Tech Brew Ride Home - Wed. 8/22 - Fake Russians are Back. And Now There Are Fake Iranians Also!

Episode Date: August 22, 2018

The fake Russians are back and they’ve brought some fake Iranians with them, Verizon throttles firefighters, Google wants to tell you something good, and day two of the Y Combinator demo days. Links:Sprawling Iranian influence operation globalizes tech’s war on disinformation (The Washington Post)Verizon throttled fire department’s “unlimited” data during Calif. wildfire (Ars Technica)Google Assistant's latest feature delivers just the 'good news' (TechCrunch)Walmart takes another jab at Amazon as it begins selling e-books for first time (USA Today)How Teens and Parents Navigate Screen Time and Device Distractions (Pew Research Center)‘Bitcoin Jesus’ Is Having a Hard Time Winning Over True Believers (Bloomberg)All 59 startups that launched today at Y Combinator’s S18 Demo Day 2 (TechCrunch) 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, August 22nd, 2018. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, the fake Russians are back, and this time they've brought some fake Iranians with them. Verizon throttles firefighters.

Google wants to tell you something good. And day two of the Y Combinator demos. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Well, I guess this is our new reality, if we're going to have to be doing stories like this every day now. Facebook announced it has removed 652 pages, groups, and accounts on both Facebook and Instagram that were linked to Russia and Iranian hackers, who were, quote, coordinating inauthentic behavior. This time, the fake accounts seemed to want to influence U.S. foreign policy and sentiment around politics, especially in the Middle East. Shortly after this, Twitter announced that it too had suspended 284 accounts, for engaging in coordinated manipulation, and that many of the accounts appeared to originate again in Iran.

So, Facebook first. They were tipped off by Fire Eye, a cybersecurity firm, and the fake pages and accounts in question post content related to politics in the Middle East, the UK, US, and Latin America. Quote, today we removed multiple pages, groups, and accounts for coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook and Instagram. Some of this activity originated in Iran and some originated in Russia. These were distinct campaigns, and we have not identified any link or coordination between them. However, they used similar tactics by creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing, end quote. As I've said before, security is not something that you ever fully solve, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said on a call with reporters. quote, our adversaries are sophisticated and well-funded, but the shift we have made from reactive to proactive detection is a big change and is going to make Facebook safer over time, end quote.

Now for Twitter. Twitter safety tweeted, quote, working with our industry peers today, we have suspended 284 accounts from Twitter for engaging in coordinated manipulation. Based on our existing analysis, it appears many of these accounts originated from Iran. As with prior investigations, we are committed to engaging with other companies and relevant law enforcement entities. Our goal is to assist investigations into these activities, and where possible, we will provide the public with transparency and context on our efforts, end quote. Lee Foster, FireEye's manager of information operations analysis, told the Washington Post, quote, it's significant in that it shows it's not just Russia that's engaged in this activity. This demonstrates that there are other actors out there who appear to see value in engaging in such activity to shape political discourse, end quote.

Sorry to hit you with two dystopian bad news tech stories in a row, but the Santa Clara Fire Department, which is in the midst of battling the largest wildfire in California's history, says that Verizon throttled the unlimited data plan to a fire truck during the Mendocino Wildfire response. This revelation came in evidence submitted in a lawsuit that seeks to reinstate federal net neutrality rules. Quote, County Fire has experienced throttling by its ISP Verizon. Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden wrote in a declaration. This throttling has had a significant impact on our ability to provide emergency services. Verizon imposed these limitations despite being informed that throttling was actively impeding county fire's ability to provide crisis response.

and essential emergency services, end quote. Apparently, Santa Clara Fire paid for a, quote, unquote, unlimited data plan for a fire department vehicle that is used to, quote, track, organize and prioritize routing of resources from around the state and country to the sites where they are most needed, end quote. But hey, man, unlimited is just a concept, bro. During the fire deployment, firefighters discovered that their data rates had been reduced to one-two-hundredth of the previous speeds. The firefighters contacted Verizon directly, pleading that the speeds be revved back up for

public safety reasons. Quote, Verizon representatives confirmed the throttling, but rather than restoring us to an essential data transfer speed, they indicated that county fire would have to switch to a new data plan at more than twice the cost, and they would only remove throttling after we contacted the department that handles billing and switched to the new data plan, Bowden wrote. Verizon said the following in a statement. This situation has nothing to do with net neutrality or the current proceeding in court. We made a mistake in how we communicated with our customer about the terms of its plan. Like all customers, fire departments choose service plans that are best for them.

This customer purchased a government contract plan for a high-speed wireless data allotment at a set monthly cost. Under this plan, users get an unlimited amount of data, but speeds are reduced when they exceed their allotment until the next billing cycle. Regardless of the plan, emergency responders choose, we have a practice to remove data speed restrictions when contacted in emergency situations.

We have done that many times, including for emergency personnel responding to these tragic fires. In this situation, we should have lifted the speed restrictions when our customer reached out to us. This was a customer support mistake. We are reviewing the situation and will fix any issues going forward, end quote. Well, after those first two segments,

I guess we could all use a little of this one. Google has launched an experimental feature for Google Assistant for users in the U.S. If you simply ask Google Assistant to, tell me something good, it will automatically read you news stories about people who are, quote, solving problems for our communities and our world, according to Google.

The stories are curated by the nonpartisan nonprofit solutions journalism network, and they could come from any number of news outlets. What sort of stories? Quote, Google offers some examples of what the good news may include, like a story about how Georgia State University stopped students from slipping through the cracks, or how backyard beekeepers in East Detroit are bringing back the dwindling bee population, or how Iceland curbed teen drinking, end quote. Google says this feature won't cure the low-grade depression that the whole world seems to be suffering from lately, quote,

but it's an experiment worth trying because it's good info about good work that may bring some good to your day. Speaking of how technology is affecting the quality of our lives and our happiness levels, there is a comprehensive new Pew Research Study outlining how teens and parents, parents navigate the difficult balancing act of screen time and device distraction. Quoting from Pew's own write-up of the survey, quote, amid roiling debates about the impact of screen time on teenagers, roughly half of those aged 13 to 17 are themselves worried they spend too much time on their cell phones. Some 52% of U.S. teens report taking steps to cut back on their mobile phone use,

and similar shares have tried to limit their use of social media, 57% or, Or video games, 58%. A new Pew Research Center survey finds. Overall, 56% of teens associate the absence of their cell phones with at least one of these three emotions. Loneliness, being upset or feeling anxious. Additionally, girls are more likely than boys to feel anxious or lonely without their cell phone, end quote. Two-thirds of parents report being concerned about their teenagers spending too much time in front of screens. 57% report setting screen time restrictions.

But in the end, it seems the adults are really no better off. Quote, at the same time, some parents of teens admit they also struggle with the allure of screens. 36% say they themselves spend too much time on their cell phone. And 51% of teens say they often or sometimes find their parents or caregiver to be distracted by their own cell phone when they are trying to have a conversation with them. Additionally, 15% of parents say they often lose focus at work because they are distracted, by their phone. That is nearly double the share of teens, 8%, who say they often lose focus in school due to their own cell phones. Walmart is seemingly willing to poke Amazon in the eye at any

opportunity. This time it's doing so by going after Amazon owned Audible and the Kindle. Walmart announced it has partnered with Rakutenkobo to launch Walmart e-books with a catalog of more than 6 million titles. On top of this, Walmart also now has a $9.99 a month subscription service for audiobooks. Walmart shoppers will be able to access e-books and audiobooks through a co-branded app. Kobo e-readers will now be prominently on sale at Walmart stores, and you'll be able to pick up digital book gift cards at 3,500 Walmart locations beginning this week. As USA Today notes, however, quote, it will take a lot of sales to topple Amazon. In 2016, roughly 38% of the 800 million printed books sold were purchased from Amazon,

according to book industry data site, authorearnings.com. Amazon sold roughly 75% of the 400 million e-books that were purchased, and nearly 95% of the 50 million audiobooks. There really does seem to be a lot of concern growing in crypto. circles. Prices for most cryptocurrencies remain at year-to-date lows, despite the rash of high-profile ICOs over the last 18 months. None of the ERC-20-based projects seem to have caught fire in a mainstream way yet, and many seem to be dead in the water. And according to chain analysis, actual use of Bitcoin and Bitcoin cash as currencies seems to be declining. Quote,

The offshoot of the digital coin known as Bitcoin Cash is barely being used in commerce, according to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis. A review of payments received by the world's 17 largest crypto merchant processing services such as BitPay, Coinify, and GoCoin, found that Bitcoin cash payments slumped to 3.7 million in May from a high of 10.5 million in March. Regular old Bitcoin payments totaled 60 million in May, down from a peak of $412 million in September of last year, end quote. If you're not familiar with Bitcoin Cash,

it forked from the original Bitcoin a year ago. While Bitcoin Cash is still the fourth largest cryptocurrency in the world, its market cap is less than 10% of Bitcoins. Finally today, another rundown of some of the 59 startups that presented at Y Combinator's summer 2018 Demo Day Part Dube. Again, no rhyme or reason to the startups I've selected, just some that caught my eye. Radix Labs wants to be the operating system for laboratories. Modern labs are chock-full of different kinds of equipment,

and getting them to network together and play well with one another could have a dramatic impact on research and development. Kite wants to fix the SMS spam problem in India, which we've mentioned before. Outvote is a platform for Gravon. grassroots campaigns and voter outreach. SparkSwap is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency trading platform that allows you to trade coin without having to go through an exchange. Open Phone is an app you can download on iOS or Android to get a second phone number for just $9.99 a month.

Quick disposable second numbers for businesses and the like. Federacy is a bug bounty program platform. Lena AI builds human resource bots to answer questions for employees. that employers can integrate into places like Slack and Facebook. Modern Treasury is like Stripe for non-credit card transactions. Dinesafe uses clever crowdsourced reporting to track and alert on food poisoning outbreaks in real time. Exora sounds super interesting to me. They claim their software can produce photo realistic environments and backgrounds for CGI-heavy films and TV shows

for a fraction of the costs that Hollywood Studios usually have to do it. And they can also create these CGI backgrounds in a fraction of the time. So, paging HBO, I can save you some money on that final season of Game of Thrones if you're interested. Emptor is Thumbtack for Enterprise. The Good Food Institute is another meat substitute and clean meat startup. Grin is a scooter startup for South America. Snark AI allows you to rent GPUs that. aren't in use at the moment and emojure allows you to make animated emojis out of photos

you already have on your smartphone again links to all of these startups and many more that I didn't mention are the very last link in today's show notes thanks for listening to the tech meme ride home podcast that's all for today as always I've been your host Brian McCullough talk to you tomorrow