Gadgetory

and welcome to August everybody August first Tuesday episode 259 of the 359 podcast and in the house today Alfred Eng Ben Fox Ruben and Derrick Earth thank you so much for joining us first time for Derrick thanks for being here by the way happy Anniversary honey I know you don't watch the show but been a wonderful 7 years so thank you throw that out there thank you I've really enjoyed these last seven years back you know we've really we've grown together it's been so lovely anyway we've got two interesting exclusives and scoops that we had on SEANET today that we're gonna get through on the podcast first up Dara just got back from a trip from Africa she's gonna talk about an uber story that she wrote about with rich neova and Alfred is here to talk about blue phones troubles with Amazon anyway without further ado we'll get to the main podcast send in your questions and comments and Brian we'll get to as many as you can at the end of the show and here we go for the recording in three two welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred Inge and with us today is uber reporter Derek her Dara thanks for being here thanks for having me so Dara you just got back from a reporting trip in Africa where you reported on uber hiring a security company to protect drivers from getting attacked there how did you hear about this well I was there with our colleague retinue Eva and also another colleague James Martin who's a photographer Christina and we decided to take some overrides and see what was happening on the ground in Johannesburg and the more drivers we talked to the more we heard about this violence that's happening between taxi drivers and neighbor drivers so it's gotten so bad actually that uber hired armed security guards to station and certain like of like the busiest areas right so violence between taxis and uber drivers isn't isolated to South Africa it's happened all over the world but what's happening in South Africa is pretty extreme violence some people have been killed then hospitalized there's been beatings with iron and sticks and bricks and so to quell the violence uber has hired this private security company quite quietly hired so why are the taxi drivers so upset about the uber drivers I'm assuming that it's mostly the taxi drivers that are the aggressors in the situation right yeah the taxi drivers feel that uber is stealing their jobs Uber's that cost to take an uber is far less than a taxi and so taxis just can't compete so they're they're really upset that they're losing their jobs and their livelihood another thing is to be an uber driver you have to have a certain kind of car has to be 2013 are newer four doors air conditioning and a lot of poor people in South Africa can't afford to even lease a car like that so it's there's a slight discrimination happening for the uber drivers especially because the violence has really amped up hmm have you heard from them that like they want to move away from being over drivers altogether and like I'm sitting here thinking like how is this worth it to keep doing right ya know a lot of uber drivers we've talked to said they have all these kind of safety measures in place like they're really on guard when they drop people off if there's not the security company there and some of your drivers we talked to you said they have friends that have quit because it's just too dangerous it's scary yeah definitely that's thanks for writing that story it was really interesting read also Alfred you came out with a story today that Amazon actually was yesterday Amazon suspended sales of blue phones over potential security concerns get us up to speed on that yeah so this broke out last week during blackhat on Thursday these the security company called crypto wire had discovered that a certain number of blue phones were still using a dubs firmware which in November this got discovered by crypto wire where basically this firmware was sending very personal data on your phone to servers in China and was never specified what it was being used for while it was on those servers but it would send data like your phone number apps you used how often you use these apps your MAC address you know cell phone tower data in some scenarios where they can find out what your location is and they weren't exactly informing their users it was in their privacy policy it is essentially a section that nobody reads yeah and it got to a point so that happened in November and then when that happened blue basically said we didn't know about this we've gotten rid of it it's gone now we've really you know value our users privacy however last week at blackhat crypto wire at their presentation basically said that's not true we found these phones in May that still have this firmware on it and it's still extol trading data to these servers in China and they aren't telling they aren't notifying users when their personal information gets lost so yesterday we found out that Amazon actually ended up suspending the sales of blue phones which is a heavy hit for both Amazon and blue considering that blue phones were really known for their cheap prices on Amazon and it was the top-selling phone on Amazon's market I mean like one of them sells for like 50 or 60 dollars like this is a cheap phone yeah and it was also their top-selling phone and now it's the sales have been suspended until they figure out what's going on with Blues security concerns and private see concerns for a lot of people right so in the meantime do you think it's a good idea for people to buy blue phones until this whole thing gets figured out I can't suggest for what people should buy but I mean I wouldn't you know I wouldn't take the bet yeah all right anyway if you want to read more about these stories check us out on CNN I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm alfred Inge and Dara thanks for joining us yeah thanks I don't think you have to worry about anybody being delving into the blue phones if I'm reading the comments section correctly today like yeah so it's blue by the way BL you know you're only listening to this on audio and sometimes sometimes yeah but but it's it's sometimes like yeah that cheap is a little too good to be true I suppose I mean like I was pretty surprised that the reason why they can afford it to her to be that cheap those because the the firmware that I was talking about aid UPS that's only usually found on cheap phones and like that's because their service is cheap as well you know when you're buying when you're not just buying like the hardware your there's a lot of like software things that they have to pay for it use on it as well yeah and aid UPS is relatively cheap and that's like a large reason why I'd be curious to see what sort of things they would have to change to actually convince Amazon till I get back in there yeah I mean when it happened the Amazon had also suspended their sales back in November when this first report came out and I'm sure that they've you know made some adjustments to you know get back on the market and climb back on to the top of the charts but I didn't know that they spend down back in November and yeah came back but now it's like you know fool me twice you know can't get fooled again anyway on to the questions yeah I mean besides the raving amount of I hate blue phones going to that we'd love to actually hear some feedback from those who maybe have driven for uber such as our friend Matthew - err - what's up he says I drove herbal brew bur briefly a couple years ago didn't fear for my safety actually met some interesting people the worst were the drunk 20-somethings but Matthew could you actually try to remind us where we're about you are in the world again and if anybody else at the same time has any other experiences driving for uber and have had safety concerns themselves and related sense we'd love to hear about them meanwhile Derek could you expand a little bit on what you're seeing develop like it because as this continues to unfold right yeah so we had heard uber drivers talking about this private security company so we actually tried to track them down and found them and indeed there were guards at these dangerous drop off spots which tended to sorry which tended to be busy train stations and other bus stations are there busy areas so the guards we they wouldn't talk to us they said they weren't allowed to talk to us and we couldn't take their picture but they were fairly menacing looking they were really nice but they were they were armed they every all the murderers said they were armed when we asked them if they were carrying a gun they said they couldn't disclose that all right good that you don't make pictures of them yeah I know that you couldn't take photos of them but can you describe kind of what they look like yeah so they were wearing all-black military gear so combat boots you know what are those pants with the pockets bulletproof right and like the black beanies too and they had a little thing of mace in the pocket and I know that we're looking at this from like a security for the drivers kind of point of view but is anyone else like kind of like creeped out by the fact that rumor has the capacity to legally hire a secure like at their own private security like armed force in like another country that's kind of creepy right like that's I mean like it's it's it's a private company I guess I I hear where you're getting like what we're a private company we don't have people with like potential like guns and bulletproof vests like at our offices all the time yes phasing goes kind of like danger that's true it's and and if I was what I can be working in the C net I don't I don't know it seems a little weird it's like it you know the oil companies that yes militia that guard their you know oil tanks the NOI Alliance but what's interesting I think also is that this is you know more of a band-aid to the problem for the violence it doesn't get to the root problem why the taxi drivers are causing the violence which is this desperation because they're losing their jobs and their income yeah so I mean the taxi drivers said they've asked Ober to have the same rates as them it feels like uber is just kind of you know responding to force with more force as opposed to like the underlying issue like you said right and a lot of lots of taxi drivers said that they said you know goobers just bringing more violence by having this these armed guards yeah looking at this a little bit more broadly we talked about this before the podcast that like while you are at the Daily News you wrote about you know violence relating to Oberer driver yeah York yeah right so like this doesn't this is in a lot of place yeah I mean yeah but that what it wasn't like an all-out war between you know taxi drivers and uber drivers there was just a lot of people were targeting the Kluber drivers at the time because they were easy to like steal from mm-hmm and that nicer cars and all this stuff and they you were guaranteed to at least get a smartphone out of it kind of thing yeah that's what's happening in Nairobi is more but they're just gnarly tales that we heard you know of people being locked in their trunks and driven out to the bush and stripped clean yeah Kevin in the chat has a question for the record were podcasting out of New York Madera here from San Francisco he asked didn't you guys have your own problems in SF I remember hearing about a driver going berserk on the passenger is taking a hammer out and hitting passengers on the head I've never heard about that could you fill us in yeah I covered that story and worked with the lawyer representing the victim yeah that was crazy story this driver he just was a little off and started driving these passengers not on the route they were going to and so they asked to be let out and he just went after them with a hammer and and hit I mean he was severely injured one of the passengers hit him and that I he lost an eye oh yeah I know it was crazy I don't even know how to respond to that I know yeah I there like that's not like the only story as far as that's concerned right like uber has had these problems come up a lot because they're growing so quickly sometimes like they'll get bad apples and as far as becoming drivers course like this security firm goes itself I mean you had to go all the way you know out there to basically find out about it through goober drivers I mean why do you think this is something that Hoover kinda wants to you know keep a secret it's not good publicity and to you know that the uber drivers are dying I mean people have died and it also doesn't make people want to be over drivers and that's supers big goal is to get more dot the more drivers it gets the easier it is for it to compete and take over yeah and I know you were mentioning a bit earlier that these drivers you know they were telling you about they're very vigilant when they're driving and they're looking around when they're like dropping off passengers and things like that so even with those like extra security do you think that they feel safe at all they said it does help okay they said it's it's it's gotten better with the security guards and I have to say this train station that we were at where we found the guards is not the safest train station but that block felt very safe and the guard he told us he are perfectly safe on this block and I I believed him how about usually makes me feel safe we counted four or five and that was just at that one station right in that one block of that one stage right so what happens if you if you're in inside the train station and you hail and uber the app will direct you to that block because right outside the translations the taxi stand and the ubers used to stop there but because of the violence they now have to stop the block away and so that the app will direct you to that block and then there's where the guards are mm-hmm do you know if the app is do you know if those guards were only specifically for uber like if there was some other you know kind of chaos breaking down they want to get involved right like if it was between two taxi drivers or something right it's it's unclear what would happen there definitely they're working for uber so but they seem like the kind of people that would want to quell any violence I got a wonder how many elements are at play here because there's a lot of variables is it partially geolocation is that the the spiraling corporate corruption of uber itself is it just intense competition since it's not localized to only one location however we are focusing on a very specific incident that's happening in South Africa as we speak I just wonder how many elements are truly at at play here and what they can do about I mean they can have security but is that really gonna fix this no yeah that's going back to this whole thing where security is a band-aid for the problem but I mean this to me this boils down to competition uber is trying to win in this market and that means taking over taxi drivers business I I don't know if would say that but that's that's what's happening otherwise why would they be undercutting at a loss yeah and that's what's happening around the world and that's why you see this desperate taxi drivers everywhere getting upset you know there was also another element that you kind of ended your story with that let's talk a bit about that you were talking about how there's now created this kind of separation between who uses taxes versus who uses ubers right and in South Africa that's you know you you feel segregation really strongly because of its history with apartheid but taxi drivers told us that white people don't take taxis anymore so they're generally taking ubers because they're newer cars they can utilize the app which makes it a little bit easier to hell you can charge your phone get gum water you know that taking uber is nice the drivers are nice that's very professional the taxi drivers can you know it's kind of like New York City like do you don't know what you're gonna get and I mean for me that's kind of fun but there's you know when uber driver was complaining of taxis like you get in the taxi and you can look down and there's a hole in the floor and you can see the road you know they're just like there went down cars and it's more expensive and more expensive right so like one could argue that it's a worse service that's more expensive right but at the same time uber is undercutting the price at a loss right so it's not a sustainable model for that and exactly and and at the same time you can only take an uber if you have a smartphone mmm and credit card you know so there's that kind of discrimination happening class discrimination just to bring a little levity back to the conversation hey maybe the the hole in the floor as they say with all the things wrong with the iPhone that's not a bug that's a feature that was that wasn't interesting I didn't want to like get to that in the four-minute portion but it was definitely an interesting element that you heard from people on the ground so I did one of address so yeah it was in two minutes interesting element and another part of the story well when that taxi driver told me that I you know it really brought it home for me how hard this situation is that this Western company has created and you know that seems to be the story around the world especially I know in China with like needy like that they kind of messed things up a lot there too because they had a whole system going on with the amount of like rideshare drivers that they had for DD right yeah and and in a lot of other countries there's all sorts of forms of Transportation motorcycles bicycles you know to do so it's yeah it's weird it's it's literally disrupt it's almost as if you can't take one country's culture and just implant it somewhere else that's what you don't say I'm shocked all right do we have any other questions or well we I I think Kevin is just wondering or I'm sorry if I'm miss quoting here no Evan sorry Evan is wondering if other alt elements at play could help this what about things like cameras and cars and I'm kind of curious are there any other services besides uber is there lyft in the area is there anything left is us only there are local services there's one called tax if I definitely in Nairobi there's one called zebra which I was corrected it's zebra oh yeah so and that they're there in South Africa I think they well I actually I don't know if they're an African company but there are other competitors but uber definitely is that the big yeah my question about that though was like let's say tax if I like a tax if I driver comes through I'm sure you know the cabbies there also kike would would hate them yeah and if that person's getting like attacked like what are the other guards like kind of stop that or is it kinda like well he's not an uber driver so sorry you know I would assume the guards would help out cuz they're just they seem like those but who knows I don't know what their agreement is with uber and if they're not supposed to get involved in anything else yeah yeah alright that's probably the we'll have to leave it off for the day yeah we're running out of time but as always keep the stream of conscious in the comments section and will of course link out to the story and this will be ever developing on CNET and thanks as always for joining us and dara thanks for coming along yeah thanks you know fascinating story thanks to have someone besides these Schmucks here hey all right you're right though now let's bring it home all right come back to this 359 is available on iTunes tune ins that your SoundCloud feed burner Google Play Music and it's on cnet.com of course there's a net thanks everybody for watching we'll be back tomorrow see you tomorrow you know I