Echoes in the Code

[00:00:00] Music

[00:00:20] All right, happy to have you along my fellow Tech enthusiasts. I am Sam Bushman keeping an eye on the tech so you don't have to Jay Harrison with me. Welcome sir

[00:00:28] Thank you Sam

[00:00:30] All kinds of stuff going on in the tech world man. It's crazy. Last time we talked about cyber trucks melting down

[00:00:35] Well not really melting down. They just have a recall because of soap

[00:00:39] If you didn't hear that go listen to the last episode for the details. It's just crazy

[00:00:43] You know they say that a lot of these trucks are gonna have to be read out with and

[00:00:47] I don't know unlike many Tesla recalls this one cannot be fixed with a simple over-the-air software update

[00:00:54] That's kind of the big deal. You got to take your truck in to get that dude fixed. So if you got a cyber truck get on it

[00:00:59] We talked about the progress of AI last time as well

[00:01:03] And you know they want you to believe that AI surpasses humans in almost all performance benchmarks

[00:01:09] And my question is this how do you know it's almost Jay just by the way

[00:01:12] What if there's more benchmarks we come up with every day?

[00:01:14] What if there are benchmarks that you haven't come up with?

[00:01:17] Yeah, I mean

[00:01:19] Well then that we just don't know I mean how do you know what you don't know

[00:01:24] Exactly

[00:01:25] Anyway I just find that interesting and statements like that are interesting to me

[00:01:29] It's like hey we can run the whole world in 64k of memories is what they used to say

[00:01:32] In fact in the late 1800s weren't they kind of saying hey we don't we there's no more inventions

[00:01:36] We don't need inventions anymore

[00:01:37] Yeah somebody with UPS or something

[00:01:40] Everything that's ever been invented to me

[00:01:42] Definitive statements like that are you know baffling to me

[00:01:45] Now the idea that AI is incredibly you know advanced and it's getting advanced super fast

[00:01:51] And it's just going to you know like gangbusters

[00:01:54] Okay, I agree 100% it's incredible the progress of IA the promise of AI is incredible folks

[00:02:00] I'm not downing the technology

[00:02:02] I'm just trying to say let's not get ahead of ourselves as soon as you you know produce a car without any bugs

[00:02:06] I'll start to believe

[00:02:09] Imagine that even your toaster has problems right Jay

[00:02:12] Yeah, maybe AI needs to build toasters

[00:02:14] No car coming off of any lot has no bugs in it

[00:02:17] I mean

[00:02:18] But they're saying it I mean if AI built one it could

[00:02:21] No

[00:02:22] Smarter than you in every way right

[00:02:23] No

[00:02:24] Alright

[00:02:25] Sports fans

[00:02:27] This is a little different than AI Jay

[00:02:30] These are humans we're talking about now

[00:02:32] Now if AI listen to audio you do it perfectly

[00:02:35] But sports fans consume more audio than average listeners

[00:02:41] This is the National Association of Broadcasters

[00:02:44] They have what's called smartbrief.com Jay

[00:02:46] Okay

[00:02:47] And they brief everybody every day on what's going on and everything else

[00:02:49] And they say sports fans consume more audio than average listeners

[00:02:51] Now listen

[00:02:52] Sports fans consume over two hours more of audio content daily than the average American

[00:02:59] They say listen to sports podcasts radio satellite for six hours and 26 minutes a day

[00:03:08] That's according to the inaugural sports radio report

[00:03:12] Wow

[00:03:13] Wow

[00:03:14] I listen to zero sports a day

[00:03:16] Come on Jay

[00:03:17] Audio or otherwise

[00:03:18] I wouldn't say I listen to the zero but I'm certainly not at the six hours and 26 minutes daily

[00:03:22] I'll tell you that right now

[00:03:23] But it's the inaugural sports audio report that says this

[00:03:26] Now they say sports audio listeners

[00:03:28] Especially podcast audiences also typically spend more on sports merchandise

[00:03:38] Than those who prefer video coverage Jay

[00:03:43] So the point is you know everybody's trying to go to video now

[00:03:46] But they're saying hey if you do the video number one

[00:03:49] You get a whole lot less time

[00:03:51] Eyes and ears on it whatever you want to call it

[00:03:53] And people spend less money

[00:03:55] So that's an interesting twist that people haven't really thought of either

[00:03:58] Everybody kind of thinks Sam

[00:03:59] You need to learn to do shorts buddy

[00:04:01] You got to do video and you got to

[00:04:02] And my response is what so my listeners can spend less

[00:04:05] And spend less time with me is that why

[00:04:07] I don't know it

[00:04:09] It almost seems like that's a piece from the National Association of Broadcasters

[00:04:12] It's kind of self-referential

[00:04:14] Like that hey this is you know they're going to spend more money

[00:04:18] If you have more listeners that are into sports

[00:04:20] And I don't know it seems a little bit odd

[00:04:24] Yeah but it's the National Association of Broadcasters

[00:04:26] Not necessarily a sports group put together or say

[00:04:29] Maybe they're trying to tell people where to direct their sales

[00:04:33] Yeah and the NAB pretty much believe it or not

[00:04:35] I went to the NAB just last week

[00:04:37] Alright we want to hear about the cool tech from the NAB Sam

[00:04:40] Yeah we'll do an episode on that

[00:04:42] Absolutely

[00:04:43] There's actually some really cool tech that I'll brief you on

[00:04:45] That I discovered

[00:04:47] But what I'm saying though is they don't really have a game

[00:04:49] Whether it's radio or TV or podcasts or this or that

[00:04:53] At least at the NAB and their more video and podcasts

[00:04:56] And all that than they have radio their satellite their everything

[00:04:59] So I don't think they really have an extra grind in the game per se

[00:05:02] They're just simply saying hey

[00:05:03] I know it seems great the video is awesome

[00:05:05] And you know everybody's on the video and it's the latest

[00:05:07] Greatest kind of thing

[00:05:08] But they're just simply saying hey

[00:05:10] People that like simpler audio believe it or not

[00:05:12] Spend more money and spend more time with you

[00:05:14] And I just found that kind of an interesting twist

[00:05:16] And part of it again you could say it's

[00:05:19] Is it because people really spend more time

[00:05:21] Or is it because for example we do two podcasts

[00:05:24] A week of tech watch radio their half hour each

[00:05:27] 29 minutes 50 seconds each or whatever right

[00:05:30] Right

[00:05:31] No 24 minutes 59 because there's news sorry

[00:05:34] Okay so 25 minute episodes in essence

[00:05:37] A lot of the video shorts that people watch are 5-10 minutes

[00:05:40] So is it the nature of what's you know

[00:05:43] The deliverance or is it really that people spend more time

[00:05:46] Like you can't compare the two if the time isn't the same

[00:05:49] If somebody listens to tech watch radio every you know

[00:05:52] Whenever they come out they're listening to an hour a week

[00:05:54] A tech watch radio they might watch 10 videos

[00:05:56] But be five minutes apiece and it's only 50 minutes not 60 right

[00:05:59] Yeah but there's a lot of things you can do while you're listening to

[00:06:02] An audio that you can't do with video

[00:06:04] Video demands

[00:06:05] Well now you're getting some more so now we're talking about your car

[00:06:07] While you're riding your bike while you're exercising whatever right

[00:06:10] You're making dinner all those things and that doesn't happen with videos

[00:06:13] Videos you gotta sit there and watch them

[00:06:15] Right

[00:06:16] Right

[00:06:17] Yeah

[00:06:18] So anyway it's interesting how the medium or the choices are you know

[00:06:21] And how short should short be

[00:06:23] Well you know they started out with X or Twitter

[00:06:26] And it was what 80 characters, okay

[00:06:28] Yeah then it went to 160 and now it's multiple times that

[00:06:33] And if you pay for more you know

[00:06:35] Yeah exactly

[00:06:36] If you pay for where you get more if you put a link in there

[00:06:39] That you can click on the link and get whatever as long as you want

[00:06:41] And you know you could have a video and an audio

[00:06:44] I mean Tucker Carlson and some of these guys do like two hour things

[00:06:47] And they just have a link in their deal and you click on it

[00:06:49] And I guess you're watching it from Twitter right

[00:06:51] Yeah

[00:06:52] Or X or whatever

[00:06:53] So anyway it's kind of interesting how all that changes

[00:06:55] But what's the sweet spot you know

[00:06:57] I think we're still trying to find out Jay

[00:06:59] Yeah I think that we are

[00:07:01] And I think there's different sweet spots for different audiences

[00:07:03] So the tiktok audience

[00:07:05] And different purposes

[00:07:06] Exactly

[00:07:07] Like what's your goal if you're trying to break down like a story like this

[00:07:10] You know you can write a headline and write an article that I can read in two minutes

[00:07:13] But without the commentary that we add to it

[00:07:15] Without kind of the nuances of it and stuff that we put in

[00:07:17] It might take us 10 minutes to cover it

[00:07:19] Might take two minutes to read the literal article

[00:07:21] Or you know 10 seconds to read the headline

[00:07:24] What's most valuable to people and that's a discussion in the debate as well right

[00:07:27] Definitely

[00:07:28] Absolutely

[00:07:29] You've got to figure out what audience that you're geared to

[00:07:32] And what they're doing

[00:07:34] If they're watching videos that they may be more short form

[00:07:37] They may have lower attention spans

[00:07:39] But then there's long form stuff

[00:07:40] Series and you know long video

[00:07:43] That goes into whole seasons and everything else

[00:07:46] And then you've got the really short stuff like tiktok

[00:07:50] And people are experimented with that

[00:07:52] And I know they have studies out that claim this claim and that claim and all kinds of claims

[00:07:55] And they claim that radio still does even better than podcasting

[00:07:58] When they say podcasting is taking over the world

[00:08:00] And then they say man you know where if you don't do video

[00:08:02] And then they say you know so I guess it just depends on who what

[00:08:05] I personally like all of the above in different forms for different reasons

[00:08:09] If it's long form like you know technology or politics or whatever else

[00:08:14] I like the longer form stuff because I feel like I get more of a complete reality check

[00:08:18] I get my favorite people's viewpoints

[00:08:20] A lot of it is personality driven and radio

[00:08:22] Whereas if you just talking about headlines

[00:08:24] It's not really personality driven

[00:08:25] It's like headlines or whatever

[00:08:27] You know X is first really X probably drives more first place of a news story than anybody else

[00:08:35] Oh definitely

[00:08:36] Because it's so short it's quick it's boom

[00:08:37] I mean it's so fast to get to the

[00:08:39] You can literally be somewhere

[00:08:41] You know you can be at a Walmart and watch a shooting happen

[00:08:43] And you can literally tweak that out and literally have the news there in 30 seconds

[00:08:46] Whereas the news guys haven't even got there yet

[00:08:48] I think Twitter leads in the news and you see a lot of news organizations

[00:08:52] But it leads to short firm headline news though

[00:08:54] Short form headline news but you know not news commentary right

[00:08:57] Right exactly but as far as the breaking story

[00:09:00] It's going to happen on Twitter first

[00:09:02] And it used to be people would you know they'd have news wires

[00:09:05] And rip and read from the AP or whoever

[00:09:07] It's Twitter now man it's going to be there first

[00:09:09] And yeah you may have the commentators it may get you know

[00:09:14] Wherever on these cable news networks or on talk radio

[00:09:18] It's going to get expounded upon but it's going to break on Twitter

[00:09:22] There's no question about it

[00:09:24] And a lot of times people just watch Twitter for the break

[00:09:26] And then they do their longer form

[00:09:28] People do short form quick videos on it

[00:09:30] Which is it takes a 10 second headline to now

[00:09:33] You know 5 minutes or less short

[00:09:35] Then it makes it into its way

[00:09:37] On radio and it might be 10, 15 minutes to break it down

[00:09:40] And discuss it and everything else

[00:09:42] You know I don't think that all these different options apply to people the same

[00:09:46] Yeah and also the advent of video and audio on Twitter

[00:09:51] Makes it to where when somebody is trying to break it down

[00:09:54] To be able to get some of those sources

[00:09:56] And to get some filler material basically from the thing

[00:10:00] It's very helpful I think

[00:10:02] There's no question

[00:10:04] And you know we've seen this with a lot of the new media

[00:10:07] Or I would say social media services and stuff like that

[00:10:09] Like Facebook think about Facebook's predecessor

[00:10:12] What was that Spaces or MySpace

[00:10:14] MySpace yep

[00:10:15] And what proceeded that

[00:10:17] Uh huh

[00:10:18] I think MySpace was the big first social media network

[00:10:22] Kind of but then you go back to that

[00:10:24] And you say okay they used to have forums on

[00:10:26] GeoCities

[00:10:27] Or something like AOL and stuff

[00:10:29] You had some of that stuff

[00:10:30] But I think as far as a nationwide

[00:10:33] So you weren't really on AOL unless you were on AOL

[00:10:36] You had Compuserve

[00:10:37] You had Prodigy

[00:10:38] You had all these other kind of subgroups and things

[00:10:40] But MySpace was kind of the first big one

[00:10:43] Before that you had dial-up bulletin boards Jay

[00:10:45] Yeah BBS's that's right

[00:10:47] Anyway I bring that up because it's got a rich history

[00:10:49] Believe it or not radio

[00:10:50] Was kind of the first social media network

[00:10:53] Yep call in people could call in

[00:10:55] And talk to the host and debate with other people

[00:10:59] Before that I guess was just the written word right

[00:11:02] Yeah

[00:11:03] Once the printing press came

[00:11:05] Anyway I just find that interesting

[00:11:07] And I think we're still in this discussion about what's best

[00:11:09] And I think people are starting to gravitate towards different things

[00:11:12] As the technology matures

[00:11:15] You know if you want long form stuff

[00:11:17] People are starting to go to radio and podcasts more

[00:11:19] If you want shorts

[00:11:21] People are starting to go to video more

[00:11:23] If you want to be first to the news

[00:11:24] People are basically sticking with text and simple graphics

[00:11:26] To like an X or a Twitter

[00:11:28] And Facebook is starting to kind of go away to Instagram

[00:11:31] Pretty much a graphical just picture version of Facebook

[00:11:35] Kind of right

[00:11:37] Yeah but I know it's got its differences

[00:11:39] It's got some differences in how people share

[00:11:41] How people interconnect

[00:11:44] It's not as open so much as Facebook

[00:11:46] It's more for people and their groups

[00:11:49] You know you can like hide your profile

[00:11:53] And it's not as it's not so much

[00:11:56] Facebook is like a phone book sort of

[00:11:58] Everybody's there and you do have more controls

[00:12:00] Over what you actually display and what you share

[00:12:02] With people you don't know

[00:12:04] But Instagram has done that even more so

[00:12:06] And I think it's probably why it clicks more with the younger generation

[00:12:10] Well and that really kind of debates the question

[00:12:12] What is the future going to look like

[00:12:14] What are the social networks going to look like

[00:12:16] And the reason I'm asking this or bringing this up

[00:12:18] Is because I've got some friends that are trying to build

[00:12:20] A social network of sorts

[00:12:22] And somebody's like well you can't just build a Twitter replacement

[00:12:24] Because it's not fully functional enough

[00:12:26] And other people are like it's got to be pictures

[00:12:28] Like Instagram and others are like no it's got to be text like Twitter

[00:12:31] And somebody else is like no you got to have audio

[00:12:34] You got to have radio or audio and somebody else is like no you got to have video

[00:12:36] Man you got to somebody else is like look we need payments in there

[00:12:39] We need this and that and as they try to build these ecosystems

[00:12:42] And find out what people like and don't like and everything else

[00:12:44] It's tough

[00:12:46] And then it used to be where people tried to do their own vertical kind of agenda

[00:12:51] Or vertical idea ours is text if you're Twitter back in the day

[00:12:54] Or this and that

[00:12:56] And they're trying to say it's got to be a whole ecosystem

[00:12:58] It can't just be a specific niche need right

[00:13:00] That's interesting too

[00:13:02] Yeah and you start to blur the lines of what is social media

[00:13:04] Because then is WeChat and Telegram

[00:13:08] And WhatsApp or you know is that social media

[00:13:11] Most people thought those as being messenger platforms

[00:13:14] But in a lot of ways things like WeChat and China

[00:13:16] That is the internet for a lot of people

[00:13:18] You got payments you got everything all on that one platform

[00:13:21] Yeah for sure people are also starting to use Slack

[00:13:24] In the beginning Slack was kind of a chat client too

[00:13:26] Then it became a business client

[00:13:28] Now it's like hey you can do meetings and audio and video

[00:13:30] And you can just chat with somebody and then press a button

[00:13:34] And pretty soon you're in a video conference

[00:13:36] And then press another button and pretty soon you can take that contact

[00:13:39] And add it to your database

[00:13:41] Anyway I'm just saying this stuff is morphing fast

[00:13:43] And then they're adding literal AI to every bit of these things now too

[00:13:46] Like Zoom is going to have an AI client

[00:13:48] And well Zoom was traditionally a video conferencing service

[00:13:52] But now if they add AI to it what does that mean

[00:13:54] Zoom added phone lines and now you can get a VoIP phone line in your Zoom

[00:13:58] And well if you get a VoIP phone line and you can chat

[00:14:01] You can have meetings and you can do video and what's next

[00:14:04] An equivalent of email or a Slack kind of a

[00:14:06] Well they've already got chat in it so now that kind of merges

[00:14:09] And then if you say well okay I can archive my chats forever

[00:14:13] Is it like email? Well not really

[00:14:16] So we're blurring all that you know radio used to be radio

[00:14:19] Now you call radio but it's audio and it's on the internet

[00:14:21] Is it radio? Well not in the radio sense

[00:14:23] Your phone now it's a what is it

[00:14:26] It's not really a phone at all

[00:14:28] That's one of the least functions

[00:14:29] Use it very little for actual phone calls now

[00:14:32] I can't even hardly get anybody coming back these days Jay

[00:14:35] Right, don't dare call somebody without texting them

[00:14:38] You gotta text them first or they won't even answer the phone

[00:14:41] You gotta text them and say hey it's Sand Bushman

[00:14:43] And then they'll be like we're sure not to answer

[00:14:45] Alright anyway enough of that but we brainstorm these things

[00:14:50] So you can kind of think about them and kind of

[00:14:52] You know get into the thought process about some of these things

[00:14:54] What would you like in a social media system

[00:14:57] You know personally of all the social media

[00:14:59] We've talked about this before

[00:15:00] Jay kind of picked his favorite one

[00:15:02] I kind of picked my favorite ones

[00:15:03] What was your favorite one Jay?

[00:15:04] Firstly with Telegram and probably TikTok after that

[00:15:08] Telegram in the talk?

[00:15:09] Yep

[00:15:10] What about Twitter, you're not a Twitter guy?

[00:15:13] I would probably put Twitter as number three

[00:15:15] Yeah so it's very interesting

[00:15:17] So could you create something that was like

[00:15:19] Telegram, TikTok and Twitter merged together?

[00:15:21] Why would I?

[00:15:22] Telegram, TikTok and Twitter have already been invented

[00:15:25] And they're good

[00:15:26] And I love this idea

[00:15:27] You're getting all the fun buddy

[00:15:28] I know but I love this idea of everybody

[00:15:30] And this is what really happened for social media

[00:15:32] Is everybody's gonna have an amalgamation of stuff

[00:15:35] You know I even use Facebook

[00:15:36] I use it for work

[00:15:37] I have it for a few contacts

[00:15:39] There's people I know that the only way to contact them

[00:15:41] Is on Facebook

[00:15:42] Amazingly enough

[00:15:43] But everybody will have this mesh

[00:15:46] And it's pretty good because you remember

[00:15:48] I don't know a month or couple of months ago

[00:15:50] When Facebook went down

[00:15:51] And everybody was like oh my gosh

[00:15:53] But if you have Telegram

[00:15:54] You have all these other options

[00:15:55] You've got WhatsApp

[00:15:56] You've got whatever

[00:15:57] Which that may have gone down to you at the time

[00:15:59] Because it's related to Facebook

[00:16:01] But you've got options

[00:16:03] And I think there's some good things

[00:16:05] To having things diversified like that

[00:16:07] Not putting all your eggs in one basket

[00:16:09] Technologically

[00:16:10] Because if something goes down

[00:16:12] Or something has a problem

[00:16:13] Or something gets shut down

[00:16:14] By a regulator or whatever

[00:16:16] Or even a cyber criminal or something

[00:16:18] You've got options and you still have communication

[00:16:20] This brings up the next story

[00:16:22] That kind of relates to this

[00:16:23] It's kind of an interesting twist

[00:16:24] I thought I'd bring to the table

[00:16:26] The headline says the shift

[00:16:28] Spotting a bug

[00:16:32] That may have been meant to cripple

[00:16:34] The internet

[00:16:35] Kevin Roos brings us the piece

[00:16:37] They say the internet

[00:16:39] And anybody who works IT

[00:16:41] In the trenches

[00:16:43] Will tell you

[00:16:44] The internet is not a smooth

[00:16:46] Well-oiled machine

[00:16:47] In fact it's a mess

[00:16:49] It's a patchwork

[00:16:51] That has been assembled over decades

[00:16:53] And it's held together with a digital equivalent of

[00:16:56] Tape and bubblegum

[00:16:58] That's for sure

[00:16:59] I just

[00:17:01] Much of it relies on open source software, Jay

[00:17:04] And it's thanklessly maintained by an army

[00:17:08] Of volunteer programmers who pitch

[00:17:10] Or fix the bugs

[00:17:12] Patch the holes and make sure that the whole thing

[00:17:14] Actually stays afloat

[00:17:17] It's responsible for trillions of dollars

[00:17:19] In economic reality though

[00:17:22] And cyber researchers are saying

[00:17:24] Hey man, this is serious business

[00:17:26] They're hailing this

[00:17:30] FRUEND

[00:17:32] How do you say that last name, Jay?

[00:17:33] Frund?

[00:17:34] Yeah, I would say that

[00:17:35] FRUEND

[00:17:37] Frund

[00:17:38] I guess he's a hero because this guy

[00:17:41] I guess they're calling him the big nerd

[00:17:45] Anyway

[00:17:47] He basically is a coder

[00:17:49] And he's a very private person

[00:17:51] That just sits in front of a computer every day

[00:17:53] He's nobody special

[00:17:55] But he all of a sudden

[00:17:57] Discovered a hole

[00:17:59] And it says

[00:18:01] What's the name of this guy?

[00:18:03] Discovered a hole

[00:18:05] And it said

[00:18:07] I didn't see him urgent at first

[00:18:09] So I kind of filed it away

[00:18:10] But a few weeks later

[00:18:11] While we're running more tests at home

[00:18:12] He's like, wait a minute now

[00:18:14] There's an application called SSH

[00:18:17] Which is used to shell into computers, right?

[00:18:20] Yep

[00:18:21] He says it was using more processing power

[00:18:24] Than normally

[00:18:25] He's like, what the heck is happening here?

[00:18:27] So he dug into this thing and stuff like that

[00:18:29] And it turns out that he says

[00:18:31] Why is it using more processing power than normal?

[00:18:34] He traced the issue

[00:18:37] Back to a set of data compression tools

[00:18:42] Called XvUtils

[00:18:44] Or XzUtils

[00:18:50] And wondered if it was related

[00:18:53] Don't worry if these names are great to you

[00:18:55] They say, all you gotta remember

[00:18:57] Is that these are all small pieces

[00:18:59] Of Linux operating system

[00:19:02] Which is probably the most important piece

[00:19:04] Of open source software in the world

[00:19:07] So the internet's really ran on Linux

[00:19:09] And Unix and that kind of stuff

[00:19:10] Just so everybody knows

[00:19:12] Okay

[00:19:14] But

[00:19:17] The vast majority of the world

[00:19:19] Servers, even those by banks

[00:19:22] Are used by this Linux system

[00:19:24] Government, hospitals

[00:19:26] I mean banks

[00:19:28] 500 countries run on Linux

[00:19:29] Which is pretty much

[00:19:32] You know, very secure

[00:19:34] And they say that it's security

[00:19:35] Relates to global importance

[00:19:36] In other words, this is a big deal

[00:19:38] Right? Well this guy just discovered

[00:19:39] This whole bug day

[00:19:42] Like other open or popular

[00:19:44] Open source software

[00:19:46] Linux gets updated all the time

[00:19:49] And they say most bugs are the results

[00:19:50] Of quote, innocent mistakes

[00:19:53] Right?

[00:19:54] But when Mr. However you say this guy's name

[00:19:57] Looked closely at the source code

[00:20:00] He said hey, it had been

[00:20:02] He thought intentionally tampered with

[00:20:06] Someone planted malicious code

[00:20:09] In this utils deal

[00:20:14] XZUtils

[00:20:18] He's like hey man this has been

[00:20:19] Intentionally tampered with

[00:20:20] He rolled it out

[00:20:22] The code known as a backdoor

[00:20:24] Allows creators to hijack your SSH connections

[00:20:27] And secretly run their own code

[00:20:29] On your machine

[00:20:34] In the cyber security world

[00:20:38] A database engineer

[00:20:40] Inevitably finding a backdoor

[00:20:43] Is kind of like a bakery guy

[00:20:46] Smelling a fresh baking loaf of bread

[00:20:49] In other words it's like oh man

[00:20:50] This is an awesome find and stuff

[00:20:51] Right?

[00:20:54] Anyway this guy basically became

[00:20:55] A rock star overnight

[00:20:56] Because he discovered this thing Jay

[00:20:59] That's a huge problem

[00:21:02] The whole world runs on Linux

[00:21:04] And SSH is exactly how they get back

[00:21:07] And forth between remote systems

[00:21:10] And that's, you know that could be catastrophic

[00:21:13] Now depending on how prevalent this

[00:21:16] XZUtils is into other

[00:21:20] Installs and stuff but that matters also

[00:21:22] But does it surprise me though

[00:21:24] They call this supply chain poisoning

[00:21:26] Where people will get in

[00:21:28] And they'll introduce a couple of coders

[00:21:30] That literally got in there

[00:21:31] Made friends started adding to code

[00:21:33] Everything they do is legitimate

[00:21:34] Legitimate legitimate

[00:21:35] And then all of a sudden they just

[00:21:36] Slip this into the backdoor

[00:21:37] And nobody knew it

[00:21:38] And then this one guy just kind of

[00:21:39] Discovered it

[00:21:40] They say it's kind of like

[00:21:41] Poisoning the yeast supply

[00:21:42] When it comes to bread

[00:21:43] Yeah exactly

[00:21:44] Like whoa

[00:21:46] Anyway I just thought I'd bring

[00:21:47] That to your attention because

[00:21:48] It's a little bit too techie for most people

[00:21:50] But all you gotta know is hey man

[00:21:52] The systems that run virtually the whole world

[00:21:55] Were intentionally spiked with a bug

[00:21:57] A backdoor and just this random average

[00:22:00] Nobody, and I'm not saying nobody is a person

[00:22:03] But I'm just saying nobody coder

[00:22:04] Discovered it

[00:22:05] He doubted his own first findings

[00:22:06] He's like this can't be

[00:22:07] Come on

[00:22:08] But the more he looked at it the more

[00:22:09] And then he shared it with somebody else

[00:22:10] And they're like oh my gosh

[00:22:11] You're right

[00:22:12] Now this guy's a hero for vetting it

[00:22:13] And finding it

[00:22:14] And hopefully solving it Jay

[00:22:16] Yeah this happens or can happen

[00:22:19] With a lot of things

[00:22:20] Any software that you have that

[00:22:21] Automatically updates

[00:22:22] Maybe you have notepad plus plus

[00:22:24] Or Dropbox or anything that

[00:22:27] Your files, Zilla, whatever

[00:22:28] A program it could even be

[00:22:30] You know LibreOffice, Microsoft Office

[00:22:32] Things that are updating

[00:22:34] If somebody can get into the

[00:22:38] The root system that's updating that

[00:22:40] Or get some kind of bug

[00:22:41] Or some kind of backdoor in there

[00:22:42] They can get backdoors on all kinds

[00:22:44] Of machines and they can get

[00:22:45] Propagated out and people don't know about it

[00:22:47] And you can be

[00:22:48] You can have everything locked down

[00:22:50] And tightened up

[00:22:51] And still get malware on your computer

[00:22:53] Unbeknownst to you because of some update

[00:22:55] From a company that you trusted

[00:22:58] Because they had a breach on their end

[00:23:00] Yeah anyway he says

[00:23:02] They took a lot of painstaking efforts

[00:23:04] To cover their tracks

[00:23:05] That's why he didn't notice it at first

[00:23:07] And he kind of stumbled

[00:23:08] This is the last kind of interesting

[00:23:10] Point that I'll make about this

[00:23:11] He really stumbled across it

[00:23:12] And at first he doubted his own

[00:23:14] He looked at it and he was like

[00:23:15] There's a backdoor here and then he was like

[00:23:17] Ah man it just can't be

[00:23:18] So it took him several weeks to even

[00:23:20] Trust himself to even tell anybody about it

[00:23:22] Jay

[00:23:23] That makes sense

[00:23:24] And you want to

[00:23:25] You better double check yourself before you go

[00:23:26] Per claiming that something's got a backdoor in it

[00:23:28] And you know

[00:23:30] Make yourself look like a fool

[00:23:31] Yeah he wants to be the guy that gets kind of

[00:23:33] Looked like a fool like oh my gosh

[00:23:35] It isn't true or whatever

[00:23:36] And so he doubted it

[00:23:37] But he finally you know

[00:23:38] And everybody's lauding him as a hero now

[00:23:40] And the good news is

[00:23:41] What she is

[00:23:43] He is a hero

[00:23:44] But what I find interesting is

[00:23:45] Someone did this intentionally

[00:23:48] And you know they clearly

[00:23:51] Spent a lot of time trying to hide

[00:23:52] What they were doing he said

[00:23:53] And that's why it was so convoluted

[00:23:55] And hard to kind of understand

[00:23:56] And deal with anything else

[00:23:58] But the good news is

[00:23:59] It got discovered

[00:24:00] That is the

[00:24:01] In my opinion to a great degree

[00:24:03] The value of open source software

[00:24:05] Is he gonna get it

[00:24:06] If you have a closed source software

[00:24:07] Nobody would have probably known Jay

[00:24:08] Yeah but is this guy

[00:24:09] Who's just twirling away

[00:24:10] Is he gonna get some kind of bug bounty

[00:24:12] Or whatever

[00:24:13] If it's open source software he may not

[00:24:14] I don't think he will

[00:24:15] I mean I think he should

[00:24:16] But I don't think he will

[00:24:17] Yeah

[00:24:18] I think there are some groups out there

[00:24:20] That are trying to do that

[00:24:21] Bug Bounties for open source software

[00:24:23] And I think that's a great idea

[00:24:24] And the more we do it the better

[00:24:25] In my humble opinion

[00:24:26] And I think the big corporate world

[00:24:28] That's using a lot of this open source

[00:24:29] Software in many of their projects

[00:24:30] Should be the ones that just

[00:24:31] In the good of the community

[00:24:32] Kind of fund that exercise

[00:24:33] Because it benefits everyone

[00:24:37] Alright thanks for being along

[00:24:38] Man hopefully that wasn't too technical

[00:24:39] For you

[00:24:40] But I'm telling you it's pretty cool

[00:24:41] This guy just discovered it

[00:24:42] And nothing else

[00:24:43] Thanks for being alongside

[00:24:44] NBITechGuys.com

[00:24:46] Is our podcast site

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