451: Trust Deficit

Grumpy Old Geeks. A weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFilippo discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame.

Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks. I'm Jason DeFilippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Good morning. Good. Is it? I don't know. Well, I know it's morning. I don't know what day it is. Couldn't tell you what month it is. I'm pretty sure it's still 2020, but that's about all I got. I was up till one in the morning talking to a girl on the phone like I was a goddamn teenager.

Well, I mean, that is dating right now, or at least it should be. We'll get into that in a second. That's pretty much it, man. I literally felt like a teenager and she's just like, oh, my edible kicked in and I have to go to bed. And I'm like, OK, we are adults. OK, so there is that baseline, you know, but I'm like, I go to bed at nine o'clock at night and I was up till one in the morning.

So I'm just a little foggy today. Just a little bit. All right. Well, I'm just foggy because I'm foggy. Yeah, it is. It is my baseline for behavior at the moment. So I got to tell you, man, I you have been on me since we started this show to go to the fucking doctor and it took a pandemic.

It took a pandemic to get me to the doctor just to get my blood work done. And I tell you what, virtual doctor visits suck. They suck. I got my new primary care physician and I'm sitting there in the chat room waiting, waiting, waiting.

And then I finally hear a ding on my phone and it's a voicemail saying, hey, I was calling you and I'm in the chat room and you're not there. And I'm like, I've been here for 20 minutes before the visit, like you said on the website. And I didn't realize that doctors don't actually use caller ID because that makes sense because they don't want people bucking them all the time.

But my phone is set up to not register calls from caller like somebody with no caller ID. And so, yeah, you still have to wait your turn, but there's no highlights magazine like in the old days. And, oh, God, what a pain in the ass that was.

See, randomly, I also had a Zoom call with my, or actually, yeah, it was, was it Zoom? Yes, it was Zoom. I get all the, I've had blue jeans, I've had Zoom, I've had everything known to man since this has all started. But it was, it was a Zoom call. I had a Zoom call with my doctor this week.

I just wanted to ask a couple of questions and I had a completely different experience. So, again, I think this is, this goes by provider to provider. I'm very happy with my health care, which is a rare, rarity in the United States of America for somebody to be happy with their health care. Yeah, I'm like, I'm not. I am.

I'm extremely happy. I like my primary care physician. I like the, the Santa Monica physicians, which is the, the place I go to. I had a wonderful Zoom call. I, I logged in. You know, they even called ahead of time with caller ID that says Santa Monica area physicians to, you know, she was going to walk me, not the doctor, but the assistant was going to walk me.

Walk me through and I was like, I've been living on Zoom for the past three months. I got it. Don't worry. I'm already in the waiting room. Oh no. Okay. Thank you very much. Doctor will be with you shortly. Showed up. It was great. It was perfect. I was like, I never need, I never want to actually go into the office again, unless you actually need to physically see me or take some samples or specimens of something.

This is wonderful. Yeah. I'm on Kaiser Permanente and they have their own system and their own system apparently sucks. The old joke about Kaiser Permanente is you do not want healthcare with permanent in the name. Well, the thing about it is they're, they're fantastic.

I finally got through, like I called back and, you know, did, did my Nancy spiel. I'm like, Hey, I was here. Where the hell is a doctor? And they put me with another doctor, which fortunately for me was the doctor that I originally wanted as my primary care physician.

And they said it, like I talked to him and we went through everything and I have to go get my, you know, my samples taken tomorrow. And, uh, I asked him, I'm like, Hey man, it says you're not taking any new patients. He's like, that's not up to me. That's the algorithm. Uh huh. Uh huh. Yep. It's the fucking algorithm that says that like every couple of weeks that they recycle everybody.

And they say, you're allowed to take new patients now. And I'm like, can you just press a button and let me through? Because you're the guy I originally wanted because my guy who I was supposed to do my, my call with, they're like, Oh, your next available slot is July 7th.

And I'm like, uh, it, it, I kind of need help now. Right. And they're like, no, July 7th is the first time he can talk to you. So they put me with this guy just to get, cause I just need, you can't get blood work taken without a prescription, you know?

And so I talked to this guy and he's just like, yeah, it's the algorithm, man. Just try back in a few weeks. And when, when they let me have new patients, uh, I will, I will gladly take you on. And I'm like, how fucked up is that? I like, he's, he's got, he's got the space.

He can take me on as a, as a client, but the algorithm won't let him. Of course it's the algorithms. Why wouldn't it be algorithms? Of course. I mean, that's what we talk about all the goddamn time. I'm like, all I want's a doctor. All I want is a goddamn doctor.

Yeah. Awesome. So I got a, I got, I got a bit of sports ball followup, Brian. So you are following, uh, I'm guessing the premier league. I actually don't, which I'm kind of weird for that. Most people around the world, if they're into professional soccer, have a premier league team. Uh, all my friends in Toronto do.

I do not. I only watched the Bundesliga really. Oh, and international tournaments, but yes, premier league, huge, massive. Yeah. Yeah. It's so massive that Twitter was doing live score updates with Chelsea and whoever else they were playing in my sidebar.

Well, it was a very important, uh, series of games that occurred because, uh, it came down to who won the championship. Yeah. But they wouldn't let me turn it off. Period. It was showing me live scores. You will see what we want you to see. And that is that.

Yes. Yeah. I felt very clockwork orangey with the, the eyelid, uh, contraption. I'm like, I just don't want to see this right now. Cause maybe I wanted to go watch the game later, but no Twitter says, yeah, you're going to watch the score in real time.

And, uh, I do believe Chelsea won, but, uh, I was just like, what the fuck? Why can't I turn off this? It's dumb shittery. Yes. Well, Liverpool ended up taking the championship for, I believe the first time in 30 years or something like that. So pretty, pretty exciting stuff. But yeah, I mean, you know, old school rules, uh, just, this goes back to game of thrones when game of thrones came on, do not turn off social media.

Yes. Especially that night of the red wedding. Oh my God. That was bad. Yeah. So if you are interested in any live sporting event, uh, and you plan to watch it later and don't want to know what happened, uh, not only do not check your phone for, for people's texts, but, uh, stay off social media.

End of story. God, Jack, Jack, fuck you. I, I, I mean, I didn't even, I had no filter this. I had no horse in the game. I had no horse in the game and I was still pissed off. I'm just saying if, if you didn't want to see it, could you not filter it?

Would that not have worked? No, it was, it was perma. It was like perma linked in the sidebar and there was no close button or anything like that. It was there. And when I went on this morning, it said the same thing. It's like, okay, here's the final for the, the Chelsea match.

And I'm like, what the hell is wrong with you people? Well, all social media tries to become more than it ever was. Right. They want to be all things to all people. And we'll get back into that and apps and do dads later. Uh, but that is the way of it, right? Like, uh, this is exactly what I was complaining about with Facebook.

It's, it's when you launch Facebook now, they, they tell you, you either get your coronavirus news update or your whatever. It's just, it's, there's something always sitting there that they're trying to shove down your throats. Yeah. And I mean, like, like I said, I don't have a horse in this game, but I was still pissed off.

I was really pissed off. I'm like, uh, spoiler alert, come on. Well, uh, you know, I think, I think, I think, uh, you're letting it affect you a little bit too much, particularly since you don't care. Just use, uh, what we all use throughout our daily internet browsing, uh, avoidance, like who cares?

Just eyes rolled off that and onto the next thing. That's what we've all done for a walk until you can watch it on, on your DVR, I guess. Yeah. Well, again, just, you can't, uh, as somebody who's into sports ball, I know this over the past couple of years as every single, you know, social media company is making deals with sports leagues, uh, live sports is being pushed on social media hard.

And if there's a game that you want to watch and you can't watch it in real time, you cannot be on social media, no matter what sport, whatever they know. So, yeah, I guess so. I guess so it still pisses me off. Yeah. So we heard that, uh, Disneyland was going to be opening and, uh, they rethought that as cases are spiraling out of control, particularly in the Western United States.

So as I've always said, you can use Disneyland as a good canary in the coal mine. If they aren't going to reopen, nothing should be reopening and we are fucked. And I'm going back to ordering everything through delivery again. Actually, I was thinking about that because, you know, even those of us taking it pretty seriously, um, you do, and many of my friends do as well.

We've all started basically going out a little bit with our masks on and things of that nature. And I was just going, you know, things are actually worse now than they were the first three months that we were doing stay at home. And if there was any time that we should actually be really staying at home, it's now.

Now it's now. It's absolutely now. Yeah. No, I had, I got into a fight with my, my local, um, because I walk into my local and nobody wears a mask and I'm just like, what the hell's going on here?

I'm like, you guys are super spreaders. You know, you're standing there talking to customers all day and you're not wearing a mask. What the hell is wrong with you? I don't understand it. According to time.com yesterday was officially the worst coronavirus pandemic day.

We've had as a country, since this has all started, uh, I have a link in the show notes that talks about red state reopening has been a disaster, which kind of Republicans pin their hopes on. We can get our economy going again. Um, Texas in particular is highlighted in this article and it's, it's, it's been a disaster and, and, uh, states are starting to walk back the openings because they have to, because we're spiraling out of control.

It is spiraling out of control in this country. Well, you know, and, and guess what? We live in Los Angeles County. You and I, Brian, Los Angeles County has the highest number of cases of any county in the United States of America. I think we were just overtaken by Phoenix, uh, as of this morning.

Okay. Well, yeah. Okay. But, but, you know, you know, we're picking at hairs here. Um, it's not good. Yeah. Yeah. It's bad. It's bad. So stay the fuck at home. You know, I, it's, it's, I thought that I, I went to Trader Joe's and I was like, what am I doing? This is, I, we're, we're way worse off than we were in the first three months right now.

And I, I need to start staying home and doing all this again, which is so infuriating. I know, I know. And, and yeah, I mean, we did the right thing at the beginning and we hoped everybody would do the right thing, but nobody did because we have passed the fuck it Rubicon, you know?

People just, we're, we're, you know, we're spiraling towards herd immunity and we don't even know if herd immunity exists. In fact, we have a pretty good idea because I believe it was Sweden or Switzerland. I can't remember which that attempted it and it did not go well. Yeah. There's no such thing as herd immunity with COVID-19 is what everybody's saying.

So, uh, yeah. Um, I don't know. I don't know. It's, you know, it's not contributing to my good mood around the house here. And, and we are, I just don't know what to do, man. It's, it's terrifying here. I know exactly what to do.

Hunker down, stay at home, hunker down and get that teepee, get that teepee. No, not again. Not again. Let's not do that again. People, we have discovered toilet paper does not run out. Please. Ah, but my bidet gets delivered today.

In the news. So Brian, did you get your stimulus check? Uh, I do not qualify. We make too much money. Oh, poor baby. Oh, although I do have something really frustrating to say about that.

And I know this is going to be, uh, anybody hearing this that really needs the stimulus check and all that sort of stuff is going to be rich guy whining. But, you know, we, uh, whatever, work hard, make money, uh, had a very significant, significant federal tax return that we were supposed to get, uh, which we could use that money.

It's a lot of money, it's our money, the government had it, made their money off of it, we filed our taxes early, we, we, we knew when we would, here's this, there is a large chunk of money, there is a big check that is supposed to come to us, that we are owed, that is our own money, that we kind of need, delayed.

Pushed back because of stimulus checks. So the government gets to hold on to our significant chunk of money even longer. We have no idea when we're going to get that money and we actually need that money. Okay. Well, I can float you a loan if you need to, because I got my stimulus check way back when, because I make nothing.

I don't, I am definitely on the lower end of the, the income spectrum. So I got my check, but, uh, Brian, you should try dying because 1.4. Billion dollars in stimulus checks went to dead people.

Maybe this explains why so many people are going out to bars and restaurants and not wearing masks. They just need their money. They figure if they die. Yeah. If I'm dead, I'll get my check, bitch. Yeah, I saw this and it blew my mind. I mean, we should not be surprised. These are all automated systems that do not use AI or anything like that.

You know, I was thinking the same thing the other day because my mom called me and my mom is obviously, uh, in, in the high risk group. She's older. Um, jury summons. What? My mom got a jury summons in the middle of a pandemic as a senior citizen.

Like, do they not have a filter? Maybe we should not send this to anybody over the age group that we say should stay home. But no, they do. And now I have to go through the whole, the whole rigmarole of, and they, obviously, you know, it's all automated in terms of trying to, to, to delay your jury duty.

But there's no, I'm old and I don't want to die because of the pandemic button. So, yeah. Oh my God. That's amazing. It's unbelievable. It's just mind bogglingly, infuriatingly stupid. Oh man. So what they're saying is that, uh, since, uh, all these dead people got checks, it's because the different agencies don't talk to each other and they don't share data.

Yeah. And, uh, obviously that is the exact same case with your mom. Exactly. Exactly. That's, it's, it's unbelievable. It really is. Now, obviously this is, uh, to some degree, it's a good thing. We don't want agencies to share a lot of data, but there are, again, I always think back when these things happen.

I, I usually just kind of, my, my mind is blown. And then I think back to how would we have programmed this? And they're very simple fixes. So simple. So simple. You put a filter in it's a regex guys. It's just a simple regex.

Yes, it is really simple. And, and the fact that nobody is thinking about these things and nobody is implementing these things, don't care. Don't have the money to have a programmer on. I don't know what it is, but it was $1.4 billion.

You know how much it would have cost to fix this problem? Uh, see our hourly rate, it would take a less than an hour. And if you figure, you know, you and I would charge a hundred bucks an hour, 50 bucks. Would have cost 50 bucks. 50 bucks to fix this fucking problem. Oh, Jesus Christ.

So let's get onto some Facebook news. I love this because, you know, this is the Facebook apocalypse right now. All of the advertisers are leaving and Facebook executive admits to a trust deficit when they're talking to their advertisers right now.

And I love, because I, I've got a couple of stories in here, but, uh, the one that really got me is Ben and Jerry's. And Ben and Jerry says, Facebook needs to take stronger action to stop its platforms from being used to divide our nation, suppress voters, foment, and fan the flames of racism and violence and undermine our democracy.

I don't know what flavor of ice cream that is. But I'll buy some. But I'll buy it. Yeah. Um, yeah, they're, they're in a pickle right now because everybody is pulling out. Yeah, I mean, this is where they make all of the monies and, uh, people are pulling out left, right, and center.

Ironically, the only people that are going to be left are the people that they have to ban because it's fake news. Oh, Jesus Christ. So, you know, that, that, seriously, that's where Facebook is going to be left. The only people buying advertising is going to be the Donald Trump, uh, election campaign and severe right wing kind of crazy people that have been using this to help, uh, foment this, uh, this, uh, division in our country.

Because, uh, they're going to keep spending the money. I have, I have a new rallying cry, Brian, and I think this might be our show title. Okay. Defund Zuckerberg. Well, we can't really just take his money, can we? That's, uh, he's made it. No, that's, it's defund. You, you, you don't have to advertise on Facebook.

That's what everybody's doing. And I agree. I think people should be pulling out at this point. It's, um, you know, we, we can make fun of Twitter all we want. At least they're trying. Zuck's not even trying. Uh, well, I don't know how much Jack is actually trying. But he's off to Africa now to go have a, you know, a naked retreat in the Serengeti.

So who the hell knows what he's doing? They better not shoot any animals because that's where we, that's where we draw the line. Yeah. Well, fortunately I, he's from San Francisco. He doesn't know how to use a gun. Well, I have a little bit of, uh, just kind of tech news after all of this craziness.

Cause we're just not in good moods anymore. But if, uh, if you're sharing a Netflix account, as many of us are sharing passwords and things of that nature, or you live in a house where someone is likely to get a glimpse of your viewing history, there's no longer any need to worry that you've seen something or like, you know, Farscape.

You don't want that showing up. Fuck you. You don't want anybody knowing that you watch that piece of shit. Oh, you just, dude, you didn't get past, you got, you didn't even get through the pilot. It's a pilot. You got to get through the pilot to get to the good stuff. I watched two episodes.

They were both. You need to watch at least say, we'll, we'll talk about this next episode, but what a fan of the show said, yes, the first season and some of the second season isn't great. That is not what the person said at all. You are filling that out with your own commentary, but we'll get to that in media candy.

Anyways, the point being, you can now delete things from your continue watching row or hide them completely. This is really only working on the Android for mobile right now. It does not work on TV settings at all. So they're kind of testing the waters with this, but it is nice, but you can, of course, just go to the browser and visit the, yeah, I thought you could do this a while ago on the, if you use the web app, you can totally use the web app, but they're rolling it out.

So because whoever, nobody uses the web app. So it's nice to see that they're actually rolling it out slowly across the actual apps that people use to use their platform. I use the web app to get rid of the stuff that I don't want. I'm sorry. I do, but no, you know, one of my favorite games, I'm just saying it's nice.

They're rolling it out. And I get that. One of my favorite games is to go to somebody's house and when they go to the bathroom, I go and just do, uh, put in Farscape rom-coms. I put in all the rom-coms that I can find the terrible rom-coms so that it just totally screws the algorithm.

So the next time they're like, uh, do you want to watch 51st Dates? No, why would I want to watch that? Well, your, your viewing history says that you want to watch 51st Dates, you know, I would a hundred percent watch 51st Dates over Farscape. Fuck you.

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We're joined again this week by Dave Bittner. Dave is the host of Cyber Wire podcast. Dave is also co-host of the social engineering podcast, Hacking Humans with Joe Kerrigan, as well as the co-host of Caveat with Ben Yellen, where they discuss law and policy, as well as surveillance. And I've never done this read before, where they discuss law and policy, as well as surveillance and privacy.

And I just came back from my kids' drive-through graduation, so I'm a bit of an emotional puddle. Take it away, boys. Aww. Yeah. Those are the best. Do they have little caps and gowns and everything? No, no. They didn't go quite that far.

Okay. But it was cute and sad and very, you know, entertaining and funny and also quite the reminder of everything that has been screwed up the past four months. What was he graduating from? Well, you know, he's got one more year of – it's not any grade.

He's not even in – you know, he's turning four. So it's just kind of a – So it's pre-K? It's a daycare, but, yeah, it's more pre-K because they definitely do a lot more education. So, yeah, it's pretty cool. It's a good school. Yeah, it's always – there's no shortage of events like this that remind you of your mortality.

Yes. Yes, definitely. Well, way to bring that one down, Dave. Wow. One step closer to the grave. But, hey, I'm going to get that government check then, right, Dave? Right, Jason? Another year gone.

Yeah, exactly. Wow. Oh, man. And the cats and the cradle and the scissors. Oh, God. I can't even tell you how often I listened to that song right after it was born. I would just – I would, like, take a break and go outside and just put it on and weep silently.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I think we've all been there. I think we've all been there. It strikes me that that song hits you twice. First, it hits you kind of, like, probably as a teenager and you're thinking about your own father. And then when you become a father, it has a whole other fresh round of weeping.

It is the gift that keeps on giving. It does. It does. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That bastard and that bastard song. I know. It really is a low blow. I mean, it's just not fair. Oh, boy. Anyway, shall we talk some security? Sure, why not?

I guess we can. I want to talk about the Reform Government Surveillance Coalition. Have you guys seen this? I just found out about this this week. I'm guessing they're not effective in any way, shape, or form. Well, I don't know. So, this is this weird coalition between Apple, Dropbox, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Snap, Twitter, and Verizon.

And they are trying to reform government surveillance. And have you guys covered this, Dave? I would like to say to Verizon, reform begins at home. Yeah, exactly. I'm, like, looking through this list, and I'm, like, who's the fucking Verizon in, you know?

It's just, like. It's definitely strange bedfellows. It is very strange bedfellows. And what they're trying to do is this is the coalition against, basically, the government trying to break encryption. And I'm, like, hmm, I don't know what I feel about this because Verizon, you know, because we know they don't have the best track record.

But, and Snap? How did Snap get in on this? Well, I mean, as we've talked about often in this segment as well, I mean, Microsoft and Apple have probably the best records. And even they aren't really too great. So, none of these companies are doing enough, as far as I'm concerned, in this arena.

So, anyways. Wait, wait, wait. You don't think Apple's doing enough? Because I think they've done more than everybody else on this list. That is exactly what I just said, Jason. Rewind. Microsoft and Apple have done the best. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I get that. But Microsoft, not so much, I think, compared to Apple, you know. Apple is definitely the cream of the crop. Okay, so let's go ahead and take this over to BuzzFeed so we can do a list in order. But I think we're getting to the same point here. Okay.

My take on this is that it's kind of like, you know, how here in the States, because we don't have GDPR, companies have this patchwork of privacy laws that they have to follow. California is very strong. There's one in Illinois.

New Jersey has one. And so you end up with this patchwork, and that makes it harder for companies to do business. Also, more key, it makes it more expensive. Yes. Yes. Right. By more difficult, yes. There's probably a distinction without a difference.

And so I think what we have here are global companies who are coming at this from a similar direction, saying if we could get some standards globally, because if you're Apple, it's a pain in the butt to have to be handling security pretty much everywhere, except for China carving out a different set of rules.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I don't know. I mean, how are they going to tell China what to do when it comes to this? I think they're pretty much pounding sand there. But I suspect that's the impetus for this.

Well, we're also talking about the Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act, which is running through Congress right now. And they had a statement, which I will read very quickly. The Reform Government Surveillance Coalition strongly opposes the Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act.

This bill would require companies to build encryption backdoors that would jeopardize the sensitive data of our billions, B with a capital B, billions of users and the security of our products and services. It would leave all Americans, businesses and government agencies dangerously exposed to cyber threats from criminals and foreign adversaries and make us all less safe.

The global pandemic has forced everyone to rely on the Internet in critical ways, making digital security more important than ever before for our economy and national security. Strong encryption provides users, businesses and our government with the important tools they need to keep us protected.

And I think that is something that we have parroted on this show for, I don't know, seven years. So it's good that they're actually coming out and just saying it like flat out. Yes. Let's not let this happen so we can actually expose the data ourselves by leaving it on an unencrypted Dropbox with no password.

Oh, Brian. Sorry, Brian. Hello, Mr. S3 Bucket. And you thought I was bringing it down at the top of the show. My goodness, what a negative Nelly. We have here today. Yeah. Have you met Brian before? Well, sometimes I'm a bit cheery on the sitcom.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I've included a link here to a write-up on this bill by Rihanna Pfefferkorn, who is from Stanford. What a great name. And I'm telling you, Rihanna is a national treasure.

She is a great writer. And I just love to read her take on things like this. So there's a link to her story. Oh, I love that song, Umbrellas. It's titled, there's now an even worse anti-encryption bill than earn it.

That doesn't make the earn it bill okay. And she goes through why this is bad. Some of the paragraph titles. Yes, it's really bad. The domino effect. I am petty enough to say I told you so. The earn it act is also still bad.

And she really goes in and lays it out here. So there's a lot of details here. It's worth it read, not the least of which, because Rihanna is, as I said, just a fabulous writer. But the bottom line here is that, yes, they're trying to require backdoors in all encryption.

They're trying to outlaw strong encryption. And they're starting a contest for tech companies, basically a financial incentive for tech companies to try to come up with a workable solution to this. To me, this is like them saying, this is like putting out a contest for physicists and saying, listen, we really are interested in you coming up with some technology that operates faster than the speed of light.

Here's some money. Let's come at this. And we really think that because you all are so clever, we hope you eggheads can come up with something here. What is dark matter? Yeah, I mean, the encryption is out – the cat's out of the bag.

There's no putting that genie back in the bottle, to mix metaphors. And as everyone has pointed out time and time again, all this means is that the bad guys are going to do what they're already doing, which is rolling their own encryption. It's not going to make us any safer from international terrorism, for example.

What it means is that all of us are going to be less safe in the things that we do day to day. Our banking, our private communications with our friends, our loved ones, all that stuff. This makes no sense. Hopefully, it's not going to go anywhere, but they keep hammering at it.

And I'd say red alert, red alert. Right. Good times. All right. So that's bad. Let's move on to something else that is – again, here's the flip side of the coin.

We try to keep our privacy, and then we keep downloading and inventing apps that just take it all away from you. This is a listener wrote in. Ralph says, Hi, Grumps. Hope things are going better for you this week. Spoiler alert, they aren't. I thought this article was both interesting and a bit scary and something listeners should be made aware of.

Stay well. And this is a technology review. So the Trump 2020 app is a voter surveillance tour of extraordinary power. And it goes into all the data collection that the app does, which is basically all the data collection. They try to get everything.

It's highly encouraged to share the app with existing contacts so they can get even more of that. This app goes above and beyond a lot of apps that are out there that try to get a lot of data. This includes – you have to authorize use of Bluetooth so that they're capturing data and targeting people in physical space and knowing where they are at all times.

And it's pretty intense. And what I thought was really interesting is in the article itself, it has a chart showing as if you were buying a TV, which features this TV has and which features that TV doesn't have. Between the Joe Biden app and the Trump 2020 app. And there is a significant difference between what they're trying to do with their apps.

That's for sure. Yeah. Are we surprised by this at all in any way, shape, or form? No, of course not. Of course not. I am not. Yeah, dear God, no. No. So, yeah. I would – you know, I don't care what the app would do.

I would never download and install an app that had this kind of – that required this kind of access and this kind of data that they're hoovering up. So, good luck with all that. Maybe they can use this for dual purposes. Maybe this can be a contact tracing app as well. Yeah, I've seen some of the messaging that's been going out from the Trump campaign, like some of their text messaging to try to get donations.

It's, you know, stuff from Donald Trump Jr. that says, you know, hello, you're one of a hundred patriots that my father has chosen to reach out to to make a hundred dollar donation. The others have all donated and you still haven't.

Right. Please, please take care of that today. Is there something the matter? What's wrong with you? You know. And so, wow, this is some strong-armed kind of stuff. Yeah. And I guess everything's fair in love, war, and politics, but – Well, when you get a con man running, you get the cons. Yeah.

That's for sure. Yeah. I don't know. I guess when I see that sort of thing, it makes me wonder, does that run afoul of any election nearing rules or anything? But I suppose – How silly of me. Oh, how silly you are, Dave.

How silly you are. As the words were leaving my mouth, I was laughing at myself. And as I tasted the bile coming up into my mouth from my stomach, I realized my folly. Yes. Yep. So there's that. And we did talk a little bit about how Apple has done pretty well for privacy and things of that nature.

So iOS 14 and macOS Big Sur were announced. And they will have a host of improved privacy features. As I read through this article, I realized that I don't think there's too much new here except for the fact that they're taking things that were kind of buried, that those of us in the know kind of knew to do, and putting them front and center, popping them up automatically to people and letting them know, hey, this app is going to do this and this and this.

Are you okay with that? So you can say, hell no. I wish I would have known that. And the other big difference being that they're going to require people to have basically a sort of nutrition label, as they're describing it, on apps, which kind of lets people look at a glance and see exactly what's going on, which is good.

I like this. It's increased transparency. It's a good move on Apple's part. I would like to see the nutrition label for the Trump app. I'm sure it would be quite long. It's kind of like the CVS receipt. Yes. It's a big CVS receipt. Scrolling and scrolling and scrolling.

Scrolling and going and going and going. Right, right, right. No, I think this is great. And this is one of those examples where by Apple having such tight control over the ecosystem, they can do this kind of thing and mandate it. And if you want to be in the Apple store, here are the rules to the benefit of the users.

So I think this is good. Me too. And the last story I have for this. I just read the headline on this article and I'm just like, oh, Jiminy Jeepers. Well, it seemed appropriate given some of our discussions recently.

And I did want to make sure we have some furry fans that listen to the show. So they should probably be aware of this. And we've talked specifically. Brian, Brian, Brian. Before you go into this, I want to make sure that you are aware of the difference between bronies and furries. There is a big difference.

Oh, I am aware. I am aware. Okay, just making sure. And this is about bronies. Because you will get letters. We will get letters to brian at grumpyoldgeeks.com. Yes, you will get pointed letters. You'll get photos, charts, graphs. Yes. Yes, exactly.

Videos showing me in painstaking detail. Yes, I know so. Just making sure that you are aware of what you're about to unleash on your inbox. Well, this is your way, Brian. Before we do, I'll give you a little insight into one of the fun things of being in the cybersecurity beat, which is you get similar letters anytime you mention anything that has anything to do with an EMP pulse.

Oh, thank you. I would like to see some of those. Yeah, that's when the folks head straight to their public library and they get on the public computer and they start sending you letters. Anyway, I'm sorry.

It must be nice that libraries have been closed for a while. Yes, it does cut down a little bit on that traffic. Yeah. Yes. So, yes, this is more about the Brony subculture, which, as we've talked about, I believe we even had a show title about Brony's before. And they've got a problem.

And the Atlantic delved into it in depth, in great detail. My Little Pony fans are ready to admit that they have a Nazi problem. Yeah. Well, that's the first step, isn't it? Yes, the first step is realizing you have a problem.

Yes. There appear to be Nazis in here. I don't even know where to go with the story, to be honest. But obviously, this has come out of message boards. And My Little Pony fans primarily express their enthusiasm for the show by sharing their own cartoon drawings of the main characters, which they usually upload to the image boards.

The most popular of this is called Derpiburu. I don't know how to pronounce that. A combination of a character's name and a common term for image boards. But the problem being here is that a number of these images are extremely jarringly violent and involve things like Nazis and things of that nature and beheading cartoons.

My Little Hitler. And My Little Hitler is a good show title. They even have racist as a searchable category and more than 900 pieces of art. A little pony with a little square mustache. And because of the Black Lives Matter protest, there was a lot having to do with that.

And this has brought out an all-out civil war in fandom, apparently, forcing them to either confront or deny what it's been letting go on for so long already. So there is an existential question for internet spaces, large and small. If you go online to live in a fantasy space, can you avoid taking responsibility when the real world finds its way in?

I just thought this was a very interesting... Well, you know, this easily extrapolates to people not in the brony subculture. We see this everywhere. This is occurring even on Facebook, just with, you know, I don't know what we're going to do about all this besides, you know, the platforms have to stop pretending they're platforms, right?

People need to come in and deal with it. Well, just smack these motherfuckers down. Smack them down. If it only were that easy, Jason. Oh, God, I mean, have you guys seen the brony documentary? Because that is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen in my life. And, you know what? 100% Nazi-free. It is 100% Nazi-free.

And I have a soft spot in my... Soft spot. In your crotch. Oh, don't... Dude, that's gross. That's gross. I have a soft spot in my heart for bronies. Because, you know what? They are... They're kind of pure. They're kind of like...

Well, obviously they aren't, Jason. Did you not read this article? They're being subsumed by the fucking Hitlerism. So, you know... Look, go watch the goddamn documentary, Brian. Go read the goddamn article, Jason.

I did. So, fuck you. Gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen, to your corners, gentlemen. See? See? We're being forced to confront an existential question. We have an existential threat here, and it's called Brian. Team Jason, go to GOG.show.shop and buy your Team Jason masks anytime you want.

You know, there's always going to be... Not everybody's going to be a good guy, and it's going to happen in every situation, I think. And that's the reality of going online. This is what we've talked about since we started doing this show, Jason, about how you pine for the old days, where there was a certain level of technical sophistication and knowledge that you had to have in order to get online, and how it was better before the unwashed and dirty masses all came online.

Well, everyone's online now, including the people that can go to libraries and send emails. I know, but you know what? I want to have this little spot in my heart that says the bronies will take care of this, because I really do have a soft spot in my heart for the bronies.

I love that subculture. I have a soft spot in my heart for that subculture. Okay, but my point is we could be talking about anyone right now, not just bronies. We could be talking about any group, because this is happening everywhere. It is happening everywhere, and that's why everybody needs to be vigilant and get these fuckers out.

My point being is that is not going so well. How do you do that? How do you do that? Seriously, Jason, how do you do that? How do you organize as self-moderators? What about the – whose responsibility is it? Is it their responsibility? Is it the platform's responsibility? Who's supposed to be doing it?

No, it's the community's responsibility. I think it's the community's responsibility. They need some brony cowboys to come in and make sense of this. Yeah, brony boys. I wish I was a better artist. We could have much better show art if Brian was a better artist.

Brony cattle drive or something like that. But it also strikes me that I suppose other than Indiana Jones movies, Nazis ruin everything. They do. Well, I think they just generally ruin everything. But yeah, yeah, I'm with you.

Look, the community needs to kick them immediately. Do not let them set a precedent. That's it. If a fucking Nazi shows up at your house, kick him in the balls. That's the way to go. I mean, going back to the Indiana Jones movies, you kick him in the balls.

It's a very simplistic solution. But is the problem – Well, you know, sometimes the simplest solution is the best. Is part of the problem here that they let it go on for a while because they sort of stuck their fingers in their ears and looked the other way? Exactly. That is a big part of the problem.

I'm not listening. I'm not listening. We know they're here. We know they're doing their little thing over in the corner of our house. But, you know, you're still letting people do stuff in your house, aren't you? Yeah. Next thing you know, you've got termites. Mm-hmm. Hmm. Yeah.

All right. Well, I don't know. Can we send in a – maybe we could just send in a bunch of furries. They don't take any shit. Yeah. Parachute them in. That's right. That is damn straight. Land them on the beach of Normandy. Let's go. How about a bunch of stormtroopers? Oh, God, there's so much good art. How about a bunch of stormtroopers?

Any news on that front? Will you be joining? Well, you know what? The thing is, the stormtroopers couldn't shoot anything. They wouldn't – they'd miss everything. Oh, that's true. They'd miss everything. Yeah, they'd miss everything. Yeah, there's that. Yeah, so I just thought this was really interesting as an overall kind of thing because this is happening everywhere, and I'm still like – we need the internet police.

Yeah. Yeah, well, I hope the bronies get their house in order. Me too. Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-doodle-doodle-doodle-doodle-doo. All right, gents. I think – I don't think we're going to – I don't think we're going to do any better than that.

I don't think we're going to top that. Wow. Yeah. All right. So, boy, that's – the sponsor's getting their money's worth this week, aren't they? They really are. If I've learned one thing from this episode, it's no more furry or brony articles. Oh, okay. We'll see.

Yeah, that's going to last. I'm sure they'll work their way back in. They always do. Outrage if you don't have any furry or brony articles. All right, guys. Have a good week. I will see you next time. All righty. Caps and doodads. In continuing the conversation of social media having to be all things to all people, TikTok is now going out of their particular role as well.

They are attempting to expand to be the same thing that everything else is. They've announced to advertisers that it's open for business, and they are introducing a new brand and platform called TikTok for Business that will serve as the home for all its current and future marketing solutions for brands. They will be doing things like brand takeovers, hashtag challenges, branded effects, et cetera, et cetera, so thus taking TikTok and ruining it because the olds have shown up and the money is starting to roll in.

Yeah. Are they sharing any of that money with the actual people who make the videos? Probably not. Probably not. That's what I'm thinking. And they're going to be doing new AR ads, or at least they have plans to do it, which means we'll probably never, ever get them. Yes, of course. Of course they're announcing all this because, again, you know, you can't be happy with what you got.

You got to build it up so that they're all exactly the same. So very soon, Jason, when you are going on to TikTok to put up your doggy videos, you will get AR ads for the Premier League telling you who just won the game that you wanted to watch. Who just won the fucking game. Fucking assholes. I've desperately been trying to find anything that just takes my mind off the state of the world.

So, you know, the internet can be good for that. Crack.com. Not one of my favorite sites, but sometimes they throw up some good stuff. And I thought this one was great. 25 stats that will change the way you view fictional worlds. A lot of these are games that I have absolutely no idea of, but I thought a couple of these were quite funny in the Lord of the Rings movies.

And by the way, this made me go back and start watching the Lord of the Rings movies because there's 19 hours that I can just immerse myself in some other alternative reality. How are you watching it? Because I actually have the Blu-rays of all of it with all of the commentary and everything, which will take you to about 37 hours if you really want.

You know, I don't do commentaries or anything like that. And this could lead off to another rant that maybe we should save for media candy next week. But I also have the Blu-rays. What I no longer have anymore is a Blu-ray player. So I had to fucking go buy the movies again. Would it have been cheaper to buy a Blu-ray player or buy the movies again?

It would have been $49.99 for the extended editions of all of them through Apple, which I did. So, you know, support media for the 15th time. Anyways. I mean, I had these things on regular DVD, then I got the extended edition Blu-ray DVDs, and now I've purchased it digitally.

So they have gotten them. And I saw all the movies in the theater and then went to the marathon, all three movies showing. So I have paid for the Lord of the Rings. I should own part of New Zealand at this point. I know. I tell you what, though, that marathon was fun, though, wasn't it? Oh, that was a blast.

It was a really good time. That was so much fun. I mean, and those Bloody Marys at the Arclight were so good. Yeah. Running between the movies to go slam as many Bloody Marys as you can to get through the next movie. Yeah, it was a good time. Front row, and our neck hurts so goddamn bad.

Anyways, back to the point of the article. Okay. So one of the facts was in the Lord of the Rings movie, Sam and Frodo walk 1,779 miles from Hobbiton to Mount Doom. And I thought about you, Jason, because that's about the distance from L.A. to Chicago.

Oh, that's funny. So you've done that many times. Next time you should walk. And then there was a BSG fact. The death toll in Battlestar Galactica was four times the current population of Earth. There's just tons of really great facts in here. Jack Bauer kills a total of 309 people over the run of 24.

Put it in a different way, that's one kill every 40 minutes. Well, you have to keep the audience engaged. Yes, and recreating the Lego movie using actual Lego pieces would require 15,080,330 blocks. A tower made with that many Lego bricks would reach almost 90 miles high.

Okay, you know what? Whoever did that stat, I feel for them. I feel bad for them. Because God, talk about a shit job. And we don't have more on of the week, but I don't know if you heard about this. Again, my particular income is tied to the concert industry these days, and there are no concerts except for one.

Now, so much for no tours or festivals until 2021. The three-day, get this, Herd Immunity Fest has just been announced, taking place July 16th to the 18th. Roll that back. Roll that back. In Wisconsin. Roll that back and tell me exactly again what this is called.

They named it the Herd Immunity Fest. Okay. Now, unsurprisingly, there was some pushback to this. Really? And the promoters have decided to drop the name following the backlash, and some of the bands have decided to drop out.

Because that is stupid. I have no words. I have no words. I mean, I'm sorry we don't have more on of the week. Yes, because this is definitely it. I do not see this festival actually taking place.

We will find out shortly, as it's scheduled for July 16th to the 18th. But I cannot see this happening. Actually, you know what? I'm wrong. You can totally see it happening. I can totally see this happening and talk about a super spreader event. So good job, Wisconsin. I love Milwaukee, though.

I feel bad because I got a lot of friends in Milwaukee, and I don't want them to get sick. They may be getting checks from the government pretty soon because they'd be dead. They be dead. Moving on. And as bad as we think this all is, I found this in Science Mag, and I love this.

2020, rightly so, is being considered one of the worst years ever to be alive. But medieval historian Michael McCormick was asked what year was the worst to be alive, and he's got a specific answer. Yes, not now, not 1349 when the Black Death wiped out half of Europe, not 1918 when we went through this the first time with the Spanish flu, which killed 50 million to 100 million people, mostly young adults, but 536.

According to him, in Europe, it was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year ever. A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness day and night for 18 months. Was this the year – no, no, the year without a summer was in the 1800s.

That was Krakatoa. Yes, this was also, though – well, they think. They found at a workshop in Harvard this week that it was a volcanic eruption in Iceland that spewed ash across the northern hemisphere early in 536, followed by two other massive eruptions in 540 and 547, which – so repeated blows, followed by a plague, plunged Europe into an economic stagnation that lasted until 640 when another – when we finally got silver mining again.

So, yes, this was a very, very bad year to be alive. Yeah. So, not so bad. Go to that herd immunity festival. There's a – you know, one of my favorite bands of all time is Rasputina. Yes, I do. They have a great song called The Year Without a Summer, and that was the year that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, and there was – because it was another volcanic event.

But I didn't know about 536. Yeah. I guess they don't write songs about 536. It goes back a little too far for Rasputina. They cut it at the Dark Ages. Yeah, exactly, because, you know, because you can't have goth without the Dark Ages. Oh, Jesus Christ.

This angers me. The Internet Archive is being attacked by copyright trolls and copyright trolls in Congress and the Senate, and it pisses me off because the Internet Archive is just that, an archive.

They're not selling anything. They're not making money on all of our old data. The Wayback Machine is one of the greatest tools that we've ever had, except for the fact that they respect robots.txt, which pisses me off because some of my greatest work has been sniped by people who bought the domains that I used to own.

If you say Titanic website, I'm going to fucking throw this water through the – No, Spew, my first website. I can't get to most – I wrote for Spew. Yes, you did, Mr. Flood. I can't get to the archives from that because somebody – Well, I actually sold the domain, and then some Chinese guy bought it and won't turn off the robots.txt file.

So all of those old archives are gone. But anyway, I still love the Wayback Machine. I love the Internet Archive. And they're being flooded with lawsuits right now. And I guess the fine that they're facing right now is $19 million because it's based on the fact that they made $21 million last year and that they should be able to pay it.

Jeff Bezos, I know you listen to our show. Can you just cut a check and make sure that the Internet Archive is set for the next 100 years? It will take you 10 minutes to put a stamp on it, write the check, address the envelope, and then we are good forever.

I've got a better solution for you, Jason. And it doesn't even need – it doesn't need any money from any philanthropist. It doesn't need Jeff Bezos to step in. It doesn't need anybody to step in. All they have to do is rebrand themselves as Pinterest. Yes! There we go.

Right? Because nobody gives a shit about copyright infringement on Pinterest. Exactly. Shit. Man, why didn't I think of that? God damn it. That's why I'm still on the show, Jason. That is the only reason you're still on the show. Trust me. Oh, man. Yeah. So, I mean, the Internet Archive is doing the Lord's work.

So, we've got to support those guys because, man, it's – like, you go back and this article that I have here from Gizmodo, it's just – there is so much amazing shit. It doesn't make any sense, does it? It doesn't make any sense. They really – they're not using these things to – well, I mean, they are monetizing a bit.

They're making money, whatever, fine. But nobody has a problem with it. If you ask for it to be removed, they remove it, as opposed to Pinterest, which just steals things left, right, and center, monetizes it. And you cannot get things removed from Pinterest. And nobody cares about that. But they're going after this.

Yeah. And it really comes down to – so, they started this book digitization program. And they were doing a lending program just like libraries. They own millions of books that are stuck in these giant cargo containers.

And they had a lending program. And it's just like, okay, one person can take out a book for every physical copy that we have, just like a library. And, you know, some dumb shit in Washington got a bug up his ass and said, oh, that's not cool.

And it just – I mean, it fucking – it's infuriating. Because if the Internet Archive goes down, well, then all of this great work just goes into the ether. And they've got some amazing stuff on there. I highly recommend everybody that's listening go read this article because some of the stuff they have is just you can't find anywhere else.

And they digitized it. And they're making it available. What it comes down to is when a C19 hit, they're like, you know, we're going to remove our lending restrictions. And anybody can get a copy of it to read it and to learn, to learn. I'm sorry, but, you know, this is bullshit.

The whole thing is bullshit. And it pisses me off so much because it's like, isn't the Internet supposed to be the repository of the world's knowledge? Isn't this supposed to be the Library of Alexandria 2.0? No. Yes, it is. No, it stopped being that a long time ago, Jason.

No, now I got to fucking watch, you know, shitty Trump ads on Facebook and hear how they have like a fucking, you know, trust deficit. No, the Internet Archive is a treasure. And I think we need to fucking protect them with every means we have available to us.

So it pisses me off, man. I get riled up about that because those guys are really doing good stuff over there and they're not making a lot of money. They're keeping the lights on. You know, that's it. I don't disagree with you, Jason. And again, the thing that gets me is the stunning inconsistency, how we can be mad at one company for doing something and let another company completely do it scot-free.

So the inconsistency makes no sense to me. Yeah, it's just, it's such bullshit. But we do have the new world's fastest supercomputer. Great. Maybe they can solve all these problems. Yeah. Fugaku. Unfortunately, it just spit out 42 and said, you guys are screwed.

I was hoping that was going to be the answer. God damn it. This thing can do 415.5 quadrillion computations per second, also known as 415 petaflops. Right?

Yep. And they beat the record by 2.8 times. There are other computers that are coming online that are going to probably beat this one, but that's a lot of flops. That is. That's a lot of pets flopping. That's a lot of pets flopping.

I remember when it was a teraflop when the first Mac Pro came out. They're like, this could do a teraflop. And now they're just like, pfft, you and your teraflop. How silly. How silly, little man. So, uh, it's pretty cool though, because they're putting, um, the computational power to try and figure out how we can get through C-19.

So, you know what? I'm all about it. You know what it said? What? Stay home and wear a mask. And nobody listened. The world's smartest supercomputer just said, stop it, Nancy.

Don't go to the fucking herd immunity festival. Static X sucks anyways. Oh, God. Closing shout outs. I want to give a shout out to Homer, a listener who happens to work for Herman Miller and reached out to me with some customer support info for my Mira 2 issues.

Thank you so much for that. It was not on the website, so you helped. Awesome. Yeah, I didn't know that they had a 12-year warranty. So that's pretty cool. Which is really nice. It just means I'm probably going to be out of chair for a month as it's getting replaced. Or refixed or whatever. It is what it is.

Until next time, I'm Brian Schulmeister. And I'm Jason DeFilippo. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. To support the show and keep us on the air, go to GOG.show slash donate. And if you want to buy our stuff, go to GOG.show slash shop. Toss us a few bucks and we'll love you forever.

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