The Host Unknown Podcast - Episode 106 - God Its Early

Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm a bit unclear. Because it's a bank holiday, are we legally allowed to be quote-unquote working? Not to sound racist, but where do you come from where you actually care about human rights? I was going to say, doesn't work also imply that we're producing something of value? Not necessarily. I know plenty of people that work and produce nothing value yeah mr c so you're listening to the host unknown podcast Hello, hello, hello, good morning, good afternoon, good evening from wherever you are joining us and welcome to episode, what is it, 106-ish? 110! 110, whatever. It's 10-something of the Host Unknown podcast.

Starting point is 00:01:00 Welcome, welcome one and all. Gentlemen, welcome to you both as well on this lovely uh bank holiday i'd say sunny but it's not it's like we're living in a tupperware bowl unfortunately uh but um yep bank holiday nonetheless jav how are you tupperware bowl well it's just white clouds all above you so it looks like somebody's put a big white Tupperware bowl over you Oh Okay, interesting Have you not heard that one?

Starting point is 00:01:30 Never heard that one before No No Tupperware is this It's this plastic stuff that you use to store food in I mean I know I know you're all living on takeaways And looking deliver i know what tupperware is i know what tupperware is but you know it's um never heard that phrase

Starting point is 00:01:53 honestly like you come out with the most outdated phrases ever it's a bit like the new tron the recent tron remake and he goes in and like what's his name the original character he's there and he's still using like phrases from the 70s and 80s like radical man so i was actually just google when tupperware first came out it was 1946 so it was probably quite a big big thing for you at the time yeah so i could have said i don know, Pyrex or something. Do me. Anyway, enough.

Starting point is 00:02:31 God. Jav, how are you? Yeah, doing good. Doing good. It's been an interesting week because Monday was off for our American cousins because of Memorial Day. And now we've got Thursday, Friday off over here. So there's been very little overlap in the Venn diagram. If you take into consideration time zone differences,

Starting point is 00:02:52 it's only been like four hours where me and the rest of my team have been actually working at the same time. So it's been a good week. And actually having to talk to them as well. Yeah, yeah. A bit like you guys, but, you know, just part of the job, isn't it? So stressful. We all make sacrifices, especially on Friday mornings, it seems.

Starting point is 00:03:18 So, Andy, what about you? Have you been having a nice stress-free time, or are you still working out the sugar to tea ratio uh i well i would say i'm feeling jubilant today i say on on many levels i hope uh absolutely yeah like i say it's actually i wouldn't say it's a tupperware bowl. It's just a nice day in the UK, as it was yesterday. And we have, what, six days of rain after today. So, you know, enjoy it while we can. We shall get out there.

Starting point is 00:03:54 It's half term week. So much like Jav, obviously, US cousins are on leave. And then a lot of the other countries that I work with also have holidays this week. You know know certainly the ex-colony countries and uh uh yeah combined with half term for the kids so a very just quiet all round really yeah but uh yeah anyway how's your how's your day you still employed or have you uh no not been fired you decided to pursue a different... You're going in different directions.

Starting point is 00:04:28 That's right. I'm pursuing new adventures. No, not been fired yet. I was in the office Monday, Tuesday. I took Wednesday off, which was nice. Ended up walking around Bath and spending a bit of time in Bristol. And then yesterday was literally just a house cleaning day. Sorry? I said Bath and Bristol sounds like a date.

Starting point is 00:04:54 Yeah, it was. I mean, dating girls from Bath isn't so bad, but I wouldn't date anyone from Bristol. Oh, no, Terry. Really? Is that where you're from? No, no, no, not at all. Not at all.

Starting point is 00:05:08 That's where the girl was from. He's getting very defensive about it all of a sudden. What? I'm sure the Duchess of Ladywell didn't raise no bath, Shagga. I mean, like, let's... Bath or Bristol? Make your mind up. Bristol. Bath's a nice part of town

Starting point is 00:05:27 Yeah sorry Bristol Yeah Can you edit in Bristol Into that Bristol's very nice as well There's lots of people there That throw rocks at the moon

Starting point is 00:05:37 And stuff like that They're a bit too much cider When they're young Yeah but I mean You only have to go to the outskirts of Bath To find some of them too I mean this is the You know the west country after all um but uh christ there goes our listenership from there um but yeah and yesterday was just uh house cleaning basically

Starting point is 00:05:55 because i've been in london all the time so uh yeah i got me got me marigolds on all my garam molds whichever way you look at it and uh yes, it was quite a dull day, really. So this was going to be my highlight of the week. Wow. Wow. Jeez. See what happens when you get old, Jav. It's just terrible.

Starting point is 00:06:17 It's actually all kind of downhill, isn't it? Now I sort of feel bad. This is his highlight. We should make it nice for him. Oh, my God. In my twilight years. feel bad that's all this is his highlight we should make it nice for him oh my god in the in my twilight years well i think we've passed those i don't even know what we're in now yeah i have no idea it's almost i'm sure it's been it's the new dawn you know this is uncharted territory New Dawn. Talking of New Dawn,

Starting point is 00:06:51 shall we see what we've got coming up for you today? Well, let's see. You can still vote for us at the European Cybersecurity Blogger Awards. Can you? Because I told everyone that it was done. Up until today, I thought, wasn't it? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. This is, yeah, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:07:06 Well, the link's in the show notes. Click on it. At least try. If you haven't voted yet, at least try. This week in InfoSec, all your base are belong to us. Rant of the week warns us that every breath you take, Vodafone will be watching you, not Gordon. Billy Big Balls is a story of a company based in India calling the regulators bluff.

Starting point is 00:07:32 Industrial News brings us the latest and greatest security news stories from around the world. And Tweet of the Week shows us the difference between hacking on TV versus hacking in real life. TV versus hacking in real life. So let's move on, shall we, to our favourite part of the show, the part of the show that we like to call... This Week in InfoSec. It is that part of the show where we head over to our new sources oh no it's not it's that part of the show where we take a stroll down infosec memory lane with content liberated from the today in infosec twitter account and further afield and this week we have gone much further afield and our first story takes us back a mere 23 years to the 31st of May

Starting point is 00:08:28 1999 when Sega released the video game Zero Wing for the Sega Mega Drive in Europe and although this game was never actually released in North America it was relatively unknown until years later when the poorly translated opening scene was popularized on the something awful Website the most famous mistranslation is the phrase all your base are belong to us Which went on to become a very popular internet meme? So I don't know if you recall this one. Someone set us up the bomb. Do you guys remember that? No, but I do remember All Your Base Will Belong to Us,

Starting point is 00:09:10 but I don't remember the other part. Oh, my dear. You're going to have to find it. This is, honestly, just one of the funniest things at the time. Like, all the memes that came back was, yeah. I don't even know. If you don't know this you're just gonna have to click the links in the show now go to the website or your base i'll belong to us.com

Starting point is 00:09:29 um in fact you know what you're probably gonna need flash to view a lot of this stuff so maybe this is why it didn't survive the tale of time back in what 2000 when was 192 deregulated as a service you know when 118 came out all of that stuff maybe 2003 i think it was maybe around that time um we set up a call center in scotland where all good call centers are set up and mr rice a friend of the show chris rice he wrote the software that translated the incoming calls to, you know, so you had incoming calls, people put in a search, and then, you know, it would take you to the data that was there. And Rice, he did a particular little Easter egg in that system

Starting point is 00:10:13 where if you asked for a particular company name in a particular location, it would return the All Your Base Are Belong To Us sort of logo on the screen and so obviously he put this into this system it went like this is national call center as well just to you know let people know the kind of stuff he used to get away with with no uh um you know sort of sassed and sort of you know qa change control um and then one night we were out drunk and he said hey i've got this great idea put it on speakerphone and then called the number 118 119 and asked this particular company in this particular location

Starting point is 00:10:51 and the operator just went silent. And then they're kind of like, so we're not able to, the system's just gone down, will we refund this call? And so we were all laughing and then the next day we had the error logging in and someone saying look something really weird happened to the system like this this thing came up on the screen saying all your base are belong to us i'm looking at it now actually you know he's got to ring a bell now right yeah what happened mechanic somebody set up us the bomb we get signal what main screen turn on it's

Starting point is 00:11:28 you how are you gentlemen all your base are belong to us you are on the way to destruction what you say you have no chance to survive make your time i don't know why you guys are laughing this sounds like a regular whats WhatsApp chat with my extended family. Do they enjoy All Your Base Belong To Us? Yeah, they do. It's just hit out there. It's big out there at the moment. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:12:00 Andy, you have these sort of chats, isn't it? When, like, you know, back in Mauritius, like... Oh oh don't even get me started disputes over the land all your land belongs to us now do you know what i mean this is actually going off topic but i um so a couple of what months ago uh my cousin sort of messaged me said hey you know what size what size t-shirt are you and i read it i'm like dude what the you know why are you even asking this you know, what size t-shirt are you? And I read it. I'm like, dude, what the, you know, why are you even asking this? You know, and I didn't answer for a while because I was trying to think in my head where he's going with this. Then I got another one.

Starting point is 00:12:33 He said, don't worry. He said, I've guessed. And he said, if it doesn't fit, you have to lose weight. And, yeah, next thing I know, I've got, like, this person's flight details. And I'm like, what's going on? Why are these people coming to this airport? And my cousin's like, oh, you know, got a friend coming over. She's going to bring you something.

Starting point is 00:12:53 And I'm like, why? Like, why are you sending gifts? Like, I do not need gifts. They're like, something for you, something for your wife, something for your daughter, something for your sister. And I'm just like, dude. And this was like a couple of months ago, right? Since then, I've been trying to meet up with this woman. She lives in Streatham. for your sisters and I'm just like dude and this was like a couple of months ago right since then

Starting point is 00:13:05 I've been trying to meet up with this woman um she lives in Streatham and literally like I'm like okay right you know let me know good time to come around preferably you know afternoons on weekend now busy every weekend like you know can't do weekends absolutely busy everywhere so okay well I kind of work during the week you know so day? Anyway, like long story short, it was this week. I was like, if I don't get them this week, then I'm just going to write them off, okay? And so on Monday, I was like, okay, right, you know, I can head over in the evening.

Starting point is 00:13:34 She's like, okay, cool, off to work. And I sent a message saying, right, are you good if I head over? And she's like, actually, I'm tired. I'm going to bed now. You know, can we do it another night? I'm like, what? And this is just honestly, it's sort of like just dealing with Mauritiansians there's just no concept of time or like just sticking to you

Starting point is 00:13:51 know committed schedules or anything it's just yeah it's like in in africa time is more of a suggestion rather than a um you know a measurement of uh any sort of thing. At what point did she say all your baser belonged to us? Yeah, that was the end of it. That's how we got there. All your gifts belong to us. I'm very confused about the relevance of that story now.

Starting point is 00:14:19 It's more about Jav going on about russians and just the disorganisation. In fact, just cut all this part out. It's not relevant. I enjoyed it, actually. about Jav going on about missions and just the the disorganized in fact just cut all this part out it's not not relevant I enjoyed it I enjoyed it actually anyway Tom did a no sell on that I thought that was good I would have done the the rock selling the stunner on that honestly Alas, our second story is also from a mere 23 years ago, to the 1st of June 1999 when Sean Fanning and Sean Parker released the file sharing service Napster. The service provided a simple way for users to copy and distribute MP3 music files.

Starting point is 00:15:01 Obviously it became an instant hit, especially amongst students. And just over six months later, on the 7th December 1999, the RIAA, or the Recording Industry Association of America, filed a lawsuit against the service, alleging mass copyright infringement. And eventually, that lawsuit forced the company to shut down on 3rd december 2002 but not before the popularity of downloading digital music was firmly entrenched in a generation of internet users uh changing the phase of music collection forever uh which i think we can all agree with it's interesting how uh a technically illegal service actually did change, as you say, the music culture and the music listening culture of the world?

Starting point is 00:15:50 Although it was actually legal at the time, and I think this is what people sometimes forget about the good old days with Napster. They didn't just launch as like, you know, Pirate Bay. They actually did find the loophole in the whole copyright infringement thing because they were not actually hosting any files yes um so they were providing links to other people and this is where you know they were legitimate company um at the time at the time of launch they were legit um you know they had offices and everything um to the point where you know they were an incorporated company and it was almost a

Starting point is 00:16:25 year to the day after they launched uh second of june 2000 napster inc um they actually slapped pop bank the offspring with a legal order to stop selling merchandise imprinted with a napster logo because that infringed their trademark so you know they were actually set up as a legit company. And it was the RIAA that actually changed, you know, the whole industry had to change the definition of copyright in order to sue them. And who was the band that went up against Napster? That was Metallica.

Starting point is 00:17:02 Metallica, yes. Metallica, that's right. that was Metallica Metallica, that's right they like took a personal court case against them didn't they or something like that yeah and that was, I think we covered it a couple of episodes ago when

Starting point is 00:17:15 Sean Fanning turned up at the MTV Music Awards wearing a Napster t-shirt, said that he'd borrowed it from his friend that's right. That's quality. Genius. That's quality.

Starting point is 00:17:33 Yeah, Napster, that really does signify the late 90s, doesn't it? It's a real sort of emblem of the 90s. Excellent. Well, thank you, Andy, for this week's. This week in Info This is the podcast the Queen listens to although she won't admit it

Starting point is 00:17:55 and given us this is Jubilee week, Your Majesty, if you are looking to sponsor an up and coming potentially award winningwinning global podcast, look no further. I think we'd be right up your street. Shall we move on?

Starting point is 00:18:16 Yes, I think it's time to get a little bit angrier. Big Balls of the Week. so this week andy has chosen a doozy for me absolute doozy i only had to read the uh the headline to already get angry vodafone plans carrier level user tracking for targeted ads i i was i got so upset about this i actually clicked on the link to read the story. That's how bad it was. I know, I know. I actually did some, in adverted commas, research. By research, I mean clicking on the link, obviously. So effectively, Vodafone is going to be piloting a new advertising ID system called TrustPid, which automatically makes you think it's untrustworthy.

Starting point is 00:19:11 You have to include the word trust in it. Yeah, exactly. Anything that includes the word trust or safe or child or something like that is already picking at your emotions, trying to get you on their side. But what it does is that it allocates every single user on the Vodafone network a unique ID as a persistent user tracker at the ISP level. What that means is it doesn't matter what your IP address is, if you're on your phone using the Vodafone network, even if you fire up a VPN, because it's actually operating at the ISP level, you're still going to be tracked. They're still going to work out what sites you go to and therefore offer up targeted ads.

Starting point is 00:20:05 It's currently being tested in Germany. Absolutely impossible to bypass. And effectively, it's because Vodafone is saying, well, everybody expects a free internet, and this is how you get a free internet. It follows on the heels of apple's apple's um blocking and privacy uh setup of uh which basically broke facebook's um uh business model so it's follow on the heels of that it broke it so much that facebook actually couldn't afford all the letters

Starting point is 00:20:40 that made up facebook and had to rebrand themselves. To put a value on it, I think Apple or Facebook reckon Apple cost them $10 billion a year, don't they? It wasn't a small amount of money. That's what your data is worth. So just to clarify, Tom, if I go into incognito mode on my browser, will they still be able to track me yes if you're on the vodafone network and currently in germany um so it's amazing they chose germany of all places because germany has so strict rules so yeah i'm surprised they get

Starting point is 00:21:21 away with it maybe there was i don't know some little insider you know backhanders going on or something who knows but uh yeah it's it's been panned all round and um you know even you know members of the european parliament are against it um you know uh who's it patrick brayer said these schemes are totally unacceptable and the trial should be stopped democracy is not for sale. You know you're in trouble when you've got politicians saying things like that. But the key thing is here, these profiles, these personality profiles, he said even cover political opinions, sexual orientation, medical conditions,

Starting point is 00:22:00 and are therefore a risk to privacy and national security. You know, where officials can be blackmailed uh elections and referendums can be manipulated all that sort of thing of course vodafone is saying that you know the uh the trust pids are generated through randomness its subscribers will have options to manage their consent blah blah blah but it's just will have options to manage their consent, blah, blah, blah. But it's just, you know, it feels like just as we seem to be getting a little bit of control back, you know, and Apple is part of this. Google is going to be doing a very similar thing to Apple by switching off its advertising cookies in Chrome by 2023.

Starting point is 00:22:41 So even Evil Corp itself is, is you know is going along with this um it seems just as we're getting some control back it's it's rested away from us at the last minute uh by carriers like vodafone and this is really concerning it has to say i'm on vodafone what's really weird is that you know the whole argument about keeping the internet free the isps are the ones that charge money for you to go on the internet anyway like if you're a vodafone user you pay them a monthly subscription fee or if you're at home don't pay that to advertisers do they that or you know to basically they're saying if if we're all used to a free internet um and if we don't do this then everything has to go behind paywalls and

Starting point is 00:23:26 blah blah blah this effectively saying this is the price you pay for a free internet it's not a free internet though that's that's the point you it's um you know oh well i don't think it would be a bad thing to put stuff behind paywalls and what have you. There's so much crap on the Internet. I, you know, I don't see why. I don't think it's a strong enough argument. Well, it's it's an interesting one because, you know, you say that. But services like Facebook and, you know, and I'm as you know, I'm no supporter of. Services like Facebook, you're actually reducing the access and equality of access

Starting point is 00:24:31 to certain types of information. And it's a quandary. It's a dilemma, to say the least, because you want it. If the pandemic showed us anything, it showed us the internet and broadband services, et., are a utility like gas and water and electricity in the sense that you need it in order to survive and work and be a member of society and all that sort of thing. going to start demanding that people or if organizations, Twitter, for instance, if they said, OK, we're now going on a subscription model, the people who would suffer the most are not the three of us. It's the people that, you know, can't afford to spend 20 quid a month on Twitter or whatever.

Starting point is 00:25:17 And so they're going to be disconnected from a huge community of like minded people. So it's really challenging. I think you're mixing... It's not a one-dimensional issue is what I'm saying, but what Vodafone are doing is not the right way. No, you have a slight, you know, element off a point there, but, you know, you're looking at it completely wrong. And I think by using Facebook and Twitter twitter examples you went down completely the wrong route

Starting point is 00:25:47 because those they don't need the isps they have their own ways of gathering the data and uh and everything i think the fundamentally though the issue is that you need a better business model for the internet than just monetizing personal information absolutely that's what it could that's what that's where the crux of the issue is and what this all seems is that you put in regulations or you put in some controls to stop tracking and then they'll just come up with a different tracking way because they're too entrenched in their ways to think of a different way to monetize it and it doesn't need to be uh payment like as in physical payment but there are other ways you can or could go about it but you know it's just we're so used to uh convenience

Starting point is 00:26:32 there was an episode of black mirror where you had to do physical exercise to to gain social points maybe we should issue all the poor people with exercise bikes. Or Andy. Give the data to Vodafone. No, you're either afraid of exercise or being considered poor. One or the other. Well, I know I'm poor. This is the man who, just before we started recording and andy's going through oh i've got these uh direct debits coming up this month and therefore services he never has used in his life they're like oh this is a good black friday deal 30 pounds a month and

Starting point is 00:27:22 have i ever used it nope and there's you know we are recording today because i pay for one of these services that we never use so you know this is why i have this redundancy going on that's that that 400 quid you've spent over the last 18 months is worth every penny for today's episode it is today and last week let's let's not forget last week as well that's true he also had technical challenges last week yeah see and he's the kind of man he's got another house on the other side of town just in case the house is living in catches fire or something and it's all kicked out with the exact same thing yeah it is some different part of the grid you know fault tolerance you know and and you know his his family over, you know, fault tolerance. You know, and his family over there,

Starting point is 00:28:07 you know, they're from completely different backgrounds just in case he feels he has to disconnect from one and move to the other. You know, he's got a dog in this house, he's got a cat in that house. Everything's just, you know, squarely mirrored away. It's very good, it's very clever. Anyway, Vodafone. It is. everything's just you know squarely mirrored away it's very good it's very clever anyway

Starting point is 00:28:25 stop being a you know stop being assholes and deal with this this is not the right way to go rant of the week recording from the uk you're listening to the host unknown podcast well we're certainly not going to be recording from germany in the near future are we no no absolutely not not when they can track us like that yes right god knows what they might find out about us anyway uh, let's move on to this week's... Well, well, well. So if you ever watch YouTube,

Starting point is 00:29:18 you know that every influencer will tell you to get a VPN because, checks notes, you can then watch Netflix shows from when you're not in the country that it's not available in. Apparently, that's the only use of VPNs. But, you know, there are some other other reasons and people use them to evade some snooping governments or just for their own privacy or bypassing those geo locks that some of their favourite content streaming providers put on. But in India, they have been rolling out

Starting point is 00:29:55 their stringent new cybersecurity requirements. Absolutely stringent. Oh, these are the 4D printing ones, yeah? Yes, yes. The ones we covered last week and um so one of the the requirements is that um vpn providers must verify customers identity retain their contact details and store five years worth of data describing their ownership pattern. Jeez. Can you imagine if this was happening in China, you know,

Starting point is 00:30:31 with people trying to... Yeah. Or any sort of countries with openly oppressive governments. Yeah. As opposed to just subtly oppressive governments. Yes. as opposed to just subtly oppressive government yes um you know and um as you can tell this is like a hard hard task for anyone to fulfill and a vpn the whole purpose of it is like to maintain you know lack of identity and contact details and not store years and years worth of data um so one company in

Starting point is 00:31:08 particular express vpn states that it's all ram design makes compliance with india's rule impossible because it doesn't store any log of user activity um so they actually then went and put their money where their mouth is uh they refused to participate in the this is their statement the expressvpn refuses to participate in the indian government's attempt to limit internet freedom because we know if you throw in the word freedom in there everyone gets all riled up um and in a cruel twist of fate i i love the irony i i'm sure in this on this jubilee weekend the her majesty would love this uh the company's remedy is to offer its indian user servers located offshore as alternatives uh and those servers will be named India via UK or India via Singapore so so yes India now looks to the UK as one of its offshore data processing centers

Starting point is 00:32:16 that it was only a matter of time right only a matter of time, Mike. Only a matter of time. Imagine getting through to customer support. What is your real name? John. No, it's the equivalent of, you know, India's going to be or Indians are going to be calling customer support and getting put through to some Geordie from Newcastle. Yeah. Trying to pretend that they've watched the latest, you know,

Starting point is 00:32:44 Indian TV show the night before. And the Indians will be saying, I can't understand a word they're saying. Did you watch a Bollywood last night? Yeah. My name's Gupta. Exactly. exactly I mean it's but it's

Starting point is 00:33:08 it is funny how it's life is just a cycle at the end of the day it is it is so the new rules India's new rules have been widely

Starting point is 00:33:24 criticised as being impractical and impinging on privacy. And in response to the criticism, the Minister for Information Technology, Rajiv Chandrasekhar, said, if VPN providers don't like the rules, they can leave India. Wow. Basically, he said, get off my my lawn he was basically go back to where you came from that's terrible it's almost more like when a girl dumps you and like

Starting point is 00:33:57 you know girl says oh it's over say well it can't be over because i'm dumping you. Yeah. You can't fire me, I quit. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I think Rajiv Chandrasekhar, I wouldn't be surprised if he's, you know, touted as the Jacob Reek Moose of India or something like that. The Jacob Moog Rees. Yeah, whatever. I always forget his name.

Starting point is 00:34:23 I would not do him the courtesy of actually learning what his proper name is. Honestly, that's fair enough. That is fair enough. Dear me. Michael, well, you know, in a rare moment, I'm going to agree with this. Billy Big Balls. It's good. It absolutely is the right thing to do.

Starting point is 00:34:43 Hopefully it doesn't deny Indians the benefits of the ExpressVPN service as such. But yeah, absolutely, right on. Billy Big Balls of the Week. The Host Unknown Podcast. Orally delivering the warm and fuzzy feeling you get when you pee yourself. We haven't got any more Queen or Jubilee jingles or fanfare music or anything like that because we ran out of time. And talking of time, Andy, what time is it? It is that time of the show where we head over to our news sources over at the infosec pa news

Starting point is 00:35:25 wire who have been very busy bringing us the latest and greatest security news from around the globe industry news third of uk firms have experienced a security breach since 2020 industry news u.s academic credentials displayed in public and dark web forums. Industry news. Airline in Turkey exposes flight and crew info in 6.5 terabyte leak. Industry news. Three BEC suspects arrested in killer bee sting. See what they did there. Industry news. MagnaBur ransomware now targets Windows 11 machines.

Starting point is 00:36:13 Industry news. Eurocops bust $47 million money laundering operation. Industry news. Twice as many healthcare organisations now pay ransom Industry News Europol confirms takedown of SMS-based FluBot spyware Industry News Connecticut becomes fifth US state to enact customer privacy law

Starting point is 00:36:41 Consumer Industry News And that was this week's Enact customer privacy law. Consumer. Industry news. And that was this week's... Industry news. Huge, if true. Huge. Huge. I'm actually trying to figure out who the other three...

Starting point is 00:36:58 I know of the California Consumer Privacy Act. I'm trying to think of the other states in the US. What? Copper? CCPA. consumer privacy act i'm trying to think of the other states in the u.s uh what copper ccpa it's the the california one oh okay because there's two coppers there's copa and coppa one is a um a children's privacy act and there's another one i know i can't remember um but no there's a whole bunch of. Something like two-thirds of states have enacted similar privacy laws. Well, I wouldn't say it's two-thirds if Connecticut becomes a fifth. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:37:36 I thought, no, maybe it's something else I was thinking of. You're thinking about gun laws. Well, yeah, probably. We're allowed to carry automatic... I've been thinking about that a lot recently. Yeah, that would be two-thirds of states. Yeah, that's right. No, there was another act.

Starting point is 00:37:53 Maybe it was... It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. California, Virginia, Colorado. I see. All the hippie states, basically. Yeah. Is there a correlation between legalized marijuana and

Starting point is 00:38:05 privacy of yeah that's right if i smoke this i don't want anybody to know about it well let's let's go and do a spurious correlation yeah oh man i did like the um killer bee sting headline i haven't clicked on it yet but you like what they did with the headline. I like what they did there. I like what they did there. Ransomware targeting Windows 11 machines. Windows 11's been out for months. What have they been doing up till now?

Starting point is 00:38:36 They're still getting so much success with Windows 10 and below. Yeah. And Vista. And XP. My takeaway from this week was if you are targeting ransomware, then go for healthcare companies. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:38:55 Because they seem to be paying, well, paying twice as many as anyone. I reckon they found that it's cheaper to pay the ransom than it is to recover data. Yeah. Because the amount of than it is to recover data. Yeah. Because the amount of time it takes to recover and all that sort of stuff, you know, with reinstalling everything and all that sort of thing,

Starting point is 00:39:16 that takes time and effort, which costs money. So I reckon they've done a cost-benefit analysis and worked out it's cheaper to pay. Yeah. Probably, yeah. And it doesn't come out of the CISO's budget as well yeah it does surely it does no afterwards

Starting point is 00:39:30 when they have to actually install you know actually then create new processes and ways to protect in the future but for now

Starting point is 00:39:40 yeah well whose budget would it come out of like legal corporate slush fund yeah yeah CFO Yeah. Well, whose budget would it come out of? Legal? Corporate slush fund. Yeah. CFO.

Starting point is 00:39:50 It's their headache. Well, it's the workers' bonus fund. Or Christmas party fund. What bonus fund? Andy asks. Yeah, this is the US. Well, you know, know More people have had bonuses If they didn't get hit

Starting point is 00:40:07 By ransomware This is This is like a slow news week Isn't it It is actually Not very interesting at all Well that was This week's

Starting point is 00:40:19 Industry News It doesn't matter If the judges were drinking Host Unknown Was still awarded Europe's most entertaining content status. Three more weeks we have. Three more weeks. We shall milk it. We shall milk it.

Starting point is 00:40:38 We're going to be listening to just those for the next few weeks. Right, let's round us off now. We're into the last few minutes with this week's Tweet of the Week. We always play that one twice. Tweet of the Week. And I shall take us home

Starting point is 00:40:54 with this week's Tweet of the Week from Evie. And they explain the difference between TV hacking and real hacking. So on TV hacking, I just need to get past their firewalls.

Starting point is 00:41:05 Damn, they're using a rotating IP address. I can't decrypt it fast enough. Versus real hacking. Hey, Sharon, this is Jim from IT. We're seeing some weird stuff with your account. Can I get your password to confirm it's you? Quality. So true.

Starting point is 00:41:20 So true. Quality. It's all so glamorous on TV. The two keyboards. Yeah, the two keyboards. Even just the small things, like you go into their data centres and everything's so pristine and no loose cables anywhere and there's no fumbling around.

Starting point is 00:41:41 Something like that? Yeah. No, mine definitely didn't and like you know oh i've got the wrong key for the wrong server cabinet then trod trod trod like half a mile back to the front oh as if you actually lock the gates yeah exactly just rest it on the side don't let anyone know it's not really locked because it's too much hassle to remember the combinations oh dear that's like there's a there's a time i had to go do like one of these hsm key

Starting point is 00:42:16 ceremony things like you know renew like the keys on it i'm being vague because i still don't understand how it actually works but did you actually have to take the keys to a bank vault because i remember having to do that in 2002 so basically they had this segregation of duties principle in place to keep the key super secure so i had half of the key in a sealed envelope and this other guy had uh the other half of the key so we we get to the data center and we sat there all day like in the cold like and he was super prepared he bought a blanket he had snacks he had tea no no and i was there like shivering away like was he just stuffing his face and drinking a thermos of tea in his blanket while looking in the eye while you were just stood there in your in your t-shirt

Starting point is 00:43:05 pretty much pretty much and then we get the call about three hours later from the project say okay you can you can do the keys and what have you so he had the first half so he went up to the keyboard and you know it's all unlocked and ready and he types it in and then it goes your turn and i look at my piece of paper i look at the documentation i just hand in my part of the password you do it my fingers are too cold yeah like yeah that's how we normally do it when you said ceremony i really expected there to be robes and you know like you know fires burning in the corner and stuff like that. That's how it should be done.

Starting point is 00:43:52 It should be with a lot of fanfare. Yeah, absolutely. Excellent. Thank you very much, Andy, as always, for this week's. And that brings us to the end of this special Jubilee edition of the Host of the Known podcast. Jav, thank you very much.

Starting point is 00:44:11 You're welcome, as always. You sound so thrilled to be here every week. I just know what's coming up next is my line's being stolen. That's what's happening. Well, steal it back.

Starting point is 00:44:29 Or start eating Haribo. You know, do something that Andy's shtick, you know? Steal it back. That's like how the Brits responded when India asked for their crown jewels back or something. Like, no, this is ours now. We stole it legally. You do know you've got a British passport, right? That's you in there. That's your heritage in there as well.

Starting point is 00:44:52 That's one thing I'm stealing back, isn't it? Andy, thank you very much. Stay secure, my friend. Stay secure. You've been listening to The Host Unknown Podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, comment and subscribe. If you hated it, please leave your best insults on our Reddit channel. Worst episode ever.

Starting point is 00:45:18 R slash smashing security. So, Jazz just pissed off. Andy doesn't want to be described as poor. Oh no, I don't mind being described as poor. It's the exercise. It's the exercise part. Mandatory exercise, man. That's another level. I don't need this kind of oppression. I'm moving to India.

Starting point is 00:45:47 You know what you need to do, Andy? You need to go and just like rock up at the doorstep of that, the relative or the friends of the relative who's got your stuff and just knock on the door and say, I'm here to pick up my stuff. That's how you handle more issues. So I've already got it now. I did. I rocked up.

Starting point is 00:46:03 Yeah, they weren't there. And I was like, look, I'm here. And she's like, OK, I'll be back in 20 minutes. So what was on the T-shirt? Oh, nothing. Just plain T-shirts. Bright African colours. Nice plain T-shirts.

Starting point is 00:46:20 Primark logo on the inside. Well, that's the irony, right? You get stuff over here in Primark and it says, well that's the irony right you get stuff over here in Primark and it says like Made in Mauritius yeah

The Host Unknown Podcast - Episode 106 - God Its Early

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