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and good morning on Thursday November 21st it's episode 320 of the 359 podcast I'm BVG and your host today are alfred and roger cheng good morning guys hey yo what up morning that's Tuesday is it yeah it could be I mean for me it's the last day of the week so that's awesome ouch what screw you sorry anyways what are we talking about today every time we're gonna be talking about 18t going to war with the US over in the US Justice Department over its ability to by Time Warner we're gonna talk about the HBO hacker the alleged hacker who had stolen and released a bunch of scripts for Game of Thrones as well as episodes of ballers and Curb Your Enthusiasm and Alfred wrote a nice little tip sheet on advice you want to give your parents over Thanksgiving about security we just want to reference it we don't a story out yet but it's breaking news the FCC has circulated the order to essentially just mantle the existing net neutrality rules you know we'll kind of forget it on the podcast we don't the story on it yet but obviously happy news oh it's coming right but obviously we're will hat we're happy to take questions on that as well although a lot of these sort of early a lot of hearsay well I hear say so as always if you have any questions leave them in the comment section right we'll pick up the best we will try to answer them in 3 minutes and 59 seconds and here we go for the recording we back see in the chat in 3 2 welcome to the 359 I'm Roger Tsien I'm Alfred Eng 18 DS bid to become a major Hollywood player just hit a big snag the Justice Department sued 18t to block its 85 billion dollar acquisition of Time Warner citing antitrust concerns the telecom giant has vowed to battle the u.s. in court which should make for an interesting showdown come 2018 yeah I mean it's it's incredibly interesting that you know AT&T and Time Warner's now I guess like the the crossroad of we're fighting for freedom of speech even though this is also like a major merger that would kind of like go against that as well yeah it's it's a weird situation you know the the argument that the Justice Department has made is that you know this this would create a company that most both owns the content and distributes it and that's way too powerful but there's been a lot of chatter that this is really about President Trump and his hatred for CNN fake news CNN and and so a lot of people are finding themselves in that awkward position where they're like we're really against you know these big mergers we're also not so happy with Trump meddling yeah they're they're stuck in between a rock and a hard place here but I mean I would kind of have to agree with it where they're getting like way too much content for I mean even even if you take CNN out of the fact that when they're saying you should divest you know just just Turner Broadcasting I mean how much does that leave AT&T in the merger if you know they were even to agree to that I mean so far they've said that any kind of divestiture to that extent is a non-starter even CNN alone is something they would not agree to and you know I was on the conference call with the CEO he sounded pissed he was angry yesterday and he was shocked and so it's covered it's a weird situation for everyone yeah I'm looking forward to saying this fight though yeah it's gonna be a glorious battle come 2018 all right next up hacker the alleged hacker who went broke into HBO's servers and leaked scripts for Game of Thrones and unreleased episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm and ballers was indicted by the Justice Department which is having a really busy week apparently Alfred you wrote about this what's the latest essentially they charge an Iranian citizen who had worked for the Iranian military in the past you know he had hacked on behalf of the military attacking other armies he attended nuclear software systems and Israeli infrastructure he was also a part of a infamous hacking group that basically defaced US websites saying you've been hacked by this law carrier Iranian hacking group and then he turned his focus to HBO where he basically I mean as you know the story goes he leaked Game of Thrones episodes leaked Curb Your Enthusiasm then demanded six million dollars in ransomware from HBO not in not in ransom or just in Bitcoin right and just just to clarify like if he's you know if he's hacking other intelligence agencies I assume hacking HBO's like nothing yeah this attack actually wasn't that complicated according to the indictment at least he had basically targeted HBO employees who had access to HBO's like computer servers yeah so he never like broke through HBO's firewalls or anything like that he basically targeted the weakest links and found that they had access to to all these files and then he went after them so speaking of hacking Alford you put together this nice little tip sheet for folks going back home to their parents what are some of the what is some of the top tips that you would suggest talking about with your parents when it comes to cyber secure keep it simple phishing is as you know is basically basically responsible for like 90% of the reason why people got hacked and that usually happens over emails it's when there's a suspicious link in an account and usually you know they're pretending to be something that you do use like right you know here's the tracking for your for your package that's been delivered but it's actually not from Amazon it's from a hacker who wants your account information you click on and it goes to a page that looks like it's Amazon so the tip that I have for that is essentially don't click on the link in the email and if you get something like that and you want to go check it out just go straight to Amazon or go straight to Netflix or whatever it is that's like coming and then log in through that channel that's an extra step but it's a lot more secure definitely a nice bit of practical advice for more of that story check us out seen it on Roger Chang I'm alfred Aang thanks for listening so is anybody going home for IT season I mean Christmas season this year visiting for holiday I'll be I mean I will be yeah we back in that way might be missed my joke though how you go home and I'm not going home to celebrate the holidays with family I'm going home to provide free IT service to all of my family oh yes I mean definitely yeah my parents computers are beyond salvation if you look at my my story there's a tweet that I embedded in there my father of my dad's laptop he got it in a month he got it like all that happened in a month I don't know how he did that yeah it was almost as if he went on purpose to install malware on his computer but I there was nothing there was like nothing I could do for him the which is like I gotta get out of here I'm sorry if you want to send your laptop to me so I have like more time to handle this but like I can't do this in a day dude no it's bonkers to me I I've I've gone home before and then blamed for viruses on a computer that I physically never touched it was in the email you say yeah must have been right so anyways go ahead and submit questions and comments we'd love to hear from you in the meantime what do you guys think about this HBO situation being that I'm not a big Game of Thrones fan I don't have perspective on this yeah is this guy a hero for leaking episodes or a villain oh okay good I wouldn't agree either yeah yeah and I noticed somebody in the comment is mentioning that this was actually done by four hackers that were arrested in India that was actually for an unrelated incident that was a separate hack of HBO they've been in multiple this was something that we've been following since when it started in July got in yeah yeah like so long well to be all right if you if you want to go through like the actual the real timeline so he started sneaking out HBO employees in May and then sometime between May and June he had gone access and he started like collecting all the files and then in July he sends the ransom note where he has like the night King oh yeah HBO is a fan that's kind of the perfect image to use we're I guess we were holding up HBO for ransom because it's sort of like a what I could think of a dare you write so what leaked would change your mind about this individual would you Herald him as a hero if he actually leaked something out that you wanted I don't know there be anything that would change your perspective altima the guys doing it for money yeah it's not like a noble cause he's just trying to make a buck and it's true maybe there was some like giant scandal that they're hiding I'd like to say yeah there you go yeah yeah yeah like HBO had conspired I don't know put down Danny I have nowhere to go on that one yeah I mean that's it's several HBO execs we're basically in an email chain or basically like we hate George RR Martin's at interpretation of the ending we're gonna make it the way we want to oh yeah that would because that Larry David shows up yeah we was intended to make sure that it leaves things open for the 15 spin-offs for creating guest guest director Michael Bay yeah I would I would apply I would applaud back or if you somehow managed to uncover the strata conspiracy to bring Michael Bay onto the Game of Thrones Oh franchise ouch all right more explosions so I I don't really have a question but I'd love to hear more about this 18t Time Warner merger because this seems like a really mega gray area because I don't know how much I love the idea of this giant conglomerate I mean this is drifting towards monopoly is Aman the kind of root for Trump in this one yeah it's a weird situation for a lot of people the thing of it is the Justice Department usually has to they have to have a pretty good reason to block when these deals and ATT argues and they make they have a point here is that ATT is they're not buying a competitor right Time Warner and ATT or two different businesses you know one makes content one distributes content those influences can for sure but they argue that at least when you look at sort of the letter of the law and how the Justice Department has to interpret the law they argue that there's 50 years of precedent that shows that they should not block this deal now I mean precedent could be thrown out the other of the counter argument is when you own both the content and the distribution also you are a huge threat to those competitors of yours who also want what's fair doesn't AT&T also own like DirecTV yeah wasn't that one yeah that's another pipe though that's not DirecTV aside from a few exceptions don't make their own content yeah and I believe that's one of the but reportedly that's one of the divestiture is that the Justice Department yeah I would I would like make the argument that it is the same like company because they own something that like would benefit greatly off of that no but that's not the same company they don't compete it Time Warner does not compete against direct attack - yeah but I'm saying like like if they did merge and then out of nowhere there just comes like you can only get HBO you know like CNN etc if you have DIRECTV right and that I mean that's argument to 18 she was trying to make that there's no way business sense that would work right but yeah that's I think that's it's not necessarily like they would hold back like content I think it would be more the fear is that they would charge for that content charge a higher rate to save Verizon or Comcast to carry Game of Thrones ratio and that's those costs get passed down to the customer right that's a big fear 80s he says no there's no real there's no way the market dynamics wouldn't allow us do it but that's the concern that feels like walk down playing themselves on a absolutely we're not smart enough to figure out a way to get more money it's less we're not smart enough and it's more competition wouldn't allow us to do it at a time where like other services or other over-the-top services are coming on and they're they're cheaper yeah yeah Watson wants to talk more about HBO he says I doubt HBO would have actually paid any ransom they seem like a weird company to target and even if they did wouldn't that just mean that more people would think like maybe I should know target yes Bo yeah I mean like we don't negotiate with I've been following this whole like attack for a really long time now well since the summer at least it was a lot more interesting to me than Game of Thrones west boy well they they they've explicitly said you know we're not going to pay for this we're never going to pay for this there was one scenario where the hackers leaked out an email from HBO to them saying like hey thanks for you know finding these flaws in our system here's a 250 thousand dollar bug bounty bug bounty basically like here you go like we're not gonna pay six million dollars but you know here's 250 grand and then the hackers basically said no like we want the full six million and then when I asked HBO about that we'd email they said that was a diversion we never we were never gonna give him the money we just wanted to stall for time on that so I'm inclined to believe HBO on this one because yes that that is the nature of how ransomware and a lot of these attacks go no it's not this is just yeah but like ransomware attacks work in the same way where it's like if they know that there's like money fountain here like they're gonna keep like going after it yeah like though how easy it was for him to break in initially I would I would have to assume that you know like other people would look at it as like a prime way to I mean that's make some quick I don't why I mean I think you mentioned in your Thanksgiving story like why you don't yeah essentially encourages more attack yeah which is counterproductive at the end of the day frosty flake has a little commentary on our story about the eighteen T Time Warner merger okay sorry the Department of Justice has the common interest of the consumer as a primary interest and the history of cable negotiate negotiation tactics and are favoring for Department of Justice on the side of the consumer I don't know I mean that's 100% true and how do you feel about this yeah III feel inclined to agree with that I feel like if it were a different White House staff and you know one that didn't criticize CNN all the time people would look at this and say you know yeah that makes sense there you have this merger would give AT&T way too much power a great job I mean I think what he's saying historically though yeah yeah I also blocked the AT&T t-mobile merger yes I did but that that was a merger of direct competitors right like that one made a lot of sense they did let through the Comcast NBC Universal deal yeah right another combination of a distributor and the content company you dog you a bigger one right NBC is a big for national broadcaster with a lot of local channel yeah so I mean 18 t kind of points to that and it's funny cuz 18 t I think actually went and I think they disputed that deal a few years ago so what that deal was going through at 18 T objected to it this this time they're saying well it's a different situation because Time Warner is not a big broadcaster and it's you know they're definitely look there are definitely a lot of concerns I think people have about the power of the ATT at the end of the day do you think that this deal is going to go through I think it will be a tough case for the Department of Justice to me I think it's gonna be heavily reconfigured as far as turning could be but I think it will ultimately go through it'll take a long time though linear to eighties I mean they're one of the most litigious not litigious they're they have one of the most largest and robust legal staffs around and so they already said on the call they're like we're ready we want to do this now our lawyers are renting a conference call with 2,000 lawyers if you have they said like they want like they they're hoping the the fastest possible scenario is within 60 days or like we wanted like now like right away that's not gonna happen yeah there's no way in hell 60 days is plausible I think now I don't know I think it's gonna be at least a year no no not to just to get things started oh I see that's actually that's actually like wrap things up like no way they want to be in court within 60 days so surprise surprise there's a few people in the chat who are not huge fans of spectrum as a company oh yeah I can't imagine spectrums yeah how is it I'm like not really home that often using it to be fair but also you're like the ideal customer yeah very much you just pay the money you don't user services I use it on the weekends and at nights what yeah I don't know it's been fine I feel like I paid way too much for it but I feel I would I feel like I'd feel that way for anything that I buy ever so that's true it's fine and I pay way too much for it is that's my motto for mine it's just fine I finally so it's I am NOT a fan of having to pay for the modem though it's a deposit used to not be standard and the thing is that I could buy my own modem and not have to deal with that but they don't know you need what modems are compared so don't really let you they're like they really yeah I know offering advice on I keep asking like okay so what modems can I get and like well if you go on our website like can you send me let me if I won't even light because there's like a proprietary hookup that's how much a month do you pay for the modem a few bucks that's ridiculous as soon they're gonna start charging like oh these it's a special ethernet I mean they pay you pay for the deck you pay for a set-top box too I mean it I don't I don't that's why I cut the cord there's just a lot of extraneous expenses this is why cable is killing itself yeah and this obviously goes well beyond cable because it's your also your internet provider and so on and so forth but maybe they do this to themselves back to ATT that's why they've been harping on DirecTV now they're over the top service because even they admit like it cost - 10 installers to send to buy set-top boxes to send to people like do it all online yeah it's just cheaper yep frosty flake is one up me I said it was gonna be at least a year or two for the AT&T deal to go through and say in at least five years no no no these things go through a lot faster than that it's like it's definitely not five years they're sold this will be like it I'm guessing a year but okay I don't I don't think it's gonna be five years hey you know in five years time that's maybe when the game of thrones will finally end all right we only got a few minutes left but we got a good question from syringe Oh our new friends turned joy wasn't there an issue raised by Bloomberg saying that they were pushed down in the channel listing by Comcast below NBC out of alphabetical order I don't nothing I don't think they do channel listing by alphabetical order yeah no I think the chalices are done by your channel yeah I don't know if I don't use Comcast I don't know no details about that is he referring to Comcast er yes yeah right none of us live in a Comcast territory so it's kind of like I I've never had the experience sorry yeah sorry same here Matt asked does anyone remember how week 18 T was before the iPhone then they had that exclusive deal it's a weaker company and they won't admit it or they want to admit another AOL another future failure for Time Warner oh well AOL I always just love pulling up the shade out of the chat I forgot about AOL Time Warner that's like the worst deal ever and look how that turned out yeah I mean look it's time 18 t niceties are right on the wall they look at the wireless business t-mobile's kicking their butts even Sprint's starting to do better there's not a lot of growth there so they want to get into the entertainment business because there's still a lot of value in creating your own content so it's ATT trying to do what they're trying to do to evolve but we'll see if that you know if regulators will allow him yeah I don't know I don't know man not a big fan of Specter myself I'm kind of hoping maybe some new management will shape that up I mean it's like I don't like that in my neighborhood it's the only thing I can get in my neighborhood I don't have options where I live I can get FiOS method I knock she says Garcia I have art I had RCN in my apartment all right I had the option not to my knowledge where I'm in Queens but I guess I'll have to look again best part about spectrum is that they're also under indictment from the Department of Justice in New York right now for exact same things that we were talking about like advertising like really high download upload rates and then yeah delivering on it yeah so yeah that that trial still going on so III pay for this we all pay for this yay and they get away with murder they really really do all the services due to an extent but some actually deliver something worthwhile and I wouldn't be so great be about it if I didn't lose my internet two to three times a week you like your recession or whatever just dropped yeah yeah that's that's look that's a legit problem yeah I'd be I'd be annoyed about that that that hasn't happened to me yet maybe it happens when I'm not home or something like that but yeah my only gripe with my internet currently is that like my new apartments way larger and it doesn't reach me in the living room anymore yeah well I don't think that's their fault I mean even for a while hey I had my own modem and after I want to say about six months of usage on it it just started to fail and it wasn't a hardware failure because I checked like the signal is still passing yeah but they must have somehow D proprieties it I'm not sure Danny green brings up in the chat that when he got spectrum they offered they gave him a modem that wouldn't do 300 megabits per second which is what they advertise and that was in the so even if they were sending it down the pipe the Box they provided yeah that was a brick wall that was that was in the indictment to where it was basically they were providing modems that could weren't even technically capable of providing that speed Wow shucks oh my god it was so it was there was so much in that indictment times good time we should revisit that yeah we should we should bring that up as like an extended conversation someday when it's a slow news day but until then we're just wrap things up all right burgers all right have you liked anything you saw or heard here check us out on CNET our podcast is available iTunes tune in stitcher SoundCloud Feedburner and Google Play Music joining us everybody not me cuz I'm off oh yeah oh and just before to clarify tomorrow will be our last broadcast before the Thanksgiving holiday and they'll be back next week so tomorrow Wednesday and then back by the sounds of it we'll have to keep you posted keep an eye on the Twitter because we have some scheduling stuff coming up so anyways thanks bye bye all you