Tech News of the Week 09-24-2024

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Announcer: Welcome to Tech News of the Week with your host, your third-grade writing partner who didn't do anything. Greg.

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Ned: Welcome to Tech News of the Week. This is our weekly Tech News podcast where we discuss four interesting news articles we found in the past week. Chris, why don't you kick us off?

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Chris: An FTC report confirms all the bad stuff we already knew.

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Ned: Yep.

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Chris: Tldr, Facebook is the worst, but so is basically every other web page on Earth that has a social media component. This week, the FTC released a report based on four years of research into the business practices of Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, et cetera, and found that, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, these companies willfully and shamelessly surveil their own users and collect data about them to sell ads. This, the FTC goes on to say, is bad. Now, I know this doesn't actually sound significant. It's certainly not a surprise. No. It's akin to some of the Ignobel Prize award winners from years past, which actually this year's Ignobel Prize winner in chemistry, they won it for, quote, use of chromatography to separate drunk worms from sober worms.

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Ned: Amazing.

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Chris: To which I said, To hell with the FTC, I want to know more about Drunken Worms science. Alas, the point of doing things like this face melting increasingly obvious FTC report about big tech abusing our personal data for profit is to lay the groundwork for doing something about it. The report Court states plainly that when it comes to users' privacy and the protection of user data for industry, quote, self-regulation has been a failure. I would go further and say they haven't even tried. Remember, these websites would still make plenty of money selling more generic ads without violating your privacy and selling your data. They could behave responsibly. They just don't want to. Hopefully, this report means that we will get some digital data consumer protection laws floating around in the next year or so. It would be a vast improvement over the none whatsoever digital data consumer protection laws that we have in this country right now.

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Ned: Sometimes I feel like Larry Ellison is watching me. Nothing says completely detached billionaire asshole, like proposing mass surveillance of everyone everywhere all the time, except for him, I'm sure. You know, sometimes there's a major work of science fiction that is meant to serve as a cautionary tale, a warning of what happens when technology runs amok, a parable from which we can draw a lesson about the excesses of capitalism, hyper-masculinity, or intellectual hubris. Sometimes a tech bro sees such a stunning work of art and says, Good plan. Let's do it. Larry Ellison, apparently now familiar with 1984 and current yacht owner and former CEO of the Licensing Enforcement Specialist, Oracle, opined in a recent company financial meeting that he believes we should have a ubiquitous system of surveillance managed by AI to ensure people don't break the law and that cops behave themselves. To quote, Police will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording, watching, and recording everything that's going on. Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording everything that's going on. It's unimpeachable. To which I say, Larry, do you know what unimpeachable means? Don't answer that. There are just so many things wrong with everything about this.

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Ned: I seriously considered dedicating an entire episode to this story, and then I realized that it's so transparently stupid that there's no reason to spend several hours rebutting such a flawed concept. So I'll leave it at this. Hey, Larry, Tyreek Hill would like a word. Christ, what an asshole. I sportsed Chris. Saw that. I sportsed again. Anyway.

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Chris: New version of OSX Breaks Security Tools. Nobody's totally sure why. This week saw a ton of Apple releases in both hardware and software. A lot of it, of course, is focused on AI, because why wouldn't it be? Apple intelligence, as they're calling it. You get it? Ai, Apple intelligence. It's a A, and then it's a- Moving on. Anyway, Apple intelligence was whispered about for prior to formal release at the Worldwide Developers Conference this year, it was built right into the new version of OSX, which is named Sequoia. But the AI is not the fun part, really. No. The fun part is that Sequoia has since been released, and it's breaking cyber security tools left, right, and center, and nobody's completely sure why. After the release, people began reporting en masse that things like CrowdStrike and ESET, are reporting problems with OSX's network stack to the extent that it is either interfering with the tools themselves, which is bad, or causing end users to lose connectivity completely, which is worse. Now, most of the time, these tools operate with a network filter on your system, which transparently proxies all network data through the tool for scanning, filtering, etc.

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Chris: It stands What's the reason then that this is the communication, the communication with the network stack that's the problem? Apple, though, doesn't seem to be talking. It got bad enough that CrowdStrike and Sentinel One both do not have a working product on Sequoia yet and are advising users to wait to upgrade, lest they risk losing security. Now, chances are that this will get fixed quickly. Plenty of companies have a requirement for EDR software on endpoints, and plenty of people use OSX as said endpoint. But it is still an interesting reminder that upgrades need to be thoroughly tested by you, just in case weird stuff like this pops up.

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Ned: Amazon goes full 2019 with an RTO mandate. Ceo of Amazon, Andy Jassie, sent a memo last week informing all Amazonians that they are expected to return to being in the office five days a week, starting at the beginning of 2025. For the last 15 months, employees have been expected to be in the office at least three days a week. That is a complete reversal of the work from home policy that was in effect during the height of the pandemic. N'jassi claims that working in the office is critical to maintaining the culture at Amazon and to enable collaboration and innovation. He says, You need to be joined at the hip your teammates when inventing and solving hard problems. First, ill. Second, do you?

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Chris: Sorry, I was not expecting that.

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Ned: Does he have hard data to prove any of that? No. At least he doesn't cite any source. Despite being customer-obsessed and data-driven, Jassy is making this decision based entirely on vibes feels. In fact, most studies show that an RTO mandate lowers morale, has a negative impact on job satisfaction, and leads to no improvement in productivity. It does get people to quit, though, and maybe that's the point. Get a whole bunch of people to quit, especially senior folks who can find a remote job somewhere else, and replace them with cheaper people that you can bully more effectively. Christ, what an asshole. That might just be the ending of all future Lightning Round articles. All right, that's it. We're done. Go away now. Bye.