The Host Unknown Podcast - Episode 139 - No Burt Bacharach Wrote The Tunes

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

This week in InfoSec (09:53)With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield10th February 199Deep Blue Defeats KasparovIn the first game of a six game match, IBM's Deep Blue chess computer defeated world champion Garry Kasparov. No computer had ever won a game against a world champion in chess. Kasparov would eventually win the series 4-2, but would lose to Deep Blue in a re-match a year later.7th February 2000Dennis Michael Moran (aka Coolio) performed a smurf attack against Yahoo's routers, causing its websites to be inaccessible for hours. Conversations on an IRC channel led to him being identified and convicted for a series of DDoS and website defacement crimes. Rant of the Week (16:34)Want to delete your Twitter DMs? Good luck with thatPeople make requests to delete their private messages, but Twitter ignores them.Twitter’s direct messages have always been a security liability. The DMs you send to friends and Internet strangers aren’t end-to-end encrypted, making your conversations potentially accessible if Twitter suffers a data breach, or to company staffers with the right permissions to access them. Both scenarios are arguably more likely in Elon Musk’s version of Twitter, where key security and data protection staff have departed.Since Musk acquired Twitter and started laying off thousands of employees at the start of November, remodelling the firm in his vision, multiple waves of tweeters have abandoned the platform. When they do, they often try to download their Twitter archive and delete DMs. In the chaos, the process has often been glitchy.However, in Europe, people have turned to the continent’s GDPR data laws, which give people rights over how their information is collected, stored, and used. This includes the right to have data deleted. However, Twitter’s response to these requests, which have been seen by Wired, appears to show the platform ignoring detailed asks to delete DMs and just point people to generic guidance that doesn’t explain whether Twitter deletes your DMs from its servers. And now Europe’s data regulators are getting involved.ADDITIONAL RANT:Twitter redefines what makes a tweet with supersized 4,000-character limitFollowing up after launching Twitter Blue in three more countries this morning, the platform has made a big change to tweets this afternoon. The new max for Twitter Blue subscribers in the US has been supersized all the way up to 4,000 characters.Twitter announced the launch of the new character max through both its main account and Twitter Blue profile. The latter shared this:“need more than 280 characters to express yourself?we know that lots of you do… and while we love a good thread, sometimes you just want to Tweet everything all at once. we get that.so we’re introducing longer Tweets! you’re gonna want to check this out. tap this ”Who can write 4,000-character tweets?While access to writing 4,000 character tweets is limited to Twitter Blue subscribers in the US at launch, anyone can read them.Fortunately, the 280-character limit will still apply when viewing tweets in your timeline, you’ll have to tap a show more link on ones that make use of the new long-form option to read the whole tweet. Billy Big Balls of the Week (27:32)In Paris demo, Google scrambles to counter ChatGPT but ends up embarrassing itselfOn Wednesday, Google held a highly anticipated press conference from Paris that did not deliver the decisive move against ChatGPT and the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership that many pundits expected. Instead, Google ran through a collection of previously announced technologies in a low-key presentation that included losing a demonstration phone.The demo, which included references to many products that are still unavailable, occurred just hours after someone noticed that Google's advertisement for its newly announced Bard large language model contained an error about the James Webb Space Telescope. After Reuters reported the error, Forbes noticed that Google's stock price declined nearly 7 percent, taking about $100 billion in value with it.Alphabet shares dive after Google AI chatbot Bard flubs answer in adLONDON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) lost $100 billion in market value on Wednesday after its new chatbot shared inaccurate information in a promotional video and a company event failed to dazzle, feeding worries that the Google parent is losing ground to rival Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O).Alphabet shares slid as much as 9% during regular trading with volumes nearly three times the 50-day moving average. They pared losses after hours and were roughly flat. The stock had lost 40% of its value last year but rallied 15% since the beginning of this year, excluding Wednesday's losses. Industry News (34:20)Stalkerware Developer Hit with $400K FineDrugs Labs Busted After Encrypted Chat App TakedownUK Metal Engineering Firm Vesuvius Hit by Cyber-AttackCyber Insurance, A Must-Have for Small BusinessesRegulator Halts AI Chatbot Over GDPR ConcernsUK Politician's Email Hacked by Suspected Russian Threat ActorsNew Info-Stealer Discovered as Russia Prepares Fresh OffensiveTrio Arrested in COVID PPE Fraud ProbeUS and UK Sanction Seven Russian Cyber-Criminals Tweet of the Week (41:08)https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1623867611674202112 Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

It's less natural, I suppose. So when you say stiffness, what do you mean, Jav? Oh, steady on, steady on. Let's not start the day like that. I thought it was the way all men started. You're listening to the Host Unknown Podcast. Hello, hello, hello. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening Welcome from wherever you are joining us Welcome one and all to the Host Unknown Podcast episode 139

143 God, come on, you were a bit slow there this morning, Andy Anyway, yes, welcome I'm feeling really sluggish today, I'll be honest Well, you have been coughing and hawking all morning I know, I did try and insult you before the show started And I couldn't think of what I was going to say And I just sort of choked whilst trying to think of something

I think you even felt sorry for me as I was trying to get it out I know, I know Do you know what, this is going to be a very short show if neither of you are able to insult me. It's always a short show. We can insult you. We can always insult you. It's whether we're creative in insulting you. That's the thing.

Creative. Basically, it's old. And that's it. There's nothing else to it. That's all there is. That's all you've got on me. Your birth certificate is written in Aramaic. See?

See? In stone. I know. I know. No, you're old. You're a fanboy of Apple. That's not an insult listens your mother listens to the show so we have to be careful as to what we can actually divulge still not an insult

anyway dear listeners we hope you are well it's a bit of a chilly week isn't it it's been a bit bit bit parky a bit frosty in the mornings. And I think the net result of that is... Is there a more British way you could open this thing? Oh, hello. Hello, listeners. Hello. The weather's been a bit down, hasn't it? Yes, yes.

It's been a bit of a chill in the air. Better wrap up. So three British middle-aged men on a British podcast. Two? Okay, right. Steady on, right. There's like one old, one middle-aged, one young.

No. You can't band us all together. Mental age doesn't count. Mental age doesn't count. We know you're middle-aged, Andy, because you're in the middle of a fad diet. What fad diet?

There's no fads going on. No on no no there is no fad about it see if he was in the middle of a fad diet i would say he could quit tomorrow and like bounce back within a month or so back to his former weight that is not happening i've got to say it like we need to get pictures of the pictures andy sent yesterday we need to put them in the show notes because if you see his transformation i'll put them in the tweet i'll put them in the tweet unbelievable yeah it is it's amazing what a photo shop can do isn't it it's a positive glow up i have to say i felt moist at the look at the sight of the second picture i have to say it was he's hot ladies any ladies out there andy i've always been hot i've always been hot

you just always been hot you hid it under layers of fat no so i was kidnapped resistant i have to say i i'll disagree with you, surprisingly, Tom. Because I think even before Andy lost the weight, he was actually cuter. He had this panda look about him that made him really... As opposed to the gaunt, hungry look he's got about him at the moment. Yes, as opposed to the machinist look he's going for these days. Yeah.

Christian Bale-esque. He's going to start shouting at us now about being in his eyeline on the podcast. Oh, dear. Anyway, Geoff, how have you been this cold and chilly week? Ah, my mortality has been catching up with me. I went to see the doctor last night. And, yeah, things are not looking good, actually. Oh, God.

Diabetic levels, borderline, like, you know, really just like, this is the last chance I'm giving you, Mr Malik. Sort yourself out or we're going to put you on pills for diabetes, for blood pressure for this for that and I'm like okay whatever so so listeners if you'd like to apply for the role as you know host unknown whipping boy uh then please do we're going to have an opening quite soon apparently yes see we're very I used to go to the doctor trying to get pills and they'll be like look there's nothing wrong with you we're not prescribing you these antidepressants you're

not getting this viagra you're not getting this stuff yeah yeah yeah and then you hit middle age and they're like would you like some depressants and viagra for that no now andy just like gets all this stuff from some dodgy guy on whatsapp allegedly hey who knows who knows if it's a guy it could be a woman for all i know yeah absolutely his profile pictures of a stock image of a woman so yeah andy what about you stock images yeah uh yeah nothing uh nothing going on uh here i think you know as everyone i am feeling a bit under the weather this week and whatever lurgy which is strange because i you know i'm quite unsociable when i go to london i wear a mask on the train i

don't speak to people i um you know make sure i've got a lot of space. I don't know where I've picked it up from, but I have been, what's it say, bringing up some, yeah, some disgusting green stuff. Pavement oysters, I think you called them before. I did call them pavement oysters, yes. I was trying to be polite for the show. It's a lovely image. You're trying to be polite about hawking stuff out of your lungs and thought the pavement oysters would be too what crass exactly yeah it's uh yeah so well yeah full of pavement

oysters is what i'll say so uh yeah i'll move swiftly on tom how's it i know you went to a gig you're like we're trying to say that you know you're you are the oldest person by you know some distance let's be fair you're the one that's going out to all these gigs on school nights and uh yeah socializing with the answers well i mean i was i was out at a party uh last weekend i did i didn't get into bed until four four o'clock on sunday morning um and uh oh let's see tuesday night i was out for dinner with uh some work colleagues that was very nice i was hosting that wednesday night i was hosting an event for the company uh in moorgate was able to get some public speaking in had an absolute blast with that and then yes last

night the islington scholar went to see squid and it was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I was supposed to take my son with me, but he's in the middle of a major project at university. So he was on film set all week and unable to attend, which was a shame. So I got the T-shirt, I got the single, and it was, well, Squid, they're a Bristol band with strong links to Chippenham, which has got to be a good

never heard him i had to google it last night you did didn't you you didn't but the clue never heard of the the clue from the guy in the uh in the in the audience wearing the squid hat right actually i didn't even get that i had to go back scroll back up to uh scala uh and then look up playing that night at scala figure out where youala and then look up who was playing that night at Scala. Figure out where you were and then see who was playing that night. And I was surprised that that was sold out. So Scala must be a really small venue.

It is quite a small, it's not a massive venue, but that's, you know, and they're not a massive band either, but they're, you know, Radio 6 famous and they've been touring. I missed them touring last year. I saw them the year before. They were the first gig I saw out of lockdown. And it was, it was, that was restricted seating as well. You had to sort of,

your little groups were sat almost like cabaret style away from each other. And in a tiny venue, in fact fact it was a pub venue uh where one of the um one of the band members uh dad used to drink at which is why they played there uh but that was really well attended they did two two gigs in a row that night uh you know you're dealing with locals local yeah well i mean they're a lot bigger now trust And, you know, they'll be all over the place. They'll be all over. You probably heard tracks by them and just didn't realise it was them. So it was brilliant.

It was brilliant. So talking of damp squibs, shall we see what we've got coming up for you today? This week in InfoSec talks about AI bettering the best of us. Rant of the week reminds European citizens why they should be grateful for GDPR. Billy Big Balls is a bit of healthy competition. Industry News brings us latest and greatest security news stories from around the world. And tweet of the week is China being effective. Okay, let's move on 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 take a stroll down InfoSec memory lane with content liberated from the Today in InfoSec Twitter account and further afield. And our first story shall take us back a mere 27 years ago to the year I was born on 10th February 1996 when Deep Blue defeated Kasparov. So this is the story that in the first game of a six-game match,

IBM's Deep Blue chess computer defeated world champion Gary Kasparov. No computer had ever won a game against a world champion in chess. So Kasparov would eventually win the Series 4-2, but would lose to Deep Blue in a rematch a year later. So all this recent talk of AI and chat GPT and replacing people, it's been happening for a long time. AI has been smarter than us for a long time.

We're just continuing to teach it to be smarter than us. And it's only going to end badly. So isn't it funny how IBM has been in this space for longer than anyone? Where's their market share? Yeah. They realize they're making too much money producing like, you know, big bulky servers are overheated. So I think, you know, they use their AI stuff for, what was that old, what was their stuff?

The X series, was it they did? Where, you know, it knew when it was going to have a drive failure. So it would automatically order a new part and you had to trust that it wasn't just screwing you. And it was actually, it generally was having a drive failure a drive failure and you know the part would arrive before it actually failed is that like the hp thing where it delivers ink before you run out yeah exactly and it's like you know you're getting screwed on this you're just not entirely sure um yeah how they can justify it. And you can't risk ignoring it either.

Exactly. Otherwise you can't print your homework the next day. Oh no, that's HP again, sorry. But alas... I did hear about the IBM thing. Actually, one of the reasons why

Kasparov did lose, in fact he even lost a couple of matches initially but why he lost it ultimately don't say something about something vibrating no a bit of social engineering oh a little bit of social engineering in the sense

that what the IBM engineers did was introduce random pauses before the deep blue made its move. And that random pause indicated it was thinking and acting like a human. Brilliant. Whereas actually it had made its move to human purposes instantaneously. So I thought that was absolutely fascinating.

In fact, I think that's a Graham Cluley tidbit. Oh, no, but it's like, what is that? It's like, I saw this character on a show. They were gambling, playing poker, and they were explaining to their prodigge that you don't play your hand, you play the man across the table. And it's, you know, like a lot of these things, it is a lot of psychological warfare at play there,

so more than the actual moves. So I thought that's a really interesting tidbit. So, you know, Graham Culey, like a broken clock, is correct at least twice a day. But that's why when you see, you know, international chess games and you get these grandmasters who are white and so they're supposed to, as in they play with the white pieces, they're supposed to go first.

And the clock starts. And they don't even turn up for the first 10 minutes do you know what i mean they just leave their opponent there uh just just even though that their own clock is ticking down because it's it's a psychological you know uh advantage that's a billy big balls move that is that is but alas i shall move us on to take us back a mere 23 years to around about the time of my seventh birthday, the 7th of February, the year 2000, when Dennis Michael Moran, a.k.a. Coolio,

performed a smurf attack against Yahoo's routers, causing its website to be inaccessible for hours. And Yahoo was one of the big sites back in the year 2000 you know one of the big four and conversations on an irc channel led to him being identified and convicted for a series of ddos and website defacement crimes and just a little fun fact to go with that is that yahoo network engineer at the time, Jan B. Coombe, stated that the attackers were above your average script kiddie and knew about our topology and planned this large-scale attack in advance. And Jan Coombe is the billionaire co-founder of WhatsApp.

Really? So, you know, those sort of random IT guys that support the network, they're the next billionaires. They've all got ideas. Don't dismiss them. They do. They do. So did Coolio just like, you know, say, see you when you get there?

Boom. He hit them high. Yeah. He actually died of a drug overdose in April april 2013 oh well that's a downer there's no gangsters in paradise no no not getting it is that a burt backwrack uh it's not he died recently yeah this week uh no but that is A true story Dennis Michael Moran

Did actually die April 14th 2013 Well he's rolling With his homies now Yeah Drug overdose Thank you Andy This week

In InfoServe. You're listening to the award-winning Host Unknown podcast. Like a real security podcast, but lighter. Right, let's get ranty. Listen up! Rant of the week. It's time for MotherF***ing Rage!

Well, what is a week if it isn't a week with something about Twitter in it? So, as we all know, as good European citizens, well, at least we were. Up until recently, we were. But as good European citizens, we always knew that the GDPR Act gave us the ability to be digitally forgotten. We could contact companies and we could say, delete all our data. We don't want to be known by you anymore. You're going to have to start from scratch if you want to know anything about us.

Not just the ability, the legal right. The legal, you're absolutely right. You're not just right, you're technically right. And that's the best type of right. Best type of right. The legal, you're absolutely right. You're not just right, you're technically right, and that's the best type of right. Best type of right. Best type. So as a European citizen, in fact, generally, and in many, many countries around the world,

this is an accepted right that you can ask to be forgotten. You can ask to have your data deleted. Well, let's think about Twitter. So Twitter's direct messaging capability is always a little bit contentious. It allows for private messages to be sent, you know, outside of the public Twitter stream between two people. It's been a little bit of a security liability. The direct messages you send to your

friends and internet strangers are not end-to-end encrypted, which means that those conversations are potentially accessible. So either by a data breach at Twitter's end or company staff can access it either legitimately, possibly, or maliciously. So not a great thing overall, not a great way to conduct anything that you don't wish to be discovered. Really not a massive problem up until round about the time mr musk bought twitter fired half the staff realized that the half of the staff he fired were probably still needed but it was too late and decided to just dig in and continue to uh try and get stuff done even though nobody knew what the hell's going on and everybody even up until this week is still describing twitter as being just a dumpster fire moving from one dumpster fire to another dumpster fire so uh not great not

great you know key security and data protection staff have departed but with all of this laying off now um bottom line is when you are asking to have your data deleted twitter aren't doing it twitter um twitter's response to these requests which have been seen by the journalists at wired uh are basically ignoring regularly continually ignoring detailed requests to delete dms and just point people to to generic guidance that doesn't explain whether twitter deletes your data or not uh so finally let's ignore it and hope they go away yeah yeah exactly exactly and you know and thankfully europe's data regulators are getting involved i'm sure our ICO is gearing up to savage them like a dead sheep as well. But it remains been established for a number of years it's not like this is a new thing well established legal frameworks that require companies to behave

in a certain way just being ignored you know through the cult of musk as a result of it and i and i've been reading it elsewhere as well that uh twitter's um in europe submitting regulatory paperwork, its submissions are utterly incomplete because they simply don't have the correct staff on board to fulfill the stuff because they've been deleted. So, well, this is, as I keep saying, the beginning of the end of Twitter. I think they've lost nearly 10% of users overall, globally, since Musk took over.

And as we were talking about just before the show, people who point out to Musk that he's not as popular as he used to be just get fired on the spot. Quite literally, it happened recently. Musk's Google engagement score went from 100 last year, which is the highest it could be, to nine, at which point Musk just said, you're fired. Utterly bizarre. Gotta love the American employment laws and protections that people have. And I think it's in quite a telling move.

As we know, many, many Twitter users, including all three of us, have created accounts on Mastodon, which has a very high character limit. I think it's a 4,000 character limit. Well, now Twitter are saying we're going beyond the traditional 240 character limit. I mean, it was a big step when they went from uh what i sorry no 280 they went from 140 to 280 that was a big deal right now they are also moving to 4 000 characters but only only if you pay for a blitter a twitter uh blue check I mean, what kind of fool is going to be taken in by this and decide that they want to buy a blue Twitter checkmark just so they can listen to the sound of their own voice? I don't get it in the slightest.

You basically want to publish a blog on a site that got famous for restricting characters to... Yeah, that's right. We're going to copy this tiny little Mastodon instance and go to 4,000 characters, and you're going to pay us. You're going to pay us with your hard-earned money just for that privilege, just so you can expand your ego even further.

Like I say, some kind of... you are such a hypocrite tom honestly but go on really have i bought i don't believe i've bought twitter blue have i no no but we've spoken about this in the past many times and have we it might have been in your mind yeah yeah no no i know you dream about me a lot, so maybe it was there. When we have spoken about platforms like Facebook and Twitter and whatever other social media platforms there are, we often said, like, you know, you are the data, you are the product, so wouldn't it be nice if there was a monthly subscription

and then you weren't the product? Yeah. think it'd be nice if there was a monthly subscription and then you weren't the product yeah so you know and and you know i think what you're really mixing up here is twitter the platform and elon musk the person and you're allowing your hatred of musk to cloud your judgment over what they're trying to do i mean twitter laid a thousand employees and you're saying and rightly so you're saying saying that's a shit move. But so is Microsoft. So is Salesforce. So is Google. And all of them people, what, get a free pass because they laid them off in a

quote-unquote recession or something. But we're not talking about them. I think it's the way they got laid off that's the issue. And also, we're not talking about them. And also, your data is still being subjected to exactly the same process it was before. You're not getting anything better or different than anybody else.

The man is making changes to the platform. He said, I'm going to buy it and fix it. I've just worked it out. He said, I'm going to buy it and sort it out. I just understand. You bought a twitter check mark didn't you jav i didn't buy it now it makes sense now i bought twitter blue jav is trying to trying to justify and trying to you know now he has to explain why he's firing chaff and flares left and right trying to avoid this.

You know, that sound you're hearing is, you know, the homing in of the fact onto his tailpipe at the moment. He signed the NDA saying that, you know, he would offend Twitter's right to sell data

and charge a blue tick bucks. You become part of the cult in exchange for being able to publish 4,000 characters. If you piece together... Not deleting off DMs is a bug at the moment. It's an issue. It's a bug!

It's a legal failing. It's not a bug. It's a legal failing. I mean, Twitter was never a bastion of good code and production and everything prior to Mustang. Oh, so they get a pass. So we can't make up that this is all Elon Musk's fault. Okay, so it's badly coded, so it's okay.

It's not okay, but there are changes and improvements being made. And I think if you look at the big picture, I'm confident it'll become a really good platform they've started talks about ad revenue sharing with creators your your ten dollars a month is gonna turn them around you know you're joining the likes of i don't know trump and all that lot oh it's brilliant i think we see oh wow so i buy service. I subscribe to a service that Trump subscribes to. So all of a sudden me and Trump are the same. That's like saying you breathe oxygen, so does Boris Johnson. Therefore, you've turned just into Boris Johnson. You know, what can I say? He's a hero of his.

You wear bad suits and, you know. The suits are good, they just fit badly on my body. There's a difference. The best part about this is I also get to do this part. Rant of the Week. When listeners leave the Host Unknown podcast in favor of another security podcast

they raise the average iq of both audiences you're in good company with the award-winning host unknown podcast right we're gonna move on to uh the billy big balls with jav and i'm gonna say you know i'm gonna take the higher idea i'm not going to attack Jav just for the sake of it. You know, if he wants to defend someone, that's absolutely fine. Big balls are the least. One day I could be defending you, Tom. Just remember that. Oh, God, help me.

oh god help me on wednesday google held a highly anticipated press conference from paris that did not deliver the decisive move against chat gpt that um you know that the microsoft ai partnership that many pundits expected, it was pretty much a car crash. They ran through a collection of previously announced technologies in a low-key presentation that included losing a demonstration phone. The demo referenced many products that are still unavailable because i remember do you remember like a couple of years ago google had this demo where they had this ai making a phone call and booking an appointment for you and it sounded like a genuine oh yes if you look it up google done this it's like so they said like hey google um you know book a hair point a

hairdresser's appointment and then it they put them on speakerphone and it was like a it sounded like a human complete with pauses and arms and spoke to the human at the other end didn't it that's right and it said yeah and it is but yeah has anything come of that since? No. Anyway, this demo, which referenced many products that are still unavailable, occurred just hours after someone noticed that Google's ad for its newly announced barred large language model, what a stupid name, contained an error about the James Webb Space Telescope. So bear in mind, this is an ad that is pre-recorded. This isn't talking about a live demo.

This is an ad that they pre-recorded and they pushed out without anyone noticing that there was an error. All they had to do was Google it. Oh, the irony is just... There's got gotta be someone sitting there just going ironic yes yeah forbes noticed this and they published it and as a result google stock price declined nearly seven percent now for those of you thinking ah seven percent that's about a hundred billion dollars in value that is huge bit of chunk change um and that's not the billy big balls the billy

big balls is uh microsoft satya nadela uh who came out not to i suppose kick a person when they're down but um did you know that satya nadela had that dog in him he said this new being will make google come out and dance and i want people to know that we made them dance i suppose that's him tapping into some bollywood uh routines right there that's a badass thing to say isn't it that is that is brilliant but uh i think it's just such a such an incredible like obviously it's a bold bold statement from microsoft i mean considering the number of missteps they've had over the years but google is seems really really panicked at the moment and we were talking they're on the ropes on the ropes it's probably the wrong thing to say but

they're what have they come up with recently yes yeah what they come up with what's their big innovation what's their big thing that's come out recently that they've come you know first to the table with or like that AI assistant promised, but in that case not delivered on, they don't have much. I think Microsoft have products. They have a product to sell, and physical products as well as software products,

whereas Google has ad revenue. And if that ad revenue just dries up, they're gone. If Microsoft lose the search war, no big deal, a bit of a black eye, nothing else. If Google lose that or if the market loses confidence in Google and the ad revenue drives up, it doesn't matter how good their search engine is, they're just not going to make any money.

Yeah, yeah. No, that's exactly it. I think this is a real big, big shift. And I think Google have relied so heavily on their ad revenue. I mean, they've got Google Cloud and everything like that. Yeah, you're right. Ad revenue is such a big, big part of what they do. It's like 90% of their revenue, isn't it?

Something like that. It's a huge amount. So even if they lose... So the thing is, if Microsoft, quote-unquote, failed to take market share from Google, no one will really notice. I think that's the thing. It's not a big thing.

But even if Google lose 5% of market share, only 5% or something, to Microsoft, that will send a real, real big message to the markets. And I think that could be really impactful detrimental towards google so um yeah i'm glad we are sitting on the sidelines with popcorn we are and and in total agreement i think on this as well of course you know but i i think what's really interesting is that what was what what did the Google stocks go down by 7%, something like that,

which is, which is a huge amount. But when Twitter lose what 9% of their users, you think that's not enough. That's not many, not much at all. Interesting. Anyway.

Billy big balls of the Week. This is the podcast the King listens to, although he won't admit it. Is it me or am I on fire this week? Anyway, shall we see what... Go and see a doctor. Yeah, only when you pee, yeah? Hanging around all those young people in crowds at concerts and random...

Oh, I know. I'd say they were rubbing off on me, but you'd only take that in the wrong direction. It's just nice not to be attacked by Jav, just, you know, and not have anything to come back with. Anyway, 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 Newswire,

who have been very busy bringing us the latest and greatest security news from around the globe. Industry news. Industry News Stalkerware developer hit with $400,000 fine Industry News Drugs labs busted after encrypted chat app takedown Industry News UK metal engineering firm Vesuvius

Vesuvius Vesuvius hit my cyber attack. I'll take that out in the edit, don't worry. Industry news. Cyber insurance, a must have for small businesses. Industry news. Regulator halts AI

chatbot over GDPR concerns. Industry news. UK politicians email hacked by suspected Russian threat actors. Industry news. New info-stealer discovered as Russia prepares for fresh offensive. Industry news. Trio arrested in COVID PPE fraud probe. Industry news.

US and UK sanctioned seven Russian cyber criminals. Industry news. And that was this week's... Industry news. Huge if true. Huge, huge if true. Huge. Absolutely.

I've got to say, that is the coolest name for a metal engineering firm. Vesuvius. Vesuvius. Vesuvius. So, you know the drug slab busted after encrypted chat app takedown? Just shows how end-to-end encryption is overrated, and they could have used twitter and be safer only because twitter wouldn't be able to respond to a search request in time

nothing's doing security it's the fact they've got no one that knows how to we know the info's there we just don't know how to serve it yeah exactly select all from staff yeah um so i'm looking at this story about the stalkerware developer hit with four hundred thousand dollar fine uh it's actually a consortium of 16 companies owned by one person and he produced various snooping apps like auto forward easy spy ddi utilities heister mobile phone specter shore point and turbo spy and i'm pretty sure that when you google these you see lots of comparison sites saying you know which one's better than the other but obviously it's all owned by the same person so he doesn't care which one you buy he still gets money for it it's all the same engine underneath

with a different colour scheme and UI yeah these are the apps that enabled people to secretly monitor activities and other devices call logs, text messages, photos location and obviously his defence

was obviously it required people to agree to install it. Oh! Really? That old classic. Yeah. Right, which politician's email was hacked? I'm

actually going to click on a link here. I think it was a Scottish politician. Oh yes! I'm actually going to click on a link here. I think it was a Scottish politician. Oh, yes. Stuart MacDonald. Well, it couldn't be anything other than a Scottish. Yeah. Scottish National Party. Apparently he received an email from a colleague.

So they spoofed one of his colleagues' email addresses and said, oh, here's a document you requested on Ukraine or something, because he was, you know, asking about the military situation in Ukraine. So he clicked on the Word document. It took him to a website. It says, oh, enter your credentials here. He entered his credentials and then he was presented with a blank page. So he thought, oh, next time I see my colleague, I'll ask him.

So a few days later, he went and asked his colleague. He's like, I did not. I can't even remember sending you a document mate and uh uh yeah so that's how they found out that his uh email has been compromised so two fa folks security awareness training you know i mean it could have been defense if it was some notification some notification... Some notification on new logons from unknown devices or locations. If it was Nadine Dorries, all they'd have to do is just ask her for a password and she would have just shouted into the office, what's my password?

And it would have been really easy. Although she's leaving politics. She's standing down as an MP. Thankfully. No one's going to miss it. They never leave politics, though, isn't it? She's probably going to go, like, be a presenter. She's going to go on I'm a celeb,

get me out of here or something. Like that other unpleasant man who was on there recently. Not that I know because i never watched it so more sanctions of more russian cyber criminals that's what we like to hear this reminds me from uh from that scene from team america world police where hans blix goes to to korea and he's like you know you will show i'm from the un and you know you will show us your your your nuclear weapons he goes what if i refuse he goes

then we will go back and send you a sternly worded letter about how you you have not allowed us access and this is it like oh wow you sanctioned some cyber criminals in Russia. Well, good luck. I guess the point is that they would find it harder to move money around, isn't that? You know, they're sort of closing down. So they've had their US and UK assets frozen and they're banned from travelling to those two countries. But yeah, these are the people that ran the Trickbot malware gang

Coordinated action between the FBI and Europol Very good Right well I think we've thrashed everything

of any interest in all of that that was this week's... Industry News. This is the EasyJet of security podcasts. Let's be honest, your cheap ass couldn't tell the difference between us and a premium security podcast anyway. Right, Andy.

Let's take us home, shall we? Tweet of the week. We always play that one twice. Tweet of the week. And this week's tweet is from Carl Czar. It is a tweet and it has the Chinese... Is he a Prime Minister?

I thought he was Winnie the Pooh. Yeah. I don't know whatnie the Pooh. Yeah. No, I don't know what his position is. Supreme leader. Supreme leader of China, of the Democratic People's Republic of China. And it's a picture of him and it's a meme. And it says,

China starting to worry TikTok has made Americans even dumber than they intended. Is it a meme or is it a headline? I mean, it's hard to tell. Well, to be honest, it is hard to tell because it's an image. Yeah, so it could. I mean, yeah, even they couldn't have predicted some of this. And the words themselves are actually very true.

So, I mean. It's really funny. On that thread, I think kim.com has tweeted something saying us facing massive shortage of conspiracy theories of all of them have come true yeah i bet i bet you two are pleased that you know tiktok is making the americans dumber than they intended because uh at least there's brit intended because at least there's British people using TikTok. That would never

happen to you two. Judging on the time stamps that you send out some of these TikToks. Do you know what? I mean, some of these you don't see the half of it. Me and Jav have a whole message thread that goes on. You've got a message thread without me? On TikTok.

Yeah, through TikTok. Oh, okay. That's all right then. Yeah. So it's much quicker to just send. No, we send it. No, that's a separate WhatsApp group we've got. That's when we're actually slagging you off.

But this one is like just where we're sharing TikToks and talking about wrestling and stuff. Why do you need a separate WhatsApp group to slag me off when you do it anyway? Oh, because we have to, like the stuff that we say to you, we actually pre-prepare and we say, no, that's not cutting it off. Ah, right.

You know, it needs to zing a bit more. Do you know what? That makes me feel a lot better. I feel like I'm getting quality slagging off in that case. Yeah, it's not. That does make me feel a lot better. I feel like I'm getting quality slagging off in that case. Yeah, it's not. That does make me feel better. It really makes me feel like you care.

We actually care about this. Yeah, exactly. You care. We really want to insult you. We don't want to just, you know. I'm really quite touched. Oh, dear. Perhaps I'll have to take down those posts about you two now

anyway that was this week's sweet of the week and we are here at the end of the show already well gentlemen thank you so much for this week it's been uh been another good one i think i think our our listenership will agree won't you please contact us let us know how much you agree like and subscribe uh leave us a comment we could do with some more comments i think some more uh positive feedback you know i think our our key sponsors need to know how much you love us all. But do, do. So, Jav, thank you very much for your time today. Yeah. Well, I learned one thing today about the power move that the chess player,

you said, like you turn up late. Yeah, that's going to be me next week. I think most chess players have learned that power move from you generally. Anyway, Andy, thank you, sir. Stay secure, my friends. 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. The worst episode ever. R slash Smashing Security. Yeah, so I might not be able to make next week's show. What? Why not? Oh, it's half term, isn't it? Yeah.

Just no commitment to the cause anymore. I feel like you're waning, Jeff. Still, at least listenership will go up? Yeah. Just no commitment to the cause anymore. I feel like you're waning, Jev. Still, at least listenership will go up. Yeah. If you actually

take off the saying that Jev can't make next week's show, put that at the very beginning of the podcast because then, you know, as soon as people

start listening, they'll be like, okay, cool, we don't need to, you know, we can tune in next week. We don't need to finish

this episode. We'll just can tune in next week we don't need to finish this episode the power of editing quote-unquote editing I could leave you to do the editing it just ends up a little bit