Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 02/11 – A New CIA Bulk Surveillance Program?

Episode Date: February 11, 2022

Allegations of a new, widespread bulk surveillance program being run on American citizens by the CIA. Apple is planning AirTag updates to curb their use for stalking people. The first Android 13 developer preview is out. And of course, the weekend longreads suggestions. Sponsors: Masterworks.io RocketLawyer.com/workconfidently Links: Secret CIA Bulk Surveillance Program Includes Some Americans’ Records, Senators Say (WSJ) Apple Announces AirTag Updates to Address Unwanted Tracking (MacRumors) The first developer preview of Android 13 has arrived (TechCrunch) Weekend Longreads Suggestions Flexport Is Silicon Valley’s Solution To The Supply Chain Mess—Why Do Insiders Hope It Sinks? (Forbes) How Telegram Became the Anti-Facebook (Wired) Sony's AI Drives a Race Car Like a Champ (Wired) Russia’s drone army contains heaps of Western electronics. Can the U.S. cut them off? (Washington Post) The Little Streaming Comedy Platform That Couldn’t (Vulture) Amazon’s Lord of the Rings Series Rises: Inside The Rings of Power (Vanity Fair) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Tech meme right home for Friday, February 11th, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough today. Allegations of a new widespread bulk surveillance program being run on American citizens by the CIA. Apple is planning air tag updates to curb their use for stalking people.

The first Android 13 developer preview is out. And of course, the weekend long read suggestions. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. United States Senators Wyden and Heinrich have alleged that declassified documents show, a CIA bulk surveillance program collecting Americans' data without clear judicial or congressional oversight is being run, quoting the Wall Street Journal. Details of the CIA program have been kept from the public as well as some lawmakers, according to the April 2021 letter to the agency from Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Martin

Heinrich of New Mexico, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The letter was partially declassified and disclosed Thursday. The nature of the type of collection isn't made clear in the heavily redacted letter. It couldn't be determined when the surveillance occurred or if the intelligence program is currently operational. It was also not clear whether another U.S. intelligence agency was performing the actual surveillance that supported the functioning of the CIA program, which isn't unusual. The Senator's letter urged the CIA to inform the public about the program, including what kinds of records have been collected,

as well as the spy agency's relationship with its sources of intelligence, the legal framework of the program and the amount of Americans' records being maintained, and how often searches of U.S. data are performed. This declassification is urgent, the senators wrote. The CIA is generally prohibited by law from engaging in domestic spying, but some U.S. intelligence programs collect broad streams of internet or telephone data in a way that can scoop up information on Americans, such as when someone is communicating with a target of surveillance who lives overseas.

Intelligence agencies refer to such information gathered about American, as incidental collection. An issue that lawmakers in both parties have long said raises privacy concerns because it can evade traditional warrant requirements. The surveillance activity is authorized under Presidential Executive Order 12333, according to the Senator's letter, which is a Reagan-era document that sets rules for some methods of U.S. intelligence gathering. It is not subject to some of the same oversight that governs surveillance activities performed under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a decades-old law that created a secretive court to review surveillance requests by U.S. intelligence agencies. But in their letter, the senators

say the CIA has run the program, quote, entirely outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection, end quote. Apple is planning an air tag update that is designed to reduce the little tracking devices utility for stalkers. This would include adding precision finding for unknown air tags, displaying alerts with sound, earlier tracking alerts, and louder sounds, quoting Mac rumors. In an upcoming software update, Apple plans implement new privacy warnings that will show up during air tag setup to thwart malicious use. The warning will make it clear that the air tag is linked to an Apple ID that using it to track people is a crime and that law enforcement can request identifying information about the owner of the air tag.

Apple says that the language of the alert could change slightly, but it will basically convey that information. Apple is also going to fix a bug that was causing confusion around unwanted tracking, AirPods can cause an unknown accessory alert warning that some people were interpreting as a notice from an air tag. Airtags are not able to display the unknown accessory detected messaging, which is caused by AirPods Pro, AirPods, AirPods, third generation AirPods, and in some cases, a Find My Network accessory. While these are the immediate changes that Apple is making, Apple is also working on new safety

features set to be implemented later this year. Precision finding, improved display alerts, and louder sounds will make air tags more difficult to use for people tracking purposes. With precision finding, iPhone 11, iPhone 12, and iPhone 13 users who receive an unwanted tracking alert can locate an unknown air tag with precision, similar to the precision finding feature that's available to air tag owners. The feature will provide the distance and direction to an unknown air tag when it is in range, making it easier to locate. With display alert with sound, when an air tag separated from its owner plays a sound to alert those nearby. It will also display an alert on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch so that it can

be tracked down by sound or precision finding if the feature is available. Apple says that this feature will help if the air tag sound is hard to hear or if the speaker has been tampered with. Updated unwanted tracking alerts means Apple is going to update its alert system to notify users earlier that an unknown air tag or Find My Network accessory may be traveling with them. with louder air tag sound, when an iOS user receives an unwanted tracking alert, they can cause the air tag to play a sound to make it easier to track down. Apple is going to adjust the tone sequence to use more of the loudest tones to make air tags louder and easier to find, end quote.

No specific timeline has been announced as to when these features may be released, though, again, the expectation is some time later this year. Google has released the first Android 13 developer preview, emphasizing security and privacy, dynamic colors, and more, available exclusively right now on pixels, quoting TechCrunch. Unlike with Android 12, Google plans to have two developer releases and then launch a beta in April a month earlier than in 2021. The final release could come as early as August, based on Google's roadmap, whereas Android 12 launched in early October. One of the most visible changes in Android 13 so far is that Google will bring the dynamic color feature of Material You,

which by default takes its cues from your home screen image to all app icons. Developers will have to supply a monochromatic app icon for this to work, which many will hopefully do because the current mix of themed and unthemed icons doesn't make for a great look. For now, this will only be available on pixel devices, though, and Google says it will work with its partners to bring it to more devices. As with previous releases, Google is putting an emphasis on privacy and security here. There is a new system-wide photo and video picker, for example, which allows you to share with an app photo. from your local device or the cloud, all without giving that app access to all of your photos. Android already featured a document picker, but not a dedicated photo and video picker.

Developers that want to use this feature will be able to do so with a new API, and their apps won't have to ask for permission to view all media on a device. In a similar way, Google is also now making it easier for apps to ask for a list of nearby Wi-Fi devices without having to ask for location permissions. Until now, these two were intertwined, and you couldn't get information about nearby access points, without asking for location permissions. With Android 13, Google continues its efforts around project mainline, its project to make more of the operating system updatable

through Google Play system updates without having to wait for vendors to make Android Point updates available to their users. We can now push new features like Photo Picker and Open JDK11 directly to users on older versions of Android through updates to existing modules. We've also added new modules such as the Bluetooth and Altru Wideband modules to further expand the scope of Android's updatable core functionality, the company explains in today's announcement, end quote. Time for the weekend long read suggestions.

One of the main reasons I do the long reads is because it's a place where I can share company profiles, like this one, of Flexport from Forbes magazine. Given the supply chain chaos of recent months and I guess years at this point, flexport is Silicon Valley's solution to this global problem. to the tune of an $8 billion valuation as of last month. Quote, for Flexport, it all means business is booming. Sales reached $3.3 billion in 2021, up from $1.3 billion in 2020 and $670 million the year before.

Flexport passes about 80% of its revenue directly to its shipping partners. Last year, the San Francisco-based firm generated its first profit, posting net income of $37 million. Customers choose Flexport not because Peterson reinvented the wheel, but because its one-stop software suite simplifies their lives. Take San Francisco-based shoemaker Rothies, a Flexport customer since 2017. Flexport manages the shipping of 25 products from a factory in China to two hubs in California and Kentucky and offsets their carbon footprint.

But it's Flexport's visibility tools that allow marketers and store managers to know when to expect new shipments. That's really valuable, says Rothi's C-O-Hether Skidmore Howard. I would give both of us an A-plus in terms of delivery in a really challenging year, she said. Flexport is currently testing a new freemium service it will launch this year, one that provides free visibility, carbon tracking, and messaging to users, even if they don't run freight with Flexport. Peterson also plans to build out a fulfillment product that can identify high priority goods, say for direct-to-consumer brands, and ship them faster through a virtual HOV lane, end quote. And Wired gives us a profile of Telegram, calling it the anti-Facebook, quote,

In the world of social media, Telegram is a distinct oddity. Often rounding out lists of the world's 10 largest platforms, it has just around 30 core employees had no source of ongoing revenue until very recently, and in an era when tech firms face increasing pressure to quash hate speech and misinformation, exercises virtually no content moderation except to take down illegal pornography and calls for violence. At Telegram, it is an article of faith and a marketing pitch that the company's platform should be available to all, regardless of politics or ideology. For us, Telegram is an idea. Pavel Dorov Telegram's Russian founder has said, it is the idea that everyone on this planet has a right

to be free, end-to-end, end-quote. Unlike Signal or WhatsApp, Telegram is not end-to-end encrypted, that users must go out of their way to turn on the app's secret chats function, which few people actually do, and that only individual conversations, not those among groups, can be end-to-end encrypted. For the millions of people who use Telegram under repressive regimes, experts say that confusion could be costly. But the term messaging app is itself somewhat misleading in ways that lead many to underestimate Telegram. Over the years, the app has become a deliberate hybrid of a messaging service and a social media platform, arrival not only to WhatsApp and Signal, but also increasingly to Facebook itself. Users can join public or private channels with unlimited numbers

of followers where anyone can like, share, or comment. They can also join private groups with up to 200,000 members, a scale that dwarfs WhatsApp's 256 member limit. But unlike Facebook at Telegram, there's no targeted advertising and no algorithmic feed, end quote. Then, from Wired, beating chess is one thing, but the story of the AI that has been designed to beat the game Grand Turismo is something else. Quote, video games have become an important sandbox for AI research in recent years, with computers mastering a growing array of titles. But Grand Turismo represents a significant new challenge for a machine. In contrast to board games that AI has mastered such as chess or Go, Grand Turismo requires continuous judgments and high-speed reflexes. It's far more complex than action games like Starcraft or Dota and demands challenging driving maneuvers. A Grand Turismo ace must bounce pushing a virtual car to its limits and wrestling with friction, aerodynamics, and precise driving lines with the subtle dance of trying to overtake an opponent without unfairly blocking their line. occurring a penalty. Outracing human drivers so skillfully in a head-to-head competition represents a landmark

achievement for AI, says Chris Gertes, a professor at Stanford who'd studied autonomous driving in an article published on Wednesday alongside the Sony research in the journal Nature. Garrity said that the techniques used to develop G.T. Sophie could help the development of autonomous cars. Currently, self-driving cars only use the kind of neural network algorithm that G.T. Sophie employed to keep track of road markings and perceive other vehicles and obstacles. The software controlling the car is handwritten. G.T. Sophie's success on the track suggests that neural networks might one day have a larger role in the software of automated vehicles than they do today, Gerardy's rights, end quote. Then, if some sort of military conflict with Russia is in the cards,

the Washington Post points out that unlike, say, China, Russia's military is built on a lot of Western electronics. So does the West have the ability, you know, to block these electronics, or replacement parts or even flip a switch and just shut them down? We might be about to find out, quote. Russia is known for its scientists and hackers, but makes little of its own electronics or computer hardware, relying largely on imports. Yet blocking the flow of these goods could prove difficult.

Some of the drone components that CAR identified traveled to Russia via obscure middlemen and small trading companies whose businesses could be tough to track. What's more, the relatively small quantities that Russia's military is likely to need might allow it to acquire components surreptitiously. said Malcolm Penn, the chief executive of London-based semiconductor research firm Future Horizons. Another big wildcard is China, which could thwart any U.S. attempts to choke off chips to Russia.

Carr estimated that the drones it examined were built between 2013 and 2016, when Western suppliers were more dominant in the chip industry. China has since become a much bigger manufacturer of electronic components and is unlikely to fully comply with any attempted blockade, technology experts said, end quote. And finally, two not techs. stories, but nerdy and interesting nonetheless. First, Vulture has the story of CISO, the pioneering comedy streaming platform that could have been a contender if not for, I guess, just pure old-fashioned mismanagement. Following its beta introduction in December 2015, CISO burned brightly from January 2016 to November 2017, while at its helm, Shapiro played some combination of Willy Wonka and the Music Man,

but with great hair. He acquired and remastered classics like Monty Python's Flying circus and the kids in the hall. He created a space to binge Saturday Night Live, Alan Partridge, in Parks and Recreation. He bought our commissioned programs from the likes of Scott Ackerman, Steve Coogan, Noel Fielding, Kulap Velaissock, Dan Harmon, Wyatt Seneck, Paul Reiser, Cameron Esposito, River Butcher, and the Upright Citizens Brigade. He gave them and the other two dozen CISO employees and partners interviewed for this piece so much creative freedom that they would continue to sing his praises years later, even after the platform crashed and burned under his leadership. Blame a flawed rollout, buggy technology, lack of network support,

Shapiro's spending and lack of corporate oversight, or all of the above. The platform maxed out somewhere near a paltry 300,000 subscribers and cost NBCU roughly $60 million across a three-year span, end quote. And Vanity Fair has our literal first look at the new Lord of the Rings series coming from Amazon. Quote, Amazon show, which debuts on Prime Video on September 2nd, is based not on a token novel per se, the vast backstory he laid out in the appendices to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Five seasons will likely cost a studio well over $1 billion. That kind of budget might decimate most other studios, but Tolkien, like space travel, is a personal obsession for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who's among

the richest people in the world. This is a big-ticket business venture that will allow him to create the most expensive, elaborate TV series ever made. While Jackson is not connected to the project, his movies, as well as their spiritual successor, Game of Thrones, proved that. there's a massive audience for immersive fantasy. Of course, many have tried to capture that same audience, and few have survived or thrived, end quote. Twitter space, tonight, 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific. We're going to have Brady Dale on to explain, mostly to me, how Dals work, and maybe how sometimes they don't. So look for that to drop tomorrow or join us tonight to add your two cents. Talk to you on Monday.