June 23, 2025 • 47 mins
DeepSeek, a Chinese AI firm, is accused by a senior U.S. official of supporting China’s military and intelligence services, sharing user data with Beijing, and using Southeast Asian shell companies to bypass U.S. export controls on advanced AI chips. Despite public claims of limited resources, the company reportedly accessed large volumes of restricted Nvidia H100 … Continue reading DeepSeek Accused of Aiding Chinese Military #1829
The post DeepSeek Accused of Aiding Chinese Military #1829 appeared first on Geek News Central.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
The lead story from Monday, June 23,
DeepSeek,
a Chinese AI firm, is accused
by a senior US official
of supporting China's military intelligence services,
sharing user data
with Beijing and using
Southeast
Asian shell companies to bypass
The United States'
(00:21):
export controls on advanced AI chips.
Despite public claims of limited resources, the company
reportedly
accessed large volumes of restricted NVIDIA h 100
chips
and appears in over
150
Chinese military procurement records.
DeepSeek did not respond to allegations
(00:42):
while US lawmakers and regulators
assess the next steps.
Of course, I wanna welcome you to episode
1,829.
I'm your host,
Todd Cochran. Well, this is
call me shocked
in this in this,
revelation,
to be quite frank with you.
I'm not surprised.
(01:04):
Do you not surprised that, this is all
backed by the Chinese
military, and those of you that have used
their, AI without loading it on your own
have probably been, feeding right into the Chinese
military.
So the company employs workarounds
and,
to get
(01:24):
to get, chips through,
you know, countries that don't have restrictions.
Not not at all
surprised.
And Deep Seek has a willingly provided and
will likely continue to provide
Chinese military intelligence operations,
access to this information.
(01:45):
Now this effort goes above and beyond open
source access to DeepSeek's AI model. Official said,
speak any condition in order
to speak about US Government information.
The US government's assessment of DeepSeek
really goes,
pretty deep. And, of course, it
links to the Chinese government have not been
(02:06):
previously
reported.
So this is, this is news.
Now Chinese law, we know, requires companies operating
in China to provide data to the government
when requested.
But this suggest suggestion that DeepSeek is already
doing so is likely to raise privacy and
other concerns
for tens of millions of global users because
most people will not care. They'll just continue
(02:28):
to feed the red communist Chinese this information.
The company is also, again, referenced in more
than a 150 times in procurement records for
the Chinese People Liberation Army and other entities
affiliated with the Chinese defense industrial base.
Of course, why wouldn't they be? Our AI
companies are being coming affiliated with US defense
(02:51):
as well.
And, of course, DeepSeq has
large access to large
volumes of US
firms and NVIDIA high in h 100 chips,
said the official. Since 2022,
those chips have been under US export restrictions
that, but, of course, there's always a way
(03:11):
to bypass this.
And they use shell companies, not surprisingly,
in Southeast Asia. I'd like to know which
comp which country specifically.
The official declined to say if Deep Seek
had successfully evaded expert controls. Well, duh.
I'm sure they have.
So, of course, Chinese foreign ministry did not
(03:33):
respond to commentary,
but,
you know, Deep Seek has said two
of its AI models that Silicon Valley execs,
The US tech company engineers, have shown
show with praise
are on par with OpenAI. Well, they said
they only spent 6,000,000, but we've already talked
about how DeepSeek has used
h 100 chips and,
(03:56):
processed all this data themselves. Of course, it
may be up as many as 50,000
so far.
Now
there's no confirmation of this, just indications. Only
Nvidia will know how many shipped,
chips were shipped.
Chips were shipped. So,
(04:21):
apparently,
Nvidia is saying, oh, they only had h
8,000 products, which were legally,
obtained.
But in February, Singapore charged three men with
fraud
in a case that domestic media have linked
to the movement of Naviti advanced chips
from this
from the city state to DeepSeek. So it
(04:41):
went through Singapore.
So,
why not? So you import to Singapore, and
then you you pack them up, and you
put them on a Chinese airplane,
and you send them to China. Not that's
not difficult.
And if you're gonna do that, then,
who for sure is involved
If you have a Chinese airplane come to
(05:03):
Singapore
to pick up chips, then it's probably the
Chinese
government.
Surprise.
Surprise.
I say not.
Everyone,
Again, welcome to episode 1,829.
Again, I'm your host, Todd Cochran. A shout
out to our incredible sponsor at GoDaddy.
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(06:06):
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(06:27):
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Hey. I do, wanna thank you all for
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And,
then, back a regular supposed schedule,
(08:13):
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And, lots happening here. Staying very, very, very,
very busy.
I got a absolutely
slam schedule,
all of this week,
but, no show on Thursday.
So, we'll be back with you for a
regular scheduled,
podcast,
(08:33):
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Definitely appreciate you staying with the show,
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Let's go ahead and get in a stack.
Pretty interesting attack stack today. Obviously, the big
the big, big news, and congratulations
to,
(08:56):
all the brothers and sisters out there in,
in military land
for your attack and execution
in Iran.
But now The United States is
supposedly
bracing for a cyber attack, and,
Iranian hackers are expected to intensify cyber attacks
(09:16):
against The United States after the air strikes.
If they,
if they'd only do what they did with
their missile attack today,
I think we'll be okay, but who knows
what's gonna happen with this.
We know that the Israelis are already going
after,
Iran in a big way in cyber and
(09:37):
have had some success
in getting some of their crypto
basically
stolen or whatever they did.
But, the Department of Homeland Security issued national
terrorism advisories
bulletin on Sunday warning that the Iranian government
has publicly condemned
United States involvement in the conflict and that
retaliation could come in several forms.
They could,
(09:58):
conduct lethal attacks and commit acts of violence
on US soil, but Iranian state sponsored hackers
and pro Iranian hacktivists are also likely intensifying
attacks against The United States in response to
recent events. Don't you think
and I'm gonna go against general convention of
thinking here.
And it'd probably be
(10:19):
people will scoff at it, and I hope
I'm right because, otherwise,
the alternative might be, bad for people.
Don't you think if you have people living
here
let's let's just say
let's just
use an example that a 100
people were here as sleeper cells.
(10:41):
Let's just think about that. And you've now
been told to carry out your mission,
go ahead and attack United States infrastructure,
go after it. You're living a pretty good
life here.
Freedom, frame expression.
You don't have to worry about anybody coming
in and and,
(11:01):
snatching you up in the middle of the
night and and sending you to a a
gulag.
All this, you know? So
you get that order. Are you gonna really
do that considering the regime there is probably
gonna collapse?
So
my prediction is I don't I I and
maybe I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. No.
(11:22):
I hope I'm right. If I'm right, that
the threat is not as big as they
say it is, but who knows?
But, of course, the cyberattacks,
can happen from anywhere.
And we know that most of Iran's cyber
operation focus on Israel already,
and,
(11:42):
and Iran has had mixed results with disruptive
cyberattacks. They frequently fabricate and x-ray their effects
in an effort to boost their psychological impact.
Of course, they say all kinds of stuff
on social media as well.
So
we know that almost all countries are doing
cyber cyber espionage already,
(12:02):
so that's already a thing.
So
but maybe they go after individuals or whatever.
I don't know. So what do you think?
Do you think that,
what is the bigger chance? Cyber attack
or sleeper cells? What what what say you?
I love to hear your your thoughts here
on that,
(12:22):
definitely in the comments.
But you guys know, you know, I I
spent twenty five years
active duty in the navy.
And you guys know most of you know
what my job was at the time.
For those of you that don't, basically,
some of the organizations I worked with had
(12:43):
a motto of, in god we trust all
others we monitor.
And,
for forty five, forty six years,
Iran has been killing Americans.
Cobalt Towers,
all kinds of places that have,
you know,
400 plus, I think, Americans have been killed
(13:05):
by Iranians, Iranian proxies.
And,
you know, this, nuclear weapon situation, I don't
care if they were two weeks away, two
months away, two years away.
I I don't care. And if they were
two years away ten years ago, I don't
care.
And these folks should not have a nuclear
weapon. The government
(13:27):
and zealots and
because the majority
of
Iranian people are lovely.
When I got hurt in 02/2004,
the nurse that took care of me was
from Iran,
and when I was in Bahrain.
Lovely nurse. And, again, the Iranian people,
(13:48):
are
are just,
you know, they're the pawns here.
So I am hoping
that this is better days
for Iran ahead. We will see
what happens, but,
I agree with the limited strike that we
did, and hopefully, it doesn't expand,
(14:09):
any further than that. But for all of
my intelligence friends that listen to the show,
I know many of you,
are still in the game.
Good job in doing whatever you're doing.
And happy collecting and,
and executing and giving information to whoever needs
(14:30):
the information to,
to protect us. So,
good job out there. And I know that's
will probably go contrary to many of you
that listen to the show, and I understand
that. That's fine.
I just have a little bit different perspective
of twenty five years, at least, for myself,
an active duty collection against,
(14:52):
Iran and other countries that,
are not friends with us.
It was long,
long, long, long, long,
long overdue,
and I like the way the American
execution happened. And, just my personal opinion, you're
not gonna be able to change
(15:12):
that.
So,
anyway, let's move on.
Teens and this is this is absolutely
this is an absolutely
insane
story.
Teenagers.
Seven people, including a 14 year old, have
been arrested or surrendered
to Danish authorities after allegedly
(15:34):
using encrypted message apps to hire other
teenagers
for contract killings in what Europol calls a
violence as a service operation.
All those arrests are surrendered or between the
age of 14 and 26. Well,
how many of them were 14 to 18?
That's what I wanna know.
(15:54):
Includes two 18 year olds
as well and suspect they've been suspected of
actively recruiting youngsters,
commit targeted killings in Denmark and Sweden and
other suspects according to law enforcement provided
weapons and ammunition and safe houses
for the hitmen.
The arrests follow multiple invigations, attempted murders, ordered
(16:18):
via encrypted encrypted chat services, including one,
including one on May 7.
This is part of Europro's operation task force,
GRIM, which aims to stop the growing use
of encrypted services to coordinate
contract killings across Europe,
dubbed violence as a service by international police.
(16:38):
Insane.
Absolutely
insane.
Teenagers
involved.
I'm not surprised criminal activities are happening on
encrypted messaging apps. You know, we'd be too
stupid to think it were not.
But yeah.
Contract killing, simply
simply insane.
(17:02):
Gonna have a little discussion about WhatsApp
here in a little bit as well. We'll
talk about that and then latest news on
that. I think we talked a little bit
about this on the last show. Streaming surpasses
traditional TV for the first
time. This is a big, big, ups you
know, not a big. It's just a progressive
swing
here. And,
(17:23):
you know, what it really boils down to
is that streaming has received a historic milestone
surpassing
the combined viewership of broadcasting cable television for
the first time
with,
May, streaming accounted for 44.8%
of total TV usage while broadcasting cable combined
44.2.
(17:44):
So,
very, very interesting. Hey. I will say one
thing to you folks. I was contacted,
by
someone that is a let's let's call them
a YouTube expert.
And
they said, Todd, do you know why your
channel has
never,
(18:04):
grown on YouTube?
And I'm like, no. He says, you say
words like
death,
destruction,
hacking.
Say a bunch of keywords that apparently
YouTube doesn't like.
So they they downgrade
my content
because
of the words I use.
(18:26):
And
I got to thinking about that. And isn't
it beautiful
that as a audio podcaster primarily
and have a true video podcast
that
I can say whatever I want and not
be downgraded
and not be suppressed to have my message
and hear what I wanna say said?
Isn't that a beautiful thing to be able
(18:48):
to talk openly
and not have to make up words or
do shortcuts or or say other words that
have other meanings? Isn't that,
fantastic?
I didn't realize that YouTubers are restricted from
being able to say
certain words
in the content that they are,
that they are that they're saying.
(19:09):
So, news to me. Russian hacker
hackers target Gmail passwords, a crackdown on international
critics.
So international critics of Russia and academics
have received phishing emails.
Victims are tricked into sharing Google app specific
passwords.
So the Google threat intelligence group has shared
(19:30):
details of this threat actor tracker as UNC
sixty two ninety three,
believed to be a Russian state sponsored group
targeting
prominent academics
across the country.
Vixen's reported been receiving phishing emails using spoofed
at state.gov
addresses
in the CC field to build credibility. But
(19:51):
instead of being hit with immediate malicious payloads,
attackers are using social engineering tactics to build
reports with their targets.
And Google's research has uncovered the slow paced
nature attackers use to build reports for the
victims, often sending personalized emails, inviting them to
private conversations or meetings.
I'm getting meeting invites
(20:14):
at least three or four times a day
that I have not ever booked.
People know my Calendly link now, and I'm
gonna have to change the link here now
because things have gotten to the point where
people are booking appointments who I don't even
know,
and
assuming I'm going to accept.
(20:36):
In one screenshot shared by Google's threat intelligence,
a prominent
British researcher on Russia received a fake US
department state email believed the part of the
campaign.
He's he was informed several of my e
accounts have been targeted with sophisticated account takeover
that involve person in US State Department.
In the attack email, victim received a, benign
(20:58):
PDF attachment
design look like an invitation to a securely
access of fake department state cloud environment.
If if this webs it's this website that
only gives this attackers which Google believes could
be linked to this,
particular vulnerability.
Now here's what I see. Let's see what
happens with me now
(21:19):
is, like,
Mike, I'm part of my support team. We
got an email saying, hey. Here's the last
notice
for a copyright violation. We're gonna take you
to court. You need to take care of
this, and it's they said it was our
content
and music that we had on our account.
And we're like, we have no music on
our account. We're good.
And yet this,
(21:41):
this person thought they could trick us
into clicking on the link, which was it
looked like a Facebook link, but it was
really a Bitly link.
And,
those types of,
they can't get it through email, so now
they're sending it into our support system.
So, you know, of course, my team has
been trained up, and no one's clicking on
(22:02):
those links for sure
because it basically is an attempt to take
over your Facebook account.
So be careful what you're clicking.
If you don't know who it's from, don't
click on it.
You know? If they wanna really wanna talk
to you, you know, there is an e
if they wanna talk to us that bad,
there is a phone number and a direct
(22:24):
email on our website, and
we can confirm who they are by phone
and set up a meeting.
But be careful. Okay?
This is a little bit of a move
on vehicles. We're gonna switch
topics here. Americans are buying twice as many
hybrids as fully electric vehicles.
(22:44):
Well, of course, there's no damn chargers.
As recent as 2021,
g m GM all but eliminated hybrids from
its future product line.
But then a funny thing happened. Car shoppers
balked at the high prices of electric vehicles
and the challenge of charging them.
So in the last few years, sales of
electric vehicles have grown at a much slower
(23:07):
rate than hybrids.
Hybrids have filled the gap and are selling
as much as 14%
of all light vehicles sold in The United
States.
Hybrids.
So several automakers slowing the introduction of new
electric vehicles and having a seller development of
new hybrids. Some of those hybrids get 50
miles to the gallon.
(23:28):
You never have to plug them into a
charger.
That to me is fantastic.
If I can double or even triple what
my my mile per gallon is,
fantastic.
The charging infrastructure
in most countries as well as United States
is not yet mature enough to support convenient
mass adoption of battery electric vehicles.
(23:49):
And in some territories, never will be.
So it talks about Porsche and other companies
that are,
you know, looking at their model lineup and
deciding the mix,
and hybrids continue to be a a great,
great solution.
SpaceX, meanwhile, launched Starlink ten twenty three following
a Sunday morning scrub.
(24:10):
They're able to do a turnaround and get
it launched.
So another 27
Starlink v two Minis into orbit.
How many of you are not paying for
YouTube? I I couldn't watch YouTube without
paying. I really could
not. There's too many
commercials, but YouTube is trying
(24:32):
to block block all of you that are
doing ad blockers.
So over the past few months, YouTube has
been trying another round of anti
ad block measures.
And about
a percentage accounts, they're doing AB testing on
them.
And,
and I think it's your right. If you
(24:52):
wanna try to block ads, you should be
able to do that in your browser or
on your TV or however you're watching YouTube.
You should have that right your computer your
rights.
The battle between YouTube on one side and
users wanting a non,
well, let's call it
doo doo experience
without paying for YouTube Premium on the other
(25:13):
is unlikely
to end anytime soon.
So just be aware that,
they're looking for you
and trying to determine if you're using some
sort of software.
So buyer beware.
We'll see how long the cat and mouse
continues. I'm sure it will continue
for many, many, many more years.
(25:36):
Hey. Hey. I wanna thank, Darren Schwartz
and,
others. Let's see. I'll go down through the
list here for streaming.
Fifty sats a minute to the show.
It's greatly appreciated. Who else? He's the latest
one.
That is,
a huge
contribution to the show. I also wanna thank,
(25:57):
Daniel Lemix for his $10.80
donation to the show, Christian Pitrier for his
$3 a month donation, Mike Dell at World
Studio for his $2,
Gary Ebels for his $10, and SJG
Media LLC for their $10.80,
contribution. Chris, you can become a sustaining, which
(26:17):
is $2 a month,
Ohana donation at $5 a month, Warrior donation
at $10
per month, a Kahuna donation at $15
per month, the Konehiki donation at $20
a month, and the Alahi Chief donation for
$25
per month at geekdecentral.com
forward slash insider. Use new one of those
(26:38):
fangled
podcasting apps, and you can also stream us
crypto if you want to the show.
Bitcoin went over a 100,000
again, so,
I'm sitting on quite a bit of Satoshis
right now. So at some point, I'm gonna
have to move those back into the blockchain
and,
and cash some of those out. But I
(27:00):
wanna thank all of you for your ongoing
support of the show. As an insider. And
if you're not an insider yet, go over
to geeknewcentral.com/insider
to become
an insider.
Texas is gonna require permits for self driving
cars starting in September. Of course, that, coincides
with the launch
of Tesla's,
self driving stuff. They're they're doing their quiet
(27:23):
launch
that happened. But after September 1,
they're going to need, again, permits.
So I'm sure that will cost money.
If you're a WordPress user, especially a car
dealer, popular WordPress theme has been hijacked by
malware.
So if you have the
(27:43):
what is the name of it? A popular
WordPress
theme. It's called Style Mix Themes.
Oh, it's from Style Mix Themes.
Attackers exploit the bill oh, it's a motors
theme. Excuse me. If you're using the motors
theme on your WordPress site, make sure you've
updated.
This'll compromise your administrator
(28:06):
account.
It's hard to believe that,
templates are now being exploited
for,
for hacking.
How many of you are,
Chris, you know, when I was growing up
as a kid,
I had my fair share of Hot Wheels.
How many of you had one of those
orange tracks in the machine that make the
cars come out of the you know, had
(28:27):
a I had all that when I was
a kid. I got it all secondhand, but,
man, it was fantastic. I wish I had
all that track and all that stuff today.
It'd probably be worth some money, but,
it's all beat up. You know? As as
a kid, that's what you do. Right? But
there's a new Hot Wheels set for Jaws
and Back to the Future, and it's gonna
be available
at at launch of Comic Con. The DeLorean
(28:49):
and more commemorative items will arrive at this
year's San Diego Comic Con event. Don't know
if you'll be able to buy them elsewhere,
but there'll be a doctor e Brown Enterprise
van, a DeLorean, and other stuff to go
around with the
the,
the celebration,
surrounding,
some of the famous, movie series like Jaws
(29:11):
and so forth.
So, it would be kinda cool to have
me a DeLorean,
a DeLorean Hot Wheels. I don't collect Hot
Wheels. The Hot Wheels I have have been
beat beat up seven seven ways to Sunday,
to be honest with you.
Trump's mobile draws attention. Purism 1999
(29:31):
Liberty phone. Purism phone made almost entirely in
The US is similar to the Trump Organization
promise of a phone that might someday be
manufactured domestically.
Keyword is might be.
And they did, of course, they made headlines
last week, but, you know, they don't have
one yet. So we'll see
if it happens. But an independent an independent
phone maker in San Francisco
(29:52):
has been working on the closest thing to
a smartphone made almost entirely United States, the
$1,999
Liberty phone.
It's been around since 02/2014.
They're gonna have a new, handset coming out,
so
we'll see. We'll see if this happens. But,
(30:12):
Purism Liberty phone,
maybe the phone. We'll see. Time will tell.
Hinge. Hinge, the dating app, is planning its
own mobile payment system to avoid Apple store
fees, bravo on them.
As part of the appearance on Dakota podcast,
Hinge cofounder and CEO Justin McLoyd
said the company would like to introduce an
(30:34):
alternate payment service by the end of the
year.
And, of course, with giving Apple 30% or
20% or 15% of their revenue, it would
just be an immediate win.
Possibly Hinge using its own payment service with
its iOS app is thanks, of course, the
major
the major
recent ruling in Epic Games versus Apple that
(30:54):
blocks
Apple from taking fees on purchases made outside
of the app.
And,
so very, very smart for these folks to
be doing this. All apps need to be
doing this.
Meanwhile,
Apple is,
put stuff online and then as soon as
they get a little bit of pushback,
they put it they pull it down.
(31:17):
So Apple's taken down a new ad just
one day after posting it, making
presentation,
why I need a Mac for college.
It's called the parent presentation.
Also, they had a actual 47
(31:38):
slide present or 80 one's
what parent?
An 81 slide presentation.
They're supposed to give parents 45
undeniable reasons why Mac is essential to college.
A lot of money in those, students,
using Macs.
(31:58):
It's kinda funny.
My development team is kinda split.
The younger the developer, the more they wanna
develop on Mac. The older the developer, the
more they wanna develop on a PC.
It's
kinda curious.
It really, really is.
(32:19):
My son, who started as an intern today
at Blueberry,
underneath one of my developers, is gonna be
on a Windows machine. Now he's always been
a Windows guy because he's he's a gamer.
So I'm real proud to have my son
interning at my company. It's pretty exciting, to
be honest with you.
(32:40):
And, we'll see how he does over the
next eight to ten weeks.
I have
no day to day,
I guess, for a better word, interaction.
He's, all underneath my dev team's,
prowess, so it's gonna be fun to see,
what he comes up with and what he
produces.
(33:00):
The iPhone 17 Pro
is being rumored
to get a vapor chamber.
So I don't remember us talking about this
before, but a vapor chamber inside an iPhone
essentially makes it more
from a heat standpoint,
heat dissipation
(33:20):
is,
is better
for something that's in a vapor chamber.
So we'll see if this happens,
but the iPhone 17 series
could
gain a vapor chamber.
Time will tell.
There was a leaked image of vapor chamber
in and around the chipset.
(33:43):
So,
we'll see. We'll see if that happens.
Does anybody else know of any chips in
a vapor chamber? Or is that something that's
on laptops?
Amazon has launched it's just second batch of
Kuiper Internet satellites,
quote, unquote, taking on Elon Musk Starlink.
So they launched this on United Launch Alliance,
(34:04):
and how many did they shoot? They put
27
Cooper satellites in orbit. So this makes a
total of 50 some that they have.
So,
a little bit of a ways to go
to compete with
the with the Starlink.
There's another article, believe it or not, for
talking about the hinge CEO. Says dating AI
(34:27):
chatbots is playing with fire.
Dating AI chatbots. We talked a little bit
about this on the last show,
but
really?
You know,
what's the point?
(34:47):
I understand people are using AI chatbots for
therapy,
and some people are have virtual girlfriends,
but it just seems
I I don't I just don't get it.
And,
and I expect
dating apps be using
(35:08):
AI.
I I just,
I I don't think it's helping people that
much anymore.
But,
anyway, interesting that talking about there's a good
interview. You can read the interview notes, but,
dating an AI chatbot,
where does it end?
(35:29):
Where does it end?
Of course, a lot was talked about in
Apple iOS 26.
I'm not gonna go through all the changes
because more coming out as people are getting
access to the beta.
Obviously, the liquid glass stuff made a lot
of, made a lot of impressions, positive and
negative,
but we know that there's a lot of
apps that are in redesign, like photos, and
(35:51):
they're trying to undo some of the stuff
that they screwed up in photos
and having tabs and that kind of stuff.
So,
I'll have the link up in the show
notes here on what you're to expect in
iOS 26 this fall.
Meanwhile, scammers are calling us less, but,
they're being more effective.
And we see it in the emails coming
(36:13):
in. We see it really personalized stuff that's
targeted to us.
And,
scam calls are down 75%
since 2021,
from more than 2,000,000,000 every month to roughly
500,000,000
every month. That's a massive decline, but the
problem is is they're just really getting better
(36:33):
because they spam you into they know a
lot about you,
and they can have a conversation
and, you know, social engineer you.
Lenovo has a
Chromebook that they're really proud of,
and, they want people to know about Lenovo's
new Chromebook having exclusive
(36:55):
AI
powers.
And I'm thinking, okay. Alright. So all this
all these computers are gonna have some bit
of
AI, but this is kinda unusual
for a Chromebook to have it. And, you
know, I'm sure there's a associated
price,
but it's called MediaTek
powered Chromebook.
And, it's a 14 inch
(37:17):
OLED,
generous memory of of, of 12 gigs and
16 gigs
and that MediaTek
processor.
And,
but MediaTek usually
is is a more,
I guess, affordable option. But
But one of the chips,
specifically the Snapdragon
(37:38):
x series,
are gonna be bringing some AI power to
it, of course, a great
power efficiency
as well.
So if you're a Chromebook fan and you're
looking with get one that has some LLM
capability,
this new Lenovo
Chromebook
link will be in the show notes for
(37:58):
you to check out. Hey. As always, do
not forget, you can send an email here
at geeknews@gmail.com
to comment on the commentary. You can, of
course, catch me on x at geek news
as a way to, to to connect as
well.
A lot of you follow me over there
still.
The, classic VW bus got an all electric
update,
(38:19):
and,
Volkswagen autonomous
ID Buzz robot is ready, and cities and
companies can buy them soon.
So,
the ID Buzz is the first vehicle in
Germany to reach SAE's
international threshold for level four autonomous driving.
Measuring that car can drive itself with no
need for a driver behind the wheel within
(38:41):
designated areas.
So usually,
full scale cities.
It comes with a full set of tools
for public and private transport providers,
includes everything from self driving tech to fleet
management software. So,
the Volks
Wagon bus, again, got a full EW update
(39:03):
and will be coming to a city near
you.
At the same time, 743,000
people have been impacted by the McLaren
health care data breach.
Again, that's a Michigan Healthcare provider,
and they're notifying all the people that their
personal information was compromised in the 2024,
data breach.
And
(39:24):
this was reported back,
some time ago.
But they know do now know the total
impact,
so basically every one of their customers.
That's pretty much the end of it.
Tesla's Robotaxi
launch in Texas. Of course, we've heard about
this,
and,
they were on the roads in Texas this
(39:46):
past Sunday.
Of course, there is some,
they've got
a driver assist as well.
But, apparently, there has been some, some incidents
already
of the robotaxi
doing some things that it should not do.
And, within the app, if you try to
give the tax seat an, a tip,
(40:08):
there's a little bit of, an Easter egg
for you,
that's making the rounds here.
But, very small number of vehicles deployed and
all had a human safety operator in the
passenger seat.
So why didn't they have a driver's
seat? That's the question.
You're going down the street the wrong way.
(40:30):
Wouldn't you want to
be in the driver's seat instead of the
passenger seat? That's all a little bit odd
to me indeed.
Amazon Amazon boss says AI will replace jobs
at the tech giant,
so
I'm not surprised. He shared the prediction and
memo to staff on Tuesday,
(40:51):
which encouraged employees to be curious about AI.
Well, not be curious. You better be all
in.
And they've set out their laid set out
their plans for using AI amid concerns that
tech will lead to rapid
jobs losses across the world. Now let me
tell you something.
One of my team members have experienced some
things lately where,
(41:13):
the individual is frustrated
because on the topics he's presented to him,
which he is a subject matter expert,
the the AI is lying to him.
And so hallucinations
are still happening.
So
if you're using AI for outputs, you have
to unequivocally
have some of it as a SME
(41:35):
to be able to look at that data
and make sure
it's correct
in references
and everything. And if it is giving references,
what are the references linking to? What type
of content?
So be careful out there.
But, you know, I'm not surprised
that,
Amazon is saying this.
(41:56):
They've been ahead of everyone in robots and
everything else,
so why would they not?
I I would suspect that, the first place
it's gonna happen is in their warehouses.
The robots are gonna get more sophisticated
than they already are.
So,
time will tell,
where all this leads.
(42:17):
In an interesting Bitcoin story, Texas joins growing
list of US states with a Bitcoin reserve.
Texas has become the third US state to
approve a Bitcoin
reserve with new legislation.
Only digital assets with a twenty four month
average market cap of 500,000,000,000
to qualify, limit to to Bitcoin for now.
And the reserve will be managed by Texas
(42:39):
Comptroller
with advisory oversight and strict custody rules. So
we will see.
Becoming more widespread
as a
cash reserve.
So
I guess I get to read this today.
Axios, the other day had me blocked.
(43:00):
WhatsApp is banned from house staffer devices.
The US House chief administrative officers informed congressional
staffers Monday. The messaging app WhatsApp has been
banned on their government devices.
The ban which centers on the vulnerability of
staffers' data comes as congress taking steps to
limit the use of AI it deems similarly
risky.
(43:21):
It is heavily
it is it has also heavily restricted staffers'
use of ChatGPT,
instructing office to only use the paid version
of ChatGPT,
of course.
And the Office of Cybersecurity deemed WhatsApp too
high a risk for users due to lack
of transparency
in how it protects
users' data. Now who owns WhatsApp?
(43:43):
We know. Right?
So house app staff are not allowed to
download or keep WhatsApp application on any house
device,
including a mobile desktop or web browsing version
of the product.
He says if you have WhatsApp application
and house managed device, you will be contacted
to remove it. The question is why don't
they just remove it?
(44:05):
If it's a house issued phone, it should
be house controlled
and forms the IT of what can and
cannot be put on it.
So what app is being is allowed? Is
it gonna be signal?
So there lies the question.
(44:26):
I think so.
So Apple is locked in a last minute
App Store negotiation
to avoid
to avoid
European Union fines.
You know that they've been hammered pretty heavily
in The U EU and America in their
implementation of stuff.
(44:46):
The tech group must make concessions to comply
with the digital markets act or be hit
with escalating
levies on Thursday.
The 3,000,000,000,000 companies in talks,
people involved negotiations that Apple is expected to
offer concessions
on its steering provisions that stop users from
accessing offers outside the App Store. Well, they
(45:07):
want it gone.
They're gonna announce some concessions
to buy more time. They don't want it
removed.
They don't want
their 30% to go away,
but it's gonna happen.
So
we will see what happens. They basically have
(45:30):
thumbed their noses as much as possible at
all this.
And here in The United States, it's kinda
turned a corner a little bit.
Of course, everything is on appeal,
but the conversations in the EU is a
little bit different.
So time will tell,
where all this heads.
That is for sure.
(45:50):
Of course, I want you to take a
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(46:11):
feel free to drop me an email, geeknews@gmail.comatgeeknewsonx.
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And, again,
no show on Thursday, but I'll be back
with you for a full schedule next week.
Now, of course, next week, let's look at
the calendar.
Thursday is the July third, and Friday is
(46:33):
the fourth. So I imagine none of you
are gonna be listening in America, you're gonna
be listening to this show,
the fourth. But I will have an episode
for you
on Friday the fourth. I'm gonna deliver because
the show is supposed to be recorded on
Thursday the third, so that's gonna continue to
be the case. So there will be an
episode for you while you are barbecuing
(46:54):
and shooting off fireworks in your,
neighborhood.
Just be safe out there. But, again, I'll
be back,
next week for a regularly scheduled episode, but
no show,
this coming Thursday. Again, it's been my pleasure
bringing you the podcast. Thank you for being
here. We'll see you next week, everyone. Take
care. We'll see you next time. Aloha. Bye
bye.
The lead story from Monday, June 23,
DeepSeek,
a Chinese AI firm, is accused
by a senior US official
of supporting China's military intelligence services,
sharing user data
with Beijing and using
Southeast
Asian shell companies to bypass
The United States'
(00:21):
export controls on advanced AI chips.
Despite public claims of limited resources, the company
reportedly
accessed large volumes of restricted NVIDIA h 100
chips
and appears in over
150
Chinese military procurement records.
DeepSeek did not respond to allegations
(00:42):
while US lawmakers and regulators
assess the next steps.
Of course, I wanna welcome you to episode
1,829.
I'm your host,
Todd Cochran. Well, this is
call me shocked
in this in this,
revelation,
to be quite frank with you.
I'm not surprised.
(01:04):
Do you not surprised that, this is all
backed by the Chinese
military, and those of you that have used
their, AI without loading it on your own
have probably been, feeding right into the Chinese
military.
So the company employs workarounds
and,
to get
(01:24):
to get, chips through,
you know, countries that don't have restrictions.
Not not at all
surprised.
And Deep Seek has a willingly provided and
will likely continue to provide
Chinese military intelligence operations,
access to this information.
(01:45):
Now this effort goes above and beyond open
source access to DeepSeek's AI model. Official said,
speak any condition in order
to speak about US Government information.
The US government's assessment of DeepSeek
really goes,
pretty deep. And, of course, it
links to the Chinese government have not been
(02:06):
previously
reported.
So this is, this is news.
Now Chinese law, we know, requires companies operating
in China to provide data to the government
when requested.
But this suggest suggestion that DeepSeek is already
doing so is likely to raise privacy and
other concerns
for tens of millions of global users because
most people will not care. They'll just continue
(02:28):
to feed the red communist Chinese this information.
The company is also, again, referenced in more
than a 150 times in procurement records for
the Chinese People Liberation Army and other entities
affiliated with the Chinese defense industrial base.
Of course, why wouldn't they be? Our AI
companies are being coming affiliated with US defense
(02:51):
as well.
And, of course, DeepSeq has
large access to large
volumes of US
firms and NVIDIA high in h 100 chips,
said the official. Since 2022,
those chips have been under US export restrictions
that, but, of course, there's always a way
(03:11):
to bypass this.
And they use shell companies, not surprisingly,
in Southeast Asia. I'd like to know which
comp which country specifically.
The official declined to say if Deep Seek
had successfully evaded expert controls. Well, duh.
I'm sure they have.
So, of course, Chinese foreign ministry did not
(03:33):
respond to commentary,
but,
you know, Deep Seek has said two
of its AI models that Silicon Valley execs,
The US tech company engineers, have shown
show with praise
are on par with OpenAI. Well, they said
they only spent 6,000,000, but we've already talked
about how DeepSeek has used
h 100 chips and,
(03:56):
processed all this data themselves. Of course, it
may be up as many as 50,000
so far.
Now
there's no confirmation of this, just indications. Only
Nvidia will know how many shipped,
chips were shipped.
Chips were shipped. So,
(04:21):
apparently,
Nvidia is saying, oh, they only had h
8,000 products, which were legally,
obtained.
But in February, Singapore charged three men with
fraud
in a case that domestic media have linked
to the movement of Naviti advanced chips
from this
from the city state to DeepSeek. So it
(04:41):
went through Singapore.
So,
why not? So you import to Singapore, and
then you you pack them up, and you
put them on a Chinese airplane,
and you send them to China. Not that's
not difficult.
And if you're gonna do that, then,
who for sure is involved
If you have a Chinese airplane come to
(05:03):
Singapore
to pick up chips, then it's probably the
Chinese
government.
Surprise.
Surprise.
I say not.
Everyone,
Again, welcome to episode 1,829.
Again, I'm your host, Todd Cochran. A shout
out to our incredible sponsor at GoDaddy.
Of course, score exclusive deals. We want you
(05:25):
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(06:06):
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(06:27):
welcome to the show, everyone. Thank you for
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No one sends checks anymore.
Right? No one no one writes checks.
Hey. I do, wanna thank you all for
being here. Just to let you know,
Thursday, a no show on Thursday, I'm gonna
be on the move.
And,
then, back a regular supposed schedule,
(08:13):
next week.
And, lots happening here. Staying very, very, very,
very busy.
I got a absolutely
slam schedule,
all of this week,
but, no show on Thursday.
So, we'll be back with you for a
regular scheduled,
podcast,
(08:33):
a week from today.
Definitely appreciate you staying with the show,
and also making sure you check out all
of our partner shows at, at geatoncentral.com.
Let's go ahead and get in a stack.
Pretty interesting attack stack today. Obviously, the big
the big, big news, and congratulations
to,
(08:56):
all the brothers and sisters out there in,
in military land
for your attack and execution
in Iran.
But now The United States is
supposedly
bracing for a cyber attack, and,
Iranian hackers are expected to intensify cyber attacks
(09:16):
against The United States after the air strikes.
If they,
if they'd only do what they did with
their missile attack today,
I think we'll be okay, but who knows
what's gonna happen with this.
We know that the Israelis are already going
after,
Iran in a big way in cyber and
(09:37):
have had some success
in getting some of their crypto
basically
stolen or whatever they did.
But, the Department of Homeland Security issued national
terrorism advisories
bulletin on Sunday warning that the Iranian government
has publicly condemned
United States involvement in the conflict and that
retaliation could come in several forms.
They could,
(09:58):
conduct lethal attacks and commit acts of violence
on US soil, but Iranian state sponsored hackers
and pro Iranian hacktivists are also likely intensifying
attacks against The United States in response to
recent events. Don't you think
and I'm gonna go against general convention of
thinking here.
And it'd probably be
(10:19):
people will scoff at it, and I hope
I'm right because, otherwise,
the alternative might be, bad for people.
Don't you think if you have people living
here
let's let's just say
let's just
use an example that a 100
people were here as sleeper cells.
(10:41):
Let's just think about that. And you've now
been told to carry out your mission,
go ahead and attack United States infrastructure,
go after it. You're living a pretty good
life here.
Freedom, frame expression.
You don't have to worry about anybody coming
in and and,
(11:01):
snatching you up in the middle of the
night and and sending you to a a
gulag.
All this, you know? So
you get that order. Are you gonna really
do that considering the regime there is probably
gonna collapse?
So
my prediction is I don't I I and
maybe I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. No.
(11:22):
I hope I'm right. If I'm right, that
the threat is not as big as they
say it is, but who knows?
But, of course, the cyberattacks,
can happen from anywhere.
And we know that most of Iran's cyber
operation focus on Israel already,
and,
(11:42):
and Iran has had mixed results with disruptive
cyberattacks. They frequently fabricate and x-ray their effects
in an effort to boost their psychological impact.
Of course, they say all kinds of stuff
on social media as well.
So
we know that almost all countries are doing
cyber cyber espionage already,
(12:02):
so that's already a thing.
So
but maybe they go after individuals or whatever.
I don't know. So what do you think?
Do you think that,
what is the bigger chance? Cyber attack
or sleeper cells? What what what say you?
I love to hear your your thoughts here
on that,
(12:22):
definitely in the comments.
But you guys know, you know, I I
spent twenty five years
active duty in the navy.
And you guys know most of you know
what my job was at the time.
For those of you that don't, basically,
some of the organizations I worked with had
(12:43):
a motto of, in god we trust all
others we monitor.
And,
for forty five, forty six years,
Iran has been killing Americans.
Cobalt Towers,
all kinds of places that have,
you know,
400 plus, I think, Americans have been killed
(13:05):
by Iranians, Iranian proxies.
And,
you know, this, nuclear weapon situation, I don't
care if they were two weeks away, two
months away, two years away.
I I don't care. And if they were
two years away ten years ago, I don't
care.
And these folks should not have a nuclear
weapon. The government
(13:27):
and zealots and
because the majority
of
Iranian people are lovely.
When I got hurt in 02/2004,
the nurse that took care of me was
from Iran,
and when I was in Bahrain.
Lovely nurse. And, again, the Iranian people,
(13:48):
are
are just,
you know, they're the pawns here.
So I am hoping
that this is better days
for Iran ahead. We will see
what happens, but,
I agree with the limited strike that we
did, and hopefully, it doesn't expand,
(14:09):
any further than that. But for all of
my intelligence friends that listen to the show,
I know many of you,
are still in the game.
Good job in doing whatever you're doing.
And happy collecting and,
and executing and giving information to whoever needs
(14:30):
the information to,
to protect us. So,
good job out there. And I know that's
will probably go contrary to many of you
that listen to the show, and I understand
that. That's fine.
I just have a little bit different perspective
of twenty five years, at least, for myself,
an active duty collection against,
(14:52):
Iran and other countries that,
are not friends with us.
It was long,
long, long, long, long,
long overdue,
and I like the way the American
execution happened. And, just my personal opinion, you're
not gonna be able to change
(15:12):
that.
So,
anyway, let's move on.
Teens and this is this is absolutely
this is an absolutely
insane
story.
Teenagers.
Seven people, including a 14 year old, have
been arrested or surrendered
to Danish authorities after allegedly
(15:34):
using encrypted message apps to hire other
teenagers
for contract killings in what Europol calls a
violence as a service operation.
All those arrests are surrendered or between the
age of 14 and 26. Well,
how many of them were 14 to 18?
That's what I wanna know.
(15:54):
Includes two 18 year olds
as well and suspect they've been suspected of
actively recruiting youngsters,
commit targeted killings in Denmark and Sweden and
other suspects according to law enforcement provided
weapons and ammunition and safe houses
for the hitmen.
The arrests follow multiple invigations, attempted murders, ordered
(16:18):
via encrypted encrypted chat services, including one,
including one on May 7.
This is part of Europro's operation task force,
GRIM, which aims to stop the growing use
of encrypted services to coordinate
contract killings across Europe,
dubbed violence as a service by international police.
(16:38):
Insane.
Absolutely
insane.
Teenagers
involved.
I'm not surprised criminal activities are happening on
encrypted messaging apps. You know, we'd be too
stupid to think it were not.
But yeah.
Contract killing, simply
simply insane.
(17:02):
Gonna have a little discussion about WhatsApp
here in a little bit as well. We'll
talk about that and then latest news on
that. I think we talked a little bit
about this on the last show. Streaming surpasses
traditional TV for the first
time. This is a big, big, ups you
know, not a big. It's just a progressive
swing
here. And,
(17:23):
you know, what it really boils down to
is that streaming has received a historic milestone
surpassing
the combined viewership of broadcasting cable television for
the first time
with,
May, streaming accounted for 44.8%
of total TV usage while broadcasting cable combined
44.2.
(17:44):
So,
very, very interesting. Hey. I will say one
thing to you folks. I was contacted,
by
someone that is a let's let's call them
a YouTube expert.
And
they said, Todd, do you know why your
channel has
never,
(18:04):
grown on YouTube?
And I'm like, no. He says, you say
words like
death,
destruction,
hacking.
Say a bunch of keywords that apparently
YouTube doesn't like.
So they they downgrade
my content
because
of the words I use.
(18:26):
And
I got to thinking about that. And isn't
it beautiful
that as a audio podcaster primarily
and have a true video podcast
that
I can say whatever I want and not
be downgraded
and not be suppressed to have my message
and hear what I wanna say said?
Isn't that a beautiful thing to be able
(18:48):
to talk openly
and not have to make up words or
do shortcuts or or say other words that
have other meanings? Isn't that,
fantastic?
I didn't realize that YouTubers are restricted from
being able to say
certain words
in the content that they are,
that they are that they're saying.
(19:09):
So, news to me. Russian hacker
hackers target Gmail passwords, a crackdown on international
critics.
So international critics of Russia and academics
have received phishing emails.
Victims are tricked into sharing Google app specific
passwords.
So the Google threat intelligence group has shared
(19:30):
details of this threat actor tracker as UNC
sixty two ninety three,
believed to be a Russian state sponsored group
targeting
prominent academics
across the country.
Vixen's reported been receiving phishing emails using spoofed
at state.gov
addresses
in the CC field to build credibility. But
(19:51):
instead of being hit with immediate malicious payloads,
attackers are using social engineering tactics to build
reports with their targets.
And Google's research has uncovered the slow paced
nature attackers use to build reports for the
victims, often sending personalized emails, inviting them to
private conversations or meetings.
I'm getting meeting invites
(20:14):
at least three or four times a day
that I have not ever booked.
People know my Calendly link now, and I'm
gonna have to change the link here now
because things have gotten to the point where
people are booking appointments who I don't even
know,
and
assuming I'm going to accept.
(20:36):
In one screenshot shared by Google's threat intelligence,
a prominent
British researcher on Russia received a fake US
department state email believed the part of the
campaign.
He's he was informed several of my e
accounts have been targeted with sophisticated account takeover
that involve person in US State Department.
In the attack email, victim received a, benign
(20:58):
PDF attachment
design look like an invitation to a securely
access of fake department state cloud environment.
If if this webs it's this website that
only gives this attackers which Google believes could
be linked to this,
particular vulnerability.
Now here's what I see. Let's see what
happens with me now
(21:19):
is, like,
Mike, I'm part of my support team. We
got an email saying, hey. Here's the last
notice
for a copyright violation. We're gonna take you
to court. You need to take care of
this, and it's they said it was our
content
and music that we had on our account.
And we're like, we have no music on
our account. We're good.
And yet this,
(21:41):
this person thought they could trick us
into clicking on the link, which was it
looked like a Facebook link, but it was
really a Bitly link.
And,
those types of,
they can't get it through email, so now
they're sending it into our support system.
So, you know, of course, my team has
been trained up, and no one's clicking on
(22:02):
those links for sure
because it basically is an attempt to take
over your Facebook account.
So be careful what you're clicking.
If you don't know who it's from, don't
click on it.
You know? If they wanna really wanna talk
to you, you know, there is an e
if they wanna talk to us that bad,
there is a phone number and a direct
(22:24):
email on our website, and
we can confirm who they are by phone
and set up a meeting.
But be careful. Okay?
This is a little bit of a move
on vehicles. We're gonna switch
topics here. Americans are buying twice as many
hybrids as fully electric vehicles.
(22:44):
Well, of course, there's no damn chargers.
As recent as 2021,
g m GM all but eliminated hybrids from
its future product line.
But then a funny thing happened. Car shoppers
balked at the high prices of electric vehicles
and the challenge of charging them.
So in the last few years, sales of
electric vehicles have grown at a much slower
(23:07):
rate than hybrids.
Hybrids have filled the gap and are selling
as much as 14%
of all light vehicles sold in The United
States.
Hybrids.
So several automakers slowing the introduction of new
electric vehicles and having a seller development of
new hybrids. Some of those hybrids get 50
miles to the gallon.
(23:28):
You never have to plug them into a
charger.
That to me is fantastic.
If I can double or even triple what
my my mile per gallon is,
fantastic.
The charging infrastructure
in most countries as well as United States
is not yet mature enough to support convenient
mass adoption of battery electric vehicles.
(23:49):
And in some territories, never will be.
So it talks about Porsche and other companies
that are,
you know, looking at their model lineup and
deciding the mix,
and hybrids continue to be a a great,
great solution.
SpaceX, meanwhile, launched Starlink ten twenty three following
a Sunday morning scrub.
(24:10):
They're able to do a turnaround and get
it launched.
So another 27
Starlink v two Minis into orbit.
How many of you are not paying for
YouTube? I I couldn't watch YouTube without
paying. I really could
not. There's too many
commercials, but YouTube is trying
(24:32):
to block block all of you that are
doing ad blockers.
So over the past few months, YouTube has
been trying another round of anti
ad block measures.
And about
a percentage accounts, they're doing AB testing on
them.
And,
and I think it's your right. If you
(24:52):
wanna try to block ads, you should be
able to do that in your browser or
on your TV or however you're watching YouTube.
You should have that right your computer your
rights.
The battle between YouTube on one side and
users wanting a non,
well, let's call it
doo doo experience
without paying for YouTube Premium on the other
(25:13):
is unlikely
to end anytime soon.
So just be aware that,
they're looking for you
and trying to determine if you're using some
sort of software.
So buyer beware.
We'll see how long the cat and mouse
continues. I'm sure it will continue
for many, many, many more years.
(25:36):
Hey. Hey. I wanna thank, Darren Schwartz
and,
others. Let's see. I'll go down through the
list here for streaming.
Fifty sats a minute to the show.
It's greatly appreciated. Who else? He's the latest
one.
That is,
a huge
contribution to the show. I also wanna thank,
(25:57):
Daniel Lemix for his $10.80
donation to the show, Christian Pitrier for his
$3 a month donation, Mike Dell at World
Studio for his $2,
Gary Ebels for his $10, and SJG
Media LLC for their $10.80,
contribution. Chris, you can become a sustaining, which
(26:17):
is $2 a month,
Ohana donation at $5 a month, Warrior donation
at $10
per month, a Kahuna donation at $15
per month, the Konehiki donation at $20
a month, and the Alahi Chief donation for
$25
per month at geekdecentral.com
forward slash insider. Use new one of those
(26:38):
fangled
podcasting apps, and you can also stream us
crypto if you want to the show.
Bitcoin went over a 100,000
again, so,
I'm sitting on quite a bit of Satoshis
right now. So at some point, I'm gonna
have to move those back into the blockchain
and,
and cash some of those out. But I
(27:00):
wanna thank all of you for your ongoing
support of the show. As an insider. And
if you're not an insider yet, go over
to geeknewcentral.com/insider
to become
an insider.
Texas is gonna require permits for self driving
cars starting in September. Of course, that, coincides
with the launch
of Tesla's,
self driving stuff. They're they're doing their quiet
(27:23):
launch
that happened. But after September 1,
they're going to need, again, permits.
So I'm sure that will cost money.
If you're a WordPress user, especially a car
dealer, popular WordPress theme has been hijacked by
malware.
So if you have the
(27:43):
what is the name of it? A popular
WordPress
theme. It's called Style Mix Themes.
Oh, it's from Style Mix Themes.
Attackers exploit the bill oh, it's a motors
theme. Excuse me. If you're using the motors
theme on your WordPress site, make sure you've
updated.
This'll compromise your administrator
(28:06):
account.
It's hard to believe that,
templates are now being exploited
for,
for hacking.
How many of you are,
Chris, you know, when I was growing up
as a kid,
I had my fair share of Hot Wheels.
How many of you had one of those
orange tracks in the machine that make the
cars come out of the you know, had
(28:27):
a I had all that when I was
a kid. I got it all secondhand, but,
man, it was fantastic. I wish I had
all that track and all that stuff today.
It'd probably be worth some money, but,
it's all beat up. You know? As as
a kid, that's what you do. Right? But
there's a new Hot Wheels set for Jaws
and Back to the Future, and it's gonna
be available
at at launch of Comic Con. The DeLorean
(28:49):
and more commemorative items will arrive at this
year's San Diego Comic Con event. Don't know
if you'll be able to buy them elsewhere,
but there'll be a doctor e Brown Enterprise
van, a DeLorean, and other stuff to go
around with the
the,
the celebration,
surrounding,
some of the famous, movie series like Jaws
(29:11):
and so forth.
So, it would be kinda cool to have
me a DeLorean,
a DeLorean Hot Wheels. I don't collect Hot
Wheels. The Hot Wheels I have have been
beat beat up seven seven ways to Sunday,
to be honest with you.
Trump's mobile draws attention. Purism 1999
(29:31):
Liberty phone. Purism phone made almost entirely in
The US is similar to the Trump Organization
promise of a phone that might someday be
manufactured domestically.
Keyword is might be.
And they did, of course, they made headlines
last week, but, you know, they don't have
one yet. So we'll see
if it happens. But an independent an independent
phone maker in San Francisco
(29:52):
has been working on the closest thing to
a smartphone made almost entirely United States, the
$1,999
Liberty phone.
It's been around since 02/2014.
They're gonna have a new, handset coming out,
so
we'll see. We'll see if this happens. But,
(30:12):
Purism Liberty phone,
maybe the phone. We'll see. Time will tell.
Hinge. Hinge, the dating app, is planning its
own mobile payment system to avoid Apple store
fees, bravo on them.
As part of the appearance on Dakota podcast,
Hinge cofounder and CEO Justin McLoyd
said the company would like to introduce an
(30:34):
alternate payment service by the end of the
year.
And, of course, with giving Apple 30% or
20% or 15% of their revenue, it would
just be an immediate win.
Possibly Hinge using its own payment service with
its iOS app is thanks, of course, the
major
the major
recent ruling in Epic Games versus Apple that
(30:54):
blocks
Apple from taking fees on purchases made outside
of the app.
And,
so very, very smart for these folks to
be doing this. All apps need to be
doing this.
Meanwhile,
Apple is,
put stuff online and then as soon as
they get a little bit of pushback,
they put it they pull it down.
(31:17):
So Apple's taken down a new ad just
one day after posting it, making
presentation,
why I need a Mac for college.
It's called the parent presentation.
Also, they had a actual 47
(31:38):
slide present or 80 one's
what parent?
An 81 slide presentation.
They're supposed to give parents 45
undeniable reasons why Mac is essential to college.
A lot of money in those, students,
using Macs.
(31:58):
It's kinda funny.
My development team is kinda split.
The younger the developer, the more they wanna
develop on Mac. The older the developer, the
more they wanna develop on a PC.
It's
kinda curious.
It really, really is.
(32:19):
My son, who started as an intern today
at Blueberry,
underneath one of my developers, is gonna be
on a Windows machine. Now he's always been
a Windows guy because he's he's a gamer.
So I'm real proud to have my son
interning at my company. It's pretty exciting, to
be honest with you.
(32:40):
And, we'll see how he does over the
next eight to ten weeks.
I have
no day to day,
I guess, for a better word, interaction.
He's, all underneath my dev team's,
prowess, so it's gonna be fun to see,
what he comes up with and what he
produces.
(33:00):
The iPhone 17 Pro
is being rumored
to get a vapor chamber.
So I don't remember us talking about this
before, but a vapor chamber inside an iPhone
essentially makes it more
from a heat standpoint,
heat dissipation
(33:20):
is,
is better
for something that's in a vapor chamber.
So we'll see if this happens,
but the iPhone 17 series
could
gain a vapor chamber.
Time will tell.
There was a leaked image of vapor chamber
in and around the chipset.
(33:43):
So,
we'll see. We'll see if that happens.
Does anybody else know of any chips in
a vapor chamber? Or is that something that's
on laptops?
Amazon has launched it's just second batch of
Kuiper Internet satellites,
quote, unquote, taking on Elon Musk Starlink.
So they launched this on United Launch Alliance,
(34:04):
and how many did they shoot? They put
27
Cooper satellites in orbit. So this makes a
total of 50 some that they have.
So,
a little bit of a ways to go
to compete with
the with the Starlink.
There's another article, believe it or not, for
talking about the hinge CEO. Says dating AI
(34:27):
chatbots is playing with fire.
Dating AI chatbots. We talked a little bit
about this on the last show,
but
really?
You know,
what's the point?
(34:47):
I understand people are using AI chatbots for
therapy,
and some people are have virtual girlfriends,
but it just seems
I I don't I just don't get it.
And,
and I expect
dating apps be using
(35:08):
AI.
I I just,
I I don't think it's helping people that
much anymore.
But,
anyway, interesting that talking about there's a good
interview. You can read the interview notes, but,
dating an AI chatbot,
where does it end?
(35:29):
Where does it end?
Of course, a lot was talked about in
Apple iOS 26.
I'm not gonna go through all the changes
because more coming out as people are getting
access to the beta.
Obviously, the liquid glass stuff made a lot
of, made a lot of impressions, positive and
negative,
but we know that there's a lot of
apps that are in redesign, like photos, and
(35:51):
they're trying to undo some of the stuff
that they screwed up in photos
and having tabs and that kind of stuff.
So,
I'll have the link up in the show
notes here on what you're to expect in
iOS 26 this fall.
Meanwhile, scammers are calling us less, but,
they're being more effective.
And we see it in the emails coming
(36:13):
in. We see it really personalized stuff that's
targeted to us.
And,
scam calls are down 75%
since 2021,
from more than 2,000,000,000 every month to roughly
500,000,000
every month. That's a massive decline, but the
problem is is they're just really getting better
(36:33):
because they spam you into they know a
lot about you,
and they can have a conversation
and, you know, social engineer you.
Lenovo has a
Chromebook that they're really proud of,
and, they want people to know about Lenovo's
new Chromebook having exclusive
(36:55):
AI
powers.
And I'm thinking, okay. Alright. So all this
all these computers are gonna have some bit
of
AI, but this is kinda unusual
for a Chromebook to have it. And, you
know, I'm sure there's a associated
price,
but it's called MediaTek
powered Chromebook.
And, it's a 14 inch
(37:17):
OLED,
generous memory of of, of 12 gigs and
16 gigs
and that MediaTek
processor.
And,
but MediaTek usually
is is a more,
I guess, affordable option. But
But one of the chips,
specifically the Snapdragon
(37:38):
x series,
are gonna be bringing some AI power to
it, of course, a great
power efficiency
as well.
So if you're a Chromebook fan and you're
looking with get one that has some LLM
capability,
this new Lenovo
Chromebook
link will be in the show notes for
(37:58):
you to check out. Hey. As always, do
not forget, you can send an email here
at geeknews@gmail.com
to comment on the commentary. You can, of
course, catch me on x at geek news
as a way to, to to connect as
well.
A lot of you follow me over there
still.
The, classic VW bus got an all electric
update,
(38:19):
and,
Volkswagen autonomous
ID Buzz robot is ready, and cities and
companies can buy them soon.
So,
the ID Buzz is the first vehicle in
Germany to reach SAE's
international threshold for level four autonomous driving.
Measuring that car can drive itself with no
need for a driver behind the wheel within
(38:41):
designated areas.
So usually,
full scale cities.
It comes with a full set of tools
for public and private transport providers,
includes everything from self driving tech to fleet
management software. So,
the Volks
Wagon bus, again, got a full EW update
(39:03):
and will be coming to a city near
you.
At the same time, 743,000
people have been impacted by the McLaren
health care data breach.
Again, that's a Michigan Healthcare provider,
and they're notifying all the people that their
personal information was compromised in the 2024,
data breach.
And
(39:24):
this was reported back,
some time ago.
But they know do now know the total
impact,
so basically every one of their customers.
That's pretty much the end of it.
Tesla's Robotaxi
launch in Texas. Of course, we've heard about
this,
and,
they were on the roads in Texas this
(39:46):
past Sunday.
Of course, there is some,
they've got
a driver assist as well.
But, apparently, there has been some, some incidents
already
of the robotaxi
doing some things that it should not do.
And, within the app, if you try to
give the tax seat an, a tip,
(40:08):
there's a little bit of, an Easter egg
for you,
that's making the rounds here.
But, very small number of vehicles deployed and
all had a human safety operator in the
passenger seat.
So why didn't they have a driver's
seat? That's the question.
You're going down the street the wrong way.
(40:30):
Wouldn't you want to
be in the driver's seat instead of the
passenger seat? That's all a little bit odd
to me indeed.
Amazon Amazon boss says AI will replace jobs
at the tech giant,
so
I'm not surprised. He shared the prediction and
memo to staff on Tuesday,
(40:51):
which encouraged employees to be curious about AI.
Well, not be curious. You better be all
in.
And they've set out their laid set out
their plans for using AI amid concerns that
tech will lead to rapid
jobs losses across the world. Now let me
tell you something.
One of my team members have experienced some
things lately where,
(41:13):
the individual is frustrated
because on the topics he's presented to him,
which he is a subject matter expert,
the the AI is lying to him.
And so hallucinations
are still happening.
So
if you're using AI for outputs, you have
to unequivocally
have some of it as a SME
(41:35):
to be able to look at that data
and make sure
it's correct
in references
and everything. And if it is giving references,
what are the references linking to? What type
of content?
So be careful out there.
But, you know, I'm not surprised
that,
Amazon is saying this.
(41:56):
They've been ahead of everyone in robots and
everything else,
so why would they not?
I I would suspect that, the first place
it's gonna happen is in their warehouses.
The robots are gonna get more sophisticated
than they already are.
So,
time will tell,
where all this leads.
(42:17):
In an interesting Bitcoin story, Texas joins growing
list of US states with a Bitcoin reserve.
Texas has become the third US state to
approve a Bitcoin
reserve with new legislation.
Only digital assets with a twenty four month
average market cap of 500,000,000,000
to qualify, limit to to Bitcoin for now.
And the reserve will be managed by Texas
(42:39):
Comptroller
with advisory oversight and strict custody rules. So
we will see.
Becoming more widespread
as a
cash reserve.
So
I guess I get to read this today.
Axios, the other day had me blocked.
(43:00):
WhatsApp is banned from house staffer devices.
The US House chief administrative officers informed congressional
staffers Monday. The messaging app WhatsApp has been
banned on their government devices.
The ban which centers on the vulnerability of
staffers' data comes as congress taking steps to
limit the use of AI it deems similarly
risky.
(43:21):
It is heavily
it is it has also heavily restricted staffers'
use of ChatGPT,
instructing office to only use the paid version
of ChatGPT,
of course.
And the Office of Cybersecurity deemed WhatsApp too
high a risk for users due to lack
of transparency
in how it protects
users' data. Now who owns WhatsApp?
(43:43):
We know. Right?
So house app staff are not allowed to
download or keep WhatsApp application on any house
device,
including a mobile desktop or web browsing version
of the product.
He says if you have WhatsApp application
and house managed device, you will be contacted
to remove it. The question is why don't
they just remove it?
(44:05):
If it's a house issued phone, it should
be house controlled
and forms the IT of what can and
cannot be put on it.
So what app is being is allowed? Is
it gonna be signal?
So there lies the question.
(44:26):
I think so.
So Apple is locked in a last minute
App Store negotiation
to avoid
to avoid
European Union fines.
You know that they've been hammered pretty heavily
in The U EU and America in their
implementation of stuff.
(44:46):
The tech group must make concessions to comply
with the digital markets act or be hit
with escalating
levies on Thursday.
The 3,000,000,000,000 companies in talks,
people involved negotiations that Apple is expected to
offer concessions
on its steering provisions that stop users from
accessing offers outside the App Store. Well, they
(45:07):
want it gone.
They're gonna announce some concessions
to buy more time. They don't want it
removed.
They don't want
their 30% to go away,
but it's gonna happen.
So
we will see what happens. They basically have
(45:30):
thumbed their noses as much as possible at
all this.
And here in The United States, it's kinda
turned a corner a little bit.
Of course, everything is on appeal,
but the conversations in the EU is a
little bit different.
So time will tell,
where all this heads.
That is for sure.
(45:50):
Of course, I want you to take a
moment to get over to geatoncentral.com.
If you're not followers subscribed to the podcast,
please do so already. You'll notice our GoDaddy
sponsor
banner on the right hand side of the
website. Be sure to click on that to
go look at the GoDaddy
deals.
Definitely
support the website. Check out all of the
partner shows as well at geeknewscentral.com.
I want you to make sure that you
(46:11):
feel free to drop me an email, geeknews@gmail.comatgeeknewsonx.
We appreciate when you do.
And, again,
no show on Thursday, but I'll be back
with you for a full schedule next week.
Now, of course, next week, let's look at
the calendar.
Thursday is the July third, and Friday is
(46:33):
the fourth. So I imagine none of you
are gonna be listening in America, you're gonna
be listening to this show,
the fourth. But I will have an episode
for you
on Friday the fourth. I'm gonna deliver because
the show is supposed to be recorded on
Thursday the third, so that's gonna continue to
be the case. So there will be an
episode for you while you are barbecuing
(46:54):
and shooting off fireworks in your,
neighborhood.
Just be safe out there. But, again, I'll
be back,
next week for a regularly scheduled episode, but
no show,
this coming Thursday. Again, it's been my pleasure
bringing you the podcast. Thank you for being
here. We'll see you next week, everyone. Take
care. We'll see you next time. Aloha. Bye
bye.
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