The Vergecast - Texting for Drugs

Episode Date: December 19, 2014

As the year winds to a close, we reflect back on the horrors of hacking, the collusion against Goliath, the merits of a physical keyboard, and something about The Mars Volta. Programming note: The holidays are upon us, so the next official Vergecast will be coming to you from CES 2015 at the beginning of January. Have a wonderful New Year! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, welcome to the Vergecast. This is not a story about a murder. Sure. Yeah. But it's still a pretty good podcast. Sure. I'm Elon Patel. I'm Dieter Bone.

I'm Chris Plant. I'm Russell Brandem. Pipe check. I am Sam Schaeffer. And I'm going to bone you. What was that? Hello. Hi.

So you might know that Russell is with us. Russell has been, we should just get right into the news. Russell's in writing story after story. about what I think is the biggest. Deeter has just been staring at me for the last 15 seconds. I don't even understand. You can't handle 15 seconds of staring. Not from you.

I can't. Look, guys, we got to, like, I don't have the capacity to handle our, like, to handle, like, we're going to keep it on the stick. Look, I'll tell you, it was, it was so bad today. I jinks. Look, I, I've been trying to eat better. This is true. Yeah, by putting butter in your coffee.

By putting butter in my coffee and not eating carbs. It's working. I feel good about it in general. I feel healthier, more energy, weights going down, all that's great. But today, like, straight up, man, just ate a burrito. Just was like, I can't. My body requires hype check burritos. They're great.

That's all the saying. But that's, like, where I'm at. Yeah. Like, as a person right now. It's okay to have a burrito. I haven't listened to Staley Dan all day. Big deal. Who doesn't do that every day?

Yeah, right. I love weed. That's like basically what you just said to me. All right. Let's get into the needs. Until it's just to be that one of the series. So we wanted to talk about the big stories of the year, but I think that we should just, we just jump into Sony. I think Sony is the biggest story of the year.

I think in terms of things that happened in 2014, huh? I don't know. I mean, sure, maybe in tech. I would say, like, if you're looking at the big story of the year, I would say there have been some things that have happened. Name what is it. I would say police shootings or Ebola probably are bigger stories. I would say ISIS is up there, too. Oh, yeah.

Well, yeah, right. But I think in terms of, uh, in our space, one, but in terms of just the massive repercussions that will reverberate about how companies run themselves, how the internet works, how we deal with terrorism, what's up with the First Amendment? What you write in your email from now? What you write in? Like the way we behave, I think, will be affected by Sony

much more, there'll be many more material effects from Sony across things like the average person does and feels in their life than ISIS. Right, like that's true. It's a weird truth to know. Like ISIS is more important on a global scale. Ebola is a big deal. But in terms of how we behave, I think Sony will have like immediate material effects

on everybody. So Russell, why don't you do just a little bit? You didn't explain her today. Why don't you just run through the basics? I did do an explainer. So Sony was hacked. There, you know, in... It was only like three weeks ago? November 24th. Yeah, three weeks. It seems like years to me.

Yeah. We're working it so hard. But yeah, so you know at first it sort of shut down their computer systems and put a big scary red skeleton on everyone's computer and then you know we started getting more messages from the people behind it they started leaking out more data they started making specific demands about you know they started talking about the interview the movie um and so a lot of data that's come out uh has been you know i was we're sort of doing for the explainer we're like well okay what were actually the big things that came out the big stuff was executive email accounts, which is how we, you know, the CEO of Sony Pictures is also a big investor in Snapchat and on the board. And really like a pretty big LA dealmaker sort of above and beyond Sony Pictures. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think like, I don't know who his corresponding number like paramount is, but he seems much more. I don't know if they're like introducing L.A. read to people. Right. Anyway, so, you know, that was a lot of, gave us a lot of sort of inside,

insight into some of the stuff that Snapchat was doing. We saw a lot of, like, fights between Hollywood executives. And then we also saw some, like, legitimately sort of troubling MPA-A things, which is a big Goliath story on Friday. Basically, everything that the MPA was trying to do with SOPA, they're still trying to do and sort of figure out a way to shoehorn it in under existing law. And so they're hiring lawyers to that, and they're also hiring lawyers to, you know, actively try to discredit Google on this front, which we're having another story about that

that we'll go up today. And stay tuned, yeah. So I really want to get into the Goliath stuff. Yeah. Should we do that? Do we want to keep looking at the big picture? Well, I mean, there's like, there's a hundred questions about Goliath.

Then there's everything that happened last night. Yeah, it's like, so much to talk about. So it seemed for a while, like, what was just going to happen was this data was going to come out and then that was going to be it. Yeah. But that's not what happened because basically, so some combination of one of the data dumps came with what you would have to describe as a threat saying, listen,

cancel this movie. Otherwise, you know, remember the fear of the September, 11th of September. It also seems like there were other threats that were made specifically to Sony Pictures employees. So they got very spooked and we got this very weird, like, dance where, Okay, so they said to theater owners, they kind of stopped promoting it. Like, they canceled the New York premiere. They canceled a lot of the Rogan appearances.

And the context for this is like yesterday, the FBI just came out and said it was North Korea. Yeah. Right. Although that happened. That didn't happen before this stuff started happening. Yeah, no, that's weird. But like the big context is like, we are now definitive that it's North Korea. Yeah, although some people are still sort of carrying the flag.

But I think it really has been like every piece of information that has come out and there's been a fairly steady flow has made it sort of more definitive. We haven't really seen any evidence that has come out where someone says it's not. It's just like this person decided to say they don't, they're not ready to make an announcement yet. Everything that has come out has moved us closer to that. And like now we're basically like, yeah, like in will the week end before like a U.S. official goes on TV and like says it. So I mean, that's the thing. And also I'm saying if it's like a group of teenagers who are screwing. Like, I think the canceling the movies

and making the three. You know, like, right. Once you become definitive that it's North Korea, that all the threats to Sony employees, all the threats about showing the movie, they take on a different tenor. I don't know that that's actually... So let's like, just to finish the loop on the movie thing. So Sony

told theaters, hey, if you decide not to show the movie, we're not going to sue you and we're not going to hold you to the obligations that theaters typically hold towards studios when they say they're going to show a movie. And then a couple big chains said, yeah, we're not going to do it. And then everybody said, yeah, we're not going to do it.

And then Sony's like, okay, we're canceling the movie. Yeah, but he ends up in this weird thing where it's not, like, people want to talk about the decision to not release this movie, which seems like a consequential decision. And like something we're all going to talk about right now. And it's kind of like who actually made the decision. Like it probably was Sony. But it's one of those things where like, yeah, we could, you know,

we could go on a date maybe if you want. I don't really that into it, but you can. And like, no one's going to be that, though, right? But yeah, I mean, they could put it online. Well, I think there's a weird sort of insurance thing. Like, if the movie is canceled because of terrorism, I mean, there are insurance policies often like that. And I think something like this is the kind of thing that gets covered by that. But if you end up releasing it, then it's not valid.

Right. So it'll leak. Yeah. Well, I don't know. Sony's all over. We got to take down notice today. We had a clip of the end of the interview of the scene. Yeah.

broken and yeah so it's out there so we had it and then sony like issued a take down and we they we put it back up because it's now it's like super newsworthy yeah it's like the classic fair use argument well also grimalman the lawyer said actually now anyone has a really good fair use case for posting anything because there's no there's no like financial damage to sony right right right but is there because of the entrance because what makes me think why they're being so strict now because we didn't see as much strictness until specifically getting the film off of the website that if there is an insurance claim it's kind of like protecting your copyright you have to be proving that you're making an effort also for the film not to be made available so i mean

i i i had not i thought about the entrance game that triggers all there's a lot there and what that means but like what's amazing to me uh and i think this this is why i said when it when it becomes definitively north korea it takes on a different tenor um i don't like i think it's crazy that they're pulling this I think it's, I think the idea that they want to pull it and get the insurance and whatever, that's fine. There's a big argument to me that like, maybe no one will see it. But it's crazy to back down to a country that like, it's just, it's just a weird moment. Russell and I got a great fight about this yesterday. And he's like, look, it's North Korea.

They can't do any, they don't know what they're doing. They're not going to be able to do any harm. It's North Korea. Come on. And Mike Connor was, well, to do harm in America, you just need to like have, be a nut with a gun. Right. And, yeah, I mean, I think, like, does North, does North Korea have Nut with a Gun capabilities?

But we've had Nut with a Gun happen. It happened with the Dark Night. Yeah. And people kept showing the movie. Right. That's what I'm saying. And even then, that, that was local. Like, if, it just seems absurd to believe that North Korea would do anything on American soil because the political ramifications are.

Oh, we would. Disaster. Disasterous. Right. But at the same time, I, I don't know. It seems at first I kept thinking about it like that, right? I thought there were there were kind of two options, right? One is the movie theaters don't want to screen this because the reality is they don't think people are going to come and see it.

Also, like, it's not their problem. And they probably have insurance of their own. It's almost certain. If they show it and then something happens, they'll be like, well, they warned you. Yeah. I mean, the early reviews of this movie are, it's terrible. No, no. The reviews are like, it's like a 60 to 7 James Franco comedy.

It's not, the reviews are not terrible. They're like, this is like a generic James Franco comedy. Right. It would have done. Hype check. James Franco comedies. James Franco's kind of bust. I like Seth Rogen better.

Yeah. Sure. Well, he likes one of them. Whoa, man. Super. Hard take on Franco. Kind of bust. Franco, Franco, not playing with the teens.

I don't know if that means. But anyway, now that I think more about it, what I'm wondering is, are the studios afraid that they'll be hacked next? Right. If they show it. And I hadn't considered that. You mean the theaters? Yeah, that's right.

So that's what, like, that's... What is the... Okay, I'm sorry. But no, but that's what I'm saying. I was being cavalier. This theater has things to worry about being hacked, I guess. When I say that it's the biggest story of the year because it will have material impact on, like, how we live, that's the piece of it that I think is, like, the crazy season is about to be upon us, right? Like, the don't, like, the playbook.

Right, no, but like, Farhad Manju in, like, the New York Times Day was like, don't write any more emails. Like, that's his advice. Just don't do it. Like, shut up. Like, if you know what Angeline and Jolie to read. your emails and I have emotions about them like don't write emails. Which is a very funny take, right? Yeah, it's like don't take.

It's like don't take a picture of yourself kind of take. But we're now at a place where, endlessly fascinating to think about, where people are afraid that the tools they use, the technology they use to like do their jobs and communicate and run their companies is inherently vulnerable. And I don't know if that's like 100% true. And I like, I don't know how like the industry will react to it.

because it usually takes something this stupidly bad happening for people to react. And I think what Verge readers say to us and what we think is that the industry doesn't take privacy all that seriously. They don't take security all that seriously. There were no repercussions from the iCloud hack for Apple. Like, nothing bad happened to Apple. Yeah. And now you're seeing Sony and like, not one person has said, yo, Microsoft. Like, how is it possible that you can just break into a server and retrieve,

the full outlook email histories of all of these people and then put them somewhere. Like, why don't you build something that prevented that? And like, that question just hasn't been asked because we don't set those expectations. And now the expectations are, if you put something on a computer, it's intrinsically public in some way. And that's a weird set of expectations. I mean, I also think, like, if you want to, I was thinking about this with Twitter of, like, the idea that, like, oh, Twitter's become such a bad place that, like, people might just leave.

like if you want to run your business without email, there are lots of ways to do it. And like we're now at a point where, you know, we're past the first wave of like, oh, these are such magical electronic tools. Like, we're now at the point where if a tool is not working, if you're just like, hey, email isn't really great. Like, it's a huge security problem. It's a huge data retention problem. It's a huge, like, it's just never really going to be private or secure just because of the basic nature of the protocol. like okay so stop using it and like there's like a social cost to like getting people to do that but you can kind of get over that and there's tons of options of like how they're going to do it now

but it's it's still are like tons of options like yeah we use slack like our email volume generally has gone way down right yeah um but even in our company not everyone's in slack and even our company the best way to like send a memo to someone is not it's like it's in the one format and in one medium And that's just inside Fox and the verge. Yeah. The second I want to talk to anybody else, like, where am I, I'm just landing on email, right? And, like, that's a thing. Like, email, Adder will be happy that I'm saying this.

Like, email's an open standard. Like, you can build all over it, right? And that's important. And everybody can talk to it. It's not, it's not email. It's not any particular tool. It's an entire culture of these products where, like, I'm terrified that our Slack will get hacked.

Like, if you're running Slack, if you're Stuart Butterfield today, like, You were in your server room with like padlocks being like, will this work and just like do it? I hope this will do it, right? Like if you run any server, if you run hip chat, if you run an IRC server or whatever, like it doesn't matter. If you're running this place where people are talking, the value on making sure that that communication is private and secure has been fairly low over time. And I think that value is about to skyrocket and probably the pendulum is going to swing way too far. Yeah. But also the, I mean, the incentives for any of these.

Like, this is why it was so low for so long. Like, it's very, the incentives for running a secure system are all sort of, they're all on a weird side, right? It's all on the negative side. It's preventing things from happening. At which point, people assume everything's safe and then they sort of stop paying you because they're like, oh, well, no one gets hacked anymore. I'm sure everything's fine. Right. And this is like a long-standing.

But if you're a magician, you published while you were standing. I didn't see you hit the button. That was Chris. That's all. Chris, Chris hooked me out. There's a new Goliath piece ever. We should talk about Glythe, man. No, no, it's fine.

Yeah, no, but the security thing's really hard because, I mean, I think also, like a lot of, you know, when you're covering security, it is this weird incentive that, like, no one's a total scumbag about it, but, like, they're all aware that when things like this happen, it's really good for everyone in the industry. Like, not that they're, like, hoping Sony gets really badly hacked, but they're like, listen, people actually across the board we're not spending enough on security. and the only way, the only thing that's going to get people's attention is something really nasty like this happening. Right, right. And the question is whether, like, okay, so now it happens. So now they're like, okay, we need to take security seriously. But that's also not just, you can't just throw money at the problem. You also have to, like, do business differently and change the way you approach things.

And like, how much are people really going to be, how much grounded people are really going to be willing to give on that? Like, I think that's what we're going to find out. How much pressure on any other corporation in America? You were freaking out. Yeah, but how much pressure is going to be brought to bear on the right people? Like, nobody's yelling at Microsoft for this, right? We're also ignoring the fact that this is not the first time Sony's been to hack. By any meet.

That's so funny. And it's crazy, crazy hacks. Right. I mean, the obvious one being the PlayStation Network, but there have been, as they even reported, a hack that didn't even become public in February. Like, this wasn't the first time. And yet everyone that you hear coming out as consultants talking about this is like,

Sony's security was kind of a joke. It's like what does that mean? How was it a joke? Because how could you not, after the first one, be like, we are going to have the best security of any company on the planet because we know what this does. We know better than anyone else. And the fact that they don't is just, it's mind-blowing to me. I mean, it's what you started with Apple, like, except for it was internal.

It's not like external. It's like, oh, we're users and we have to make do with it. This is a company that experienced the hit and then leaned in. They do. Yeah, that feels good. You see. Well, that's, I mean, in Apple's defense on the sort of Celebrgate stuff, like, I think for them and for most, like, functional consumer tech companies, the question has always

been, do we make it secure or do we make it sort of easy to reset your password? It's always been between, like, user experience and security. And, I mean, I think that, like, at least, okay, we're in control of where we're setting that dial, whereas some people are just bad at it. Like, I mean, some company, like, if a company is not functional, they're not. going to be able to have really. But I mean, as a human being who has to go to work and use these tools, I have is, I have no conception of the relative security of any of this stuff.

So like Sony's security was a joke. Okay. How is ours compared to Sony? How does it? How, if you go work at some other big corporation, you go, you work for GE and like whatever, like we're going to, we're going to be in a place where like somebody is going to profit off this by just like reputation alone is what's going to have to happen. Right.

We're not positioned to be able to understand what the security are at. If you're any company, you're going to do one of two things. I think this is actually going to be an interesting move in the market. You're either going to give it all to Google or Microsoft. You're going to move it all of your back end into the cloud and say, like, you take care of it. You're better at this. And we're going to pay you to trust you. And I guarantee CS this year is going to be full of garbage security vendor claims, right?

Yeah. And they're going to pray out. on fear and they're going to say you can trust us like you're obviously even sony wasn't good at this yeah me I'm your guy and then the flip side is another huge set of companies is going to say we can't trust anybody i got to hire the best person lock it on ourselves right i think you're just going to see that market split i think for most smaller companies like actually paying google will be a good idea but then google assumes an enormous amount of liability yeah do you want to be in the business of defending against north korea i don't know the answer to that question they have the

those DARPA dogs. At least the robot dogs. It's amazing if they bought the robot dog company just to have them like run around data center. That I think you'll a lot safer. Don't worry about my robot ball. To distract the robot dogs play with. But I mean this is why like this is such a persistent problem in security that like this is

why everyone in security is so sort of bloodthirsty about things being open source because then they can say at least, okay, we looked at it and like 20 guys looked at it and, you know, 10 of them said, well, this, this program was made, you know, these guys had no idea what they're doing. And if you can get the number down to only two of them said, oh, this guy has no idea what they're doing. Then you're like, oh, okay, these guys kind of know what they're doing. Which is great. And then there's Open SSL, right? Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah. Not to be a fearmonger, but like, well, no, I mean, Open SSL had a, but like, Hartlead, even in the scope of like standards bugs we saw this year was not that big. Right. Like, I mean,

I mean, it was very big, but it, you know, they found it. They patched it. Like, we had a couple days of vulnerability. Right. That was what happened. I mean, I think, but the issue is this is why, so we have all these encrypted chat apps after Snowden and everyone, there, like, a lot of them are closed source. And the thing everyone says about it is, well, how do you know, like, they're not going

to tell you if it's a vulnerability. They have no real incentive to, like, seek out vulnerabilities in their own system. Right. And I don't see how you get around that with corporate security, except, like, a really robust internal culture of like calling people on being sloppy. But like if that, if Sony just didn't have that, then I don't know how you turn it around.

It's fairly clear that Sony didn't have that at the highest levels. Like, they're like their executives are writing, sorry, emails to each other and like lowercase teen. They're like tone poems about feelings. Like, I don't know that they're calling anyone on being sloppy.

As a culture, they're just like, I have so many emotes. like stop it but you know what the other piece of it that's interesting is like how much our own information is like weaponized right like the way to get a movie pulled from

from theater is just to actually not threaten the life of like Sony CEO like it's like you know how to deal with that one did that they might have done that they guarantee you but it didn't really pay attention like how is you gonna respond right like it's gonna hire bodyguards and like it's like we understand

how to like handle threats of violence. We like, we got it. That's why like a guy shooting up a movie theater. No, no, America understands how to do that. But like a corporation, Sony, like that short circuits them in the way that like, not like other terrorist attacks short circuit like the citizenry. Like no. No, but the corporation once becomes violence like, nope, we're goodbye. Well, there's goodbye.

But like the threat that's like outside of the Sony thing. The threat here is do what we want or like we'll give your email away. Yeah. And that's bonkers. Like that's like a whole new wave of crazy. That's like that's why I keep saying, I think it's a biggest story of the year. Because that idea that suddenly everything,

every communication you've ever sent, every letter that you've ever written, every Snapchat you've ever snapped is somehow going to come back to haunt you. Like that change, like that will just change behavior. Like that's crazy. What about the NSA and the entire high?

And the snooping and the idea that anything you past tech like through a piece of technology is taken somewhere you know like there's there's is all this you know focus around the hacking but we forget that the NSA is already doing all of this on our own soil we're okay with yeah we're okay with that it's just like when you go to the airport and you get the nudes scan and you're like somebody out in the middle of nowhere is is seen the nudes I'm not okay with either of those I don't go through those I'd never have actually it's smart it's good especially yeah I paid I paid for pre like I sucked it up. I was like, put me in the fast lane.

How dear? And then I, and then I wrote a lengthy comparison in net neutrality. Gosh. The box.com days. Which was basically, Neelah has emotes. But I mean, the basic reason that that is less scary is that the NSA spends like $4 billion a year to make

sure they don't get hacked. So, like, all my emails exist somewhere, but it's a very secure place. We think, we hope. More, well. No, but I mean, actually this is like sort of became my hobby horse of like we're spending $4.7 billion on cyber defense and it's totally useless when something like the Sony attack happens because it's only government infrastructure that that's supposed to protect. But like in fact, that does mean that like, you know, military grade government infrastructure

actually is fairly well protected. And it's good for hypotheticals like this because you really wouldn't want to lose like, oh, we lost America's call record. Sorry. Anonymous has those now. That would be amazing. I just, I feel like people. Maybe they could figure out what happened in cereal. I feel like people were more mad when these,

these revelations came about with all the Edward Snowden documents. I mean, and that's the balance, right? Like, this is why you don't want the NSA to like look through your stuff. Right. Like, you don't want the government to be like, what, I subscribe to a great Twitter feed that's like a crime a day. And it's like, like, I love wacky laws.

You know, like, it's like a law to like shoot a turkey in Kentucky if you're drunk on bourbon. Like, it's like, like, All this stuff, right? And if you live in an environment where there can exist a Twitter feed called crime a day, and it's just weird laws that you might not, that it's insane to break and punish people for, well, if you suddenly give the government access to everything everyone's doing, like, one day the government scientists come up with the algorithm to match all the email they're sniffing with all of the laws in the book and people just automatically are born and go to jail.

Like that's the future, like of that. Like, if you connect those two things, like, you're in a bad place. Right. I think it's safe to say that every, almost most citizens in America, if everything came out, you know, all text messages. I mean, everyone texts for drugs. Like, that is just a thing that everyone does. Sure, Sam.

Let's, let me just rewind here. Please. Everyone texts for drugs. Yes. Yes. Yeah. When you say, when you say everyone. That is how you buy drugs.

Like, for example, I have never. I need some masks. So hang out. my Blackberry classic. The point is, I think it's a... Maybe I'm just an old man. I still telegram for drugs. It's a really weird parallel between, you know,

it means something else if we're being hacked and the data's taking. But when we're okay with it, you know, when it's our government taking it and doing whatever the hell they're going to do with it. What? No, it's comparing the... Okay, and I got it. Well, I think it's an interesting comparison because in part, I mean, the idea is, you know, most people see...

I think one of the really... frustrating things that people say that after the Snowden stuff. And, you know, I were sort of carrying our privacy flag. And the thing people say is, oh, well, I don't have anything to hide. And it becomes this, like, infuriating. Right. Right. Exactly. But like, here's that. Everyone, you really realized, like, you know, yeah, Scott Rudin thought he didn't have anything hide either. Like, right. Everyone, you know, the idea that once this stuff, they're not just looking for crimes. They're not just looking for, you know, links between you and terrorism. They're just looking for sort of anything you've said that is sort of embarrassing or like, or in some way like you can be used to get

at you. And the idea that, oh, okay, someone's just, there's just an exchange server out there and you don't really know a lot about how well it's secured. And it has all of your communications on it. I mean, that was, that was true a month ago. But I think, you know, a lot of people didn't really realize it until Sony happened. Yeah. I mean, it's true. I don't think Gmail's encrypting Gmail. Google's not encrypting Gmail in its cloud right now. No, I'm, no, I mean, not an internal one. Otherwise, it's like,

it's, I mean, it's pretty solid SSL to and from. To and from. But once it's on the server, like all that data isn't being kept in an encrypted state,

which is bonkers. Yeah. Well, I mean, these outlook files are just bonkers. Yeah, totally. Right.

I mean, the thing to me that is comparing this, like, what's happening to Sony with every time we publish a Sony story, we get, but publishing nude photos was not okay.

Right? And like, it's actually, we've talked about that at length. It's pretty obvious why they're different to me. me.

We can get on to that in a second because that will transition us nicely to Goliath. But comparing, we're publishing, or we're revealing Scott Ruden's email or Amy Pascal's email to we revealed a bunch of celebrity nudes to the NSA's looking at all of our data. It's, I think it's a, those are, that's a pretty tenuous set of connections actually. Yeah. Right. And, but what makes it, what makes that connection easy is, it's all the same. It's just people using screens.

Right? The idea is it's hacked. But the same thing is, so with the hack, right? Right. Let's say it's not a hack. Let's say it's a source. And there's a source and he has three things. He has the big scoop on the NSA.

He has some celebrity nudes. Actually, before, he has this NSA. He has celebrity nudes. He has juicy emails that like the dude from 21 Jump Street sent. And he has the Project Goliath story. Some of those things are going to serve the public. Some of them maybe in between, maybe on a humor level,

and then some of them don't. Right. The nudes don't. The 22 jumps thing, great. As a joke, if you want to make that debate, which is the debate that has been happening

at every site, like Gawker running it, maybe that does serve the public in some gossipy way. But then there's something like Project Goliath, which I'm so proud that you wrote, to be honest,

and that's what our angle was because definitively, Yes. This is a thing that benefits the public to know. And that's why they're so different. You're right. It screens. The thing is people hear the word hack or leak. And pull back on it and just think of it as source. Right. And then who is it serving? And that's what you're asking when you're reporting these things. Am I serving the public? But the thing about the serving the problem, there's a super fine point on it. And Emily wrote this in her piece. Like this particular hack is a state sponsored thing, attacking. a corporation trying to stifle like free speech. So like the provenance of the data puts like a super, super sharp point on on those decisions of whether or not this information serves public. 100%. I mean, that's that's exactly what you're going to run up against. And it's the same thing again with the source. When you when you have a set a source, one, you vet the information to know

if it's true. But you also bet the source. Like that's something to people who don't deal with journalism every day might not know is that there are a lot of things that can come across your desk that are a source who is malicious who maybe has other motives for why they want to get that information out there and that's something that you have to take into consideration to and how valuable is this information how much doesn't need to be out there and I like I agree I think in terms of vetting this it was that was this was the right story to run yeah can I interrupt this really quick Nilai have you seen what Google just published yeah I'm looking at right now what the MPA's attempt to revive Sopa through a state attorney general

I mean... Wait, what? Google published a blog post on... On... ...effectively what Russell just wrote about. Which is amazing. It's amazing because... And this is the transition, right?

It's... We also... We did the thing that every news organization is doing right now. Oh, we quoted in here, too. We got the document. We looked at the information that was leaked, right? And we looked through all of it. And we made a series of decisions.

And you should read Emily's piece, because it's really good about... how we made those decisions and why. And then we found this crazy-ass thing where Hollywood really wants to block, like, break the internet. They're really interested in it. It's like it consumes them that they don't control this distribution medium. And it's that actually to me is, it's endlessly fascinating.

Because not least because we also run a media organization. And the premise of our media organization and like The Verge in Vox Media, is that we really, really understand the distribution medium of the internet. And like we, like, it's in our DNA. It's in our bones. I just interviewed Jonah Pretti, the CEO of BuzzFeed, and that was that conversation, right?

It's like, now we are, we're a network media company. We go everywhere, we belong everywhere. And, like, figuring how to make money is actually sort of, like, still secondary for BuzzFeed because they're more interested in learning about all the platforms they can go and all the places they can hit. And they're aware, and box media is aware,

a handful of other new media companies are ultra aware of like the nature of the internet like it's it doesn't surprise us and it doesn't surprise us that we don't control the distribution like fully right like it's just out it's a chaos you look at hollywood they're like why don't we control this anymore yeah we got to control this and like that's what this is like it's endless like how do we lock this back down how do we turn this back into us putting dvds on trucks and the trucks going to blockbuster it's the trucks in particular that is the difference between all pre-internet media and internet media though, right? You can even say this with like newspapers, right?

But why can't I sell all the ads in that paper? Then I put on a thing and then it shows up on your door stuff. I want that again. How can I make that happen? But with the MPA, it's even crazier than newspapers because the newspaper can show up on the street. It can show up in a store. With movies, it was it went to the theater.

Yeah. And we have a sweetly own the theater until they don't let us own the theater. And then we have a sweetheart deal with the people that do own the theater because they broke up our monopoly on the theater. It's, this is a completely different world view for them. They've never had to deal with this up until like five, ten years ago. Right.

All right. Let's talk about Goliath. Oh, yeah. It's even a step, like this is what was weird to me. So I think there's this sense, and I mean, not everyone, I think, well, we kind of had this conversation that like, you know, I remember SOPA. We all remember SOPA, but not necessarily everyone sort of remembers exactly what was at issue there. And I think a lot of it is, okay, a lot of this stuff, they tried to get through Congress

and they couldn't, and they haven't given up on it, which is interesting and important. But also, this fight has really given them, it's put them in this mindset. And when I say them, I basically mean the MPA, it's not, I mean, the studios are sort of funding this effort, but the MPA is kind of the head of it, where Google is the enemy. You know, it's not about, it's, the enemy isn't the pirate bay. The enemy isn't Napster. The enemy is, you. The enemy is, the sort of coalition that rose up to oppose SOPA. And there's no making peace with that. They're like, well, this is, we're going to keep fighting this until one of us dies.

So we need to cast all of them, specifically Google, which like... No, they're just mad because they can't imagine a world where a giant super corporation would not be part of the cabal. They're just super confused. But be in our club. They're deeply hurt. They feel bad. Google won't be in the club. A, they call Google Goliath, which is amazing.

Hype check, Goliath is a codename. Very cool. You know why? Because there's a Mars Vulta album with a song. Oh, God, stop. Take the camera away. I can't know. This word holds true to me because I'm a huge Mars Vultas fan.

I've seen them a dozen times. Their fourth album is called The Bedlam and Goliath, and one of their songs is called Goliath. And this is the premise of the album. Apparently the band used, oh, we, board that they bought in like some like deep in Jerusalem place and the band was cursed and for like a whole year Cedric the lead singer when he was on tour he wrapped white tape around his microphone because they were just you know Goliath was like attacking them and they broke the curse finally So you're saying it's a cool it's cool you're saying Hollywood the MPAA was like it's a good

story and like the Bible we used the old time. doesn't do it for you? I mean, yes, I doubt, I doubt Hollywood's attorneys were making either a Mars Vulture reference

or, like, a book of a Bible. No, they're making Bible because they think they're David. That's where it comes from. They think they are the small guy. Yeah.

That's why it's so hilarious. So let's talk about there actually. But no, but I also, I thought a lot about what, you know. A Bible reference. One of the references

to be making, making. Like, what else is there? Well, no, but also why talk about Goliath in a, With a code name in emails that you control. Right.

So like, and I wondered if we were talking about surveillance. And I wondered if they were thinking like, okay, maybe, you know, paramounts on Google apps now. So like Google's not supposed to look at their thing. Right. But like, who knows we're up against this shadowy surveillance organization. I mean, I'll tell you, like, we started looking at the emails. And it took us like a minute to figure out. It was not a difficult thing to like parse it.

I mean. But it was sort of, yeah, like, I wonder if they had anti-Google paranoia. Right. Because that's the only way I can interpret their decision to just not, I mean, because it's kind of weird. They're like, okay, we're going to talk about Goliath later. There is the thing where it's not like actual like computer security, but it's just operational security and don't be an idiot security where someone could accidentally just forward a chain. Yeah, no, totally. So that kind of...

No, it's smart of them. Do dumb things. No, so we should... Let's get into what this is. So at the top level, yeah, what we have uncovered and going through this stuff

is that Hollywood desperately wants to be able to block sites off the internet. So if you're an average consumer and you want to go to the pirate bay, you can't. Right. That's what they want,

more than anything. And they are so consumed with the idea that some sites are so bad that the government or Google or somebody should make him go away, prevents them from doing even smart things. Right? So there was an email from like a Sony Pictures Europe

Marketing group that was like, why don't we seed some movies like previews for the movies on the Torrent sites? It wasn't even movies. It was like TV shows. Yeah. Like they could have gone to, you know, NBC and watched it for free and taped it on VHS.

So it's like very cheap for them to put like the first five minutes of Hannibal, which was the show and just say at the end like, watch Hannibal like Wednesdays at 9. So we'll see, we'll do some promos. on the torrent site and they got shot immediately shot down and the line was anything we do that legitimizes these sites prevents

our larger effort to block them. Yeah. So like don't even think about them because eventually we'll delete them from the internet. And just the idea that that is their goal and they try that's what SOPA was intended to do and the outroar was you're going to break the internet. All of the stuff makes HBO seem so much

smarter by the day. Like in terms of just how H, which is crazy to talk about, but HBO's reaction in terms of HBO Go, but also with Game with Thrones being the most pirate thing. And they're just like, yeah, whatever. Well, they're, they're aggressive. They do send out emails, but at the same time, they're like, do you know how much money we make

off? Do you know how much money we make off when we sell a T-shirt? You're a mess. I'm just I'm melting. I'm melting. If you were listening to the podcast and not watching the video stream, I'm not doing the job of drinking water. I have lost laptops that way. Not only did you miss, Nealai, I fail

to drink water, you missed, like, our producer John secretly bringing him the glass of water so that nobody would notice. I love the holidays, guys. The holidays hate you. They really dislike. Yeah, but you're just going to get more drunk. So let's talk about what Goliath actually. We've talked around it. So, I mean, that's, so they

say, well, okay, we need to, if we're going to succeed in this antipiracy effort, we need to do something about Goliath. Right. You know, last time in the soap fight, like, Goliath was really effective with this tactic. and we need to make sure that they're not effective. And so they're basically sort of passing the hat around to the studios saying,

listen, everyone put in this much money for our yearly budget and we'll start this legal, you know, action against Goliath and we'll start investigating for further legal actions against Goliath. And sort of that whole, you know, it's, it was just this full coordinated effort. Right. Yeah. And they were funneling it through, we should actually write it like a profile, this dude hood. They're funneling it through. Yeah.

Yeah. So he's a state attorney general of like George. Alabama. Mississippi. They're lobbying him. They're giving him, they're like writing out all the stuff for him.

They're not directly handing him envelopes of cash. Yeah, which was there was some, I think a lot of people read the first piece and weren't fully clear on that. But I mean, yeah, so they're like hiring a lawyer who charges a lot of money.

Jenner and Block. Yeah, Jenner and Block and to sort of compile legal documents which will then, which then get sent to him. Yeah. And then he, the thing that they found out is he's,

it's not sort of, bribery so much as laziness. The New York Times had a great infographic on Tuesday that was the anti-piracy letter he had sent to Google in November of 2013. So actually, before any of the documents we were looking at, and it is 95% identical to a letter that was provided to him by the MPAA. And they sort of show you the different sections. And it's just like, oh, he was, he literally just, they sent it to him and he forwarded it.

There was also a campaign finance funding campaign where they got a bunch of people to And what's amazing with that, they would, like, the, the NPA passed around the story about, like, state level corruption. And it was like, here are some instructions for what we can do. Yeah.

I mean, it's, what I think is fascinating is they think Google is the internet. Right? And they can just get Google to do what they want or fight Google in some way. Like, they'll beat the internet. And I think that's crazy.

Well, the thing that hasn't been said, and I mean, this is because we sort of have no information in this, but, like, you know, in these same meetings and the same actions,

like Microsoft obviously has a strong interest in it. And we know that they were talking to hood. I mean, it's not like, you know, it's the same stuff that they put in the Scroogled ad. It's not necessarily anything under the table. But it's sort of unclear what that relationship has been like. Like, does the MPA think that if everyone switches to Bing, then like, well, they'll talk to them about site blocking and, like,

they'll actually be willing to delist the Pirate Bay. Like, I don't know. I think it's sort of an open question. I think Microsoft will do anything. anything to screw Google. Yeah, they will. And, like, you know, like, Microsoft, if, you know, if you, like, spend time in D.C., like, Microsoft got really good at politics during their antitrust battle in the 90s.

They're, like, baked into the system now. They've hired people who are, like, deep in the game, right? Like, they have Mark Penn. Like, Mark Penn. Like, Mark Penn was, like, Hillary Clinton's, like, campaign strategists. Like, yeah. They're deep in that game. And, like, it's notable that, like, Microsoft and AT&T in D.C are, like, tightly aligned, and they are tightly aligned to, like,

basically screw Google at every opportunity. And I just hear it. Like it, like, people say to me so casually, they're like surprised when I'm surprised. Because everybody, like, it's just, that's the lobbying climate. I will say this and not to defend lobbyists and not to defend this stuff. But like this, like they provided free work to politicians. Like, that is what lobbying is. Yeah.

That's the thing that you do. Like, lobbying is not always like fancy dinners and like, just do what I say. it's like we're going to do the work for you. Right. It's we're going to write the law for you. We're going to, we're going to hire the army of lawyers to like find you a legal justification for this thing that we want.

Right. Like that's the fundamental thing that lobbyists do. It's it like, like I don't know, like, shaking hands and like buying stakes. Yeah. There's clearly. Right. There's like, there's clearly some element of that. But the real thing they do is they help lawmakers like get what do the lawmaking

stuff. Well, and this is the less sketchy of the two things. What they were doing is actually, like, the stuff we shouldn't outlaw. Like, yeah. Like, when you talk about Google getting better at lobbying, like, this is the game actually Google needs to get better at. It's not like, buying influence. It's spending a billion dollars

on generating endless legal documents about why the internet should work the way it does. Yeah. And so, like, this is sketchy because like, it just sounds like Jim Hood is, like, in their bag, so bad. Yeah. Like, they're literally writing emails to each other like first we'll get hood to do it then everyone else will do it

it's like why do you think he's going to do it like oh it's because he just does whatever you say abundantly clear that he literally just does whatever you say it was like he they had him you know they had so there are these questions well okay so you know you we have you talking to this uh you know outside counsel for the mpa a lot he's like oh yeah porelli I know him yeah we've talked a bunch I don't know who he works for I don't know what firm it is or if it I don't know I never came up, and this is literally the quote he gave to the Huffington Post, that is just the least plausible possible thing you could say. I don't know.

I just think it's funny. Like, we talk about movies a ton on the show, right? Yeah. We talk about entertainment. We cover movies. We love, like, the public loves movies, right? It's like very clear. And the movie industry is not suffering for that love, right?

People are still spending money on movies or breaking a ton of money. The movies are different, like, you know, like, they're innovating in whatever way the movies can innovate in terms of, like, like, they're innovating in whatever way that movies can innovate in terms of like creating sequels. But it's like they hate their customers. I mean, they always have like... They're just all old people. High check old people.

They're running these companies for 50 years. It's like there's a reason why Facebook took over the world. There's a reason why... Your mental image is like MGM in like 1930. The Lion Row. There are... Who wants to hear these actors talking?

There are... Plenty of smart people of all ages. I just think that these companies are run by dinosaurs. I'm going to be honest with you. I think you could say that many of the companies run in Silicon Valley and run by idiotic children. Like, I mean, if you want to flip-side it, like, of course. Sony Pictures is apparently like both old idiotic children. I think you say film is not hurting.

I think that is not true. I think like the industry is in a jam and it knows the writing is not written on the wall. It's written all over them in scars. Like the future is coming for them fast. And that's why they're doing these things. I mean, I also think the other thing to defend the MPAA. I mean, the quote we ended the original Glythe piece on was, you know, the status quo for us is not good. And it's not going to get better anytime soon without us doing something, which was their justification for this is why we need to, you know, break the internet and everything.

But, I mean, it is hard to, on some level, disagree with that statement. I do think the tragic thing about it is any, not to use, like, innovation as a buzzword, but there are a lot of technological changes that could happen to the movie industry that would help them out a lot. Things like day and date, things like video on demand, like there are a lot of channels that could open up. But because there are so many cartels like the theater owners and just, the whole industry is so sort of clotted and it's so hard. to get anything, any sort of technological change through. It's really hard to, yeah. When you, when somebody illegally downloads a movie, right?

The problem isn't that it impacts us going to the theater. The problem is there are at least three streams of revenue. There's the theater, there's the DVD Blu-ray release. Now there's video on demand before that DVD Blu-ray release and then TV, right? And if you can just download the movie, that's a single stream now. Suddenly, all of it's out of whack. Not only do they have to worry about the theater, you already own the movie. You don't have to watch it on TBS.

You don't have to buy the DVD. It is a great winnowing. And they could fix this, right? They could do day and date, and they could do those things. But they don't want to give up on that four, three, four stream system. And that's the problem. It's a greed thing. And also, it's maybe not the fair word because they've had that for a while.

Each of those four people, like it's going to, it's a different dude who's a getting the cut. So it's sort of like, there's four of us on this raft, and it's too heavy. We need to throw one of you off. Like, what's going to happen? And they can't figure out how to do it. Well, I mean, it's just very, it's a really politically difficult thing because it's such a distributed industry. You can't just like, the CEO of Hollywood is going to get up and be like, okay, guys, we're focusing on this now. Like, no, they're going to have to like scrap it out. And it's going to be pretty ugly. And to fund these crazy movies where there's no risk in them, but they're still risky. Like Marvel sequels, they say,

still already have to go to China to get Iron Man 3 funded. Right. That's how crazy this whole system is at this point where it's like a guarantee closest to a guaranteed hit and they have to go to China and... I don't think they have to go. I think they're happy to go to make a lot more money because they know this is the one, like

even though it's guaranteed. Right. You need to make sure we make even more money. Is that a drum solo? Yeah, I was just doing drums. Uh, God, I'm so broken. What happened there was, like, I tried to start the engine and just nothing came out. There was like a puff of smoke at the tailpike. Nothing.

Nothing. Nothing. I'm dying. I'm dying, everybody. No. Their business, and actually Todd Vanderwerf did a really great piece in on Vox about it, he's like, most of this is boring. Like, most of what's been revealed is boring.

Yeah. And it reveals how boring the movie industry is. Because their business is just leveraging and re-leveraging the content. Right. So there's lots of charts and spreadsheets of when terrible movies are shown. at 3 a.m. on channels nobody's ever heard of. But, like, that's a deal that Sony makes with that channel in Alaska. We'll give you this movie for free, but all the ads you run against it.

Like, we want to cut of that revenue. And that's just a game that all these, they play. And, like, there's a level of sophistication there that is sophisticated on the old model. And so what you're talking about, like, they're all old people. They don't, they're dinosaurs. They don't get the new model. What they're not willing to admit is all of their sophistication about the old way. doesn't apply to the new way.

But they're so, like, if you run Sony pictures, you have 5,000 employees who do nothing but interpret Nielsen rating data for locals' channels in, like, Montana, right? Well, you're not just going to throw them away. A lot of people from Montana. Well, yeah, Montana's a big market. But, you know what I mean? Like, there's a whole team of people there who just interpret, like,

the old way of getting data. Yeah, yeah, I know, I got you. And they're not connected. It's also deeply funny to me that we're talking about them as dinosaurs, when, as we all just found out, the CEO of Sony Pictures is, like, caught Snapchat super early and making, like, millions of dollars off it. Like, I mean, it's worth pointing out that, like, it's not that these people are, are, like, don't get it or, like, they're too old to get it.

It's that they're working in an impossible system. Yeah. Right. No, I mean, like, and this is what I keep, they keep hammering this. Like, I think this is the biggest story of the year. Because it will, like. In terms of the repercussions that it will have. In terms of just how it will, like, we have an insight into the movie business now and into how much they hate the internet now and into how they work and how they think.

And just like the ridiculous ways that movies get made and cause her eye approving the last scene of the interview. But make the goo in his brain like a different call. Like that's crazy. Yeah. And what that reveals is the old media is still kind of making decisions on like gut instinct. And they're making easy bets because their guts tell them that Marvel sequels will make money. They don't know. Do you really think that this sort of exposure is going to get them to change or is going to in any way reduce their resolve to do the thing?

It's going to make them get on the cell phone next time that they have a conversation. Now the essay is going to have a phone call anyway. What I've learned from this is just how deeply they hate the Internet. And so what I said what's terrifying about that is like they hate the Internet more than most Internet users love it. And they might just have more persistent. and more resolve than we do. And the next time they, you know, because this whole plan to, like, redo SOPA

is way more insidious and way more likely to be effective, right? It's going to be. Oh, my gosh. I just had an inception moment. Okay. Are you ready for this? Okay. What if all these awful movements on the internet are actually Sony?

They're not, it turns out the majority of people on Twitter are actually very nice. It's all soff puppets. designed to make us hate the internet. Oh. See? Yeah, it makes sense. I think, like, I think it's easy to overstate the persistence of it. I mean, so one of the things that came up in Goliath is, so Stephen Fabrizio, who's the

MPA general counsel that is sort of behind the Goliath project, came on at the end of last year, having brought down ISO hunt and been sort of a big anti-piracy warrior. and I think this, what we're seeing is kind of his take on what the MPAs, like how the MPA should be fighting anti-piracy. And I mean, I think we don't know, we don't know sort of what the ultimate ruling on that is. But I also think it's not necessarily like a perfect representation of the studio's views for one. And then also not necessarily the only way the MPAA could, you know, try to sustain the movie industry in the face of like, you know, all this, all this piracy, right?

I think this is like a decision that these people have made and like they can make another decision. So I don't want to make it too like fatalistic of like this is necessarily the only like the like we've peered into the evil heart of the film industry. And this is all that will ever be inside it or something. Because I think, I mean, yeah, like people choose to do things and like they might be like, you know, they might right now be searching their souls ready to let the internet back in. Really?

you really think the NBA's Executive Journal Counsel Searching his soul for a way To better engage with the internet Totally I mean Russell I mean Have you been texting for drugs? Have you been texting for drugs again?

Neil I promise you that is so true It's like doubles down Hype check texting for drugs It's a thing that happens That's totally non-committal It's so common that it's not even hype Or not hype

It's just like, it should be like, is email hype? Like, hype check email? Yeah, hype check email. The NSA has it all. That's, man. You're just an unhappy person. Yeah, what's going on? I'm like, why anger teen Sam Shepard?

Yeah. They're dying. They should die. Like, where did that come from? Time for the ass, drink a hint. We all, we all like you, Sam. What's the, what's the other? Can we do a series called Anger Teen?

Where we just like go to teens and ask them what they're angry about? And just like see what happens. No, Sam's got ideas. He's boiling over with ideas right now. No, all teens hate their parents. That's just like what it is. It is. It's parents just don't understand.

Oh, no. I'm really sorry. Speaking of dinosaurs. That's the verge cast. Let me say one more thing. We have not done the year in review at all. It happened. Big fans are in.

No, the thing I was going to say, I was looking at our year and review list. And three of the things are at the music industry, which, arguably has gone through this cycle way worse than anybody else, way faster, right? And what's watching the music industry pendulum swing back in response to streaming and Apple buying beats and Taylor Swift writing editorials about the death of streaming and album sales and all this stuff, they're actually, they're ahead of this curve in like weird ways. Like they're better at understanding what needs to happen because they've been beaten so, like, They were so beaten by technology out the gate that now it's Jimmy Ivine's pitch to Apple to why they should buy beats was there's a hole in your portfolio.

We have to get better at streaming because it's the future and I'm the guy to do it for you because I understand the music industry. And Apple's like, yep, you're right. And they bought beats. It's not like because of headphones. But then the flip side of it is the music and you're saying like they're kind of like, I hate the internet. Right? Taylor Swift is like, I wish people just bought my records the way they used to. and like her context is

it's the internet's so complicated and the distribution is so chaotic and you have to make other kinds of bets but consumers on the internet kind of don't want to buy records the way they used to they want to use streaming services they want to get all their music on YouTube they want to do all this other stuff

they want to use apps instead of like listening to your song it's like they're like the media is much more complicated and there's much more competition in the space so like watching Hollywood go through this at the same time the record news is doing it in a different way at the same time and the pendulum swinging back for them,

that fight between, I think the lasting repercussion is, the media industry is going to just totally segment into people who embrace the internet and an old guard that is becoming more and more passionate that the internet isn't where they want to be. And that is just, if you want like the big fight in 2015 between tech and media,

like that's what it looks like. It looks like just rejecting the inherent distributed nature of the internet or fully embracing it. That's it. That's my year in review somehow. Predictions for 2015. I just did one. Well, there are more things that are going to happen in 2015. Russell, do you have one?

Domination. No, I don't know. That's a really good one in general. That's like, that's from that Wu-Tang album, right? They're like, what's your guys goal? He's like, domination. I always thought it would be badass. You did.

Yeah, so now I've lived that dream. I think, I don't know, I want to make some predictions. Like, we're at the end of the year. That's crazy. We'll go a little long because CS is coming. I think smart watches are going to be a big deal

with Apple's putting in and it's out of the watch. Yeah, I mean, unfortunately that is the case because you know the way things happen. Whenever Apple does something, it's like, oh my God, it's the right way, it's the thing.

I predict that watch will I predict the Apple Watch will land with such a thud that it sets back that idea for quite some time. And then you're going to come into the office with one on your wrist, but it's fine. I mean, yes.

that is 100% true. There will come a day when I walk in the office wearing an Apple Watch. But that's because it is literally my career to be wearing that watch. Fair. Like I think if I had to like spend money to, I don't know that I like I,

like we were talking and we're going to C.S. Like we're, are we going to see a bunch of Apple Watch accessories at CS? We're going to see a bunch of apps. Interesting. The other day like I, John Gruber like wrote on Daring Fireball like if I was an app developer, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be racing to make an app for the Apple Watch.

I would still be in the wait and see phase. I think that's the case for that product and that platform. I don't think that's true at all. I don't think that's true at all. Do you know how many teens are going to want that for Christmas, for a gift? Do you know how many teens? But you can't buy it for Christmas? I mean, next year, we're talking about 2015.

Do you know how many kids get iPods for their birthdays and for graduation? $400. It's a watch. It's on an iPhone. It doesn't offer you that utility. Do you know how many rich parents exist? And do you know why Apple is a bigillion dollar company? But they're going to get pellets or something. But you're, but yeah, but you're, you're making the argument that Apple's a lot of Apple watches because it's Apple. Right. You're making like the argument that like their marketing ability will like sell a crappy product. We'll say. We'll say that's my prediction. I don't actually think that's true of Apple. I think they have a wonderful marketing ability, but I think they also make fairly good products. And I think that that's the combination of

the thing that's like terrifying. Like Microsoft's making really good surface commercials lately. And no one's buying. They're not slinging any more surfaces. The holiday commercial. The Christmas song commercial is terrible. I love the MacCard. The one where it's like,

this is a great commercial for the Macfair. Wait, is that the one where they do that dumb rhyme? Oh, where they're like, look, this one has a kid's chain. I'm like, yeah, the Macfokare doesn't need one. Are we going to see a trend away from gigantic smartphones in 2015? No, they're just going to get bigger.

So we will never get like 4.3. No. What? We're never going to get garbage toys again. No, that's not garbage toys. When you're a gigantic man, sure. But like,

Thank you, Sam. I mean, you have the hands. I'm hung over. I already feel a little bit bloated and now you're calling me gigantic. I got feels over here, man. Look.

Respect my self-esteem. This is large. Too large. What's your, what, Chris, you bought it. This is your first CES. We should actually do a tiny little bit of

review. Yeah. What are your CES predictions? Did I barf? I don't know. That seems like a punt. Of course you're going to

Barf. Definitely happened. I don't know. Russell like like kind of begged me not to go. I received a very polite message. I think you last year too. This is the first year at work. I'm just going to say it.

For you guys listening, the Verge is going to be at CES. It is from January 6th through the 9th. And we are going to go. bananas with coverage. So stay tuned. Our site will, you know, when we do events, like, our site turns into like I-Vorge and like GoogVorge, whatever it is going. Who says GoogVorge?

I just, I check Goog-Vorge. But the point is, the point is, I am, I am plugging our appearance at CSS because we're going to be there. And we're not going to, the next Verge cast we do is going to be at CES also, so there's not one. And I will say we're doing three weeks, I think. Three weeks. We're going three weeks off the air.

Russell, your predictions for the repercussions of the Sony hack going into 2015 because they canceled a national motion picture i mean i think we're going to see a lot more security fingerprint readers it's also my c s prediction like i do think we're we'll see that i think we'll see a lot more um i think it'll become a lot more common for people to jump on like secure channels right like WhatsApp like as rolling out end to end and like but when you say people like i mean scott Rudin will say like, jump on WhatsApp because I'm going to scream in your face and then this message will disappear like 10 minutes later. Like I think we'll get a lot more comfortable with media that disappears.

I think data retention laws are going to turn into data removal law. Call each other. No, no, that's not going to happen. I'm never speaking on the phone again for the rest of my life. Sorry, guys. Dieter, that was like a really sad segue. No, I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it.

I don't want to talk about it. No, no, no, no, no, I don't want to talk about the BlackBerry Classic. What? Deeter has a BlackBerry Classic in his hand, and he loves it. This is, I would say, a very polarizing device on our staff. It feels good. It's like a... Micah Singleton?

Yeah. Just bought one. I'm pretty sure he traded his iPad for one. I really want a physical keyboard. So, me too. For those that don't know, Russell, what kind of phone do you have? I have, this will be good for those on the live stream. Ooh.

A droid four. What? I'm about to, it's about to die because it literally like, it's only, it's only, like, on for two hours at a time. Wow. Why is it so hot? Well, it's dying. It's overheating. It's like four years old.

Oh my God. This thing was. And Russell, you and Russell? Like, yeah, I type hardware keyboard. Well, no, and I'll like, if I can go to like an event and I don't want to take out my laptop, I'll just, I can just take notes on it. And I can do it much faster. With a physical keyboard, because I can tell when a keystroke is registered. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I mean, it's totally. Maybe. Maybe, what do you do? We'll give you that BlackBerry passport. Yeah, totally. I'll try it out. Yeah.

Now we're just completely off the rails. No, it's, yeah, great. Physical keyboards are back. Yes. Is that one of the predictions for next year? I wish. All of you are insane. Okay.

Is that our show? Do we have anything else? I didn't actually say the CES thing I want to say, which yes, Sam is correct. We are going to CES. We're going to do, we have the CES Newswire, the tons of news coming out. We have a hub page, like lots of video podcasts. Amazing live blogs. Joanna Stern has asked to be on the podcast at CES.

We'll have her on the show. Disruptive influence. Well, yeah, we'll be disruptively think fluencing all over the place. And we're taking a big team of, I mean, just tons of stuff coming from the show. And we're going to, Sam will be Snapchat. chatting all over the place. Yes. The real verge.

Add it. C.S. I would say his, it has become less and less important with time. But it is still like the one time of the year when literally the entire

tech and media industries gather in Vegas and like talk to each other. And get sloppy. And they, and then that happens. This will be my sixth one in a row. Crazy.

Yeah. Six times you got sloppy. Crazy. We started taking Sam when he was just a 12, 19. I was 19 years old. Transporting him across state lines.

I have an iTunes review request. Oh, yeah. This is my thing. So I'm going to CES for the first time. Some things about me that you should know before this. I dehydrate very easily. I don't like Las Vegas. Buy a humidifier and have it shipped to the hotel.

Okay, I'll do that. I'm also going to bring a white noise machine. And I also don't know what I'm doing. If it's a crappy enough humidifier, you don't need both. is that? Oh, that's true. So for iTunes this week, leave a 5-5 score. I'm just going to be honest. I think after this miracle episode,

you can show some sympathy. One star for each person that was on the Verge County. And then let us know what I should do with my time. And CES. And I will do my best to find a way to do those things, assuming they are legal. It's Vegas. They're all legal.

Can't smoke marijuana. I'm doing the outro. I'm going to do the social thing. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. That ladies and gentlemen was the Vergecast. Thank you so much for listening. Please subscribe to us and iTunes while you're there leaving a review.

You should follow us on Twitter. We're at Verge. You should follow us on Snapchat. We're at the real Verge. And that's important because we're going to be doing snaps live from CES. It's going to be crazy. And I open every single snap. We are on.

Instagram. At Verge. At Verge. You can find us pretty easily there. We're elsewhere as well. We're on Facebook. Of course, you should follow us there. Follow us on Snapchat. That's the best one. Snapchat is all, man. Yeah. We have like, you know, I would say we're innovating in the Snapchat thinkfluencing game. Yeah.

It's true. We're going to create across a range of thinkfluencing topics. Sam came up for the show for me. Can't say what it is. Oh, my God. If you want to follow us on Twitter, that is Sam Schaeffer. I am back on Neelaaz-R-L-E. Plant. Plant. Just PL-N-T-E.E.

and you're Russell Random? That's right. Russell B Random. Thanks for watching. Listening. Bye. Oh my God.