Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri 08/26 - Forget 5G; T-Mobile And SpaceX To Offer Zero-G Service

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 TechMame right home for Friday, August 26, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough today. Forget 5G.

Starting point is 00:00:40 T-Mobile and SpaceX are teaming up to offer zero-g services. Last pass has gotten hacked, but we think your passwords are safe. When we can expect the new VR headset from meta to be revealed, Twitter puts podcasts in your feed, and of course, the weekend long-rate suggestions. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. T-Mobile and SpaceX have partnered to let customers in areas lacking T-Mobile service, use Starlink for things like MMS, SMS, and select messaging apps in some markets in 2023. Basically, they're eliminating dead zones for certain things. Quoting the verge.

Starting point is 00:01:22 T-Mobile says it's getting rid of mobile dead zones thanks to a new partnership with SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet at an event hosted by T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert and Elon Musk. With their coverage above and beyond setup, mobile phones could connect to satellites and use a slice of a connection, providing around 2 to 4 megabits per second connection total across a given coverage area. That connection should be enough to let you text, send MMS messages, and even use select messaging apps whenever you have a clear view of the sky, even if there's no traditional service available. According to a press release from T-Mobile, the satellite to cellular service will be available everywhere in the continental U.S., Hawaii, parts of Alaska,

Starting point is 00:02:03 Puerto Rico and territorial waters. The service is scheduled to launch in beta by the end of next year in select areas, and Sievert says he hopes it will someday include data. According to Musk, second-generation Starlink satellites launching next year, will be able to broadcast service using part of T-Mobile's mid-band PCS spectrum, which was bolstered when it was allowed to buy Sprint a few years ago. Musk said the new satellites have big, big antennas that are five to six meters across to enable the new connections and that the plan is to launch the equipment using its upcoming

Starting point is 00:02:36 Starship rocket. If there aren't too many people in the cell zone, you may potentially even have a little bit of video, said Musk. As Sievert described it, operators of messaging apps like WhatsApp or iMessage will need to work with T-Mobile and Starlink for their services to recognize the satellite connection and work with it once it launches. Musk provided a bit more detail by saying that unlike usual internet service, it could work without access to Starlink's full satellite constellation. By limiting it to certain messages and services, as well as only in places that don't currently have cellular connectivity, it could use a more intermittent connection for basic coverage, although you might have to wait 30 minutes for a message to go through. The two execs

Starting point is 00:03:15 said they're seeking partnerships with mobile carriers worldwide who would be interested in reciprocal spectrum sharing agreements so that their customers can link up with SpaceX. Team mobile customers could also use those connections when they come to other countries, end quote. LastPass says a hacker stole portions of its source code and proprietary last pass technical information two weeks ago, but that user's master passwords are safe, quoting bleeping computer. While LastPass says there is no evidence that customer data or encrypted password vaults were compromised, the threat actors did steal portions of their source code and proprietary last pass technical information. In response to the incident, we have deployed containment and mitigation measures

Starting point is 00:04:01 and engaged a leading cybersecurity and forensics firm, explains the Last Pass advisory. While our investigation is ongoing, we have achieved a state of containment, implemented additional enhanced security measures, and see no further evidence of unauthorized activity. Last Pass has not provided further details regarding the attack, how the threat actors compromised the developer account, and what source code was stolen. LastPass is one of the largest password management companies in the world, claiming to be used by over 33 million people and 100,000 businesses. As consumers and businesses use the company's software to store their passwords securely,

Starting point is 00:04:34 there are always concerns that if the company was hacked, it could allow threat actors to access stored passwords. However, LastPass stores passwords in encrypted vaults that can only be decrypted using a customer's master password, which LastPass says was not compromised in this cyber attack, end quote. You never want your password manager to get hacked, but you also don't want Twilio to get hacked either for similar reasons, right? Well, DoorDash says hackers access some of its internal tools and customer information after compromising a third-party vendor as part of the recent Twilio breach. And Twilio says accounts of 93 individual users of its two-factor authentication app, Othie, and devices registered to their accounts were compromised as part of that self-same breach.

Starting point is 00:05:25 Who did this dirt? According to Group IB, it's an outfit they're calling Octopus, who was allegedly responsible for the Tuolio breach as well as more than 130 other organization breaches that netted close to 10,000 employee credentials, quoting TechCrunch. Octopus is a reference to how the hackers predominantly target organizations that use Octa as a single sign-on provider. Group IB, which launched an investigation after one of its customers was targeted by a linked fishing attack, said in findings shared with TechCrunch that the vast majority of the targeted companies are headquartered in the U.S. or have U.S.-based staff. The attackers have stolen at least 9,931 user credentials since March, according to Group

Starting point is 00:06:07 IB's findings, with more than half-containing captured multi-factor authentication codes used to access a company's network. On many occasions, there are images, fonts, or scripts that are unique enough that they can be used to identify fishing websites designed with the same fishing kit. Roberto Martinez, a senior threat intelligence analyst at Group IB told TechCrunch. In this case, we found an image that is legitimately used by sites leveraging octa authentication being used in the Fishing Kit. Once we located a copy of the Fishing Kit, we started digging deeper to get a better understanding of the threat. The analysis of the Fishing Kit revealed that it was poorly configured and the way it had been developed provided an ability to extract stolen credentials for further analysis,

Starting point is 00:06:45 said Martinez. While it's still not known how the attackers obtained phone numbers and the names of employees who were then sent SMS phishing messages, Group IB notes that the attacker first targeted mobile operators and telecommunications companies, and quote, could have collected the numbers from those initial attacks. Group IB wouldn't disclose the names of any of the corporate victims, but said the list includes well-known organizations, most of which provide IT, software development, and cloud services. A breakdown of the victims shared with TechCrunch shows that the threat actors also targeted 13 organizations in the finance industry, seven retail giants, and two video game organizations, end quote. I told you it's hardware debut season. Mark Zuckerberg

Starting point is 00:07:30 says META will debut its next VR headset in October with better eye and facial tracking features to bolster users' feeling of social presence, quoting CNBC. Speaking on an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast that was published Thursday, the Facebook founder said that META's next VR headset will contain new features intended to help users experience a feeling of social presence. The new VR headset will contain more cutting-edge eye and facial tracking features, Zuckerberg said. These features will make it possible so that when people smart,

Starting point is 00:08:00 or frown their digital avatars will do the same in virtual reality, he explained. There's more nonverbal communication when people are with each other than verbal communication, Zuckerberg said, referring to digital avatars that can be more visually compelling and interactive. Although Zuckerberg did not refer to the name of the headset, it's likely that the device he discussed was Meta's upcoming headset that's currently dubbed Project Cambria. That VR headset will cost at least $800, significantly more than its flagship Quest 2 VR headset, which costs 399 or 499 depending on the model. The company recently raised the price of

Starting point is 00:08:35 that device attributing it to rising shipping and production costs, end quote. And yes, I am aware that Twitter is rolling out podcast integration into its redesigned spaces tab, starting with some English-speaking users globally on iOS and Android, quote, the redesigned spaces tab opens with stations, topic-based playlists combining podcast episodes pulled from RSS with Twitter's social audio events and recordings. It functions like a Pandora station, but for spoken word, and is pretty different from the al-a-art listening podcast consumers are used to on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Live and upcoming spaces are still in the tab. Further down the page, the test will roll out to a random group of users across the world initially only in English.

Starting point is 00:09:25 The more users listen, the more tailored the audio stations will become. But Twitter isn't starting from Square One. The company is relying on what it already knows about its user's interest to curate the playlist. It'll draw from the interests of people they follow as well. What we're really trying to capture here is as if it's like another user recommending you something, Twitter's senior product manager Evan Jones, who focuses on audio-told hot pod. It's easy to imagine the promotional possibilities around being able to share and listen to podcasts in the same app, but it's not quite there yet. The test does not yet have a clipping capability, and listening can only happen in the spaces tab, not on the timeline.

Starting point is 00:10:03 That being said, Spaces has a clipping feature that could be applied to podcasts at some point, end quote. Time for the week in Long Read suggestions, and this week I went looking for a couple of pieces about the big Ethereum merge to better understand what's going on. This is kind of a huge risk if you think about it, that if it goes wrong, could be a really, really big deal for crypto, quoting the New York Times. But if all goes according to plan, the merge will take place around September 15th, more than 8th. eight years after it was initially discussed. The change would shift Ethereum to a more energy-efficient infrastructure addressing the widespread criticism that crypto's climate impact outweighs its possible benefits. And it would lay the foundation for future upgrades to reduce the hefty fees required to conduct transactions in ether, the platform's signature currency, and the second most

Starting point is 00:10:57 valuable digital asset after Bitcoin. But the risks are profound. Even by crypto standards, the process is almost ludicrously complicated. For months, insiders have engaged in frantic jargon-heavy discussions of developments such as the goarly test-net merge and the beacon chain's balatrix upgrade, crucial software changes leading up to the main event. A botched merge would imperil the thousands of crypto applications that operate using Ethereum, which collectively handle more than $50 billion in user funds. It's flying the jet and changing the engine in the sky, said Chandler Guo, a crypto industry veteran who leads a group opposing the merge.

Starting point is 00:11:37 It's very difficult. it's very dangerous, end quote. Yeah, there's a whole thing about possibly the miners forking Ethereum, not wanting to go along with this merge at all because they're basically being taken out of the game. Quoting my second piece, this one from Bloomberg. Under the current system, networks of computers known as miners pluck transactions out of a special data pool and arrange them into blocks that are added to the blockchain. The miners are being eliminated as part of a plan to reduce energy consumption after the plan September upgrade, as the merge, the builders will gather transactions into blocks, which they will then send to the

Starting point is 00:12:12 validators. The validators will sign off on the order of the blocks that will form the upgraded blockchain. This seemingly geeky change, part of a portion of the software upgrade that is called the Mev Boost could potentially make Ethereum more centralized, at least initially. While there are already more than 416,000 validators lined up to order transactions, there are only a handful of participants committed to serving as builders. The largest is Flashbots, which makes open-source software used by trading bots. The builder-validator role split was initially conceived as a way to increase Ethereum's decentralization and to take the power away from the validators. Still, having too few builders on the upgraded Ethereum chain raises potential

Starting point is 00:12:55 issues. They could censor transactions from being included into blocks. Earlier this month, Flashbots blacklisted wallets associated with tornado cash after the mixer protocol was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department. If there are very few builders, they can also command higher fees with validators earning less. That could, in turn, lead to fewer validators choosing to get involved in supporting the network. Builders can also capitalize on their users' order flow. If a builder knows that a lot of users are placing orders for a particular token, they could buy a long position in it. For example, a powerful digital wallet like MetaMask, which gives users the ability to buy, sell, and receive cryptocurrency, could become a kingmaker, Claremont says. MetaMask is

Starting point is 00:13:36 the most popular non-custodial wallet with 30 million users. A wallet service could favor one builder over all others and even decide to act as a builder, thus controlling the flow of transactions, Claremond said, end quote. Next from Forbes, a deeper look at BiteDance, the overall company, it's not just TikTok, quote, BiteDance lists just seven products including TikTok and its Chinese counterpart, Doyen, on its website. But BiteDance is pushing into at least a half a dozen other industries at a shocking scale, snapping up everything from video game startups to medical websites and payment processors, even dabbling at one point in education apps and real estate listing businesses. Data analytics firm Censor Tower told Forbes it has identified 70 different

Starting point is 00:14:21 active apps from ByteDance, and let's not forget that Manor Coffee, a Shanghai-based coffee chain, and Ningji, a Chinese lemon tea brand, both count ByteDance as a significant investor. Some experts say bite dances ballooning beyond social media is concerning because of the Chinese government's investments in bite dance and Beijing's sweeping laws requiring companies there to turn over information for national security and intelligence reasons. Bightance is the mothership of aggregation of data, the former head of counterintelligence for the U.S. government, William Evania, told Forbes, end quote. From popular mechanics of all places, well, actually let me just quote from Longreeds in their description of this fascinating long read. For more than 50 years, an encoded

Starting point is 00:15:05 note from the Zodiac Killer went unsolved until a trio of sleuthing obsessives connected online and brought all their combined power to bear on the problem. To be fair, they had a supercomputer, too. The solution process itself would likely be more at home in a slide deck than in a blockbuster narrative, essentially waiting for a computer to brute force various combinations of solving paradigms, end quote. I disagree. I thought that that was actually the fascinating part of this piece. It's old-school detective work that even with brute force supercomputing often relies on patience and diligence. And finally, just news of a future movie that's germane to our interests from variety. Quote, before the iPhone, there was the Mighty Blackberry, the world's first smartphone,

Starting point is 00:15:49 which enjoyed a meteoric rise in the early 2000s, only to meet a catastrophic demise. A new movie from The Dirties and Operation Avalanche director Matt Johnson, simply entitled Blackberry, will detail the rise and fall of the once ubiquitous service and its Canadian parent company research in motion, as it floundered in legal disputes and eventually lost its market advantage to competitors such as Apple and Samsung. At the heart of the story is the business relationship between co-founders Mike Lazaridis and Jim Basile. The film's cast is led by Jay Barrichell. This is The End and Knocked Up. Glenn Howerton from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and AP Bio, though it's not yet confirmed, it's likely they will play the firm's founders.

Starting point is 00:16:30 Other cast members include Carrie Ewells, Saul Rubeneck, Rich Sumner, Martin Donovan, Michael Ironside, and Johnson himself, end quote. I don't know how much I talked about this when it was going on, but after my book came out, we spent about 18 months shopping the book around Hollywood, trying to see if we could interest anyone in a series about web and internet history. We took meetings with everyone from Netflix and Amazon to CNN and the History Channel, and we were ultimately unsuccessful. The real frustration for me was no one bit on the straight history. Sure, I could convince them to do an episode or two out of, I don't know, six or eight on the dot-com bubble or about how modern algorithms evolved, but they always wanted me to do episodes on things like cyber porn and the dark web and stuff as well. So it ended up being very much a, okay, one episode for me, one for them, balancing act in terms of breaking down episodes. So this is all to say, I know firsthand how hard it is to convince

Starting point is 00:17:29 Hollywood to do a straight tech history story, which is what this sounds like it actually is. So kudos to this team for actually getting it sold. With this weekend's bonus episode, we took the first half hour to dive deeper into the Twitter whistleblower story than I've been able to do on the show proper thus far. And then the last hour of the episode, we have maybe one of the most important discussions we've ever had on the show. I got to credit Chris for turning me on to this, but remember how I told you. you, we were going to introduce you to a new thing in AI, basically all the GPT3 stuff, all the dolly stuff, it's great, it's cool. But what if I told you the real revolution is about to happen?

Starting point is 00:18:19 A real, tangible revolution. And what if I told you that there's a compelling case to be made that it's this next generation of AI that is going to make the Metaverse actually happen? In fact, this conversation made me fully bullish on the idea that the Metaverse might be actually around the corner. Please listen, I think. Like me, you might get your mind blown. Some of the most forward-looking tech we've been able to break on this show thus far. Enjoy it.

Starting point is 00:18:47 Talk to you on Monday.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri 08/26 - Forget 5G; T-Mobile And SpaceX To Offer Zero-G Service

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