Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 03/01 – Uber “Explore”

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

Crypto exchanges stick to their crypto ethos over the Ukraine War situation. A new, super crazy alleged Chinese backdoor hack. Uber adds new ways to buy concert tickets and book restaurants in its app. Amazon launches its Luna game streaming service in the US. An a review of the Galaxy S22 and S22+ Sponsors: do.co/ridehome2022 Traceroute Podcast (more info at Origins.dev) Links: Netflix Won’t Add Russian Broadcasters to Service, Defying New Regulation (WSJ) Crypto Exchanges Refuse to Freeze All Russian Accounts (Motherboard) Chinese cyberspies target govts with their ‘most advanced’ backdoor (BleepingComputer) Uber adds new ways to buy concert tickets and book restaurants in its app (The Verge) Amazon Luna launches for anyone in the US, adds free games for Prime members and Twitch integration (The Verge) BitConnect’s Indicted Founder Kumbhani Vanished, SEC Says (Bloomberg) SAMSUNG’S GALAXY S22 AND S22 PLUS ARE THE DEFAULT ANDROID PHONES TO BUY (The Verge) 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 Tuesday, March 1st, 2022. I'm Brian McCullough today. Crypto exchanges stick to their crypto ethos over the Ukraine war situation, a new super crazy alleged Chinese backdoor hack. Uber adds new ways to buy concert tickets and book restaurants in its app. Amazon

launches its Luna gaming streaming service in the U.S. and a review of the Galaxy S-22 and S-22 pluses. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Okay. Ukraine news. rundown for the day. TikTok has shut down access to Russian sites RT and Sputnik in Europe, following requests from individual governments and the European Union. Meta says it, quote, will be restricting access to RT and Sputnik across the EU at this time, end quote, following requests again from several governments and the EU. YouTube will block RT and Sputnik in Europe. Again, that's a block, not a demonetization, not an algo change, a block. Twitter has started labeling tweets that link to Russian state-backed media outlets and plans to label other

country's state media outlets, quote, in the coming weeks. Netflix says it won't add any Russian channels in that country, quote, given the current situation, and quote, despite a regulation requiring it to add 20 federal channels from March 1st, quoting the Wall Street Journal. Netflix, which launched in Russia just over a year ago, was told in December that it would have to comply with a new rule requiring the company to distribute as many as 20 local news, sports, and entertainment channels, according to a person familiar with the matter. The law applies to all audio and visual services available in Russia that reach more

than 100,000 subscribers. Netflix is the only international programmer that has enough subscribers to require compliance with the rule the person said, end quote. Ukraine, which this weekend formed what it called an IT army made up of global volunteer hackers, claims to have taken down several Russian government and bank websites. You might have seen the thing making the rounds on social media where people search for Russian restaurants and businesses on various platforms, give them five-star reviews, and then in the body of the reviews, cut and paste anti-Russian news and propaganda as a way to attempt to cut through Russian propaganda and give Russian citizens reality-based reporting on the truth about the Ukraine war. But the big news

seems to be in crypto. Apparently, the Biden administration is asking crypto exchanges globally to help thwart Russian individuals and organizations from using crypto to avoid sanctions. But crypto exchanges, Binance, Coinbase, and others have denied Ukrainian requests to freeze Russian and Belarusian accounts on those platforms, citing economic freedom. But all the platforms do say they will comply with sanctions, quoting Motherboard. A spokesperson for U.S.-based exchange, Coinbase, told Motherboard that the company will not comply with the request to ban all Russian users citing economic freedom and the harm that a ban would bring to average Russians, but that it is completely. with existing sanctions. Coinbase conducts sanctions screening as a part of its onboarding process, the spokesperson said, and blocks transactions between sanctioned entities as well as uses analytics to identify illicit transactions. Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange is complying with the

sanctions, but a spokesperson for the company said it would not honor Ukrainian requests and, quote, unilaterally freeze millions of innocent users' accounts, end quote, CNBC reported. Johnny Liu, CEO of the Crypto Exchange Ku-coin, similarly told CNBC that the company considers itself a neutral platform that would not do anything beyond what is legally required, adding that it didn't support, quote, actions that increased tensions. Jesse Powell, the CEO and co-founder of the U.S.-based Cracken Exchange, went further in a Twitter thread Sunday evening, saying that while he understood the, quote, rationale for this request, he would not freeze all Russian accounts unless legally required to do so. Powell said such a request went against Bitcoin's, quote, libertarian values, and that crypto was supposed to be, quote, a weapon for peace, not for war, end quote. He added that the company's own mission was to bring people into the, quote, world of crypto where arbitrary lines of maps no longer matter, where they don't have to worry about being caught in broad, indiscriminate wealth confiscation, end quote.

Samantak is detailing a China-linked back door being referred to as Daxon, which is a window kernel driver that can hijack TCP connections to stealthly connect with command and control servers. Quoting bleeping computer. According to a technical report published by Symantec's Threat Hunter team today, Daxon is one of the most advanced backdoors ever seen by Chinese actors. One point of differentiation in Daxon is its form, which is a Windows kernel driver, an atypical choice in the malware landscape. Its stealthiness comes from its advanced communication features, which mix its data exchange with

regular internet traffic. Daxon is, without doubt, the most advanced piece of malware Cementech researchers have seen used by a China-linked actor, Symantec said in a new report. Considering its capabilities and the nature of its deployed attacks, Daxon appears to be optimized for use against hardened targets, allowing the attackers to burrow deep into a target's network and exfiltrate data without raising suspicions, end quote. Backdoors provide threat actors with remote access to a compromised computer system, allowing them to steal data, execute commands, or download, and install further malware. Because those tools are typically used to steal information from protected networks or further

compromise a device, they need to involve some form of data transfer encryption or obfuscation to evade raising alarms on network traffic monitoring tools. Daxson does this by monitoring network traffic on a device for specific patterns. Once these patterns are detected, it will hijack the legitimate TCP connection and use it to communicate with the command and control server. By hijacking TCP communications, the Daxon malware can hide malicious communication in what is perceived to be legitimate traffic and thus remain undetected. Daxon's use of hijack TCP connections affords a high degree of stealth to its communications and helps to establish connectivity on networks with strict firewall rules. It may also lower the risk of discovery by SOC analysts.

Monitoring the network for anomalies, explains the report by Symantec. This essentially opens an encrypted communications channel for transmitting or stealing data, all done through a seemingly innocuous TCP tunnel. Symantec's threat analysts have found evidence linking Daxon to the Chinese state-backed hacking group slug, aka A.K.A. Owl proxy. Reportedly, the particular backdoor has been actively used in attacks since at least November 2019, while researchers spotted signs of its deployment again in May of 2020 and July of 2020. Most recent attacks involving Daxon were observed in November 2021, targeting telecommunication,

transportation, and manufacturing companies, end quote. Uber has added new ways to buy concert tickets or book restaurants all from within its app, because why not? Welcome to the Explorer tab, quoting the verge. Uber has always had aspirations outside of just being a taxi broker, but as the company shifts more into food and grocery delivery, it can be hard to remember its roots as a product used by people to move around cities. Now Uber wants to remind its customers of that legacy while also bringing more Yelp-style features into its app.

Starting March 1st, today, Uber customers in over a dozen North American cities will see the new Explorer tab when they open the app. Tapping on it brings up a variety of live event and restaurant recommendations that they are encouraged to check out. And if this sounds a lot like Yelp, it's by design. Restaurant reservations are handled through a Yelp integration in the app, and Uber is even featuring that company's five-star ratings for restaurants in Explorer. Another integration with Predict HQ brings in live event recommendations. And if customers need a ride to any of their destinations, Uber is offering a discount. 15% up to $10 off rides to locations included in Explorer.

An Uber spokesperson declined to share which third-party ticket sellers it was working with to power that part of the Explorer tab, and quote. Amazon has made its Luna game streaming service available to anyone in the U.S. and added new features to the service, including free games for Prime members, quoting the Verge. Luna was announced in the fall of 2020, but since then, it has only been available to a limited number of customers through an invite-only early access program. Today's launch, however, finally opens up the service for anyone to use in the United States, which could significantly expand the number of Luna customers. Alongside the broader launch, Amazon also announced three additional channels. Luna's term for bundles of games that customers can subscribe to on a monthly

basis, similar to Microsoft's Xbox GamePass that customers will be able to enjoy. The most notable of the new editions is the Prime Gaming Channel, which will offer Amazon Prime members a selection of free games to play on Luna that rotate each month. To start things off in March, Prime members will get access to Devil May Cry 5, Observer, System Redue, Fogs, and Flashback. Additionally, Immortals Phoenix Rising will also be available to play for free, but only from March 8th through March 14th instead of the entire month, as is the case for the other titles listed. Also launching on Luna is the Retro Channel, which will include classic games, like Street Fighter 2, Hyperfighting, Metal Slug 3, and Castlevania Anniversary Edition,

and the Jackbox Games Channel, which includes all eight Jackbox Party Pack titles. Amazon is also using the Jackbox Games Channel to debut a new Luna Couch feature that lets other friends join you in playing, even if they don't subscribe to Luna themselves. Both the Retro Channel and Jackbox Games Channel will cost $4.99 per month. Luna works differently from other cloud services like Google Stadia, where players can purchase games like they would for any non-streaming-based platform. Instead, players subscribe on a monthly basis to individual channels which come with their own bundles of games. Currently, Amazon offers the primary Luna Plus channel at $5.99 per month, the Ubisoft Plus channel,

$1799 per month, and the family channel $299 per month, along with the new additions mentioned above. Lastly, Amazon is using the official Luna launch to debut a few new features for the platform. The company is leveraging its ownership of Twitch to add native support for one-click broadcasting. Simply press a button on Luna and you'll be instantly able to stream your game live, complete with a camera feed overlay. There's even a QR code system for users playing on Fire TV to link their phone to use as a webcam, end quote. There's a new crypto scandal out there. The SEC says BitConnect founder Satish Kambani recently charged with running a $2.4 billion

Ponzi scheme has disappeared from his native India. Quoting Bloomberg. Kumbani 36 has, quote, likely relocated from India to an unknown address in a foreign country, SEC attorney Richard Primoff said in a court filing. Since November, the commission has been consulting with that country's financial regulatory authorities in an attempt to locate Kumbani's address. At present, however, Kumbani's location remains unknown, end quote. Primov asked U.S. District Judge John Kotel for an extension until May 30. The SEC said it wants to look for Combani, and if it finds him in the U.S., serve him with the complaint. Of course, if Combani comes to the U.S., he could be arrested and potentially go to prison if he's

convicted of charges in the indictment filed Friday in San Diego. Prosecutors said he created BitConnect in 2016 and the digital token BitConnect coin. Combani touted BitConnect's, quote, lending program based on proprietary trading bots and volatility software that would trade on the global crypto markets. But in reality, the lending program was a massive Ponzi scheme that raised. $2.4 billion from investors around the world before shutting down in January 2018, prosecutors said. BitConnect used money from new investors to pay earlier ones, the U.S. said. Kumbadi is charged with wire fraud operating and unlicensed money-transmitting business

and three conspiracies to commit wire fraud, commodity price manipulation, and international money laundering, end quote. Finally today, we had the review of the big boy last week, but let's do a quick review of the Samsung Galaxy S-22. and S-22 Plus. As always, we're going to turn to the verge. Allison Johnson says both of these phones have excellent performance, excellent cameras, great build quality, and interesting to point this out, a great support policy, but battery life is poor, and she says the one UI feels cluttered. Quote, the Samsung Galaxy S-22 plus is the high-end Android phone most shoppers in the U.S.

should buy in 2022. The plus and the smaller but similar standard S-22, aren't perfect. Battery life for one is a weak point, and that's something to consider seriously. There are better options if you're looking for something a little more stylish or with a few more bells and whistles, but the vast majority of people who are just looking for a fast, reliable Android device to hold on to for the next few years need to look no further than the S-22 duo, end quote. Then that note of caution on battery life, quoting again. When I tested the S-22 Ultra, the battery drained faster than I expected, though I was able to get through a day of heavy use. The S-22 and S-22-plus seem to draw power even faster. The little S-22

also gets a smaller 3,700-m-a-amp-hour battery versus the Plus models 4,500-mmamp-hour cell. I saw the S-22 battery take an alarming plunge from 30% to 20%, over half an hour of downloading apps and logging into accounts, and in a day of typical use, the S-22 was down to 58% by 3pm. That's without even really trying to push the battery in any challenging way, like streaming video or playing a game. Downloading and playing Genshin Impact for about 30 minutes brought that percentage right down to the low single digits. The S-22 Plus doesn't fare much better, though it has a bigger battery. There's also a bigger screen to power, so stamina feels about the same. If seeing a number lower than 20% on your battery level indicator makes you break out into hives,

then the S-22 may not be for you. Generally speaking, both the S-22 and S-22-plus will get through. through a day of use, but even a moderate user might be coasting on fumes at the end of the day, end quote. And then her conclusion, giving both devices an 8 out of 10 Verge review, quote, the S-22 plus will more than satisfy the needs of most mainstream users who want a high-end slab-style Android phone that will get them through their daily tasks reliably. They're fast, well-built, and include high-end features like bright 120-hertz displays and a good 3x telephoto camera. The standard S-22 in particular is the smallest Android phone I've tested in a long time,

and it is refreshing. It fits all the way into the side pocket of my yoga pants, and more than once, I actually checked to see if it was there because it was so light that I didn't feel it. It's not iPhone mini-small, but it is one of the smallest high-specd Android phones out there, and it was deeply appreciated by this small phone fan. Battery life is a significant weak point on both models, though. If high-powered tasks like streaming video and playing games, make up any significant portion of your daily use, then I wouldn't recommend the S-22. If you only occasionally stream an episode of a 30-minute show and seeing your battery percentage under 20% at the end of the day doesn't freak you out, then you'll be just fine.

The Pixel 6 Pro is an obvious competitor here as it sits between the standard S-22 models in price at $900. It's an excellent phone with cleaner software, better battery life, and some novel Google additions, like a feature that transcribes the automated phone tree options you're presented with when calling a business. It's a bigger, bulkier device than the S-22-plus, but if you prefer a less-cluttered interface and battery is a major consideration, go with the pixel. The S-22 and S-22-plus feel like a good fit for the mainstream, though. There's the Ultra, above the standard S-22 models, but it's pricey at $1,200 and feels like an enthusiast device with its

stylus and multitude of cameras. The mid-range class isn't far behind, including Samsung's very good Galaxy A-52-5G, with better battery life but less robust performance. The S-12, 22 and S22 plus occupy a comfortable spot in the middle, one that will please a lot of people. The phone's solid support policy will see them through many years of use. Day-to-day performance is excellent, and the versatile camera system handles most photographic needs well. As long as you don't ask too much of the phone's battery, or you don't mind a midday recharge, the S-22 is a very good middle ground, end quote. Nothing for you today. I'm sort of fried for whatever reason. Maybe it's just gray end of winter

Blas. Talk to you tomorrow.