Federal Workers Shift to Encrypted Messaging to Hide Communications #1799

As trust in platforms like Facebook declines, federal employees are increasingly turning to encrypted apps like Signal for private communication. Concerns over surveillance by the Trump administration and tech companies’ cooperation with government data requests have driven many to migrate sensitive conversations away from mainstream services. Employees fear potential monitoring and retaliation, leading to heightened … Continue reading Federal Workers Shift to Encrypted Messaging to Hide Communications #1799 →

The post Federal Workers Shift to Encrypted Messaging to Hide Communications #1799 appeared first on Geek News Central.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
As trust in platforms like Facebook declines, federal
employees are increasingly turning to encrypted apps like
Signal
for private communications.
Concerns over surveillance
by the current administration and tech companies cooperation
with government data request
have driven many to migrate to sensitive conversations
away from mainstream services.

(00:21):
Employees fear potential monitoring and retaliation
yet avoiding and ignoring security concerns.
Again, this leads to heightened caution in work
to place discussions and online interactions.
Welcome to episode 1,799
coming to this Thursday, February 13.
I'm your host, Todd Cochran, ready to deliver

(00:44):
your tech news and information fix. A quick
shout out to our incredible sponsor at GoDaddy.
Score exclusive deals and discounts at geeknesscentral.com/godaddy.
And to all our fantastic listeners, you are
the heartbeat of the show. If you wanna
support the GNC mission, head to geek news
central dot com forward slash insider and become
a GNC

(01:04):
insider. We are live and lit thanks to
modern podcast apps. Don't just listen. Experience the
show live by grabbing a modern podcast app
at podcastapps.com.
While you're at it, check out the full
Geek News Central universe to geeknewcentral.com
where you find our partner shows, tons of
content, and more tech goodness. Of course, stay

(01:25):
in the loop. Follow subscribe via your favorite
podcast app and join the community. And don't
forget to sign up for a newsletter
on the website for even more insider scoops.
Have something to say? Join the conversation at
geek news dot chat or email be me
directly
at [e-mail].
Or,

(01:45):
of course, you can
follow me on x at geek news.
Of course, you can catch me on Facebook
as well.
Wanna take a moment here to say thank
you to our sponsor, GoDaddy.
You can save big money on GoDaddy products
and services.
Wanna start a website or a podcast?

(02:05):
My codes make it easy and affordable. Grab
GoDaddy's economy hosting for just $6.99
a month. That's a full year of hosting
with a free domain name, professional email, and
SSL certificate. Grab or click the promo code
for those of you looking to save money.
And for WordPress fans, WordPress manage work will
manage WordPress hosting is just $12.99

(02:27):
which includes a free domain
professional email, and SSL certificate. That's $12.99
a month. If you need a domain name,
get yours for only just $11.99.
And if you're testing the waters, try GoDaddy's
website builder. GoDaddy's website builder includes a free
thirty day trial on personal business to business
plus plans. Of course, Geek and Sentry uses

(02:47):
all the GoDaddy products and services, and your
support keeps this podcast alive. Use our products,
use our codes, and save money, and back
this independent team of creators. Share my deals
with your friends and family because every time
a code is used, it supports Geek News
Central. Thank you. Thank you so much for
keeping us online

(03:08):
and going
strong.
Hey, everyone.
Welcome to the show.
You know, most people say, thank god it's
Friday.
I'm like, TGIF Thursday because I mean, TGIT.
Thank God it's Thursday because TGIF is tomorrow.
It's been a very long week.

(03:31):
A lot getting done.
And,
I'm just you know, I'm focused on getting
through tomorrow, and then I'm probably gonna collapse.
And then Saturday,
I have,
you know,
the thing that we all hate doing. I'm
going to try
I'm going to try to finish the taxes

(03:52):
on
Saturday.
Famous last words.
Famous last words. And, of course, we have
episode 1,800 on Monday. We get into the
18 hundreds.
Are you excited?
I am a little bit.
You know, it seems like it took us
a trudge
to get through all of the the 17

(04:12):
hundreds.
So, 18 hundreds come Monday.
So, we're at the top, seventeen ninety nine.
That's a number, ladies and gentlemen. 1,800 on
Monday, so we'll do something special.
Please join me
on Monday for that deal. So we're gonna
get right into the stack today. I'm gonna
get a little late getting the show started.

(04:35):
Just, you know, things went late with the
JOB. So when things go late with the
JOB,
then,
you know,
the show starts late. But I wanna talk
about
this this top of the top of the
hour
article about
federal workers say they increasingly distrust platforms like
Facebook.
They say platforms they once used to communicate

(04:57):
with coworkers and friends increasingly feel insecure.
You know,
when I was a federal government employee,
there was no
allowance made for
communications.
We we weren't allowed
to talk about work

(05:18):
on any apps.
It's not allowed.
No. No. No. No. No. Not allowed at
all.
Email,
in person,
video conference.
I think on our computers, we may have
had
some messaging app,
but they were that was it. You weren't

(05:40):
allowed to talk about work
texting.
You know, you might say, hey. I'm a
little late for meeting texting,
or I'm coming, or
a coordination thing, but no
business.
No no federal business
in chat whatsoever.

(06:00):
We didn't have Slack channels or anything like
that.
So it surprises
me
when I hear about government
workers
communicating with another
via apps like Signal,
this is very scary.

(06:22):
And first of all, I would have never
you know, I understand that the value of
Signal,
don't get me wrong,
for personal stuff,
not for anything to do with work.
If you just wanna talk to your friends
about
non work items, do what you will.
But anything that you say that is

(06:42):
involving work,
it should not be allowed. It should not
be
should not be matter of fact,
in the job I had, I subject to
dismissal if I was
caught communicating,
you know,
improperly
because the job was very sensitive, and the
discussions were,

(07:03):
more than likely,
about nine out of 10 times,
were not for public dissemination.
And, in fact,
when we talk to each other on the
telephone, we had a secure phone
that we use to talk to one another.
There would be times we would call somebody,
say, hey. I need to. We'd say, hey.

(07:24):
Because
these phones weren't just readily available. My office,
there was one. But people I would talk
to us say, hey. If you if you
got a secure phone,
talk to them on open, and they would
say, yeah. And I'm like, okay. I'll I'll
call you back on you know, call me
back in ten minutes on this number.
And then we would kick it secure

(07:44):
and have our conversation and come off secure,
but we never talked openly over the phone
unless it was something that could be talked
about on the phone.
And we had to take a screen care
and not even talking around
topics.
You know, they would be like, hey. You
know that thing,

(08:05):
it's such and such, you know, by the
window?
That's what they would be like talking around.
Oh, yeah. I know the thing by the
window.
You you know the the things halfway down
from the window? Yeah. I know. That not
allowed
to be talked about.
Can't say that it was never done

(08:25):
because there was sometimes
it had to be done, but it was
really, really, really discouraged.
So
I'm hearing a buzz in my ear.
You guys hearing that at all?
Maybe it's just my earball.

(08:46):
You guys like that earball?
So at heart of the trust distrust
is because of the administration that cozied up
to Meta and
Axe
and so forth.
So one worker also pointed out a recent
change my made my Google

(09:07):
to its calendar of holidays.
And I'm like,
listen. You have a government
you as a government employee are
have installed on your set on your computer
a set of software.
Microsoft is probably there. There's no when I
was there, it was no cloud stuff. Oh,
no.
No cloud. Uh-uh.

(09:28):
No cloud. Because stuff I created on my
computer and, again,
depending on what I was working on let's
just just use the acronym
g. If it was a g rating, I
could use one computer.
But if it was an r rating, I
had to use a different computer.
And then if it was an x rating,
I had to use even another computer. So

(09:50):
there was no
even even stuff that we did, there was
depending on what you were doing, you worked
on one machine, And if there was other
stuff you had to work on, you work
on another machine and then go to even
the next level because there was no interchange
of this data that wasn't allowed.
I had a separate email on machine b.

(10:12):
I had a separate email on machine c.
Crazy as it may sound,
but as you can imagine,
my dot mil address that I had
for, god, thirty plus years,
I had a different address on another machine
for thirty plus years, and I had another
email address on thirty plus years because

(10:34):
sometimes the messaging required
stuff to go one way and not another.
All about the classification of the conversation.
So
a general government worker that's working on an
unclassified
machine
still has restrictions.
And most, believe it or not,

(10:55):
most government employees do not have a government
phone.
I never
I never in my thirty years had a
government phone. Never had one.
I had personal phone. And matter of fact,
most of the time, when I went to
my office with my personal phone,
outside the office was a box,

(11:16):
and it had a place to unlock, stick
your phone in, close the door, lock it
up, and I would have to go into
the room and leave my phone outside. I
couldn't even come in the room with the
phone.
And then when I went to lunch, I
could get my phone and go to lunch
and come back and stick it back in
there. If the phone crossed the threshold

(11:38):
of the room
that wasn't allowed to have a phone, guess
what?
If you were caught, the phone was confiscated
and smashed.
That's how serious it was.
So when I hear about government employees
doing the the dance on apps,

(12:00):
well,
you know,
that that, to me sounds very, very dangerous.
And, again, I'm sure it's a it's a
subset of employees that
don't have to work in
a classified system or unclassified.
Believe it or not, I think probably, I

(12:20):
would almost bet you
and again, I don't know about different government
agencies, but I would almost bet that every
one of those agencies, there are phones that's
I mean, computers that say unclassified
when you log into them.
At least in DOD,
you knew what kind of a computer was
you were on based upon the background color

(12:41):
of the screen.
If you were on a green screen,
you're you're one level. If you are on
a red screen, you are on another level.
If you are on a yellow screen, you're
on another level.
So, you know, dependent on the color of
the screen.
Just to remind you.

(13:03):
So
I don't like the the situation here where
people are trying to hide
communications. If you're just trying to talk to
your friend, do as you want.
But if you're talking about the JOB,
there's a big, big, big, big issue there.
Alright. And a very disturbing
a very disturbing story here,

(13:27):
and this this is very disturbing.
An investigation has found that Match Group failed
to act on reports of sexual assault. Now
the company who owns Tinder, Hinge, and OkCupid
and more,
apparently,
and have been
found.

(13:47):
New investigation claims the parent company
of TenderHinge, OkCupid, and other apps has turned
a blind eye to allegedly abusive users on
its platform. The eighteen
month investigation found instances in which users were
repeatedly reported for drugging or assaulting their dates.
On such cases, a Colorado
one such case involves a Colorado Colorado

(14:08):
based cardiologist
named Stephen Matthews. Over seven years, multiple women
on Match's platforms reported him for drugging or
raving them. Despite these reports, his Tinder profile
was at one point given standout status reserved
for popular profiles
and often requiring in app currency to interact
with.

(14:29):
Matthews wasn't removed from the platform until two
months after one survivor went to the police.
Match Group subsequently dragged his feet when Hinge
received a search warrant complying
after seven month.
He was sentenced to a hundred and fifty
years to life in prison.
How is something like this

(14:51):
allowed to happen?
How is this even
possible?
Since 02/2016,
Match Group had been aware of which users
were reportedly assaulting, drugging, or raping their dates.
In 02/2019,
Match Group Central database began recording each user
reported for either assault or rape on any
of its apps. Company insiders reported three years

(15:13):
later, the system registered hundreds of incidents weekly,
but the system was reported ineffective and easy
to gain.
Users could easily evade evade bans by excuse
me, evade bans
by signing up with different contact information.
Internal company documents show information on IP address,
photos, and birthday were not used to ban

(15:34):
a user
if they appeared in another Match dating app.
A Tinder user banned for reports of rape
could simply jump ship to Hinge without issue.
There reportedly many tutorial online for methods to
evade bans.
Wow. In 2020, Match Group stated it would
release a transparency rate, disturbing harm conduct in

(15:55):
relation to its platform.
That report has never been released.
So
by 2022,
Match Group entered a major partnership with background
check company Garbo.
The next year, that partnership was dissolved with
Garbo writing public. It made clear that most
online platforms aren't legitimately committed to trust and

(16:17):
safety for their users.
This is crazy.
This is crazy
that this is going on.
Ladies,
ladies, ladies, late ladies and gentlemen,
be very careful out there. Okay?
Please.

(16:38):
If you're gonna meet someone, meet them in
a public place.
You know, be very, very careful.
This is, this is disturbing
that this is out there, and shame on
this company for for not doing anything. There's
been instances I've heard
in

(16:58):
Colombia
where it's the opposite
situation where
men are matching with women and then women
agreeing to meet men, and the women show
up with two women and waiting down the
hallway is assailants,
And they're drugged and robbed of everything they
have.
So it's going both ways.

(17:19):
So be careful. Be very, very careful out
there, you know,
Bad, bad, bad, bad people for sure.
Moving on. YouTube TV app could get much
easier use with two new features.
And,
YouTube has just recently announced that,

(17:40):
YouTube is now primarily watch on smart TVs
in United States.
And, so that means that
the the very, very poor
experience that YouTube offers on most TVs,
it's time is coming to be updated.
So they're going to be laying out new
features, including ways to comment, which you can
never do. You could only thumbs up with

(18:03):
with videos.
So there's gonna be some key changes here
to make it, more
interactive,
which will be great.
The first new features are geared on the
second screen experience allowing you to use your
phone
to interact with the video watching on TV.
For example, to leave a comment or make

(18:24):
a purchase or make a donation.
So that I'm not surprised about. That kinda
works a little bit
already.
So looking forward to see these, YouTube TV
not YouTube TV, but YouTube
updates for TV.
In a very disturbing article, this headline just

(18:45):
really caught my attention.
And when I read this to you, you're
gonna be kinda weirded out too.
Oracle head Larry Ellison wants to put all
of America's data into one big system to
study,
including your DNA.
Now

(19:06):
my DNA is already on file with US
government.
They you know, that's part of the thing
of being a military person. If you get
killed and they need to figure out, who
you are later from remains,
that aren't recognizable, they can, you know, run
your d DNA through a database.
I'm good with that. I know I I

(19:27):
know I handed that over
on purpose. And some of you have done
23 and me and genealogy.com
and got your DNA tested.
And, you know, so some of that data
is out there in the wild on you
already.
And but he said government should centralize all
their data, including citizens' health data, enhance services
and security. I don't trust the government with

(19:48):
anything.
He says we've already presented with countless studies
touching on poor data foundations often caused by
siloed data.
Well, speaking of silos, I guess, you know,
it also includes caves.
By making economic health care and infrastructure mission
available, essentially, he envisions enhanced health care with

(20:09):
personalized treatments,
improve agriculture productivity with better land and crop
analysis. But
okay. So
why do you need our DNA?
It's been already been proven pharma and the
health care system
cannot protect our data.
You know? So much for HIPAA.

(20:30):
All this stuff is already
finding its way onto the Internet,
so there's nothing sacred anymore.
And it's no wonder people are
hesitant
to have stuff. You know, I just had
a doctor's appointment, Tuesday
for, blood sugar. And, yeah, by the way,

(20:52):
I'm down.
My blood sugar is down. I'm doing better.
My doc was pleased with me.
And,
you know, we had a good conversation. But
all the time we're talking, he's
into the computer
and putting in my information into a digital
record. It's being held at the VA, which

(21:12):
I'm sure has great security.
I've been open on this show. I've talked
about having type two diabetes, so it's no
secret.
But some of you have health concerns that
you don't want anyone knowing about.
Your status.

(21:32):
You know, health status.
You don't want that information getting out because
people
can be weird, and it can be held
against you and used against you. I get
it.
You know, someone living with a
a ecumenical disease that has got stigmatism around
it definitely would not want

(21:54):
that data to be in the open.
So
I I don't know. You know? It it
I don't know if we're ever gonna be
secure. I guess everybody's business is just gonna
be out there.
I definitely don't want the government holding anything.
They you know, my whole life story
is in the Chinese hands.

(22:15):
You know? They got it. They've got it.
My history from when I was a teenager
to,
you know, till I was 45 years old
or older.
Everything.
So,
you know, if you've had your data put
out there for the world,
you know, you you have a consideration on

(22:36):
this stuff. You understand the impact.
And then there's another story out here that
AI chatbots could outperform doctors in diagnosing patients.
This is a study
compared whether chatbots can diagnose patients
accurately and quicker than doctors.
The study suggests physicians who have access to

(22:58):
a large language model, which underpin generative AI
chatbot demonstrate improved performance on several patient care
tasks
compared to colleagues
without access to the tech.
Now I had a situation that happened to
me that I talked to my doc about
that could have been one of two things,

(23:19):
and I was worried about it being item
b. And we talked extensively
about
the one thing that
he thought it was,
Where I, on the other hand, was more
worried about b, and I brought b up
because guess what I had done? I had
done a little bit of looking around myself.

(23:40):
Of course, doctors hate that.
But, you know, he took a deeper look
because I'd self educated myself
on a and b.
And we had a discussion about, okay. If
you see this again, b,
come back to the doctor.
And, a, if you think it if it

(24:00):
happens and we're you know, he was giving
me two directives on what to do.
And
around blood sugar.
So
the AI stuff,
potentially
and I didn't use AI to find what

(24:21):
I was looking for.
I just did a search. Of course, that's
no more better than
a security release. Right?
And it said, oh, it could have been
that.
You should've went to the doctor immediately.
So the under the research undertaken by more
than a dozen physicians at Beth Israel

(24:42):
Deaconess Medical Center showed GenAI's promise on an
open end decision making.
However, this will require rigorous validation to realize
LMS potential enhancing patient care.
Unlike diagnostic reasoning, it tasks often with a
single right answer, which LMS excel at. Management
reasoning may have no right answer involves weighing
trade offs.

(25:03):
The conclusion based on evaluations,
about the decision making capabilities of 92 physicians
as they work through five hypothetical patient cases.
They focus on the physicians managing reasoning, which
include decision on testing, treatment, patient preferences, social
factors, cost, and risk.
Now

(25:25):
I asked my doc
about,
a certain drug that's being very popular right
now. I don't wanna take it, But I
asked, does the VA offer? They said, oh,
we're not supposed to talk about that because
if we didn't make it available, it's gonna
be a $10,000,000,000
bill for the government. I asked them about
Ozempic.
And,

(25:45):
you know, I said, you know, what's this
thing about people going blind and a whole
bunch you know? He says, yeah. There's some
stuff out there. You got a thyroid cancer
and, you know, some things they have to
watch for.
Because when I was, in The Philippines, you
can get that particular product very, very cheap
over the counter
compared to here where it's, you know, with

(26:06):
insurance, like, $1,400
or something a month.
So we're having a discussion about that, and
they're not supposed to talk about it,
you know,
because the VA doesn't wanna give this out.
I rightly understand.
I'm not a candidate for it anyway.
I'm not that fat
even though I, you know, sitting at $1.97
right now. So

(26:27):
but, anyway,
how's that all have to do with this
AI chatbot stuff? Well, we may soon be
talking to chatbots.
Google will use AI determine if you're lying
about your age. The company says it's part
of an effort to provide more age appropriate
experiences.
The company said in a blog post, the

(26:48):
model the model expect to launch later this
year intends to provide more age appropriate experiences
for young users.
So how are they gonna do this? The
announcement comes as tech companies are feigning pressure
from lawmakers to make platforms safer for users.
Last year, made to induce a similar AI
model that will help determine if a user
is under the age of 18.

(27:08):
I think all of us guys will be
flagged for being under the age of 18.
They won't be able to tell. Only the
ladies will be able to be figured out
if they're older than 18.
I'm just joking, but you you all know
what I'm talking about.
So, time will tell here.
Waze. I quit using Waze.

(27:30):
Waze became so
unusable to me, so I guess I have
to check it out again.
Waze has got the big update that makes
it easier to navigate your favorite places.
Waze's new button allows for faster navigation to
favorite
spots. Okay.
The recent update allows a general update of
the user interface,
speed bump alerts, and lead merging notifications are

(27:51):
also now a feature.
So, you know, Google and and Apple Maps
are caught up. Well, there's been integration with
Google and Waze, of course.
But,
you know, Waze really to me become a
pretty unuseful app for a long time. What
did I use it mostly for? Believe it
or not, was, you know, where's Smokey?

(28:13):
You know, where where's where's the speed trap?
You know? And my, what's funny is
now my in as long as I'm using
my,
Apple
Apple CarPlay,
you know, I get a pop up speed
trap ahead. I don't have to be using
Waze anymore.
It's usually pretty accurate too. Nvidia systems could

(28:36):
be facing another
worrying security flaw. They it has been patched.
There they confirms a new bug in container
toolkit toolkit and GPU operator.
The bug allows malicious actors to execute
code remotely,
so there is a fix out there. So
but there is potentially patch bypass, so be
aware of that. That affects you for those

(28:59):
of you in IT.
Prime Video just launched a new app for
Apple TV devices with six major improvements.
You know, give me the six major improvements.
They're saying, you know, here's the thing. They
they put on the the article.
There are six notable improvements.
Okay. Better responsiveness and accessibility. So that's one

(29:19):
too.
What else is there? And and I'm just
looking through here, and it it really doesn't
get into it very good.
In app search, I guess, something to do
with Siri.
So, anyway,
are you guys using Prime Video at all?
I don't think I've been on Prime Video
in in months, to be frank.

(29:41):
But come on. You're gonna say that six
improvements. Give me the six improvements.
Meta
x. No. X. X will pay $10,000,000
to settle lawsuit over
Donald Trump's Twitter suspension. Oh.
Oh, so
Elon and company have to pay even though

(30:01):
they're bros,
they gotta pay,
The Donald the president ten million. Now Meta
recently settled for 25,000,000.
So this was a lawsuit that was filed
on the 2021
suspension from
then previously, Twitter.
The question is how much will CBS have

(30:23):
to pay? That's gonna be the question that's
out there.
Hey. I do wanna thank all of you
that are, insiders of the show.
James Fletcher and his $2 sustaining donation,
Nigel Cottrell on his $25,
Lahi Chief
Super Ohana
donation.

(30:43):
They they, excuse me. Dale Taylor with his
$25
Super Chief Allahi
Ohana donation
and Andrew Palmer
for his Ohana five dollar donation as well.
So thank you, gentlemen,
for your donation to the show. We've had
no boost that come in, but a number
of you have been streaming the show. Pestmark,

(31:05):
thank you for streaming the show at 20
sats,
a minute. Thank you so much. That makes
for about a thousand sats. For if you
listen to the whole show, thank you so
very much for that.
And, a number of you have been doing
that as well. So, but, anyway, thank you,
Pestmark,
for your support of the podcast. And, again,

(31:25):
this is what it kinda looks like to
me. I can come in and see,
how people have donated to the show, and
you can see that it, it comes in
at, 20 sats a minute.
So thank you. Thank you. Again, you can
become an insider at geekneycentral.com
forward slash insider.
$2.05 $10.15 20 or $25 a month donation

(31:47):
or one time donation is available.
You can also
some submit Satoshis,
as well.
We thank you so much, and, of course,
the PayPal link is available for you to,
to click and support with your with your
treasure. We also accept time and talent.
So if you have something you wanna contribute
to the show, email it. Your time and

(32:08):
talent is greatly appreciated,
very, very much.
Upcoming, a total lunar eclipse brings a blood
moon to North America next month.
So
what? This a this is a old one.
No. It's not.
I saw a date of November 2022. They
didn't update. Look look at this, ladies and
gentlemen.

(32:29):
Why is something's wrong with this headline.
Total lunar eclipse springs a blood and moon,
and then right below it, it says, Earth
will soon experience a first total lunar eclipse
since February.
Okay. Maybe how does one relate to the
other?
So the lunar eclipse will happen overnight between
March 13 and March 14. Oh, and okay.

(32:50):
I guess so. And will be the first
total lunar eclipse.
I'm dumb.
I didn't you know, that's what happens when
I read this stuff. Don't read it good
enough before I talk about it, and this
is just it. So, yes, a total lunar
eclipse, oh my god, will happen overnight between
March 13 and March 14 and will be

(33:11):
the first total lunar eclipse
seen anywhere in the world since November 2022.
So,
where are we gonna be able to see
it
overnight?
Anywhere in the world.
So where

(33:31):
alright. Link will be in the show notes.
We can check it out.
Citing too much bureaucracy, Blue Origin has been
a cut 10% of its work workforce.
Too much bureaucracy.
What does that mean?
Too much bureaucracy.
And you're cutting 10%?

(33:52):
I don't get it. What what does that
mean? Too much bureaucracy.
Too many pencil pushers?
I guess so. So that was announced today.
Of course, Elon Musk and Sam Altman are
still sparring over 97,400,000,000.0
OpenAI bid in court filings.
So they've been in court. But, basically, what
people have said is this just is a

(34:14):
play.
Elon has made this bid,
and what it's really doing is throwing a
wrench and them having the ability to change
the business model of OpenAI because of this
evaluation
that they've, placed upon. The company said, hey.
We're willing to pay 97,400,000,000.0
for it. And yet they wanna change
the business model and undervalue

(34:35):
the company. It's it there's a little bit
of a play on it. I saw a
YouTube video on this.
And,
it this all cash offer undermines
the very claim at the heart of the
lawsuit that its assets can't be transferred
away for private gain. So
this, this lawsuit
is to thwart OpenAI's plan to convert

(34:58):
to a for profit entity.
And, so, anyway, they
Altman's saying it's improper bid,
and,
OpenAI's board is going to is prepared to,
you know, preserve the charity mission, blah blah
blah, and the judge is kinda skeptical. She
kinda see what's going on here, but it's
all fun and games. Billionaires having billionaire spats.

(35:20):
That's what it's really about.
Amazon robots, a $10,000,000,000
cost cutter.
So Amazon's under the radar robot push is
widening its competitive lead in retail and could
boost its profit margins.
So think about this,
getting rid of workers.

(35:42):
Amazon's quite developed six significant next generation fulfillment
centers
that bring automation front and center. After a
true one of the sites in Shreveport, Louisiana
recognized the potential for more opening efficiencies in
retail business.
So they're basically trying to reduce fulfillment costs.
It's about that makes up about 20%

(36:03):
of, you know, of their cost.
So
they could lead to $10,000,000,000
in savings
through automation,
getting rid of humans.
Now they won't get rid of them completely,
but
this is the
the
the the future is looking towards. Now Western

(36:23):
Digital, how many of your fans are Western
Digital,
hard drives? Well,
they're they're between a rock and a hard
place. Western Digital has been told to pay
half billion in patent damages
before
the business splits.
So they are poised to become two publicly
traded companies, but the judge says,

(36:44):
before you restructure, you need to write a
$553,000,000
check for the in patent infringement case.
So The US storage business was found by
a jury in California, of course, to infringe
on data encryption patents owned by Spex Technologies
in October,
told to pay 316,000,000,
but because they haven't paid it, they got

(37:05):
$237,000,000
in interest charges on top.
Holy cow.
What what rate are they charging the interest
at this bad boy on?
316,000,000,
and it's now to another 237,000,000?
I wanna see that math.
Wow.
Crazy. So we'll see what they do.

(37:27):
The US Lawmakers are pressing the
current administration opposed UK's order for Apple's iCloud
backdoor. Yes. You guys in The UK, you
know that they they want a backdoor to
iCloud.
So senator Ron Wyden and representative Andy Biggs
sent a letter to
the new DNI

(37:48):
today, Tulsi govern
Tulsi Tulsi
Gabbard
arguing that if Apple complies with the unconfirmed
demand from UK home office, it would jeopardize
the security of both US citizens and government
data.
Apple does not make different versions of its
encryption software for each market, the pair argue
in the letter. If Apple is forced to
build a backdoor

(38:08):
in its products, that backdoor will end up
undermining the security of Americans' data as well
as countless federal, state, and local government agency
and trust sensitive data to Apple products. Well,
probably probably privately, the government must hate that
they don't have a backdoor into
iCloud.
My suspicion

(38:30):
is they do.
That's my suspicion, and they just don't talk
about it. That's that's my suspicion on this,
but so we'll see what the new DNI
does.
Tim Cook is teasing a new Apple launch
next week and it's probably the iPhone SE,
so we'll keep an eye on that.
How many of you use Google's Family Link?

(38:52):
I'm not familiar with this. This is definitely
for those of you that have children and
devices,
and Family Link is getting a design refresh.
School time will come to Android phones managed
with Family Link starting next week, and parent
managed controls will hit Family Link devices in
the coming months. So if you're using Family
Link, let me know. I heard,

(39:15):
a good friend of mine,
on his podcast talk about,
how he had used,
child
settings in his kids' phones
so that when they got phones at, like,
11 years old, they basically had them bad
boys locked down.
And I thought it was pretty interesting discussion,

(39:35):
and they were using iPhones.
And, we're talking about Google devices. So,
how many of you have locked your kids'
phones down? I'd love to hear your feedback.
[e-mail].
Salt tough Salt Typhoon strikes again. More USISPs.
University and telecom networks hit by Chinese hackers.
So,

(39:55):
they're at it again.
The latest intrusion responded by cybersecurity researchers from
Recorded Future,
which said the group is targeting Internet exposed
web interface of Cisco,
iOS software
that powers different routers and switches.
More than 12,000
Cisco devices were were found connected to wider
Internet and exposed to risk.

(40:15):
This small subset of targets include US Internet
service providers and co telecommation firms,
a US affiliate of a UK telecom in
South Africa and Thailand, an Internet service provider
in Italy.
So it just wasn't The United States. It
was,
all over the place going after these devices.
It's being talked about over NPR, believe it

(40:38):
or not, is
the current administration,
is Trump the president, will truly set a
course for Mars and it goes into a
whole
discussion.
I'm normally not a big NPR
reader or watcher.
But,
what do you guys think?

(40:58):
I don't.
He said it during his inauguration
speech,
but
I'm, you know,
that's that's the US government's got enough problems.
We we don't have enough money to go
to the moon, let alone Mars right now,
so
time will tell.
If you're in Las Vegas, you can now
eat in a Netflix themed restaurant.

(41:20):
So seeing as it started as a service
sending DVDs in the mail, Netflix has come
away. Not only is it the most popular
streaming service,
it's now it now has its own themed
restaurant,
and,
you can also go in there. It's called
Netflix Bites.
What hotel is it in? Does it say
let me let me do a little little,

(41:41):
investigation
here.
It's called
where's it gonna be? Does it say? It's
gonna be
at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino. So
if you're in the MGM,
you can go eat at Netflix
Bites. Alright?
Google paid out $55,000
since bug bounty program for Chrome vulnerabilities.

(42:04):
I don't have that kind of budget, but
we do pay out bug bounty.
We paid out two this week to people
that discovered a little small bug in our
system.
And,
we do what we can, but we appreciate
when people are white hacking and basically say,
hey. You got a problem here.
So we've we we do pay on bit
bug bounties.

(42:26):
IBM is under fire as a return office
order suspected replacing human staff with AI,
and I think this is,
probably we're gonna see more of this.
But IBM's finance and operations team were given
an ultimatum.
Workers told they must move closer or accept
a redundancy
package.
Woah.

(42:48):
So,
I was what I was expecting,
actually to happen because they forced the government
workers back, I was expecting to hear something
in the news about people being fired in
the government that did not come back to
work.
That's what I was expecting, but we've heard
nothing of that so far.
Hey. A NASA telescope
stellar bouquet in time for Valentine's Day. Of

(43:10):
course, if you're listening to the show, it's
probably Valentine's Day.
But I'm looking at this, and to be
honest with you, the first thing I saw
was a middle finger
and not,
a bouquet.
Although I could see where the bouquet could
come in on the image,
but it looks like this might be
a troll here a little bit.

(43:32):
So
you you look at the, image and let
me know. Is it look like a middle
finger, or does it
look like a
bouquet?
I guess they want us to look at
the,
the red
inside and not the gas.
Very, very I just got a pop up.
What happened? Oh, yes. Let's come back to

(43:53):
this.
For some reason,
why did why did you do that, computer?
Why did you take away my access to
okay. It's back. I got this warning. It
says, hey. Do you want NDI to
to show off that
that was very weird. You know, there's a

(44:14):
setting now in,
on Macs that you have to give permission
every thirty days.
So the permission ran out while I was
showing this screen. That's why the screen went
black.
So
very, very odd. Okay. For those of you
listening, you don't care.
And a little bit of drama.
Astronomers sifting through data from the Murchison Wide

(44:36):
Field Array, a radio telescope in Western Australia,
found themselves confronting an unexpected
mystery.
The telescope, which consists of 4,096
spider like antennas designed to detect radio signals
more than 13,000,000,000 years ago, appeared to stumble
upon something far more local,
a television broadcast.
This was very puzzling given the telescope is

(44:57):
located in designated
radio quiet zone where the Australian government regulates
signal levels from all radio communication equipment, including
TV transmitters, Bluetooth devices, etcetera.
But it hit it because the signal was
moving.
Guess what happened?
The television
signal bounced off
an airplane.
Now

(45:20):
I've known about this phenomenon since 1984.
And if you think about it,
when a radar
is spinning
and it it's hitting,
you know,
an airplane
or hitting,

(45:41):
land, you know, especially a ground radar, maybe
it sees the mountains, you're getting a return
from the mountains, it can see the airspace
above the mountains, but you see the signal
of
of the terrain when you're on a ground
radar. Right? And you, obviously, you're looking into
the sky to see airplanes. But if there
is a
mountain
in line with the radar and there's an

(46:02):
airplane behind the mountain, obviously, you can't see
the airplane. Right?
Well,
what happens when the signal bounces off the
mountain and goes somewhere else, goes doesn't come
directly back to the antenna from scatter, and
it hits a
another object and then bounces in a way
that gets back into the antenna.

(46:24):
There's some cool things
that you can do with that.
If you know the math,
You can see something without seeing something.
It's very, very cool. It's go very cool.
It's it's it's basically
why is that not there or why it
is there?
I'll just leave it at that.

(46:49):
I've known all about this kind of
this, multi you know, basically stuff traveling in
directions it shouldn't travel
for a long time.
It's pretty amazing,
the data you can get from the stuff
that
not supposed to be able to be seen.
Okay.
Chances of an asteroid approaching Earth doubling in

(47:10):
2032.
NASA's new observation of the asteroid named twenty
twenty four y r four led to a
23%
probability hitting Earth on this
twenty two December twenty thirty two.
Well, those odds went way up, so we'll
see.
Also, because some knucklehead wrote

(47:30):
Tesla in a proposal,
everyone's freaking out. Plans to buy armored Teslas
vanish from state department procurement list.
Someone just wrote,
the state department's procurement forecast removed the mention
of Tesla in relation to a planned 400,000,000
armored EV purchase
after reports emerged about it on Wednesday.

(47:53):
The wording has been changed to armored EVs.
Tesla's name appeared in the document near the
BMW
AG whose armored x five and x seven
SUVs the state department is also planning to
buy. The German's company name remains on the
list while Tesla's has been excised,
leaving four hun leaving the 400,000,000

(48:14):
contracts still at the planning stage, now listed
for generic designation of armored electric vehicles.
You know, that's probably something that's been in
the in the planning stage for a long
time. Elon says, we didn't know anything about
it. We don't think we're getting 400,000,000.
He says, there's been no contract for this
to reply on and but Tesla stock was

(48:35):
up 2.3%
on the rumors.
It's interesting
the transformation it's having in government.
You know, when I had a government desk,
there was

(48:58):
definitely
things you could have on your desk and
things you couldn't have on your desk. You
could have
pictures of your family, your kids,
but you couldn't have anything that would cause
anyone to raise an eyebrow.
You couldn't have any scantily pad, place pictures.
You couldn't have cartoons

(49:19):
that had some sort of meanings.
You know, there was you know, we you
know, it's a workspace. Right? You know, that
that childish stuff,
locker room stuff was not allowed.
Not allowed at all.
And if you put something on your desk
like that, you probably would've got wrote up
and, you know, you would've had a counseling

(49:39):
session.
Manager have been reminding employees to be mindful
of what personal effects they have in the
workplace,
but there are no plenots or warnings
about being placed on the ministry for for
displaying personal items. But if you're at work,
you know what we're talking about here. Right?
It's just common sense

(50:01):
that you would not put stuff on your
desk that would make other people uncomfortable.
That's just kinda like, duh.
Right?
You know, that's how you get fired.
So
interesting that they're reminding people to be sensitive

(50:21):
what's in their workspace.
Unofficial TikTok download surge in The United States.
No surprise there.
And finally,
I saw this made me go,
a tiny antenna made on denim will put
your five will put five g in your
clothes.
And I said, what is the use for
this?
Well, I you know, I as like, no

(50:43):
one's gonna put a five g antenna
in regular clothes. First of all, I'm not
gonna wear it.
But apparently,
connected clothing is potential used by military and
in space exploration,
but more reverently to us is the use
in health and sports. The dual band
antenna means sensor side clothing can collect and
send health data without the need for smart

(51:05):
owner's smartwatch.
So,
apparently, this can be watched, yet they show
the antenna having an SMA connector on it.
I don't think that will do very good
in the laundry to be to be frank,
but,
who knows?
Alright, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for being
here. Thank you for being part of the
show. Don't forget about our sponsor GoDaddy, geekin
central dot com forward slash godaddy. If you

(51:26):
have comments on the show, don't forget email
address is [e-mail].
And,
we definitely want to remind you also of,
our affiliate offer, our our product offer that's
on the, the website. I didn't get around
in getting something ready for the ladies. I
apologize. I didn't have a promotion for you.

(51:46):
Just ran out of t I m
e.
But, if you if you like the show,
if you wanna support the show, the easiest
way is to time calendar treasure. Geeknewscentral.com
forward slash insider.
If you're watching this or listening to this
anywhere, remember,
moon base office at geekinesscentral.com.
And, my writing team is putting up great

(52:08):
articles,
every day almost about stuff that's going on
in the tech world to keep you abreast.
So when you're not getting your GNC fixed,
you can come over to GNC and get
a little bit of tech news and information.
And, we appreciate it,
for you do and appreciate the team doing
what they do. Alright. I'll be back Monday
for the big one, eighteen hundred. We're hitting

(52:29):
another
huge milestone.
1,800.
It's gonna be fun.
Thank you for being here. We'll see you
on Monday, everyone. Take care. Bye bye.