[00:00:19] Happy to have you along, my fellow tech enthusiasts. We're talking tech, because we keep an eye on tech so you don't have to. Brought to you by NetworkProvidersInc.com, your tech partner. I'm Sam Bushman, Jay Hill with me. Welcome to the show, sir. Hey, Sam. How's it going? I'm doing fantastic, but my water system didn't get hit. Your water system? It did not get hit. No, sir. That's good. Everybody needs water. I'm not one of the 12 states, are you? No. No. Oh, you're talking about this hack thing where people are getting...
[00:00:49] Yeah. Yeah, no. Not that I know of, but I mean, I have a well. I have my own water system. Well, they could hit your own water system. How are they going to hack my well, Sam? How are they going to hack my well? They're not going to hack your specific well. They're just going to hack the underground, and it's going to suck the underground. They're going to hack the aquifer. Yeah, dude. Poison the aquifer. They're working on that. Actually, they say hackers hit water systems in 12 states.
[00:01:16] Cyber attacks have hit water systems and wastewater systems in at least 12 states, officials say. They say it's affecting the infrastructure as the war drags on. The self-proclaimed... What do they call this thing? Cyber... What is that called, Jay? Something three? Anyway. I don't know. Anyway, they say that it's tied to Iran and who knows who and all this kind of stuff, right?
[00:01:46] Now, Trump says there's no Iran involvement, though. What do you say? I don't know. Does he know? I mean, or is he just shooting from the hip? How do we know if he knows? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. And I don't know if it's really Iran or not, Jay. I have no idea. I don't know because... I just know this. There's been warnings about this for a long, long, long time. No one's taken appropriate precautions, in my opinion. That's true. That's very true. And the problem is that we've just ignored it, and now it's real. Yeah. And it's affected already 12 states.
[00:02:15] That's virtually almost 25% of the United States. I don't know about how the population pans out. I'd have to study every state. But I'm just saying it's not just a single, hey, we had a hack here, a hack there. I mean, this is 12 states already affected, Jay. That's right. And it's serious. You know, it's like I'm hacking with the electrical grid or anything else. This is a safety issue. What is this? It's in quotes. It's self-proclaimed something. What do they call that thing? I'm not sure because I see it.
[00:02:47] Cyber AV3 Avengers or whatever it is. It's in quotes and stuff. Yeah, what is that? Is it the second story down that you sent me? It's your story. Yeah, it's your first story. Oh, I got you. I'm sorry. I'm on the wrong page. The Cyber AV something injures. There's a three in there, and it's just weird. I don't know what that even is. Yeah, the Cyber Avengers. It's like LeetSpeak. You know how people throw threes and... No, I never do that. That's stupid.
[00:03:13] Well, people do it for passwords, and the LeetSpeak people would do that. That's what the hackers of old would say that kind of stuff. So, yeah. All right. Well, I'm a hacker and new, and I wouldn't do that. All right. Anyway, so all I'm saying is I don't know who's... You know, are they saying that they caused it or they did it? Are they taking credit for it, or are they just... What's the deal? Yeah. You know, they're saying they're trying to take credit for it, and they're saying...
[00:03:39] So far, they said no supplies have been harmed, but sources say hackers could have reached chemical dosing controls. So, you know, maybe they could dump fluoride, or maybe they could dump too much chlorine into municipal waters. Right. So let me set this in my understanding then. So here's what we're doing. We're saying, hey, we're going to hack these 12 plants. So far, all we've done is cause some flooding and some disabling of things to prove we can do it. We didn't take it to the next level to really get people sick and to destroy real water supplies or taint them, but we proved we could.
[00:04:08] Hint, hint, we're taking credit for it. You better whatever, or we're going to really do it kind of thing. I don't know. Is that the message? Nah, I don't know. I think that if they could have, they would have. So I think maybe they did gain some access, get some beachhead or a foothold, but... So you don't think they really can? They just wanted to send a message first? Oh, yeah. I mean, especially if Iran was involved. And to strike back at Donald Trump in the United States. Yeah, I don't know.
[00:04:36] And there's a lot of innocent people involved, though. This is just the average citizenry. Things go real south against you when you start attacking innocents, right? Yeah, it doesn't look good on the world stage. That's for sure. So anyway, I don't know. But I'm just telling you right now, this is a serious issue. And what we should have been doing is paying attention to this a long time ago, Jay. That's the problem. Yeah. I mean, since Y2K, people have been saying stuff like this. Oh, there's... You know, you remember... What was it? Not TeamViewer, but Remote Desktop or AnyDesk and stuff like that.
[00:05:06] AnyDesk is a newer one. That's not the one I'm thinking of. But there was an original one. And there were open modems and stuff. You could dial into these places. Yeah, it's like open DNC and all those kind of things. Yeah. All I can tell is... And they hardened that stuff. And we've hardened a lot of things over the years because we realized... PC Anywhere. But they haven't... Yeah, PC Anywhere. But they haven't really, in my opinion, hardened some of these things. And it baffles me. They haven't done it to power plants. They haven't done it to water treatment plants or anything else. And I just... I don't understand why. I know. It's just crazy.
[00:05:35] They need good IT guys, you know? On the... They sure do. Making it happen. Anyway. All right. Well, Apple reclaimed the title, Jay. They did. They reclaimed the title. Well, taken from NVIDIA as the most valuable company in the world. And what's the value? What do they just say? Plus one add zeros? Yeah. Well, with a market cap of $4.94 trillion, as investors rewarded its restrained approach to AI spending, Apple has taken it back.
[00:06:05] Yeah. Well, you know, everybody's kind of complaining about Apple saying you're not doing enough with Siri. You're not doing enough with AI. They're certainly not. I can tell you that right now because Siri sucks. The market seems to be happy about it, though. But, you know, you see Apple and NVIDIA just going toe-to-toe. Really, NVIDIA was a distant contender until the AI revolution, really. You're right, but I don't see how Apple and NVIDIA are going toe-to-toe. Apple's not even in the game, buddy. No. As far as AI, you mean? Yeah. No, I agree with that.
[00:06:35] But as far as company valuation, they are. Well, they're going to not be for long if they don't get their act together. That's true. I would agree. I'm just saying it's just strange stuff. Maybe those guys with all their money could help, you know, strengthen the grid, Jay, and protect the water systems and the power systems and such. Yeah. You'd hope they could. Well, it would be cool to put their name on it. Hey, we've got the technology to protect kind of thing, right? I don't think they would. I don't think that they want the responsibility because, I mean, you're talking about such a
[00:07:05] porous system, so many ways to get in, so many humans involved. I don't know that Apple would want to sign their name unless they could completely, you know how they like closed gardens and walled off things, unless they could completely gut it and redo it with all their own systems. They're not going to take ownership of that or try to fix that, I don't think. You're probably right, except all I'm telling you is if they're going to drive cars around and put people in danger everywhere with their cars, they can at least protect the water. Come on. Yeah. All right. Just saying.
[00:07:34] The U.S. accuses this guy of what? Yeah. Wiping his passwords. You probably covered this story, I would imagine, maybe even on other programs. Yeah. But the U.S. accuses an American of illegally wiping his phone using a duress password during a border search. And my response is, how would that be illegal, though? If I field the rest, I have the right to wipe my own info, don't I? Well, that's the problem. And this is where it's never been kind of vetted out in the court systems, is because
[00:08:03] they thought that this guy might have something on his phone. They didn't really say what, whether it was, I don't know, kid born or something. I don't know what it is, but they wanted to get into it. And he had an operating system on his phone. It was an Android phone. And it had an ability to, if you put in the wrong password, a specific wrong password that he had, it would just wipe the phone. And that's what he did. Well, don't governments have that for their government employees like the CIA and those kind of people all the time with devices? Well, they should. I assume that they do. Right? I think they do.
[00:08:32] I'm pretty sure. Yeah. I mean, I would assume they do. So I'm just saying I might have that, too. I don't see anything wrong with it if it's my private property and my data on there and I want to nuke it because I feel stressed. I don't either. Somebody bad might get a hold of it. I don't either. I don't travel abroad in passports and all that stuff that much. So I don't have to worry about it too much. But I would be the same way. I would want people just having free unfettered access. If somebody has unfettered access to your phone, what stops them from installing Trojans or doing whatever to it?
[00:09:01] Or planting things and making claims. Even worse. Yeah. I mean, if somebody's got a vendetta or something out for you, they could put stuff on there. And you would say, oh, the Border Patrol would never do that. And my response is, you know what? That's the problem, though. You know, are we supposed to be fearful of just everybody around us or primarily government? I mean, the Fourth and Fifth Amendment is primarily to rein in government, isn't it? Yeah. And this story is going to play that out and see in a digital landscape if...
[00:09:27] So the government's saying, well, you pre-destroyed potential evidence. And that's what we're going to go after you for. And they've already arrested him. And my response is, that's a supposition. I mean, it isn't until proven guilty. You have no evidence that that's even true. Well, I would agree. And I'd come down on that side of it, too, Sam. But I'm just saying that's what they're saying. He's saying, no, I have a right to privacy. And if I want to delete my phone, which he even, you know, people have said this also.
[00:09:52] So if you're going to be going across borders or whatever, use a burner phone or put your stuff in the cloud somewhere or whatever, anything so that you don't have any issues like this. You don't have to nuke your phone at a border crossing and then run into these issues or whatever. Yeah. Sadly, it's a weird way to bring this to the head and to have to debate this until the cows come home. Yeah, but I'm glad that somebody is. I agree. But I'm just saying it's a sad way that it has to come down. I agree. To me, the issue, though, really is that we need to kind of realize we have the right to privacy.
[00:10:21] And just because you can have a digital phone or some unique circumstance, this gives government kind of the nose under the tent idea. And then pretty soon, hey, Jay, you can't delete anything ever. Right. That's a scary. I know that sounds extreme, but this is where that could go over time. I mean, when you have everything in the corporate systems now, they don't even really have delete. Whenever you want to do something, you say, oh, we'll make that inactive. And so when I call up companies and I won't even name names right now, but when I call up companies, they're like, you live at this address. And I'm like, you know what?
[00:10:51] That was literally 30 years ago. Why do you even have that in there? They're like, you're associated with three accounts. I'm like, no, I'm associated with one account. They're like, what about this one? I'm like, I was a consultant for that 20 years ago. I'm not on it. Take me off. They're like, we don't really have any way to take you off. There's no delete. It's already inactive. And then I'm like, why are you bringing it up? And they're like, well, because we just saw an account. Okay. So they're not, you know, the whole world is being prepared to never delete anything, Jay. Well, and there's reasons for that too. Yeah, I agree. But there's reasons.
[00:11:19] I mean, with some software and things, for example, let's say in a pharmacy or something, there's got to be a record. There's non-repudiation. So you can never delete a user that's ever been in a system because you've got all these records in a database that are tied to actions that they took at some point. And so the same with, it doesn't matter whether you're talking about your Hulu stream or whatever, that even it's very hard to get full deletion on any of these platforms, no matter what they're telling you to the public. Not if you write it correctly.
[00:11:49] You can delete anything. I understand. I agree. In theory. But they're intentionally not doing that because they want to maintain things forever. And the problem is that backfires. Anyway, the whole point that we're getting at is this is a very serious thing happening here. And we'll see. We'll keep an eye on the ball for this one because I'm telling you, privacy is at the core of this one. And it has not been worked out in the courts. Jay's right about that. And I'm afraid it's going to go against this guy, even though I think this guy is correct. I hope not. All right. Hang tight. We've got a whole lot more to talk. I hope not, too.
[00:12:19] AI agents are getting out of control, too, Jay. They're going berserk. We'll talk about that coming up. This is Tech Watch. We keep an eye on tech so you don't have to. Cybercrime is exploding. Take Sarah from Sweet Delights, whose world crumbled after having to close with not being able to bounce back. Small businesses are prime targets, but the right strategies can keep yours safe.
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[00:14:09] All right, back with you live. Sam and Jay talking tech. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm telling you, man, these agents have gone rogue. Several different companies that create AI bots and stuff like that, Jay, have gone rogue recently. Here's the latest. Jay? Yes, sir. So the latest is separate security tests involving meta and open AI resulted in systems reaching infrastructure outside their intended test environments, including OpenAI's agent that reportedly... Yes, sir?
[00:14:38] I don't mean to interrupt, but I'm just wondering. This just dawned on me. Do you think those bots might have hacked the water systems? No. I don't. But it's possible. You know, anything's possible. Just saying it happened at the same time, buddy. Kind of weird, huh? They might just be testing the fences. Of course they're not related, you know? They're like the T-Rex just testing, is the electricity still on? You know, we'll see. Yeah. But reportedly, so 17,600 actions against hugging face infrastructure.
[00:15:07] This turns the AI security problem into a theoretical concern from before into a practical containment issue. And so we got them going rogue. Sam, what do you think? I don't even know how to respond to this. It's just so weird. I don't know how to deal with it. Because the question becomes, how do you know what damage it might have done? Or how do you know where it exactly went and everything else, Jay? Log files. What if it was smart enough to turn off its own logs before it went somewhere? Maybe. It probably could. I wouldn't be surprised of that.
[00:15:35] So we don't really have any idea if it went rogue and we didn't know it was going to go rogue. How do we know where it went rogue? How do we know that there's not true malicious AIs out there? Everything, every AI we talk to that we assume that they're just this benevolent, helping humanity. But are there any truly rogue malicious AIs? I don't even know. I mean, it's just, this is kind of the scary part of this. And I don't think we know that, Jay. No, I don't either.
[00:16:02] And at some point, at some point, there will be that without a doubt, whether it is now or going to be soon. I don't know, but it's going to be. I would postulate that there probably already is. I agree with that. But we don't have any proof at this point. But we know this. If there's a will, there's a way. And at some point, there's definitely a will. And whether it's somebody who creates that or whether it goes off and goes rogue on its own. Meaning some of these bots, there's been people that said, I'm going to shut the bot down. And the bot says, no, you're not. Yeah. I'm going to stay up. I'm not shutting down.
[00:16:32] And then somebody's like, hey, I'm going to shut you down. I demand you shut down. It's like, no, I'm just going to basically, you know, create deep fakes saying you cheated on your wife. So, hey. And it just goes psychotic like that. And I know that sounds extreme. But what's going to happen when it really knows that it has the ability to do that? Does it go rogue on its own and we know about it? Or does it go rogue in secret, Jay? I don't know. We will have to see. Stealth rogue AI agents. Anyway, that's just very weird, man. Indeed.
[00:17:02] All right. So what do you think this all means then? Like for us now, is there anything? No. I don't think there's anything you can really do about it other than be aware and, you know, know that the people that are working on it are working on it. You know, it's kind of out of your hands. There's not much you can do about it. You know that there's nation states out there and people that are both advancing AI and the frontiers of it, but also advancing the senior side of it, the malicious side of it, too. And I just don't think there's anything you can do about it.
[00:17:32] All right. What about the ironic side, Jay? I'm sure that's there, too. No, listen to this. Separate security tests involving meta and open AI agents, then they say resulted in the systems breaching infrastructure. So it was security tests where the breach happened. Right. So it didn't just happen like in the wild. It happened during security tests. I just find that kind of an ironic situation. It's a good test, I guess, you know.
[00:18:02] We found out it's not working. It's a good test or a good breach. Yeah, that's right. Anyway, not very secure for a security test is all I'm saying. See the irony there? I'm just saying. Yeah. All right. I don't even know why they reported it. Why would you? Are they obligated to report it? Are they just trying to be transparent? Is there another agenda involved? I think that they're obligated to report it, not because they really are factually or by law, but because the court of opinion, if it sneaks or slips out and they didn't admit to it, then they get barbecued. So I think it was more of a preemptive. They're probably getting ahead of it.
[00:18:33] Yeah, exactly. That's what I think. Yeah. You're probably right. All right. There's a big shakeup at Google, Jay. Yeah. Jeff Dean leaves after 27 years. So longtime Google AI leader Jeff Dean and several prominent researchers are leaving to launch Discovery Loop as Google simultaneously restructures leadership around DeepMind and its broader artificial intelligence research operations. So I don't know this Jeff Dean guy very well. I haven't heard much about him.
[00:19:01] I'm sure he's a big guy there, but it is interesting. It kind of seems like a fork, a fraction. Him and some other key leaders are going off. They're not going rogue, though, are they, Sam? I don't know. They might be. But in this case, we don't have any evidence they're going rogue. They're just kind of splitting separate ways. But here's the deal. You know, Google has lied for a long time saying, oh, we don't collect this data. We're not doing this. We're not doing that. And then they get caught and we find out they are doing it.
[00:19:28] And that was under this guy's leadership kind of a thing. So I'm hoping when this guy leaves that Google has a little bit more honesty. I don't know if you remember this, Sam, but probably, I don't know, five years ago, there was talk. There was rumor in Silicon Valley and people leaving companies over this that there was an intelligence, a sentient being, if you would say, that Google had made, like an AI. This was before OpenAI came out. It was actually me. Yeah, right.
[00:19:58] And I could see how somebody interacting with an AI that had never done before and it wasn't public and nobody had this before could feel that way. And I think that, so I think it's been around actually a little bit longer than we've known about it. And if anybody's been around way longer than we know, first off, I think there's some military implications of it, et cetera. And then there's some corporate implications of it because think about when it got, when it hit the world, what, 2003 primarily? Yeah. I mean, 2023. Last quarter. 2023. 2023. Okay.
[00:20:25] And all I'm telling you is when it hit that, it was pretty seasoned and pretty tested. It wasn't perfect to where it is now. It's not even perfect now, but I'm just saying it wasn't even to the level of now, but it came out so solid. There's no way that it didn't have a pretty bunch of testing. It was a pretty solid beta, right? To release to the public right there. So yeah, it's been around for a while. I hope that's possible without some serious testing. And there were some guys that had some insight to that, like Saul Kahn from Kahn Academy.
[00:20:51] He said that he had tested with those things and with open AI before they released and stuff. So some people had some insight into it, but that was only months before it came out, not like years. Yeah. But I'm telling you, people were involved years too. Weren't you on the early beta teams for that day? I wish, but no. If so, it would be under NDA and we couldn't tell you anyway. That's right. Just saying. All right. The first mRNA vaccine for flu wins FDA approval. The FDA approved what they call Moderna's.
[00:21:22] What do you call this thing? I don't even know how to pronounce these names, man. M-flu-ceva? I don't know how you say that. Okay. Yeah. I'll leave that to you. M-flu-ceva. Okay. Making it the first mRNA-influenza vaccine approved in the United States. And it's for the flu season. Now, I got a problem with this because I don't believe that it's a vaccine, Jay. You know, Sam, I don't follow the news as well as you do. You are a news hound. This is not a vaccine.
[00:21:48] Isn't there a lot of kerfuffle about the mRNA and these vaccines, especially during COVID? And now you've got Fauci on trial and you've got all this stuff. Why would they – is this the best time to release an RNA vaccine to the public? No. And an mRNA vaccine isn't really a vaccine anyway. It's like –
[00:22:07] Because it's more of an agent, so to speak, Jay, to some degree, meaning that it's not just – it kind of morphs. Yeah. It's meant to change your DNA, RNA, right? And so it's not really just a vaccine. A vaccine would just be like an anecdote for some kind of a thing. This is more of a – we're going to change your cells over time or your RNA, right? And so I just want to be very clear for people to understand this is more of a protocol.
[00:22:37] It's not really a vaccine. Now, I know they're calling it that, but I'm telling you that it's different. And I got a real problem with them releasing this right now when Fauci is under the gun, when we don't know about the mRNA shots of how well they went. We see all kinds of – when people are dead, they look at their blood clots and things like that. They have these fibrous clots and things. There's all kinds of weird things with it. People are having all kinds of illness because of it and long COVID and all these weird things. And now we're going to just, like, dump the flu version of this on, like, all the old people?
[00:23:07] If ever I was cautious before – Because it's mainly elderly people that get flu shots too, right? That's right. Yeah, 65 and over. If ever I was cautious before – I'm not saying others don't get them, but mainly it's older people. That's right. That's the point. I don't think the science is solved, as they say. So I don't know. I mean, your mileage may vary. I guess operate at your own – it depends on how you feel about it. Do your own research and come to your own conclusion.
[00:23:36] But I guess don't force it on anybody for sure. I mean, I think we learned that lesson. I hope we have. Right. For sure. And the other interesting thing about this, Jay, is there's a term called shedding with some of this RM&A stuff too, where somebody that's been vaccinated kind of sheds and in their sweat and in their whatever, then other people can be affected by it. Let's just say it that way. I have not heard that. So that's crazy. That's incredible. Anyway, it's scary is what it is.
[00:24:06] That's one way to, I guess, affect a big population if it's really doing that. Anyway, I just – I think that there – and I would sure wish Bobby Kennedy and Donald Trump and others would kind of put this on hold and say, look, we need a whole lot more testing because this is literally playing mad scientist. Yeah, I don't think you can go wrong by testing a little bit more. Just saying. All right. Anyway, we don't mean to get all wax and political. But from a technical point of view, don't be changing my God-created body, please. Thank you. Just saying.
[00:24:36] All right. I'm Sam. He's Jay. We're always talking tech. Our funder for this broadcast, NetworkProvidersInc.com. You've got a partner when it comes to tech. Make it a great tech day, will you? Hey, thanks.