Tech Brew Ride Home - Wed. 06/10 – Robocallers Face The Music

Episode Date: June 10, 2020

Another day, another flaw in Intel chips discovered. More analysis of Apple’s presumed move away from Intel chips for Macs. Is Just Eat Takeaway about to swallow up Grubhub? What happened to Zynn on the Play Store? And an interesting new interactive story startup. Sponsors: Metalab.co Grammarly.com/techmeme Links: Plundering of crypto keys from ultrasecure SGX sends Intel scrambling again (Ars Technica) TSMC on schedule for 3nm Apple 'A16' iPhone and iPad chip in 2022 (Apple Insider) On Apple Announcing the ARM Mac Transition at WWDC This Month (Daring Fireball) Robocallers face $225M fine from FCC and lawsuits from multiple states (TechCrunch) Reddit names Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel as Alexis Ohanian’s replacement (The Verge) Just Eat Takeaway.com Nears All-Stock Deal for Grubhub (WSJ) Zynn, the Hot New Video App, Is Full of Stolen Content (Wired) Interactive Storytelling App Whatifi Launches With $10 Million in Funding (The Hollywood Reporter) 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 Wednesday, June 10th, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough today. Another day, another flaw in Intel Chips is discovered. More analysis of Apple's presumed move away from Intel Chips for Macs. Is Just Eat Takeaway about to swallow up Grub, what happened to Zinn on the Play Store, and an interesting new interactive story startup. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Well, I guess we're just going to have stories like this every six months or so until the end of the end.

of time. New flaws have been discovered in Intel chips that affect the software guard extension, the most sensitive region of the company's processors. One flaw can leak secure enclave data, and the second allows cross-core info leakage. The good news is that both flaws apparently already have patches that partially at least fix the issues, quoting from Ars Technica. Tuesday's attacks aren't the first to defeat SGX. In 2018, a different team of researchers broke into the fortified Intel region after building on an attack known as Meltdown, which, along with a similar attack known as Specter, ushered in the flurry of processor exploits.

A different team of researchers broke SGX earlier this year. Intel mitigated the earlier SGX vulnerability by introducing microcode updates. However, these mitigations did not last, as two new attacks have sent Intel scrambling anew to devise new defenses. Intel released the new updates on Tuesday and expects them to be available to end users in the coming weeks. Depending on the computer, the fix will either be installed automatically or will require manual intervention. Users, particularly those who rely on the SGX, should check with the manufacturer of their machine and ensure that the update is installed as soon as practical. The new SGX attacks are known as SGX and crosstalk. Both break into the fortified

CPU region using separate side channel attacks, a class of hack that infers sensitive data by measuring timing differences, power consumption, electromagnetic radiation, sound, or other information from the system that stores it. The assumptions for both attacks are roughly the same. An attacker has already broken the security of the target machine through a software exploit or a malicious virtual machine that compromises the integrity of the system. While that's a tall bar, it's precisely the scenario that SGX is supposed to defend against, end quote. From best I can understand, that attack on the secure enclave data builds on the existing vulnerabilities that we've known about for some time. But apparently, the cross-core attack

is the world's first known speculative execution attack that works across CPU cores. So that's something. I'm sure stories like that aren't the primary reason that Apple is considering moving away from Intel chips, but that can't help, right? Speaking of chips and moving away from Intel ones, the timing of a possible move by Apple away from Intel might also have something to do with the fundamental availability of other options. And to that end, this story says that TSMC has begun the installation of three nanometer process fabrication lines and is on track to begin volume chip production on the three nanometer lines in the second half of 2020.

Just as important, with the existing 5-nanometer technique, not only is volume production already happening, but TSMC says they've already worked on improved versions of the same. This is worth noting since quoting Apple Insider, if accurate, and based on typical iPhone production schedules, this could lead to the Apple designed A15 at the absolute earliest, or more realistically, the A-16 chip in 2022 using the process. For more immediately accessible 5-nanometer chips, TSM is said to be in volume production with the technology, but it is already working on improved versions. The company is said to be creating more processor variants, including a further enhanced 5-nanometer node that expands on the existing 5-nometer plus node. It is thought that Apple is using TSM's 5-nanometer process to create the next generation of A-Series chips destined for the iPhone 12, tentatively titled the A-14, with production scheduled for,

mid-2020. In April, it was reported Apple increased its chip order for the fourth quarter of 2020, potentially due to an anticipated higher demand for the annual iPhone refresh, end quote. Point being, as we said yesterday, if Apple does start making its own Mac chips, it will likely turn to TSMC to produce those chips on the 5-nanometer production line. By the way, John Gruber chimed in on the whole switching chips rumors, and he seems to think that there's no more reason to even hedge about it. This is coming, and it's coming now, he thinks. Quote, I know there are some folks who think Apple might simultaneously announce the transition while unveiling Arm-based Macs for immediate availability, but that just doesn't make much sense. If Apple could do it that way, they would, because they do like

surprises, and they do not like pre-announcing future products, a lesson recently relearned the hard way. But developers need time to get Mac apps ready. Some developers, the smart ones, are effectively ready to go and will be able to recompile their apps for ARM as soon as Apple makes a new version of Xcode available. But others will need time. I mean, just look at all of the consternation this past year over MacOS 10.15 Catalina dropping support for 32-bit software. A transition Apple announced several years in advance. I don't think the transition from X86 to Arm will be nearly as rocky as the 32-bit to 64-bit transition, but for some apps, it will take time. Really, the deprecation of 32-bit software was the first step of a multi-year transition to 64-bit arm software on all

platforms. There's been some reasonable speculation that Apple might use arm chips only for portable Macs and consumer desktops and stick with high-end Intel chips for pro-desktops, but I think that's simply based on our never having seen Apple even try its hand at high-performance chips. If you're going to switch, switch, end quote. Very satisfying follow-up story here. Two Texas men face a $225 million FCC fine and lawsuits for multiple state attorneys general after admitting to making billions of robocalls over a two-year period, quoting TechCrunch. John Spiller and Jacob Mears, Texans of ill repute are accused of and have confessed to, forming a pair of companies to make millions of robocalls a day with the aim of selling health insurance from their shady clients. The operation not only ignored the National Do Not Call Registry, but targeted it specifically, as it was, quote, more profitable to target these consumers, end quote. Numbers were spoofed, making further mischief as angry people called back to find bewildered strangers on the other end of the line.

These calls amounted to billions over two years and were eventually exposed by the FCC, the offices of several attorneys general and industry anti-fraud associations. Now the pair have been slapped with a $225 million proposed fine, the law. largest in the FCC's history. The lawsuit involves multiple states and varying statutory damages per offense, and even a conservative estimate of the amounts could exceed that number, end quote. Although, shall we say, neither the FCC nor the FTC have a good track record of actually throwing the book at offenders in terms of going for the full dollar figure when they can, but hey, maybe these guys will be fine so much that they'll at least be put out of business. sources are telling the Wall Street Journal that Just Eat Takeaway.com is nearing an all-stock deal to acquire Grubhub that could be finalized as early as today.

I guess that means the Uber Grubhub talks fell apart. Just Eat, by the way, is a Netherlands-based food delivery company, and this is all breaking just now this morning as I'm writing these words. So I don't have much else to say at the moment, and of course it could all fall through. quoting from the Wall Street Journal, Uber and Grubhub have been negotiating a deal to combine, but the talks have been bogged down over various issues, including who should shoulder the bulk of the antitrust risk, some of the people said. Uber's board is planning to meet Wednesday and may officially pull the plug on Grubhub talks then, the people said, end quote.

One thing from the weekend that I didn't get to mention was that Alexis O'Hanian resigned from the board of directors of Reddit, urging the company he co-founded to fill his seat on the board, with a person of color. Reddit pledged to honor O'Hanian's requests and also pledge to update its content moderation policies to, quote, explicitly address hate within coming weeks. Well, in order to catch you up on all this, word this morning that Reddit has named Ycombinator CEO and Justin. TV founder Michael Siebel as O'Hanian's replacement on the Reddit board, quoting the verge. Siebel was Y Combinator's first black partner prior to becoming CEO, and he has supported a number of initiatives to increase diversity in the tech industry, including Black Tech for Black Lives

and Black Tech Weekend. Quote, I want to thank Steve, Alexis, and the entire Reddit board for this opportunity. I've known Steve and Alexis since 2007 and have been a Reddit user ever since, Sebel said in a statement. Over this period of time, I've watched Reddit become part of the core fabric of the internet, and I'm excited to help provide advice and guidance as Reddit continues to grow and tackle the challenges of bringing community and belonging to a broader audience, end quote. Ohanian resigned from Reddit, where he was a board member but not involved in day-to-day operations amid a broader conversation about the platform's stance on racism and hate speech and ways to

advance diversity and combat racial injustice in the tech industry. The conversation began, following Reddit CEO Steve Huffman's post addressing the killing of George Floyd, and the ongoing protests against police brutality and racism, in which the chief executive said the Reddit community does, quote, not tolerate hate, racism, and violence, end quote. The note sparked criticism. from former CEO Alan Powell, who characterized Huffman's words as hypocritical. Quote, so much of what is happening now lies at your feet, Powell said of Huffman's failure to ban hate speech and moderate or remove its more toxic communities.

Quote, you don't get to say Black Lives Matter when Reddit nurtures and monetizes white supremacy and hate all day long, end quote. O'Hanian didn't comment on his co-founder's tenure upon departing from the board, but he did say that leaving the board, quote, is long overdue to do the right thing. He went on to say he would use his future gains on Reddit stock, quote, to serve the black community, chiefly to curb racial hate, and that he was donating $1 million to former NFL player and activist Colin Kaepernick's Know Your Rights Camp Education Organization, end quote. Also, not sure what to make of this, but remember when I told you about that new TikTok clone called Zinn, which was released by major competitors to TikTok's parent company, and which quickly reached the top of the app charts? Well, Zinn has apparently been removed from the Play Store, quoting Wired. It's unclear why the app was removed and Google did not immediately comment.

A spokesperson for Apple said it was looking into Zinn but did not have any additional information as a publication. Twitter and Instagram accounts claiming to represent Zinn posted a statement Tuesday afternoon, acknowledging the app had been removed and said the company was, quote, in communications with Google and working to fix this ASAP. Meanwhile, Zen is filled with videos that appear to be stolen from creators on other social media platforms, including TikTok celebrities with massive followings like Charlie Demelio, who I told you about in the Long Reads last weekend, and Addison Ray. Many of the clips are aggregated by accounts centered around a single theme like pranks. Other videos appear on look-alike profiles impersonating individual creators.

For influencers who spoke to Wired, said videos they originally published to TikTok, Instagram, YouTube were uploaded to Zinn without their consent under accounts they didn't open. I didn't create this. Max Mazarek, a Polish dancer and model with almost 190,000 TikTok followers, said after Wired showed him a Zin profile using his name. The account has nearly 25,000 followers and featured many of the videos Mazurik had previously uploaded to TikTok and other platforms. It's not my account. I can't download this app in Poland, he said, end quote. Finally, today, not an interesting raise so much as an interesting launch. Interesting because of who the backers are, but also because of what this company does.

Whatify is launching on iOS today with $10 million in funding led by A16Z, and with participation from former Netflix CFO David Wells, PayPal co-founder Max Levchen, and Zinga founder Mark Pinkus. So what is What If I? It's an interactive storytelling. app. Listen to this description from the Hollywood reporter, quote. After inputting a cell phone number, viewers can invite up to nine contacts to watch an interactive movie together. When the group comes to a point in the film where they must make a decision, each viewer will be given the option to vote on the

outcome they want. But the story will only continue once a unanimous decision has been reached. A chat room within the app allows viewers to chat about the decision and come to an agreement. For now, What If I is offering just two films, but the founders say they're confident that the 80 possible endings between the titles will keep new users busy for a while. Anatomy of a decision tells the story of Junior from his conception at a fertility clinic through much of his life, but how that life turns out depends on which of the 64 different endings viewers choose. As dead as it gets, is a supernatural thriller directed by Simon Ellis that is set at an old hotel with 16 different endings. Wadify, which is based out of Los Angeles and Estonia,

is planning to release more titles this summer. The company is also opening a development and production arm Wadify Studios, which will commission filmmakers to make projects for the app. One way it will solicit new content is through a script contest, in which screenwriter winners will receive $35,000, and writer-director winners will receive $200,000 to cover production costs. Though Wadify's budgets are small, Juice and Maybaum said they don't need a lot of money to tell good stories,

especially since big action sequences and special effects are less effective on mobile phones. They're also sticking with largely unknown actors and up-and-coming filmmakers because Juice says the best and coolest ideas come from indie filmmakers, end quote. So insert your joke about this being the anti-quibby here. But by the way, the juice in that juice in Maybaum is Janice Juice, who has been staging interactive plays in Estonia for about a decade now, when he saw the attention that Netflix's interactive film Bander Snatch got back in 2018, he decided to apify his existing work, and the result is Whatify, which again, launches on iOS today.

Nothing really to hit you with today. Did my first morning commute in my new car this morning. It was not as much fun as my scoot commute can be, but what are you going to do? It's a good car. Useful to have one, I guess. So considering my family lucky, still hate driving though, especially in the city. Hate it. Talk to you tomorrow.