November 16, 2023 • 21 mins
TikTok tries to convince the EU to reconsider designating parent company ByteDance as a "gatekeeper" under the Digital Markets Act. A ransomware group tattles on its victim to the SEC. And SpaceX is getting ready to test the Starship launch vehicle, hopefully with better results.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey thereon
Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland. I'm
an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the tech
are you. It's time for the tech news for Thursday,
November sixteenth, twenty twenty three. First up, over in the EU,
(00:28):
TikTok is protesting its designation as a gatekeeper. So this
relates to the EU's Digital Markets Act. That act establishes
this designation of gatekeeper for companies that meet several criteria
and if they do meet those criteria and the EU
determines their gatekeepers, it means these companies have obligations to
(00:52):
comply with a specific set of rules and restrictions that
the EU created for these very powerful companies. So first up,
what is a gatekeeper? Well, it's any company that serves
as a gateway between consumers and businesses through core platform services.
TikTok in this case, would be a core platform service.
(01:13):
But okay, beyond that, the companies that merit the designation
gatekeeper have to be really important players that hold significant
power in their respective markets. So think about companies that
have effectively a stranglehold on some specific element of the
digital world. Google web search would be a clear contender, right,
(01:35):
Facebook or Meta really would have a lot in social networks.
So to continue to be considered to be a gatekeeper,
there are some actual financial results that are important too.
A company has to have a turnover of at least
eight billion dollars for the last three financial years or
have an average market capitalization of at least seventy nine
(01:56):
point five billion dollars in the last financial year. The
reason for these numbers like seventy nine point five is
because obviously in the EU, this is all in euro
not in dollars. The company us to also provide services
to at least three member states within the EU, so
if it's only operating in one, it cannot be considered
(02:18):
a gatekeeper. If it is not making those kind of
financial returns, then it can't be a gatekeeper. It also
must be in an entrenched and durable position. Now that
means that these companies are really well established. They're not
likely to get displaced by a competitor anytime in the
foreseeable future. Now, to be clear, the EU is not
(02:40):
actually saying that TikTok is the gatekeeper here. That's one
of those core services, not the gatekeeper itself. Instead its
parent company bye Dance is what the EU has identified
as a gatekeeper. So TikTok is saying, oh, contrier, Monefrayer,
we're largely independent of Byteedance. We don't have that much
(03:03):
to do with them. We operate very much independently of Byteedance,
and when you take that into consideration, we don't qualify
as a gatekeeper. So that means we shouldn't have to
comply with the rules that gatekeepers have to follow. See
these rules include lots of stuff. One example is that
a gatekeeper has to be able to give users access
(03:26):
to the data that they are generating through using the platform.
So if a user says, hey, I want to have
access to all the data you have on me based
upon how I'm using your product, they have to do that.
That's just one example. So clearly, any company that has
gatekeeper status is going to have to put in a
lot of work to comply with these rules, and furthermore,
(03:49):
complying with those rules will also likely have a big
impact on how these companies can do business in the
EU in the first place. Right, those rules might end
up saying that things that are normal business practices for
these companies are no longer viable, and suddenly you have
this very lucrative form of revenue generation cut off from you.
So it's understandable that TikTok would want to find a
(04:12):
get out of Digital Markets Act free card. Interestingly, Meta
has also challenged its status as a gatekeeper. Considering how
frequently Zuckerberg has bragged about, you know, having billions of users,
it seems weird and difficult to argue that Meta somehow
(04:35):
doesn't qualify for gatekeeper status, but they're trying anyway. I'm
not sure they're going to find much success with that route.
But the other companies that have been designated gatekeepers include Amazon, Google, Microsoft,
and Apple. So the deadline for these companies to submit
a challenge to the classification is let me see, let
(04:56):
me look here today. Actually today's the last, so we'll
see if the EU reconsiders. I suspect that's not going
to be the case, but we'll see. Meanwhile, here in
the United States, Judge von Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Section
two thirty protections cannot be used as a blanket force
field defense. So as a reminder, Section two thirty states
(05:20):
that an Internet platform cannot be treated as a publisher
and then held responsible for the content that users are
posting to that platform. So, for example, if someone posts
a video on YouTube that is slandering an innocent person,
YouTube is not responsible for that video. They're not responsible
(05:41):
for the crime of slander. Section two thirty would protect
them from that. There are some limitations to section two thirty,
so things can get a little bit fuzzy. Like you know,
if a platform shows that it has not tried to
reasonably respond to issues from the recreated by users, then
it can lose some of the elements of section two
(06:03):
thirty protection. But this particular ruling takes a totally different
perspective on the problem. So at the heart of the
decision isn't the content that's posted to a platform. Instead,
it's actually directed at the platform's design and operation. So
(06:23):
the argument is if the platform's design is faulty and
allows for the posting and the proliferation of illegal content
on the platform that is not covered by section two thirty,
So it's not that the platform is responsible for publishing
(06:44):
the material, but that its measures to prevent abuse are
not sufficient, and therefore that's a design flaw and that
is not covered or protected by Section two thirty. So
let me give an example. Let's say a platform creates
an AI powered tool that is meant to detect instances
(07:04):
of illegal material posted to the platform, but this tool
fails to work reliably and some stuff gets past the tool. Well,
Judge Rogers's ruling says that the platform cannot hide behind
Section two thirty to protect themselves because the root of
the complaint is that the tool meant to protect against
(07:25):
the illegal material doesn't work. It's not about the publication
of the material. It's about this tool that's meant to
prevent that stuff, So it's all about contextualization. The ruling
means that this huge lawsuit that thirty states in the
US have brought against social networking companies can actually continue
to the discovery phase. So it doesn't mean that this
(07:48):
particular lawsuit is going to turn out one way versus another.
That's still to be determined in the courts. It just
means that the lawsuit can proceed to the next stage
in the court system. And it also means the extent
of protections offered by Section two thirty have boundaries. They're
not endless. It is an important precedent, and it's one
(08:11):
that's short to concern a lot of big tech companies
out in the space. Meanwhile, our march toward being engulfed
in AI generated content continues. Google is experimenting with several
AI powered features over on YouTube. One of them will
take a tune that you hum into a microphone and
then use that to generate a full music track for you.
(08:32):
Another tool has been rolled out to a small test
group of creators that is called dream Track, and this
tool lets the creator create a prompt to generate a
thirty second piece of music in the style of one
of nine musical artists. So why only nine? Well, Google
is trying to do this in a respectable and responsible
(08:54):
way and is working with artists on this tool. So
each one represented in the tool worked with Google and
gave their permission for this to actually work. So you
can't just use this tool to copy any artist out there.
It has to be someone who has given their express
permission for the tool to be able to do this.
(09:14):
And what it can do is it can take a
pretty generic prompt you might say, like make me a
song about driving fast along a coastal highway, and it
will take that prompt and then it will do everything
from generating the music to actually writing lyrics, to creating
vocals that sound like the artist you selected, and produce
(09:37):
the whole thing for you now. According to The Verge,
YouTube plans to roll out this feature specifically as a
way to augment YouTube shorts. That's YouTube's take on stuff
like TikTok videos and reels and that kind of thing.
Google's Deep Mind project provides the horsepower in the background
through an AI generation model that's called Leria, And unlike
with a lot of other generative AI applications, I don't
(10:00):
feel that icky about this one. I like that Google
reached out to actual artists first to get their buy
in on this. I like that it's limited in its application,
it's not like designed to just write music. And I
also like that, you know, it's it's going to give
creators a chance to do things like make a backing
(10:21):
track for their video without having to you know, take
up music or potentially, you know, try and lift someone
else's work and hope they don't get a copyright strike.
I like that as well, so I think this is
a reasonable use of generative AI, at least so far.
On a related note, Google has also introduced an audio
(10:42):
watermark for AI generated audio tracks. It's called synth id,
and while it's an audio watermark, it isn't audible, or rather,
it shouldn't be detectable, in Google's words, by human ears.
So theoretically, we puny humans won't be able to tell
that it's there. But if you were to PLoP the
track into some audio editing software, you should be able
(11:02):
to find the audio watermark somewhere in the track. It's
supposed to be true even if someone runs the AI
generated audio through compression, or they change the speed of
the track, or even if they put in other audio,
like if they mix it with something else. It is
not bulletproof. Google reps say that if someone had enough
(11:22):
determination and they pushed image manipulation far enough, they could
off uskate the watermark. But as we feel our way
toward how we can best make use of generative AI
so that we can enjoy its benefits without also having
to endure massively negative consequences, stuff like this technology can
help us get to that destination. All right, we're gonna
(11:44):
take a quick break. When we come back, I've got
some more news items to talk about we're back. So
imagine that you're in a ransomware game and you and
your fellow hackers have targeted a business and you get
into that business of systems, and you steal a whole
(12:07):
bunch of data, and then you tell the target, Hey,
I've got your data. If you do not pay out
a ransom, we're going to share this information with the
rest of the world. And then let's say that you
are not satisfied at how quickly or your target's moving.
Your target hasn't responded fast enough, so you could go
ahead and release all the information, but then you're not
going to get anything from your victim, right, It's just
(12:28):
going to be like, well, we did it and we
released information, but we didn't get any money for our efforts.
How do you get your target to pay up? Well,
how about you tell the authorities that they failed to
disclose a data breach, because that's what the Alpha ransomware
group did to a company called Meridian Link. So the
hacker group alerted the US Securities in Exchange Commission, or
(12:49):
SEC that they had hit Meridian Link with a ransomware attack,
but Meridian Link failed to disclose this attack, and not
too long ago, the SEC pasted a rule that says
companies have four days to report ransomware attacks that represent
a significant breach. So this was literally the hackers taddling
(13:10):
on their victim in an effort to pressure Meridian Link
to cough up the ransom. Never Mind that the hackers
might have been a bit premature to do this because
those rules, while they have been drafted, don't actually go
into effect until December fifteenth, so there is no legal
obligation yet for Meridian Link to have revealed this. Plus,
Meridian Link could argue that the breach doesn't actually amount
(13:33):
to being significant in the first place, so that it
wouldn't have you know, triggered the rules even if they
had been in effect at the time. But I just
thought it was interesting that the thieves are snitching on
the victims to the authorities. It's pretty crazy. Tesla and
worker unions in Sweden are in a pretty big fight
right now. So in Sweden, the labor market is really
(13:55):
different from other parts of the world. You know, a
lot of countries have things like minimum wage requirements and
working hours requirements, but in Sweden these decisions come down
to worker groups. So essentially unions and the various employers
in Sweden. So the two parties come together and they
negotiate the terms until both sides are satisfied, and then
(14:16):
that's those are the rules. But Tesla hasn't been doing that.
The company has refused to come to the table to
negotiate with Swedish workers, and so several different groups representing
different types of jobs have all decided they aren't going
to work with Tesla anymore. So that includes like dock
workers who will stop unloading Tesla cargo in Swedish ports,
(14:39):
So Tesla might ship stuff to Sweden, but no one's
going to be unloading those ships. Electricians will not work
on Tesla charging stations in Sweden. Cleaning staff will stop
showing up to clean showrooms. Several unions have expressed solidarity,
extending the protests beyond the first circle of employees affected
by Tesla's refusal to negoiate. The company is facing increasing
(15:02):
resistance in Sweden. Things are just going to get worse
unless Tesla makes motions to actually negotiate with unions. Even
the Swedish post office is going to stop delivering mail
to Tesla addresses starting next week. So elon Musk in
the past has shown great disdain for unions and for
worker organization in general. So I can't say that Tesla's
(15:23):
failure to engage in this process has surprised me. But
it will still surprise me if that remains the case,
because I don't get the impression that Tesla's really in
a position where they can just write off an entire country.
In space news, SpaceX has received approval from the Federal
Aviation Administration here in America to perform a second test
flight of the Starship Super heavy lifting vehicle, which, as
(15:47):
I record this is currently scheduled for tomorrow, November seventeenth.
Earlier this year, back in April, SpaceX attempted a test
launch of this vehicle and it did not go well.
About four minutes into the test launched, the Starship burst
into flame, and then it's self destructed. The failure caused
a great deal of damage to the surrounding area, including
(16:08):
one case where debris from the explosion apparently hit a
vehicle here on the ground. An investigation followed and the
FAA created a pretty long list of issues that SpaceX
would have to address before the FAA would grant permission
to conduct another test. But apparently all of that is
now reconciled, and if tomorrow's test goes as planned, the
starship should lift off, it should fly for around ninety minutes,
(16:31):
and then eventually it should descend vertically into the Pacific Ocean.
So we'll have to keep our eyes out to see
if that in fact happens. In New York City, the
company Joby Aviation held a demonstration of its electrical Vertical
takeoff and Landing Aircraft or EV tall as six propellers,
it kind of looks like an oversized remote control drone,
(16:52):
like just big enough for you to ride in, and
the fact that it has six propellers, whereas most consumer drones
have four. But this is an example of an electric
flying taxi concept that's been around in New York for
a while, and primarily the focus has been on transporting
people from locations like say downtown Manhattan to an airport
(17:14):
and or vice versa, from an airport to say downtown Manhattan.
And this is a trip that if you were taking
by ground transportation, it might take you an hour or
sometimes longer to get there, but by air it could
take you less than ten minutes. New York's Mayor Eric
Adams was present for this demonstration, which saw a job
ev tall vehicle lift off the ground and fly around
(17:36):
the area. The plan is to have Jobey Aviation cleared
for commercial operation by twenty twenty five, but the company
still has to meet a few more FAA requirements before
it can earn a license to operate in New York City.
Joby Aviation is just one company that's actually competing for
this potential future. There are others that are also looking
to take that spot in New York. Now, I'm not
(17:57):
gonna lie. I do think it's neat, but I'm I'm
not entirely convinced it actually meets a real need. I mean, sure,
getting to the airport more easily and quickly is great,
but the capacity of these aircraft is pretty limited, so
I don't actually see it making a significant impact on
larger issues like traffic, even traffic to the airports. I mean,
(18:17):
it's a very small percentage of people who are going
to be able to take advantage of this, at least
unless you've got like maybe a huge fleet of these things.
And then you have the issue of well where are
they taking off and landing? Where are you storing these things?
Like you know, there are other issues that come up.
If you're like, well we've got a big enough fleet
to make an impact on traffic, well, then you have
other problems you have to solve. I still think it's cool.
(18:40):
I just I'm not convinced that it really solves a problem.
I've got a couple of article recommendations for yall before
I sign off today. First up is Will Saddleberg's article
for Android Police. It is titled Android Isn't Cool with teenagers.
That's a big problem. So Saddleberg points out how, particularly
here in the United States, younger folks prefer iOS devices
(19:02):
to Android, and that's really bad news for Google because
you know, young folks who love Apple tend to grow
up to be adults who love Apple, and then Google
is left seeing an entire generation moving or not even
adopting Android devices. Plus, Settleberg touches on the whole crazy
status symbol thing here in the US in iPhones, particularly
(19:24):
with I message, where if there's like a group message
going on and one person has a green bubble of
text instead of blue, that person is then ostracized or
ridiculed because they aren't cool enough to have an iPhone,
which is super lame. I think personally like I would
(19:45):
just I would roll my eyes at that kind of stuff.
But then I also understand, like that's kind of how
kids operate. I was always oblivious to that sort of thing.
I was never aware enough to pick up on the
fact that I was being ostracized. I'm sure I was.
I just did notice. But like when I was growing up,
it was all things like designer clothes or whatever, or
certain labels. Certain brand labels were big and others were
(20:08):
considered garbage. And I never figured that out and I
turned out. I mean, I'm okay anyway. The other article
I have to recommend is John Broadkin's piece for Ours Technica.
It is titled Cable Lobby and Ted Cruz are Disappointed
as FCC band's digital discrimination. Broadkin does a really good
(20:29):
job breaking down the actual issue and the various perspectives.
It's not clear cut, Like I wouldn't say it's super
clear cut from any perspective. I would also say a
lot of perspectives are selectively ignoring certain things in order
to make a point, which is disingenuous, I would argue.
But anyway, the article does a really good job at
(20:49):
breaking all that down. Okay, that's it. I hope you
are all well, and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
(21:10):
to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey thereon
Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland. I'm
an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the tech
are you. It's time for the tech news for Thursday,
November sixteenth, twenty twenty three. First up, over in the EU,
(00:28):
TikTok is protesting its designation as a gatekeeper. So this
relates to the EU's Digital Markets Act. That act establishes
this designation of gatekeeper for companies that meet several criteria
and if they do meet those criteria and the EU
determines their gatekeepers, it means these companies have obligations to
(00:52):
comply with a specific set of rules and restrictions that
the EU created for these very powerful companies. So first up,
what is a gatekeeper? Well, it's any company that serves
as a gateway between consumers and businesses through core platform services.
TikTok in this case, would be a core platform service.
(01:13):
But okay, beyond that, the companies that merit the designation
gatekeeper have to be really important players that hold significant
power in their respective markets. So think about companies that
have effectively a stranglehold on some specific element of the
digital world. Google web search would be a clear contender, right,
(01:35):
Facebook or Meta really would have a lot in social networks.
So to continue to be considered to be a gatekeeper,
there are some actual financial results that are important too.
A company has to have a turnover of at least
eight billion dollars for the last three financial years or
have an average market capitalization of at least seventy nine
(01:56):
point five billion dollars in the last financial year. The
reason for these numbers like seventy nine point five is
because obviously in the EU, this is all in euro
not in dollars. The company us to also provide services
to at least three member states within the EU, so
if it's only operating in one, it cannot be considered
(02:18):
a gatekeeper. If it is not making those kind of
financial returns, then it can't be a gatekeeper. It also
must be in an entrenched and durable position. Now that
means that these companies are really well established. They're not
likely to get displaced by a competitor anytime in the
foreseeable future. Now, to be clear, the EU is not
(02:40):
actually saying that TikTok is the gatekeeper here. That's one
of those core services, not the gatekeeper itself. Instead its
parent company bye Dance is what the EU has identified
as a gatekeeper. So TikTok is saying, oh, contrier, Monefrayer,
we're largely independent of Byteedance. We don't have that much
(03:03):
to do with them. We operate very much independently of Byteedance,
and when you take that into consideration, we don't qualify
as a gatekeeper. So that means we shouldn't have to
comply with the rules that gatekeepers have to follow. See
these rules include lots of stuff. One example is that
a gatekeeper has to be able to give users access
(03:26):
to the data that they are generating through using the platform.
So if a user says, hey, I want to have
access to all the data you have on me based
upon how I'm using your product, they have to do that.
That's just one example. So clearly, any company that has
gatekeeper status is going to have to put in a
lot of work to comply with these rules, and furthermore,
(03:49):
complying with those rules will also likely have a big
impact on how these companies can do business in the
EU in the first place. Right, those rules might end
up saying that things that are normal business practices for
these companies are no longer viable, and suddenly you have
this very lucrative form of revenue generation cut off from you.
So it's understandable that TikTok would want to find a
(04:12):
get out of Digital Markets Act free card. Interestingly, Meta
has also challenged its status as a gatekeeper. Considering how
frequently Zuckerberg has bragged about, you know, having billions of users,
it seems weird and difficult to argue that Meta somehow
(04:35):
doesn't qualify for gatekeeper status, but they're trying anyway. I'm
not sure they're going to find much success with that route.
But the other companies that have been designated gatekeepers include Amazon, Google, Microsoft,
and Apple. So the deadline for these companies to submit
a challenge to the classification is let me see, let
(04:56):
me look here today. Actually today's the last, so we'll
see if the EU reconsiders. I suspect that's not going
to be the case, but we'll see. Meanwhile, here in
the United States, Judge von Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Section
two thirty protections cannot be used as a blanket force
field defense. So as a reminder, Section two thirty states
(05:20):
that an Internet platform cannot be treated as a publisher
and then held responsible for the content that users are
posting to that platform. So, for example, if someone posts
a video on YouTube that is slandering an innocent person,
YouTube is not responsible for that video. They're not responsible
(05:41):
for the crime of slander. Section two thirty would protect
them from that. There are some limitations to section two thirty,
so things can get a little bit fuzzy. Like you know,
if a platform shows that it has not tried to
reasonably respond to issues from the recreated by users, then
it can lose some of the elements of section two
(06:03):
thirty protection. But this particular ruling takes a totally different
perspective on the problem. So at the heart of the
decision isn't the content that's posted to a platform. Instead,
it's actually directed at the platform's design and operation. So
(06:23):
the argument is if the platform's design is faulty and
allows for the posting and the proliferation of illegal content
on the platform that is not covered by section two thirty,
So it's not that the platform is responsible for publishing
(06:44):
the material, but that its measures to prevent abuse are
not sufficient, and therefore that's a design flaw and that
is not covered or protected by Section two thirty. So
let me give an example. Let's say a platform creates
an AI powered tool that is meant to detect instances
(07:04):
of illegal material posted to the platform, but this tool
fails to work reliably and some stuff gets past the tool. Well,
Judge Rogers's ruling says that the platform cannot hide behind
Section two thirty to protect themselves because the root of
the complaint is that the tool meant to protect against
(07:25):
the illegal material doesn't work. It's not about the publication
of the material. It's about this tool that's meant to
prevent that stuff, So it's all about contextualization. The ruling
means that this huge lawsuit that thirty states in the
US have brought against social networking companies can actually continue
to the discovery phase. So it doesn't mean that this
(07:48):
particular lawsuit is going to turn out one way versus another.
That's still to be determined in the courts. It just
means that the lawsuit can proceed to the next stage
in the court system. And it also means the extent
of protections offered by Section two thirty have boundaries. They're
not endless. It is an important precedent, and it's one
(08:11):
that's short to concern a lot of big tech companies
out in the space. Meanwhile, our march toward being engulfed
in AI generated content continues. Google is experimenting with several
AI powered features over on YouTube. One of them will
take a tune that you hum into a microphone and
then use that to generate a full music track for you.
(08:32):
Another tool has been rolled out to a small test
group of creators that is called dream Track, and this
tool lets the creator create a prompt to generate a
thirty second piece of music in the style of one
of nine musical artists. So why only nine? Well, Google
is trying to do this in a respectable and responsible
(08:54):
way and is working with artists on this tool. So
each one represented in the tool worked with Google and
gave their permission for this to actually work. So you
can't just use this tool to copy any artist out there.
It has to be someone who has given their express
permission for the tool to be able to do this.
(09:14):
And what it can do is it can take a
pretty generic prompt you might say, like make me a
song about driving fast along a coastal highway, and it
will take that prompt and then it will do everything
from generating the music to actually writing lyrics, to creating
vocals that sound like the artist you selected, and produce
(09:37):
the whole thing for you now. According to The Verge,
YouTube plans to roll out this feature specifically as a
way to augment YouTube shorts. That's YouTube's take on stuff
like TikTok videos and reels and that kind of thing.
Google's Deep Mind project provides the horsepower in the background
through an AI generation model that's called Leria, And unlike
with a lot of other generative AI applications, I don't
(10:00):
feel that icky about this one. I like that Google
reached out to actual artists first to get their buy
in on this. I like that it's limited in its application,
it's not like designed to just write music. And I
also like that, you know, it's it's going to give
creators a chance to do things like make a backing
(10:21):
track for their video without having to you know, take
up music or potentially, you know, try and lift someone
else's work and hope they don't get a copyright strike.
I like that as well, so I think this is
a reasonable use of generative AI, at least so far.
On a related note, Google has also introduced an audio
(10:42):
watermark for AI generated audio tracks. It's called synth id,
and while it's an audio watermark, it isn't audible, or rather,
it shouldn't be detectable, in Google's words, by human ears.
So theoretically, we puny humans won't be able to tell
that it's there. But if you were to PLoP the
track into some audio editing software, you should be able
(11:02):
to find the audio watermark somewhere in the track. It's
supposed to be true even if someone runs the AI
generated audio through compression, or they change the speed of
the track, or even if they put in other audio,
like if they mix it with something else. It is
not bulletproof. Google reps say that if someone had enough
(11:22):
determination and they pushed image manipulation far enough, they could
off uskate the watermark. But as we feel our way
toward how we can best make use of generative AI
so that we can enjoy its benefits without also having
to endure massively negative consequences, stuff like this technology can
help us get to that destination. All right, we're gonna
(11:44):
take a quick break. When we come back, I've got
some more news items to talk about we're back. So
imagine that you're in a ransomware game and you and
your fellow hackers have targeted a business and you get
into that business of systems, and you steal a whole
(12:07):
bunch of data, and then you tell the target, Hey,
I've got your data. If you do not pay out
a ransom, we're going to share this information with the
rest of the world. And then let's say that you
are not satisfied at how quickly or your target's moving.
Your target hasn't responded fast enough, so you could go
ahead and release all the information, but then you're not
going to get anything from your victim, right, It's just
(12:28):
going to be like, well, we did it and we
released information, but we didn't get any money for our efforts.
How do you get your target to pay up? Well,
how about you tell the authorities that they failed to
disclose a data breach, because that's what the Alpha ransomware
group did to a company called Meridian Link. So the
hacker group alerted the US Securities in Exchange Commission, or
(12:49):
SEC that they had hit Meridian Link with a ransomware attack,
but Meridian Link failed to disclose this attack, and not
too long ago, the SEC pasted a rule that says
companies have four days to report ransomware attacks that represent
a significant breach. So this was literally the hackers taddling
(13:10):
on their victim in an effort to pressure Meridian Link
to cough up the ransom. Never Mind that the hackers
might have been a bit premature to do this because
those rules, while they have been drafted, don't actually go
into effect until December fifteenth, so there is no legal
obligation yet for Meridian Link to have revealed this. Plus,
Meridian Link could argue that the breach doesn't actually amount
(13:33):
to being significant in the first place, so that it
wouldn't have you know, triggered the rules even if they
had been in effect at the time. But I just
thought it was interesting that the thieves are snitching on
the victims to the authorities. It's pretty crazy. Tesla and
worker unions in Sweden are in a pretty big fight
right now. So in Sweden, the labor market is really
(13:55):
different from other parts of the world. You know, a
lot of countries have things like minimum wage requirements and
working hours requirements, but in Sweden these decisions come down
to worker groups. So essentially unions and the various employers
in Sweden. So the two parties come together and they
negotiate the terms until both sides are satisfied, and then
(14:16):
that's those are the rules. But Tesla hasn't been doing that.
The company has refused to come to the table to
negotiate with Swedish workers, and so several different groups representing
different types of jobs have all decided they aren't going
to work with Tesla anymore. So that includes like dock
workers who will stop unloading Tesla cargo in Swedish ports,
(14:39):
So Tesla might ship stuff to Sweden, but no one's
going to be unloading those ships. Electricians will not work
on Tesla charging stations in Sweden. Cleaning staff will stop
showing up to clean showrooms. Several unions have expressed solidarity,
extending the protests beyond the first circle of employees affected
by Tesla's refusal to negoiate. The company is facing increasing
(15:02):
resistance in Sweden. Things are just going to get worse
unless Tesla makes motions to actually negotiate with unions. Even
the Swedish post office is going to stop delivering mail
to Tesla addresses starting next week. So elon Musk in
the past has shown great disdain for unions and for
worker organization in general. So I can't say that Tesla's
(15:23):
failure to engage in this process has surprised me. But
it will still surprise me if that remains the case,
because I don't get the impression that Tesla's really in
a position where they can just write off an entire country.
In space news, SpaceX has received approval from the Federal
Aviation Administration here in America to perform a second test
flight of the Starship Super heavy lifting vehicle, which, as
(15:47):
I record this is currently scheduled for tomorrow, November seventeenth.
Earlier this year, back in April, SpaceX attempted a test
launch of this vehicle and it did not go well.
About four minutes into the test launched, the Starship burst
into flame, and then it's self destructed. The failure caused
a great deal of damage to the surrounding area, including
(16:08):
one case where debris from the explosion apparently hit a
vehicle here on the ground. An investigation followed and the
FAA created a pretty long list of issues that SpaceX
would have to address before the FAA would grant permission
to conduct another test. But apparently all of that is
now reconciled, and if tomorrow's test goes as planned, the
starship should lift off, it should fly for around ninety minutes,
(16:31):
and then eventually it should descend vertically into the Pacific Ocean.
So we'll have to keep our eyes out to see
if that in fact happens. In New York City, the
company Joby Aviation held a demonstration of its electrical Vertical
takeoff and Landing Aircraft or EV tall as six propellers,
it kind of looks like an oversized remote control drone,
(16:52):
like just big enough for you to ride in, and
the fact that it has six propellers, whereas most consumer drones
have four. But this is an example of an electric
flying taxi concept that's been around in New York for
a while, and primarily the focus has been on transporting
people from locations like say downtown Manhattan to an airport
(17:14):
and or vice versa, from an airport to say downtown Manhattan.
And this is a trip that if you were taking
by ground transportation, it might take you an hour or
sometimes longer to get there, but by air it could
take you less than ten minutes. New York's Mayor Eric
Adams was present for this demonstration, which saw a job
ev tall vehicle lift off the ground and fly around
(17:36):
the area. The plan is to have Jobey Aviation cleared
for commercial operation by twenty twenty five, but the company
still has to meet a few more FAA requirements before
it can earn a license to operate in New York City.
Joby Aviation is just one company that's actually competing for
this potential future. There are others that are also looking
to take that spot in New York. Now, I'm not
(17:57):
gonna lie. I do think it's neat, but I'm I'm
not entirely convinced it actually meets a real need. I mean, sure,
getting to the airport more easily and quickly is great,
but the capacity of these aircraft is pretty limited, so
I don't actually see it making a significant impact on
larger issues like traffic, even traffic to the airports. I mean,
(18:17):
it's a very small percentage of people who are going
to be able to take advantage of this, at least
unless you've got like maybe a huge fleet of these things.
And then you have the issue of well where are
they taking off and landing? Where are you storing these things?
Like you know, there are other issues that come up.
If you're like, well we've got a big enough fleet
to make an impact on traffic, well, then you have
other problems you have to solve. I still think it's cool.
(18:40):
I just I'm not convinced that it really solves a problem.
I've got a couple of article recommendations for yall before
I sign off today. First up is Will Saddleberg's article
for Android Police. It is titled Android Isn't Cool with teenagers.
That's a big problem. So Saddleberg points out how, particularly
here in the United States, younger folks prefer iOS devices
(19:02):
to Android, and that's really bad news for Google because
you know, young folks who love Apple tend to grow
up to be adults who love Apple, and then Google
is left seeing an entire generation moving or not even
adopting Android devices. Plus, Settleberg touches on the whole crazy
status symbol thing here in the US in iPhones, particularly
(19:24):
with I message, where if there's like a group message
going on and one person has a green bubble of
text instead of blue, that person is then ostracized or
ridiculed because they aren't cool enough to have an iPhone,
which is super lame. I think personally like I would
(19:45):
just I would roll my eyes at that kind of stuff.
But then I also understand, like that's kind of how
kids operate. I was always oblivious to that sort of thing.
I was never aware enough to pick up on the
fact that I was being ostracized. I'm sure I was.
I just did notice. But like when I was growing up,
it was all things like designer clothes or whatever, or
certain labels. Certain brand labels were big and others were
(20:08):
considered garbage. And I never figured that out and I
turned out. I mean, I'm okay anyway. The other article
I have to recommend is John Broadkin's piece for Ours Technica.
It is titled Cable Lobby and Ted Cruz are Disappointed
as FCC band's digital discrimination. Broadkin does a really good
(20:29):
job breaking down the actual issue and the various perspectives.
It's not clear cut, Like I wouldn't say it's super
clear cut from any perspective. I would also say a
lot of perspectives are selectively ignoring certain things in order
to make a point, which is disingenuous, I would argue.
But anyway, the article does a really good job at
(20:49):
breaking all that down. Okay, that's it. I hope you
are all well, and I'll talk to you again really soon.
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