speaker 1: irritated about because they would love to see the FCC
Speaker 1: at full operation, particularly because that would mean you would
Speaker 1: have a tie breaking vote, a three to two vote,
Speaker 1: and uh, because we're talking about a democratic administration, it
Speaker 1: would mean a Democrat sitting at that extra seat, but
Speaker 1: that has not been filled as of yet. Anyway, the
Speaker 1: hope is that now these loopholes have been closed and
Speaker 1: competing I s p s will be able to get
Speaker 1: access to those buildings that previously had been off limits.
Speaker 1: To them and tenants or choices when it comes to
Speaker 1: choosing an internet service provider, and here in America, a
Speaker 1: lot of places have very limited options when it comes
Speaker 1: to internet service. For example, at my home in the
Speaker 1: city of Atlanta, I essentially have two broadband options for
Speaker 1: cable based internet, and then one other one if I
Speaker 1: wanted satellite and to have the slowest internet ever, Folks
Speaker 1: who live in apartments typically don't even get that limited
Speaker 1: amount of choice. So here's hoping this means we're going
Speaker 1: to see a big change for people who are living
Speaker 1: in apartment buildings and such, though there are several consumer
Speaker 1: advocacy groups that are saying we're likely to see more
Speaker 1: loopholes pop up, and what we really need is a
Speaker 1: full FCC that is capable of taking larger steps towards
Speaker 1: preventing that practice from continuing. Well, we all know that
Speaker 1: meta slash Facebook has been hurt pretty badly by Apple's
Speaker 1: changed to iOS. That is that Apple gave iOS users
Speaker 1: the opportunity to opt out of app tracking or app
Speaker 1: based tracking, and that meant that iPhone owners and alike
Speaker 1: could decide to not feed into Facebook's tried and true
Speaker 1: method of gobbling up user data to aid in its
Speaker 1: business of targeted advertising. So the company reportedly lost out
Speaker 1: on like ten billion dollars of revenue last year because
Speaker 1: of this change to iOS. Well, now Alphabet slash Google
Speaker 1: is following suit. The company announced yesterday that it is
Speaker 1: updating its own policies that would restrict how apps can
Speaker 1: share user data with third parties. But Alphabet's approach is
Speaker 1: going to be a little bit different. In fact, in
Speaker 1: the announcement, there is a passage that reads, quote, other
Speaker 1: platforms have taken a different approach to ads privacy, bluntly
Speaker 1: restricting existing technologies used by developers and advertisers. End quote.
Speaker 1: I put the sas in that, But no, there's sass there.
Speaker 1: It looks like it's targeting Apple, saying Apples using a
Speaker 1: hammer instead of say, a scalpel. So Google's approach will
Speaker 1: allow for some sort of wiggle room, it seems. And
Speaker 1: the company has also said it's not going to implement
Speaker 1: these changes for another two years, and that will give
Speaker 1: developers and advertisers time to prepare for that and to
Speaker 1: create new plans and strategies. So it doesn't sound like
Speaker 1: it's going to be quite as severe a change as
Speaker 1: Apple's approach, but it can still pose a threat to
Speaker 1: revenue for companies like Meta down the line. Okay, we've
Speaker 1: got some more news stories to cover before we get
Speaker 1: to those, Let's take a quick break. Hi. Are you
Speaker 1: Canadian or do you use a Canadian bank? No, this
Speaker 1: isn't an ad this is this is a news story.
Speaker 1: If you are a Canadian or use a Canadian bank,
Speaker 1: you might have been experiencing some pretty rough issues with
Speaker 1: your bank recently. Uh So, yesterday on Wednesday, online services
Speaker 1: went down for five major banks in Canada, including the
Speaker 1: Royal Bank of Canada. Customers found it impossible to perform
Speaker 1: by sick tasks like e transfers and mobile banking, and
Speaker 1: there were reports of people being unable to pay for
Speaker 1: purchases at the point of sale due to this outage.
Speaker 1: It happened yesterday evening, and as of this recording, there
Speaker 1: has not yet been an explanation as to what happened.
Speaker 1: Uh and in some cases it sounds like services are
Speaker 1: continuing to be disrupted. Uh. There is some speculation about
Speaker 1: what happened, but since that speculation lacks any evidence as
Speaker 1: of the time I'm recording this, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: talk about it until we learn more. We have seen
Speaker 1: big outages and services father online stuff before, but it's
Speaker 1: is unusual to see something that's specifically affecting a single
Speaker 1: sector banking in this case, and stretching across multiple institutions,
Speaker 1: which is pretty freaky. I'll be sure to follow up
Speaker 1: on this once we know more about what is going on.
Speaker 1: In the state of California, lawmakers are working on legislation
Speaker 1: that would put tighter restrictions on how big tech companies
Speaker 1: in the state can collect and use children's personal information.
Speaker 1: Uh It's modeled after a similar code in the UK,
Speaker 1: and the California proposal would mean that big tech companies
Speaker 1: like Meta and Alphabet would have to limit how much
Speaker 1: data they collect from young users and restrict their use
Speaker 1: of targeted advertising to kids and prevent them from using
Speaker 1: various tricks to tempt kids, to sidestep privacy protections, and
Speaker 1: also to knockoff location tracking for children within the state.
Speaker 1: And we've seen kind of a general move towards raining
Speaker 1: in big text influence over the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: particularly when it comes to how tech can impact children.
Speaker 1: In fact, that's the surface level reason the earn It
Speaker 1: Act is going through the U. S. Senate. I talked
Speaker 1: about earn it earlier this week and how that legislation,
Speaker 1: if passed into law, could be a death sentence for
Speaker 1: end to end encrypted communication here in the United States.
Speaker 1: I would say earn it is a bad approach to
Speaker 1: trying to protect kids. But these restrictions, you know, limiting
Speaker 1: how companies can collect information and what they can do
Speaker 1: with it, that seems like a pretty good step to me.
Speaker 1: On a national In the United States, senators have introduced
Speaker 1: the Kids Online Safety Act. This legislation is meant to
Speaker 1: counteract the harmful effects certain online platforms seem to have
Speaker 1: on children. You might remember the big story of the
Speaker 1: Facebook leak last year, and that internal documents from Facebook
Speaker 1: indicated that folks at Meta you know, the parent company,
Speaker 1: are aware of the harmful effects that platforms like Instagram
Speaker 1: can have on some users, particularly young girls and young women.
Speaker 1: That's the sort of thing this Act is meant to
Speaker 1: target the risk that platforms could contribute to serious mental
Speaker 1: health issues like eating disorders, substance abuse, and even suicide.
Speaker 1: The Act calls for platforms that could be quote reasonably
Speaker 1: likely to be used in quote by people under the
Speaker 1: age of sixteen to institute more protections so that those
Speaker 1: users aren't presented with images and posts that promote things
Speaker 1: that can be harmful to mental health. The Act calls
Speaker 1: for platforms to institute limits that would prevent people from
Speaker 1: specifically seeking out younger users, and it would also restrict
Speaker 1: how much data the platforms could collect from younger users,
Speaker 1: similar to the California proposal we just talked about. Also,
Speaker 1: the Act would require platforms to make restricted settings the default,
Speaker 1: and that is a big deal. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of platforms try to skirt issues with having their data
Speaker 1: tracking abilities restricted by making those opt out choices rather
Speaker 1: than opt in choices, like you opt out of having
Speaker 1: your data tracked, and some go a step further and
Speaker 1: they bury in the opt out settings deep in the menu,
Speaker 1: so they make it really unlikely that the majority of
Speaker 1: people are actually going to go hunting for the setting
Speaker 1: to turn off data tracking, so the access you can't
Speaker 1: do that there. The opt out has to be the default.
Speaker 1: You have to opt into having things tracked. And uh.
Speaker 1: The Act also doesn't have a size requirement as far
Speaker 1: as the companies go. That doesn't matter how big or
Speaker 1: small the platform is. If it is reasonably likely to
Speaker 1: be used by children, the law will apply to that platform.
Speaker 1: So a lot of other laws tend to have like
Speaker 1: a restriction that say you have to have a certain
Speaker 1: number of users for you to be held accountable to
Speaker 1: that law. That's not the case here. And of course
Speaker 1: this is not a law yet. It will have to
Speaker 1: pass a vote in both the Senate and the House
Speaker 1: and get approved by the President before that happens, and
Speaker 1: it is quite possible that it could be changed significantly
Speaker 1: before it gets to that point, or it could just
Speaker 1: die on the floor. A lot of legislation does. The
Speaker 1: website Motherboard recently received a recording said to be from
Speaker 1: a mandatory anti union meeting held in Amazon's JFK eight
Speaker 1: warehouse up in New York. That's the warehouse that initially
Speaker 1: failed to get enough signatures to force a union vote
Speaker 1: last year, but now is back on track and got
Speaker 1: the signatures and now it's going to hold a vote.
Speaker 1: So at this mandatory meeting, a representative laid out the
Speaker 1: supposed risks involved if workers were to sign to join
Speaker 1: a union. You might remember that Amazon employees at a
Speaker 1: warehouse in Alabama held a union vote that failed, but
Speaker 1: then the National Labor Relations Board or in l r B,
Speaker 1: gave them a do over after the n l RB
Speaker 1: concluded that Amazon the company had interfered with the union
Speaker 1: election process in an effort to prevent a union from forming,
Speaker 1: well actively discouraging employees by threatening them, in this case,
Speaker 1: by suggesting that they could see a reduction in wages
Speaker 1: if they joined a union and implying that there could
Speaker 1: be no limit to how high union dues would be.
Speaker 1: That kind of falls into that category too. And if
Speaker 1: this recording is in fact legitimate, and I have no
Speaker 1: reason to believe otherwise, it could really be a massive
Speaker 1: blow against Amazon. The vote on whether or not to
Speaker 1: unionize should happen late next month, so we'll keep an
Speaker 1: eye on this story to see where it goes. And finally,
Speaker 1: there's a really cool article and Wired titled deep mind
Speaker 1: has trained an AI to control nuclear your fusion that
Speaker 1: I recommend you check out if you're interested in stuff
Speaker 1: like fusion, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. I'll give the highlights,
Speaker 1: but seriously, you should read the article if you can. So. First,
Speaker 1: nuclear fusion is the process by which you release energy
Speaker 1: by fusing two atoms together to make a heavier atom.
Speaker 1: This is the nuclear process that takes place in stars
Speaker 1: like the Sun. If we could create a nuclear reactor
Speaker 1: capable of holding sustained fusion reactions, we could revolutionize how
Speaker 1: we generate an access energy. Uh, build a few of
Speaker 1: those working fusion reactors, and you would solve energy crises
Speaker 1: around the world. Plus you wouldn't have to worry about
Speaker 1: dangerous radioactive waste the way you have to do with
Speaker 1: nuclear fission reactors. Fission is the type of nuclear power
Speaker 1: we rely on now. That's when you take a heavy
Speaker 1: atom and you split it up and you release energy
Speaker 1: in the process. But I don't know if you've noticed,
Speaker 1: things are a little different here on Earth than they
Speaker 1: are on the Sun. We don't have the intense heat
Speaker 1: and we don't have the incredible gravitational forces that you
Speaker 1: would find on the Sun. So it is very challenging
Speaker 1: to push tiny atoms together with enough energy to get
Speaker 1: them to fuse. So a lot of our fusion work
Speaker 1: has been a net loss, where we're pouring more energy
Speaker 1: into making the reaction happen, then we're getting out of
Speaker 1: the reaction itself. So the way we push atoms together,
Speaker 1: since we don't have that incredible gravitational force of the
Speaker 1: sun is we use powerful magnetic fields, and if we
Speaker 1: could control these magnetic fields more precisely and efficiently, we
Speaker 1: could potentially make massive improvements towards sustained fusion reactions. This
Speaker 1: is where deep mind is coming in. Deep Mind emerged
Speaker 1: from Google's secret R and D division years ago, and
Speaker 1: it focuses primarily on machine learning. So the task at
Speaker 1: hand was teaching an AI computer system how to control
Speaker 1: a complicated series of magnets to manipulate a magnetic field
Speaker 1: in such a way to get the optimal result in
Speaker 1: a plasma that contains fusing atoms. Like I said, this
Speaker 1: is just a highlight of what is covered in the article.
Speaker 1: It is fascinating stuff and it could end up being
Speaker 1: a significant step toward making fusion go from science fiction
Speaker 1: to reality eventually. So check out that article. And that's
Speaker 1: it for the news for Thursday, February two. If you
Speaker 1: have any suggestions for topics I should cover in future
Speaker 1: episodes of tech Stuff, reach out to me on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Handle is text stuff hs W I'll talk to you again,
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