Gadgetory

and time for round two because I am an idiot and I don't know how simple audio routing works welcome back to episode 147 of the 359 podcast my name is brian and i am here once again with Ben Fox Rubin and Alfred Inge sorry I screwed everything up ever guys I quit this feels very familiar we've done this before am I here not gonna do that again and thanks for being patient in the chat and I formally fall on my own sword here and I it's okay oh man it's been it's been a day already you would think that we did that on purpose because today we're going to be talking about hacks and things that go wrong that's it I was hacked yes i am a hack so we've got two hacks that we're talking about or one of them with the government being able to hack us and then also a google hack that happened yesterday and that they continue happening and also we're going to end with some unfortunate pneus on reddit so send in your questions and comments we'll get to them at the end of the show hopefully don't screw those up too well you'll be just fine alright let's do it all right we'll start the recording of the podcast in three two welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Rubin & I'm Alfred bang all right let me try to get through this quickly a new rule went into effect today that makes it much easier for federal agents to hack into millions of Americans computers under previous rules if the FBI wanted to investigate a big cyberattack would have to get warrants from local magistrates all over the country now they can go to just one judge and access all the computers they need so law enforcement officials say that this change is important so they can respond to botnet attacks which as we know are all growing but privacy advocates obviously don't like these new powers Alfred do you think that this is something that could be significantly abused I think it's a bit of a gray area I think they do need it the FBI does need a tool like this you know because of botnet attacks where people can master IP addresses so you know even though the computer is somewhere in Kansas you know the IP address might be able to say there you know all the way in California or something like that so I do think that's a little bit nessa there although i will say there is a major privacy concern when it comes to that total to the fact that you know now these agents don't have to go to a judge where it has your local laws and local restrictions and things like that can and can do kind just like a sweeping it says it's a big sweeping tool that they can use and it raises a lot of privacy concerns google made a good point where it was essentially why are we making it easier for people who got hacked all ready to get hacked again right by government mess up their devices yeah so according to the rules the government is going to try to at least make a reasonable effort to tell you that they're hacking into your devices if they are investigating a botnet attack but I am a little surprised that this came through as easily as it did or as quickly as it did in the post Snowden world so maybe things are changing back to what I think people are much more willing to give up their you know privacy for you know this idea of safety maybe I don't know we'll see how it goes and we'll see what ends up happening with it next up over a million Google accounts were hit by a malicious software called cool again hooligan which downloads onto Android devices by posing as a legitimate app the malware can steal personal info from google accounts but google said yesterday found no evidence that user data was accessed so I've judge of a problem is this this is kind of a problem there there's you know so many Android devices out there and the thing is that this only affects you know if you're running on Android 4 or 5 mm but the thing is is that you know because android doesn't dish out updates to all its devices like Apple does it's kind of an issue where if you're not on the latest you know Android software the new minor been hacked you should go on a checkpoint to see if your accounts were was breached and if it was then you should immediately like delete everything on that device which witch is which sucks but that's what you have to do unfortunately either that or risk your google account and lost all right last with the last minute we have reddit CEO said the social site is working to heal after he got embroiled in a comment editing scandal he edited posts on a subreddit for Donald Trump supporters replacing negative mentions of his name with the names of the forums leaders now reddit plans to cut down on abusive behavior I mean that's III get it you got attacked online you didn't like that but it just doesn't seem like the right moment it's such a dumb way to like to frame it where it's like we're trying to heal it's like shooting yourself in the foot and then saying you know I'm we're gonna try to do better next time it's yeah that's at the time it was not exactly right i get the toxic things happen online but you don't seem down to that level you know especially as the CEO of the website yeah I I wouldn't disagree with you that with that one if you want to read more about these stories check us out on cnet I'm Ben Fox Rubin I'm Alfred Aang thanks for listening okay and we made it yeah do all the I heard my mic all of a sudden my throat well my my favorite comment so far as hacking black hack in black you know like the ac/dc song okay all right I am NOT cool you are not I've never never professed to that's not even like like that's like a pretty recent ac/dc song compared to like if you want to talk about Arn be okay I can dig it this is like this is like somebody saying like oh I love greenday and it's just like american idiot or something I like that song all right any what are some of our question we had like a minute to get through that really complicated reddit thing one of the things I thought was interesting was that they're planning on really cutting down an abusive behavior they found a bunch of accounts that they said are the quote-unquote most toxic but they're either going to like Warren or outright ban I do know that they've tried to purge the site of some of the most negative aspects in the past so I do wonder it is this time going to be any different who knows now good luck with that reddit I i think the entire internet has a trolling problem I mean Twitter obviously the which is a publicly traded companies you know the marginally more mainstream yeah I think it'll be these companies you know reddit and Twitter and Facebook I have all these mantras or like we're built on free speech that's why people flock to these websites where it's like we don't like censorship or anything like that but then now they have to deal with this dilemma nowhere well is this protected free speech because it's guys you know saying all this awful stuff mm-hmm or you know the more troublesome stuff is more directed attacks at specific people or specific groups it's also relates to First Amendment rights but we have somebody that's more problematic it happens on a lot of websites where you can build your own small individual communities where you can find other like-minded people that I in a perfect world it would be you know for you know positive things and stuff like that but you know people are looking for other people that are like them that hate the same things that they do and then when you have that and it just all Fester's up together and everyone's just like is feeding off of each other's like negativity just I mean it happen that's why i'm on twitter you have things you know you have for us we have like media Twitter sports Twitter but then there is you know racist Twitter that like we're not on but yes it builds on that what is my crew of the internet yes uh one Reddit i am disappoint as an avid lurker i am very sad to hear about this to do you think we're ever going to outgrow this trolling phase i mean are we just in the terrible twos right now as far as Internet age goes and it's a very interesting theory I don't know I think we grew into it if anything I think it sure walled for sure I think like it's easy to hide behind anonymity and shit we've all had terrible thoughts and now it's easier to put them on paper quoting digital paper per se and fields almost no consequences for kind of thing you know that's just that's the kind of terrible human nature the bubbles with all of us and some of us have better ways to hold it in i guess i don't know i think people have always been awful though now it's just like you know with all these forums it's like easier to you know voice it out there and like you said with this like and a minima t it's essentially you know oh I can be a terrible person and no one will judge me for it I guess so but aren't people also terrible to each other on facebook where you actually like there's a lot of bullying yeah but like the different kind of terrible it is by forgot sorrow it's always with strangers like when you see people being awful to each other it's not like it's not like I see my aunts like profile picture where it's really bad I'm like you're like I hate years I like that it's not like it's it's like if you see like a comment from somebody who happen to comment on like your relatives facebook page and he says something like you know that you didn't get it just all right I'm gonna rail on this person or something like that it's it's like you need a little bit different yeah i would i would agree with you but i don't want to give Facebook a free pass oh absolutely not yeah I got nothing to do with the media I mean has everything and nothing to do with the medium at the same time what you said ultimately the end of the day we're terrible species we should all be sorry Michael Brown dad Michael Brown thinks you should change your name to Ben Fox kickass Ruben by the way if wow that's so nice and you know I really don't deserve that praise but I'll take it anyway I mean I got called dude with beard in chat so I'll take that dude with beard is also just great I just make a I'm gonna make myself a chyron for the video so this is dude with your dad could get here yeah I guess yeah and I have Michael Brown also says what's aggravating is that people are so quick to point fingers at Google for menu for manufacturers not updating the phones to the latest version of Android obviously this is going back to me yeah yeah I'm the game hooligan when Google posts a software so early and that's a good point we're going back to the whole queue 8th or not QA but quality assurance thing yeah QA thank you similar to what Samsung went through I would point out I wasn't pointing my finger at Google per se more so that it's just that that's just a fact that is all that is how and replaced yeah clearly you know you never know like what update you're gonna get or what when it's gonna cut out for you you know when you're gonna be like make sorry everybody knows that going into the Android ecosystem that Android is generally a little bit more vulnerable than iOS iOS has its own hack issues I think earlier this year it had a particularly bad one that they had to push out an update really quickly because it was a particularly nasty one so well that impede the vulnerabilities yes but that also you know because Android dominates like the smartphone market that like people are developing you know malware for that as opposed to I totally good point totally let's clear something up is ghoul again of a play on Gilligan and the skin or hooligan I being a tuille I think it's really into yeah I like hooligan more but I didn't even think of hooligan I thought it was Gilligan Yeah right yep I mean what does it have to do with Gilligan though like the that's a good question like the matically if I like let's talk about the pros of hacks right yeah so one thing that we didn't get to in the podcast was that apparently this is like a like a blackmailing effort where they hack your information to convince you to download specific apps so as part of an advertising fraud campaign so they they make like hundreds of thousands of dollars by getting people to download these specific apps after blackmailing them so it's so I guess they don't want your personal information the same way other hacks do but it doesn't change the fact that it's also you know not unfriendly and not fun to deal with so yeah props to the guy who recognized my shirt in the chat Mitch let's go thrash some time do you think the government should get should step on trolling bullying and etc is tricky for a question that's a really good mansion again though that's like the same I I don't think the government should do it because again there is this whole idea of like free speech I think website should do it because they're private companies that you know make money but when you get the government involved I don't think that I mean like you know school officials do it but it's more of like a direct relatable yang yeah I think and the school's handle cyber bullying among their students to so that that is government related I don't think you know the head of the FBI should be there out there you know looking for trolls I think so it is it is important to at least consider where the government might be useful in getting involved I think general trolling is one thing but directed harassment at a specific person does that potentially break any less yeah is that is that is a complete is it hate speech is it harassment those types of things you would wonder if it actually makes sense for the government to get more involved if I'm not saying whether they should or they shouldn't I'm just if it doesn't do if it delves into a crime then of course yeah the government should get him yeah like how much of it monitor how much of that monitoring I don't even should be monitoring for it I I think like you know if somebody reports that they've been the victim of you know online harassment that you know a police department should take that seriously but as we all know Melania Trump's big you know push as first lady is going to be fighting a cyber bullying so let's see how that goes see how that I mean it's a relevant thing it should be at the top of the list right now sadly it should be a top list right now because like really grow up yeah I guess so I'm kind of glad to see that that is a go where goes from here it you know time will tell but I get it that really is a but yeah these websites that manage like all this stuff like should have better tools to fight it you know like how the fact that like Twitter couldn't be sold to like Disney and Salesforce because like cyber bullying and it's like just like the toxic community on it was such a major concern that they were turned off from buying it yes that gives Twitter a lot of reasons to try to clean up its act yeah or yeah I as a counterpoint I would like to say though that I think it's an important thing to protect the First Amendment and to protect unpleasant speech as unpleasant as it is sometimes well yeah that's why I don't think the government should get involved again that these this is Twitter though being like a private company that can do whatever the hell I want right or reddit yeah read it had you know what is it the the Donald subreddit which was a very active subreddit but apparently had a lot of visceral in it misdirected also at the CEO so obviously i don't think personally I don't think that his response with editing comments was a particularly intelligent one but you know when you are getting attacked like that when there is that much toxicity it gets under your skin after sometimes so i understand it from a personal level that maybe he felt the need to respond somehow and with that let's close it out for the week oh really okay alright so let's let's end on a positive note i guess yeah that was positive no no it was nothing it's a really this is gonna get all right let me let me tell maybe an Alexa joke that i remember what do you call a dog magician al abracadabra doodle alright that didn't work anyway the 359 podcast is available on itunes tune in stitcher SoundCloud feedburner google play music and on cnet com thanks for watching goodbye