The Host Unknown Podcast - Episode 53 - The Non Fungible Podcast

Episode Date: April 30, 2021

https://cumrocketcrypto.com/This week in Infosec takes us back to a time Microsoft devalued a company, before buying it and another case of something being referred to as electronic graffiti.Rant of the week is about this one time, at basecampIndustry News brings us the latest and greatest infosec news from around the globeBilly Big Balls talks about Apple’s app transparencyTweet of the week tells us why the CEO of a $2bn Bay Area tech biz was fired (the real reason may SHOCK you)It’s hard being overlooked all the time and that is all we have to say on the topic of Little People this week. This week in InfosecLiberated from the “today in infosec” Twitter account:23rd April 2008: Microsoft announced that some of its antivirus tools had mislabeled Skype as adware for several days due to a bad definition update. 3 years later Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion. https://www.computerworld.com/article/2787019/microsoft-mislabels-skype-as-adware.htmlhttps://www.theregister.com/2010/04/21/mcafee_false_positive/https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/125355864253771366427th April 1986: In protest of rates for satellite dish owners, Captain Midnight jammed HBO's satellite signal for 4 minutes.Why did he do it? To raise awareness about unfair pricing and restrictive trade practices.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Midnight_broadcast_signal_intrusionhttps://youtu.be/gtdwD0qqApQhttps://ultimateclassicrock.com/captain-midnight-hbo/  https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1254799686906425346 Rant of the Week1. No more societal and political discussions on our company Basecamp account. 2. No more paternalistic benefits.3. No more committees.4. No more lingering or dwelling on past decisions.5. No more 360 reviews. 6. No forgetting what we do here. https://world.hey.com/jason/changes-at-basecamp-7f32afc5Wider fallout:https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1387195551205105666https://twitter.com/jonasdowney/status/1386792772334768130https://twitter.com/fox/status/1386836877857099777 Billy Big Balls of the WeekApple’s AppTrackingTransparency for iOS 14.5 is finally out. Here’s what it means for your privacy.https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/04/apples-apptrackingtransparency-upending-mobile-phone-tracking Industry NewsLockdown Hotel Bookings at Risk Due to DMARC FailLast Chance for Forensics Teams Ahead of Emotet Sunday DeadlineSpace Command to Launch Dedicated Cyber CenterNintendo Sues BowserThreat Actors Impersonate Chase BankREvil Removes Apple Extortion Attempt from Site: Report#COVID19 Rattles Banks and Insurers as Security Budgets Are SlashedEmotet Group Harvested Over 4.3 Million Victim EmailsUS Arrests Alleged Crypto Mixer The Cellebrite Physical Analyzer – the most intrusive phone-cracking tool offered by the company – no longer supports the direct extraction of iPhone datahttps://9to5mac.com/2021/04/27/cellebrite-physical-analyzer-iphone/ Tweet of the Week https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1387046218602225667https://www.bloomberg.com/technology?sref=yYYRek8e https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/29/arts/disaster-girl-meme-nft.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

So do you actually understand NFTs? So non-fungible tokens. So the way it was described to me was that if you don't understand the description of it, then you've understood it. So for us, I think what it means is if the three of us all said, all wrote down on a piece of paper, you are the sole founder of Host Unknown and passed it to the person to our left. Then that person then put that piece of paper, I don't know, hid it away in a WhatsApp chat or something like that. Then we could all claim to be sole founders, but could only validate it because someone who wasn't the sole founder told, uh,

validated that the other person was the sole founder, but nobody can find that piece of paper because it's been hidden somewhere. Make sense? No. I think it was much. 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 53 of the Non-Fungible Podcast. Welcome. Hello, Jav. How are you?

Good, thanks. I'm good. We've officially changed the name of the podcast. Absolutely. Well, nobody understood it before anyway, so why... We're jumping on this bandwagon. Let's ride it to success. Yeah. You could sponsor this podcast for like $20 billion. Yeah, absolutely. Just give us a receipt for like $20 billion. Yeah, absolutely. Just give us a receipt for it and hide it in a broom cupboard. Something like that, anyway. I mean, it's all crypto, isn't it?

I mean, literally, seriously, I've read the description and I still don't get it. I still don't get it. I really don't. Well, that's pretty much you with most technologies, though, isn't it, Tom? Well, this is true. This is true. So, Andy, what about you? You all right? Yeah, I've actually gone a step further than you.

So not only do I not understand NFTs, I've actually just put my money where my mouth is and decided to invest in. Just read about whole things. I am riding the cum rocket to the moon. Yeah, I thought you only did that at weekends what what's what's there is a crypto coin called cum rocket or they're known as cummies um and it is going to be designed for the adult industry um and it's competing with the likes of lonely fans uh which is another which is another coin uh so they're looking to become the default currency

for uh you know all these sort of adult websites and stuff like that and there's quite a few people from only fans models that have already signed up to support it and it's i mean i could try and tell you i understand it i really don't you know i registered an account with binance and i had to trade money on something called pancake swap to get them converted into cummies. So all I'm saying, I'm here from the ground, baby. Okay. So it's a cryptocurrency, basically. Apparently so.

Or I'm part of some massive MLN that has just converted to a new market. You're going to end up with a big box of makeup at your door. Yeah, I wish. converted to a new market you're going to end up with a big box of makeup at your door yeah i wish once the dust settles we will find out all of these words are big mlm scheme just like update it for 2021 yeah exactly exactly so i mean do you know it's odd because bitcoin i kind of get because i think it came from you know the whole bitcoin mining and you're doing complex calculations and you're generating something and they get increasingly more difficult and therefore require more power and all that sort of stuff i kind of get that but how do you generate other ones i mean dare i ask how do you generate a commie you know i couldn't even explain there's a really good website and they've got a whole load of uh pdfs on there it's a square site uh squarespace site so you know it's not like a

dot ws or a dot you know or a dot biz or anything like that um it you know it's got a company that i recognize running it and they just got pdfs on there explaining with diagrams which you know you'd think would make it a lot easier, but it just really doesn't. Are you confusing that site with you porn by any chance? Do you know what? Now it makes sense. I've maybe clicked on an egg.

You realise quite how hard you've got to work to generate a cummy. Yeah, the old way of friction uh friction generating uh you know mining is good it's hard work but you earn every every coin you make you earn it anyway how are you getting on this week your air tags on the way are they well i was doing okay but now i've got a picture of you generating commie crypto coins. I'm going to stick a link in the show notes for anyone that wants to get aboard the cum rocket. See, this is another thing developed

purely by men because they've got to make a lot more money a lot quicker. This is actually run by women. Is it? Yes. Is it really? And I originally found them but on tiktok yeah but yeah it is uh the ceo is uh software engineer and tiktok tiktok content creator um and she quit her full-time job

to become the ceo of cum rocket to be Chief Cummy Bear. Yeah. This is awesome. I can just imagine five years down the line when Andy's on one of these top 40 billionaires under 40 lists in Forbes. It's like, this is a really funny story. He's made so much money he can afford a time machine to not be caught up. You wouldn't believe. I was on TikTok one day. I got some financial advice.

I went on this website that I didn't understand, but I invested in something. And now look at me. Oh, God, I hope so. I mean, I have no doubt this is just money down the drain somewhere else. I mean, I've still got shares in lastminute.com. You know, I just don't even know where those tokens are. I mean, it's down the drain. Is lastminute.com. You know, I just don't even know where those tokens are. I mean, it's down the drain.

Is lastminute.com still running? Yeah, yeah, that's still around. But yeah, I remember convincing all my old colleagues at the time to buy shares in it. I did see the lastminute.com rack in, I think it was Globex back in the day. So when they first started and we were having a tour around Globex and we were unofficially told that that's the lastminute.com sort of cage with all of these racks in it. And it was the messiest fucking server farm I'd seen.

Yeah. There were cables crisscrossing in between you know the the the walkways um of machines and you know and and racks etc it was it was a right state so but that's startups for you i guess well i was gonna say that's the dot-com era all over wasn't it yeah yeah exactly it was and it literally was the last minute it was one of the last companies to to go through that that process and then spectacular the market yeah first year um but yes anyway to answer your earlier question i do yes my air tags are arriving today my air AirTags and my little AirTag holder thingies.

Did you get the Apple ones, right? I did. I got one leather one and one leather keychain, one leather strap, and then a silicon strap. We are still talking Apple, aren't we? Yes, yes. Yes, so I got three strap thingies and four air tags nice okay so i ordered the uh air tags and then um got my straps from amazon wanted to pay a fraction of the price yeah idea but they're not apple they're not rich corinthian leather yeah well when it comes

off my dog's collar and gets lost in a field i'm not going to be too upset what your air tag yeah that's the point you will be upset because you just lost 30 quid yeah at least it wasn't a 30 quid holder for it as well yeah i'll be half as upset as you would be wasn't a 30 quid holder for it as well yeah i'll be half as upset as you would be do you know what there is a logic there that i like i must admit there is a logic there uh yeah and i'm just waiting for the new apple tv and ipad to go on sale which is later today i'm coming steve don't worry i'm coming are we are we back on um mining cummies I think we better uh get off yeah yeah should we move on right let's talk about what we got up today so we do have a whole bunch of stuff so this week in InfoSec takes us back to a time when

Microsoft allegedly I'm going to add the word allegedly into your notes here, Andy, before you get me arrested, allegedly devalued a company before buying it. And in another case of something being referred to as electronic graffiti, round to the week is about this one time at Basecamp. I have no idea what that means. Industry News brings us the latest and greatest infosec news from around the globe. Billy Big Balls talks about Apple's app transparency. I wonder who's going to be doing that segment. Tweet of the Week tells us why the CEO of a $2 billion Bay Area tech biz was filed. Filed. Fired.

The real reason may shock you and it's hard being overlooked all the time and that's all we have to say on the topic of little people this week um andy have you found a website that that gives you all of these no but i do search everywhere i'm now at that that stage where I forget which gags I've done. And I use the term gags very loosely because it's more things that make me chuckle. That's all right. If we reuse them, I'm sure Quentin will tell us. Yes, he will, won't he? Because he's a friend like that.

Okay, so let's go straight on to... This week in infosec yeah it's that part of the show where we take a stroll down infosec memory lane to discuss the events of yesteryear which uh no doubt still live rent free in our minds and the minds of the seasoned professionals in this game uh so first we're going to go back 13 years to the 23rd of april 2008 when microsoft announced that some of its antivirus tools had mislabeled skype as adware for several days due to bad definition update. And the next part of that statement is that three years later, Microsoft then bought Skype for $8.5 billion.

They did a good job of devaluing it then. Imagine what it was like back then. So the Microsoft security products were not removing Skype. They were just blocking it from running. And it took them six days to resolve it and then release the definitions for it. And obviously you've got the time that people then need to install those definitions and stuff like that. And the statement from Microsoft basically said, once the signatures are updated on the user's machine, Skype will operate normally.

And this reminded me of that thing. once the signatures are updated on the user's machine skype will operate normally and this reminded me of that thing do you know when you hear something and it sticks even if it's not true like just the fact like i think you know the big red bus 350 million a week you know it goes back to the nhs just completely untrue but people quoted that and believed that for so long and stuff like that still do in some cases yeah and so i mean back then it was a real time of growth uh i think for new sort of companies you know the dot-com era as we mentioned it burst and come back and you know tech companies were growing again and um yeah 2008 i i do wonder how much that sort of created a stigma around skype in terms of

whether or not it was safe to use in the corporate environment um you know whether it did actually limit their growth in any way back then but you know who knows because it was it was very clearly aimed at home users wasn't it because it was about basically trying to get people to effectively cut the home phone cord yeah it was but then more and more but you saw it more and more in people's uh email signatures or certainly i did at the time you know at work and stuff and you know it's one of those technologies it just used to evade firewalls like you know you could block it you had to get um you had to upgrade to the latest checkpoint firewall to uh you know block it by

service rather than um yeah you know any ports that it used or anything like that. So it was a real good time of cat and mouse back then. I did enjoy it. But with Skype and with all those other sort of technologies, just the ability to transfer data out of the company undetected, essentially it was one of the big concerns. But that also reminded me of um you know this instant when i don't know if you recall and we missed it last week and i only realized it

was actually this time last uh you know this sort of week in infosec uh when i looked up this article but do you remember when um google um sorry not good when mcaAfee bricked a whole load of enterprises by releasing a DAT file. And that was on the 21st of April, 2010. They actually bricked a whole load of desktops and laptops. Because obviously people just automatically publish virus updates. Yeah, well, you wouldn't. And what that did was it identified like SVC host has been infected, quarantined it, and then when that wasn't

running it shut the machine down and then even when you restarted your pc it wasn't able to boot because that file was it was quarantined holy moly yeah but whole like companies and stuff like that were impacted by this um and that was actually 2010 but I remember at the time thinking what a crap product McAfee was and how, you know, I would never, ever go back to that by choice. Even though it's just one of those things, it could happen to anyone. But I thought you're just about to say. And funnily enough, I've just renewed my subscription to McAfee and my personal subscription and my phone subscription. to mcafee and my personal subscription and my phone subscription yeah i think that there's there's uh i i do remember that and that was probably just just a mistake but um what do you mean probably are you saying that it that mcafee may have done it on purpose well well john mcafee well yeah we're going down the allegedly Microsoft devalued a company.

Let's say, allegedly, over the years, I've spoken to several companies that provide services, software that runs on Microsoft, such as antivirus type of things. And there has been rumours and allegations just behind closed doors because everyone's scared to talk about Microsoft publicly in case they get destroyed in that In order to when when Microsoft comes up with their own products, so like Microsoft Defender, for example It's not in their interest to be very very fair and understanding towards all the other antivirus providers so sometimes uh details about a new sort of like software update are released conveniently a bit late knowing that you know if you're like a company like mcafee semantic and you've got not only do you have to update all your software do regression testing on that but you've got, not only do you have to update all your software and do regression testing on that,

but you've got like 20 different versions that customers have and they have server version and desktop version and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, some of the things where there are issues are kind of allegedly down to Microsoft's shady practices and not necessarily the vendors. That was pre-Satchin Adela, though, wasn't it? Oh, so you think he's turned it around?

I think he's... There was a definite sort of step change when he came in. The way he evened out out for instance the app development between uh mac and windows uh because before mac was way behind on like the office front and all that sort of thing and he's been on a real push for you know trust in technology and trust in the you know in the computing environments and all that sort of stuff. And I think, I don't know, it just made me think that he brought in a new sort of era of modern, I'm going to say more ethical, not totally ethical, but more ethical business compared

to the slightly old school approach by Bulmer and Gates. I love it. I love it. You know make make an app slightly better on the mac and tom is all your best friend no no i know no no on the ipad as well here tom here's something that works on osx you are a man of integrity and principles i always liked you. No, that's not what I meant. But I think that was one of the more visible step changes. But he did a lot of talks and he was very much about trust.

And, you know, with the 0365 product, the fact that they then introduced, you know, the security and compliance centres on it and how it was very much focused on, or more focused on privacy and things like that. And they were also one of the very few vendors, very few large vendors that explicitly said that we will not hand over data held in our non-US data centres to US law enforcement. Yeah, whatever that.

You know, and publicly said it. Patriot Act. Patriot Act, yeah, that's it, and publicly said that as well. So, yeah, all joking aside, although I think, you know. Yeah, and he's been on a no-fly list since, right? Yeah, probably. It doesn't matter. He can fly himself, right?

But, you know, all joking aside about Apple and all that, although I think he's gorgeous for doing that anyway. But I do think it was a step change. So it's quite an interesting thing that you were saying about, you know, possibly, allegedly, slightly shady practices to swing favour towards Microsoft when it came to AV products and that sort of thing. But I'm not so sure now. I rank Microsoft just below Apple when it comes to trust.

Until the old coronavirus they injected people with people with right danville gates all right yeah sorry anyway so on to our second story this uh is taking us back let me get out the old calculator to uh 27th of april 1986 we're in protest oh sorry you need a calculator to tell you the date. I'm kidding. It's 35 years. I've already used the calculator. In protest of rates for satellite dish owners, Captain Midnight jammed HBO's satellite signal for four minutes. And why did he do that? To raise awareness about unfair pricing and restrictive trade practices. Now, this is one that I was not aware of.

No, so he obviously did a good job. Well, so, yeah, and so it's very US-focused, this one. However, you know, the target HBO purveyor of, you know, great series like The Wire, Sopranos, Game of Thrones, you know, Sex and the City, True Detective, Ballers, and, you know, many the city true true detective ballers uh and you know many more than we probably realize because we receive it sort of syndicated as licensed content through other um you know sort of regional satellite providers um so yeah 35 years ago this week and for four

and a half minutes he jammed their signal so viewers in the eastern half of the US could only see a message on their screen which said good evening HBO from Captain Midnight $12.95 a month no way Showtime movie channel beware and then four and a half minutes the signal returns if nothing had happened so for several days the identity of Captain Midnight was unknown. And it's not like nowadays where rumours would circulate on Twitter within 30 seconds and Reddit then go out and identify the wrong person. This was still in the 80s. So it's like three days between bulletin board updates when you get a response to your question.

updates when you get a response to your question uh so it was after multiple days of investigation apparently hundreds of false confessions from people around the country um a 25 year old john r mcdougall uh who was a satellite operator a ground station in florida uh was subpoenaed following a tip from a tourist who had overheard him talking about what he had done on a payphone. Blimey. Which always reminds you, you know, you will always get busted when you brag about stuff. Yeah. But inside a threat as well.

So he obviously had access to the, what, the call network? This is a funny thing. Yeah, so this guy, he'd apparently previously written loads of letters complaining about the cost of excessive charges for customers. I mean, who amongst isn't annoyed whenever you get a letter from Sky or Virgin saying your prices are going up next quarter? This news is never welcome, but we're increasing prices by £1.99 per month. So, yeah, the the evening 27th of April

he arrived for work as normal uh his co-worker left at six and he found himself alone at the station um I mean some people might fiddle with a vending machine when no one's looking to get some free food but um you know others may raid a station recovered you know, this guy was so annoyed about having to pay $12.95 for his satellite service, he actually swung the transmission dish. So it was aimed at Galaxy One, which was a satellite that carried HBO's signal. And so he just overrode their signal and broadcast his own. Yeah, and he did it for five minutes. No one, you No one stopped him.

He actually decided to stop it himself. He said he always meant to air his grievances in a polite way. In an interview in 2011, he said he doesn't regret trying to get the message out about unfair pricing, but he does regret the way that he did it. He doesn't regret getting caught. Yeah, well, that's funny funny when he did get caught he obviously pleaded guilty but it was a misdemeanor and so he got one year unsupervised probation and a five thousand dollar fine um and it was as a direct result of this incident congress passed

the electronic communications privacy act of 1986 which then made satellite hacking a felony oh which um yeah came in just in time before the the 1987 hacking of uh you know the max head drone incident uh you know oh yeah it's still which we covered a few weeks back well yeah a few months back but yeah still at, a few months back. But yeah, still at large, those ones. But yeah, so I wasn't actually aware of the history of Captain Midnight. But, you know, he obviously had an impact on the industry. He is responsible for that legislation. Yeah.

Yeah. And the fact that you can get Netflix for less now per month than you could get HBO back in the 80s. Yeah. Although it was very elite. Well, certainly in the UK it was. You had to be rich to have satellite. Yeah, or on the dole, one or the other. Yeah.

Council telly is its nickname. Council, yeah. Excellent. That was fascinating. I wasn't aware of the HBO thing. My first thought was, how does somebody just intercept a satellite dish, uh, or a satellite signal?

But, uh, of course you never seen only fools and horses. All right. All right. On that note, this week in InfoSoul. Nice one.

Jav, you're up for this week's... Listen up! Rant of the week. It's time for Motherf***ing Rage. So, this week, we talk about that one time at Basecamp. So, Basecamp is a company founded by two people, no surprise for guessing, they're two white men. David Heinmeier Hansen, DHH as he is on Twitter, and Jason Freed, I believe. Anyway, DHH is one of the creators of Ruby on Rails. And Basecamp, I think it used to be previously known as 37 Signals, the company.

Either that or that was a separate company. Anyway, they've been around for a long time and they're quite outspoken in many issues. If you follow DHH especially, he's very vocal on a number of things they've written a bunch of books i've read a couple of them and they're pretty good they speak a lot about the company culture and how to build something and uh when lockdown went in they were active proponents of like remote working something that they said they'd been doing for a long time they don't care where you are in the world as long as you do a good job. Paints a very, very good rosy picture. So I always thought, hey, these guys are pretty cool. They seem seem okay. Obviously, this is just, again, it's it's the persona that you put

forward online. There's a meme I think Andy sent the other day. It's, hey, I'm not this crazy in real life. This is just me on the internet. And then there's people who know you in real life giving you the side eye. This is one of those stories. So anyway, a week or so ago, they put out a blog on April 26th saying changes at Basecamp. And there was a whole bunch of changes. And I initially just skim read it.

And I thought, well, that seems OK. So I didn't really put too much thought into it. I was just skim reading it in between. I might have been on a Zoom call at the time anyway. So there was like no more societal and political discussions on our company base camp account i thought and i didn't look into the the details i said okay here's a company on their official accounts they don't want to be political fine another point was no more paternalistic benefits. And I was like, okay, that's weird.

And they go on to explain that they've offered fitness benefit, a wellness allowance, a farmer's market share, and all that kind of stuff. But they thought that, hey, that's a bit too pushing people towards one direction to forcing them to take advantage of it. So instead, they're going to give them cash instead and introduce a 10% profit share plan so that people can have more money and they can spend it on whatever they want. They can go to the gym or they can spend it on Haribo's. So, you know, people like Andy don't.

Yeah. They want no more committees. They want no more lingering or dwelling on past decisions. No more 360 reviews. No forgetting of what we do here so uh those are just the headlines and when you read the headlines i think in in isolation they don't seem like terrible ideas no i mean i mean you know if someone says no more committees i'll be like yes i can get more work done uh if someone says no more lingering or dwelling on past decisions, I said, hey, that's a good mantra to live life by. But, you know, a lot of things get lost in context, in the context and in the detail of it. Exactly. So so I didn't think too much of it.

And then I came back to Twitter a few hours later and base camp was actually trending and people were outraged. Always a bad sign, isn't it? It's always a bad sign. And I'm like, I had that moment where like, Oh dear,

am I the bad guy now? Because I didn't see through the false, but yeah. So apparently there's a really good article on the verge um where casey newton done a fantastic write-up he interviewed about half a dozen base camp employees as well after the uh the memo went out and what he brought to light was that um people felt that Basecamp's commitment to diversity, equity, and all that kind of thing was just lip service. Many times internally, people have tried to have those conversations,

and Fried and Hansen just shut those conversations down. And to quote, in the end, we feel like this is... Oh, so, yeah, so Fried and Hanson, they've written some follow-up posts that we feel like, you know, this is the best for the company in the long run. And several employees have actually publicly announced that they're going to be parting ways with the company as a result. You know, it's, you know, people are really unfair

and they've brought to light a lot of issues internally um where like you know they they've accused them of i don't know i don't think i've actually read the a right wing but they they've been lots of words as in like they're conservative they're very racist they're very you know only focusing on what white people do in in white people well white male perspectives, should I qualify? So it's one of those things where... On the surface, it looks progressive, doesn't it? It looks progressive, yeah. It looks good. It looks strong.

But then when you think why they're saying this, is it because they feel that they're being attacked? So no lingering or dwelling on past decisions. That's because when we make a decision, even if it's wrong, we don't want anybody to say so. No more 360 reviews because we're fed up with people telling us that we're wrong or that we shouldn't be talking, that our political views are abhorrent.

No more societal and political discussions because, frankly, we're fed up of being told that we're fed up of dealing with you snowflake libtards. No more paternalistic benefits. I don't know. I can't come up with something on there because we're trying to make the right words here. And no forgetting what we do here.

Yeah, we pay you to do a job. Get on with you. Get on and do your job. Yeah, yeah. It's one of those things where I firmly believe in these sorts of things. The truth is pulled on extremes on both sides. Yeah, of course. streams on both sides yeah of course and um and and you know you can't discount how many people uh employees who've worked with them day in day out and they have this this opinion that they're

they're not really um you know i think even if you i i wouldn't go as far as say people are are willingly or sort of like consciously being racist or or undermining i think again it's one of those points of empathy and understanding other perspectives not realizing their privilege exactly exactly i think that's i think that's what it boils down to which is which is very very common it's it's hard to to to um to to uh pinpoint it when you're living in that world. And the good thing I think that is from here, or it's not necessarily a good thing, but the important thing to remember is that base camp

has only come under spotlight because they went out publicly with these changes in policy because they are quite transparent like that. Or we're looking for a lot of uh slaps on the back yeah or we're looking for that or or what have you but you know this pretty much is the the the uh the culture for a lot of tech startups in in that silicon valley environment or what have you which are run by similar people it's it might not be overtly put across in that manner but you know the same underlying issues exist and when when you speak to a lot of people who are like from minorities or females or what have you this is kind of the stuff they've been speaking about for years that you know their voices don't seem heard their

concerns aren't taken seriously they're you know all that kind of stuff so it's a tricky one i mean it's a rant i'm not sure what side of the rant i i'm on yeah i think i i think it's i think i mean personally i i i don't think it's it's beneficial just to run against the base camp founders because that's just symptomatic of of a deeper issue within society and within tech the tech ecosystem that that needs to be addressed so but so i think it's uh it's something that's worth discussing but with with level heads yeah they had uh i read they've got a list of uh or they maintained a list for 10 years of people with funny names um but you know that's not something that you know i think the founders did on their own you know there's a lot of people that have to be involved to

to maintain that's a culture that they support though and and even um implicitly uh endorse well it depends i mean where the founders in on it that that's the other thing i mean we i've worked in startups and we did all kinds of stuff that you know we never were the founders in on it? That's the other thing. I mean, I worked in startups and we did all kinds of stuff that, you know, we never let the founders know of it. Oh, come on. Then you. We had black ops and we had filthy ops and, you know, we coded things based on who was in the knowledge group.

Right. But here's the thing. If we've got people that are now threatening or are actually you know parting ways with the company so it was the company doing this that made them want to leave see i don't know if it's that or if it's just you know the the pandemic sort of uh you know vaccinations rolling out companies are reinvesting money and it it could be like you know that towards the end of trump's era when everyone's like oh kick him off our social media platform like yeah we're making a stand now yeah four years later yeah we're now drawing you know

the line in the sand yeah i'm now gonna leave because of this and yeah i've already got an offer letter yeah i'm just wondering how much, not to dispute, you know, I believe there are probably bad practices that are worth hearing, but I'm very much like Jav in terms of I don't know which side, I'm not informed enough to say, you know, which side I would fall on, you know, in this argument. Yeah. But good story.

Yeah, yeah, good one. Thank you very much Jeff Rant of the Week Absolutely can you some of you listeners can you write a review

on our podcast site please because we really could do with some more reviews. I mean, those last two that we paid for, I think they're getting a bit stale now. So yeah, leave a review for us. That'd be awesome. But only if it's five stars, which may well be why we haven't had any more reviews. Yeah. And our complaints go on to the subreddit. views yeah and our complaints go on to the subreddit uh yes and uh details of the subreddit subreddit at the end uh right i think it's me now and and time for this week's so no surprises this is a story about apple hooray uh so! So iOS 14.5 has just been released, and it sees a significant change, even though it's not a major release, but it's a significant change because it contains a long-awaited privacy update, a long-awaited privacy update, which the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who are one of the not-for-profit organizations that works for people's privacy and human rights, et cetera, say that it's a solid step in the right direction,

which is, you know, that's quite a ringing endorsement for any kind of major global company. So this new privacy update is the app tracking transparency feature, or ATT. Pretty much what that basically does is it allows users to choose what third-party tracking they will or will not tolerate and forces apps to request permission to do that, to track individuals. So it's giving users more knowledge of what apps are doing and helps protect users from abuse and allows them to make the best decisions for themselves. Okay, big deal. What does that mean? Well, at the moment, companies like my beloved Facebook, for instance, they use data from a lot of other apps out there that take advantage of app tracking.

So that, for instance, if you go onto your web browser and do a search for mattresses, for instance, when you log onto Facebook, the ads that you will see in Facebook will magically, automagically show you a lot of mattresses. Sometimes some people have even said that even if they've said the word mattress or said that they're looking for something, that suddenly their advertising that's offered up to them will contain the links to mattress shops, etc. Other trigger words are available, of course. What Apple is now doing is basically putting a huge stop to that or a big stop to that to the point where Zuckerberg said that this is going to have a fundamental impact

on Facebook's business model oh yeah yeah yeah think of the small think of the small businesses yeah that's right exactly exactly and you know and if and if if you can hear that that is the world's tiniest violin playing just for mark zuckerberg right now. But here's the thing. I think Apple's always had a push for privacy. We know this, and I bang on about it a lot and all that thing. But there's the two major platforms, Apple and Google, and Google still has the lion's share of Android and mobile devices out there, but it's getting to be a close race.

They're not doing anything about this. So if you're on Android, every link you go to, every web browser you open, every app you open on your device, your activities to a certain extent are being tracked because that's some of the things you have to sign up for. With Apple now, you get that choice. You get the choice to opt in as to whether you want Facebook to be able to track what it is that you're looking at and whether or not you want Amazon to share that data with Facebook when you look at items on Amazon, et cetera. And of course, with a huge number of apps out there, everything from maps and translation devices and all this sort of thing, you can imagine the amount of data that the likes of Facebook and Google can gather is huge. And it can be very, very, well, insidious

and invasive at the same time. So this update to the Apple platform is, I think, a huge step in the right direction. Hopefully it works because obviously the Apple approval process for apps has to work as well because obviously certain developers could hide code that will still track you anyway and not ask, et cetera. But presuming that the app review process works, hopefully it will work. So we will see.

We will see. And I'll be interested to see what changes there are as I open new apps on my phone and iPad and Mac, for that matter, hopefully, at some point. See what breaks. Yeah, exactly. Well, one, see what breaks, and two, see if I'm actually asked. So I think there's, just to ruin one of your childhood dreams, Tom, so to speak, I think there's something to be said about Apple

and their giving nature or loving nature, caring nature here. So one of the things that you can see is that recently there's been a big, quite a bit of uproar over their app store licensing fees. They take 30 percent and then they change it. Like they take 30%. Yeah. And then they change it. If it's under a million that you're making as an app developer from there, it's 15%. But then as soon as you go over a million, it's back to 30%.

Yeah. And these are legit like small developers. And then you have companies like Facebook where they pay Apple zero because they're not actually physically taking money from their customers. Because it's a free app, yeah. Because it's a free app, yeah. Because it's a free app. But they are taking an awful lot of data and they're making much more money than they would have if they'd even charged people for it. Yeah.

So it's in Apple's interest to try and curb that because, you know, they're not getting a cut off the pie and they're hosting the app, they're delivering it to everyone. But if this was done in complete isolation to every other thing that Apple stand for, I could see that connection. But for years, certainly I think since Tim Cook took over, basically, there was a shift, you know, sort of a shift in approach here. But for years, they've been banging the privacy drum

and the rights of the individual to own the keys to their, you know, to their encryption, their encrypted areas of the phone and the, the general encryption levels on the, on the, on the device. And, you know, they, they even did a massive campaign. I think it was around about the, what was it? iOS 12 or 11, something like that, where privacy was the number one thing they were talking about in there yeah yeah no i mean i don't disagree i just think it's something to to worth bearing

mind also love how in this podcast you've thrown bill gates and steve jobs under the bus as being old school with deceptive practices i know who i've got to keep sweet I know anyway anyway um I'm gonna move on from this one but that was this week's Billy Big Balls of the Week right let's move very swiftly on because uh oh what time is it uh it's that time of the show where we head over to our news sources over at the InfoSec PA Newswire who have been busy this week bringing us the latest and greatest security news from around the globe. Industry News

Lockdown hotel bookings at risk due to DMARC fail. Industry News Last chance for forensic teams ahead of Imitate Sunday deadline. Industry news. Face command to launch dedicated cyber centre. Industry news.

Nintendo sues Bowser. Industry news. Threat actors impersonate Chase Bank. Industry news. Revel removes Apple extortion attempts from site. Report. Industry News. Hashtag COVID-19 rattles banks and insurers as security budgets are slashed. Industry News. Emotech Group harvested over 4.3 million victim emails. Industry News. US Arrest alleged crypto mixer.

Industry News. And that was this week's... Industry News. Crypto mixer, that sounds like a DJ name. I know. I was going to say, when the threat actors impersonate in Chase Bank, is that where they stand on each other's shoulders and put a big overcoat and a hat on?

Yeah, not Chevy Chase. You know, the lockdown hotel news, that reminded me. Did you see last week there was this Britain First? They were given some bad information about where people were being kept in hotels, you know, not refugees, but the quarantine hotels, I think. And they ended up demonstrating outside these hotels that had nothing to do with it. They weren't housing anyone at all. But there was like massive groups of gatherings there that just wasted the whole time so so britain first were demonstrating against um people coming into the country with potential who may

have come from you know potential hot zone countries where there's a lot of covid and being forced to go into quarantine and they're protesting against that uh no okay my mistake it was uh britain first tricked into demonstrating at hotels with no asylum seekers oh so it's not covid no it's not covid my mistake it was the asylum seekers uh well of course it was yeah i don't know so the best okay i've got i started this, so I've got to finish it off. They were – one of the hotels they were demonstrating against were the Dorchester on Park Lane, and a pub hotel owned by an associate of Dominic Cummins. Oh, God.

Now that's a car crash in and of itself, right? Yeah. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Actually, in of itself, right? Yeah. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Actually, one thing that I think is worth bringing up, it wasn't in the industry news, as in what we covered, but a slightly smaller story. But we covered last week the Celebrite physical analyzer,

so the device that allows you to dump the iPhone off. So it's been described as the most intrusive phone cracking tool offered by the company. As a result of Signal, no longer supports the direct extraction of iPhone data. Interesting. They've backed off, at least for the moment. I'm sure this story is going to run.

That's mass market for them. That is a huge market that i there must be dictators around the world shaking their fists in their gold braided uniforms damn you foiled by an iphone yeah well not so much i think the dictators they don't really care about legal hold and there's a trail of evidence that much if they have a suspicion then you're guilty. True. I mean obviously Kim Jong-un is well known for his

fairness and justice system in terms of... Yeah, just ask his wife. Has she been found again? She disappeared for a long time, didn't she? Yeah, his wife has. I think it's more his other family members that were next in line to the phone that, yeah, all suffered unfortunate accidents.

Yes, absolutely. Fell down the stairs twice. Yeah. Oh, dear. The Host Unknown Podcast. Orally delivering the warm and fuzzy feeling you get when you pee yourself. So, Andy, over to you now for this week's Tweet of the Week. I've always got to play it twice.

Tweet of the Week. Nice. So this is a tweet from Jennifer Jacobs, at Jennifer J. Jacobs, which was a link to a story which i absolutely loved because it's 2021 and this had very much dot com era vibes to it um let me ask you a question what do you guys know about micro dosing that's when you take small amounts of something right yes exactly that so ceo of a two billion dollar bay area tech business justin zu who is a twitter alumni and uh he founded this uh this startup with a former google ad sense veteran

uh andrew bonnie as well in 2013 and i know we've had the discussion about is a startup still a startup that long? You know, $2 billion and seven years. Startup for me means working out of the basement of your mother's home. The garage, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, yeah, so these guys built into a company with more than 400 people. Obviously some very healthy backing from venture capitalists or vulture capitalists to be in the Bay Area.

And he told Bloomberg this week that he was fired after admitting taking small quantities of LSD before a company meeting to improve his creative thinking. Before a company meeting? Yes. So his co-founder has since taken over as ceo so andrew bonnie uh said in an email to staff that um justin had undermined the board's confidence uh in his ability to lead the company going forward um because unfortunately uh you know management at most vulture capitalists these days frown on that type of practice um yeah you know in your multi-billion dollar company it's the thing if you're going to take their money you're going to have to take you know you've got to take the rules yeah it's same

but uh yeah so unfortunately he he says that uh you know that taking that that uh small dose um is just too much for the squares in the um is that seriously what he said uh i don't know if that's it's not in quote marks so i don't know whether that was added as commentary um but i'm sure that's what he's thinking if he didn't exactly say it out loud but yeah i'm sure he added man at the end as well. Well, they're saying that Bonnie's seen as, you know, a safer, less groovy pair of hands at the wheel of the company. It does remind me back in my startup days, you know, some of the things that you see that just don't fly in corporate,

but, you know, literally like drug dealers walking into the office, you know, for their, for payment because you know the cto's yeah the cto's behind on payment or whatever and then you know you got the the ceo doing lines at his desk in front of the company uh before allegedly yeah maybe i was missing things maybe it's the lsdr's taking that was yeah that's right that's right making me hallucinate. It does remind me of Musk smoking during that podcast, smoking weed. Yeah. But does he have investors to worry about? Didn't he have to step down or something, give up control?

He had to change his position after that incident, didn't he? Did he? I don't remember. Was it that incident or was it? I don't know. He certainly doesn't behave like he had to. Yeah, I'm sure something changed. There's a restructure as a result of him, like, smoking weed

and then telling people the shares are worthless or something, you know, overvalued. That doesn't help, does it? No. But, yeah, no, good times. I think it's like old cultures just don't apply these days. Funny that. Game think it's like old cultures, uh, just don't apply these days. Uh, you know, funny that, uh,

yeah, that's right. Well, yeah, good. Well, um, Mr,

Mr. Zhao, or Zhu, sorry, Zhu, um, uh, if you would like to spend some of your, uh,

spare cash that you've made from all of your companies, then please consider, uh, sponsoring host unknown. Cause I know you're an av all of your companies, then please consider sponsoring Host Unknown, because I know you're an avid listener. I'm into the show. He probably thinks it's a really good show, but the problem being he's off his tits on LSD all the time.

But, yeah, please come and be a sponsor. And, Andy, thank you very much for this week's... Tweet of the Week. Wow. I think we're going to do this one in under an hour this week. We have to. Do you know, I noticed a few things, Tom, and so I heard your appearance on the Sticky Pickles podcast a few weeks ago, but what is funny is that you see all the other podcasts up until a certain point

are always around the 24-minute mark, the 25-minute mark. Tom goes on the show 29 minutes. It's like whenever you're around, these shows just take longer. Can I just say you probably want to listen to this week's Sticky Pickles. Oh, how long is that one? I'm co-host and it's 34 minutes. You're proving my point here. Yeah.

The only thing is, though though it wasn't me that was doing all the talking it was carol you just bring it out of people don't you i do i do i just she was obviously just nervous being around me yeah in the presence of greatness exactly i have to go ask some of your colleagues like what's it like when tom cheers a meeting at work it's like oh yeah we're half hour set aside and aside and it turns into half day workshops. Depends how much LSD he's had before he joined. Oh, dear. The first 20 minutes of him just connecting his iPad to the projector

and with his watch and everything. It's like, shush, shush, this is seamless. Watch, watch. Oh, fuck it. Just give me a second. Honestly, shush, shush, this is seamless. Watch, watch. Oh, fuck it. Just give me a second. Honestly, when it works, it's brilliant. Yeah. And he's put tags on all his colleagues so that he knows.

It's like, hey, stop, stop. I can see you're in the hallway. Come into there now. Well, they'd have to be tiles because you can't do that with Apple tags. Oh, dear. Anyway, gentlemen, thank you so much for this week. And also you dear listener, uh, you do listener who's about to go onto the podcast site and give us, uh, some reviews and some five-star, uh, ratings. Uh, thank you for listening. Uh, Jeff, thank you very much for

your time this week. Thank you. And dear listener, don't base your review just based on this episode, uh, find your favorite episode from our extensive catalogue and then base it on that review. Which would be last week's at the rate it's been downloaded, actually. And Andy, thank you very much, sir. 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 r slash smashing security you know what i just saw the uh you know the disaster girl meme? The girl that's standing in front of a burning building? I saw this. Yeah. What's that? She just made... Talking of NFTs. Yeah. She just made what? She just made half a million dollars off the meme. Seriously?

Yeah. Nice. How did she do that? NFT. What? I'll stick it in the show notes under the wrap-up. There's a New York Times article, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay Times article, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I'm really confused now. Non-fungible. Yeah, I know, but... And it just got sold. Like, she's basically written a little receipt and hidden it in the broom cupboard for someone

and they've given her half a million dollars for it. Okay. Okay.