FCC Targets Chinese Testing Labs Over Security Concerns in US Electronics #1818

The lead story for Thursday, May 1. The FCC targets Chinese testing labs over security concerns in US electronics imports. The federal communication communication is getting set up on a crucial vote on May 22 that could reshape how the f electronic electronics

enter The United States market. At the center of the decision is a proposal to ban certain Chinese testing labs from certifying devices like smartphones, game consoles, and camera products that must meet safety and technical standards before being sold in The United States. FCC Chair Brennan Carr warns that some of these labs are controlled by foreign entities deemed national security threats, creating a loophole that could expose Americans to compromise tech.

If passed, the new rule would prohibit such labs from participating in the FCC's equipment authorization process, tightening oversight, and potentially escalating existing tensions with China. I wanna welcome you to episode 1,818. Of course, I'm your host, Todd Cochran. And this move is is a big one. And it you know, I did not realize that external labs were doing testing on many electronic products that were coming,

from The United States. It it it pretty much surprised me that that that was the the the actual case that the FCC wasn't actually involved in the actual testing of all electronics coming into America, that these labs external to the FCC could approve electronics come into The US. That that kinda just shocks me

quite a bit. Now now what this step means is that 75% of electronics is testing is done in labs based in China. Now they say while the FCC includes national security checks in our equipment authorization process, they've not had rules on the books that require the test labs conducting those reviews to be trustworthy. So this is a big, big change. This change would adopt a rule that prohibits test labs from participating in the FCC equipment authorization process.

So if they're owned controlled or directed by entities that pose a national security risk, this move could keep more electronics made or tested in China from reaching reaching The United States. Now we know back in '22, the f v FCC banned Huawei and ZTE electronics over some over the same kinds of national security risk. And, so does this mean then, which I don't understand and which is not in this document, is there labs that they trust, number one.

Number two, can they send the electronics to The US for approval? It's a very interesting dilemma here being that 75% of electronics that reach The United States are actually tested, in China. That's that's a that's a pretty, that's that's a pretty amazing number indeed. Again, I wanna welcome you to episode 1,818. Of course, I'm your host and go a shout out to our incredible sponsor

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insider scoops. Of course, you can join the conversation at geeknews.chat, or you can email me directly here, [email protected]. You can also hit me up on x at geek news, and, of course, you can catch me on Facebook, as as well. So I'm hit all kinds of buttons this morning. And, of course, immediately, what what's the first thing that happens is soon as we go live, the, the the camera, stops working. So we'll we'll come back, to that and see if I get, a live camera here in a minute. Did

that did that work? It did. Let's see how long it last. Hey. As a as a reminder, you have the ability to save money, and we want you to save on our our GoDaddy deals. Let's start with a website or podcast. My codes make it easy and affordable. Grab GoDaddy's economy hosting for just $6.99 a month. That's a full year of hosting with a free domain name, professional email, and an SSL certificate.

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So, essentially, about ten days from now, I get on the airplane and head back to The United States, be home a week, and then I go to London to the podcast show and then back, for an unspecified amount of time, in Michigan and in the studio there. So, hope you're all well. I got a whole bunch of stuff to get into today in in the show stack. Again, thank you for being here, and thank you for staying subscribed to the podcast. There was a big, big controversy.

Tesla knew that there was gonna be a story run about them supposedly looking for a replacement for Elon to as a CEO. And what turns out was they send a denial to the Wall Street Journal, and yet The Wall Street Journal still published the story even after the denial. So Tesla denied reports, has contacted recruit recruitment firm. The Wall Street, journal reported that the firm board began looking, and it's they they said it was based on frustration around his role, in Doge.

But, again, the board basically came back and made a strong statement that no. You you're wrong. We are not headhunting. Tesla said the report was absolutely false, while mister Musk wrote on the social media platform x that the paper was a discredit to journalism. So

this is interesting that the Wall Street Journal would do this, and they cited unnamed sources. And, so what's at play here? Is more games? More more attempts to manipulate stock? You know, what is what is the situation? One would ask, wouldn't they? Amazon Amazon CEO, Jassy, warns of AI's unprecedented adoption. The self describe those self described as an AI optimist, Jassy cautioned that the technological shift may be quicker than other technology transitions in the past. Oh, it will be.

It's going to be a a huge shift. But he he's, pointing out and what I find interesting here is that he he pointed directly to declining education quality facing AI implementation, not the tech him itself. He questioned whether schools are adequately preparing students for future tool use, including code applications. You know, I I go back and I look at and I talk with my team on a regular basis and, you know, we're doing some getting some incredible outputs

of data analysis. This is where I'm getting the biggest bang for the buck right now. Is that I can throw huge data analysis questions at the system and basically come up with source data and then have analyze that data, it it's it's really quite amazing. It really, really is. But you still have to know how to analyze what you've been given. You still have to create the content that you feed into it.

So it isn't a free ride, but it does say massive, massive number of hours. It allows me to make conclusive decisions on projects. You know, we we had been tossed around an idea for some time. And based upon the having raw data looked at, we said, nope. We're gonna put this on the shelf. And we moved on. No more no more him and hawing about it. It really made us allowed us to have a a a chop and say, okay. We're gonna move on to the next thing.

And that's that's quite liberating, especially when you maybe you're a small company and you don't have a data analysis on your team, but it maybe you're looking to add something or or remove something from your service, you know, you can see what the impact is. So, yeah, it's it's it's a pretty amazing, product when employed correctly.

If you are switching topics here, if you are a PC if you use the PC manager app on, on Windows, well, ads have crept into the Microsoft's free PC manager app as well. So it it just goes to show that every every move that these companies are making these days are just continuing to to up the ante and, in the number of, ways they try to to monetize against us. It's it's really quite remarkable. A failed Soviet satellite is falling back to Earth.

Scientists warn the car sized probe could impact the ground. So that's that's a little bit, a little bit scary, in itself. So, just be aware that, you know, look up. Of course, there's no idea where this thing is gonna come down, but it it could. Apple's sending spyware warnings to iPhone users in 100 countries and I actually saw a, a post on Twitter of one of the people that have received this notification. So they've been sending warning to possible victims of spyware attacks.

At the time of the writing, there appears to be at least two people have confirmed they've been notified by Apple and that the warning itself says that users in 100 countries have received similar alerts. The company does not offer any specific as to how many people may have targeted or where the texts are coming from. One recipient of warning is Italian journalist, Exiro Pallagio, who works for an online news outlet called Fanpage.

The other, as far as we right now, is Dutch right wing commentator, Eva O'Lardingerberg, who posed a screenshot in the video of the alleged warning, on x. Apple informed him that it detected a targeted mercenary spyware attack against her iPhone. And the message, she said, the attack is likely targeting you specifically because of who you are and what you do. Now what do you do when you get a warning like that is if they don't give you a remedy on what you need to change, that that that's

bad. Do do I reset the iPhone? That back to factory default or is is this thing need to be thrown in the trash? I probably would, I would probably ditch the phone. I would probably buy a new phone, but then what's gonna stop you from being targeted again? What's the recourse? I I don't know, to be honest with you. Something, very in unusual, Starbucks has unveiled its first three d printed store in Texas built with robotic layered concrete. So,

again, three d printing is starting to be a thing and, they've got a video of the construction and, what it took. And basically, this if you've seen this before, this robotic, building, it's just it's it's like a three d printer but using, concrete. So, definitely, I'll have a link up in the show notes for you to take a look at. I don't know if it means that, these are more sustainable. There there's probably a reason that Starbucks has done it, but, but kinda cool. Researchers this is crazy.

Researchers looked at 19,000,000,000 passwords. Over 90% of them sucked. Some people don't even try. Others lean on words everyone else is using. So 90%,

ninety, ninety % of the passwords were were useless. Of course, some of the hall of shame ones continue to be password admin one two three four five six. Password and admin were used 53,000,000 times, while one two three four five six clocked in at 338,000,000 times. Over 727,000,000 passwords contain the sequence one two three four. So names of people are number two, the most common with 8% chance of use in one of the passwords. So they've got, here's the trends.

Words with positive meanings, pop culture, curse words, countries, cities, US states, food, popular brands, nature, animals, season, and months. Those were the trends people are using for the passwords, but the top words were love, sun, joy, Mario, Thor, Batman, beep beep beep. Yeah. Those are swear words. Rome, lion, summer, Monday, May, April, tea, apple. So, again, very, very simple words. Please, please, please let your password managers, do do the walking for you here. Okay?

Because they will randomize and provide you a password that, yes, very difficult to type. But if you're using a password manager, you can copy and paste in most instances. It's been very few times I found my password manager would not work. So definitely, do that. Google messages could get a big design upgrade soon, and there are four features that are coming. They're getting an unsubscribe button to tackle spam.

Google message should soon tell you which group chat members have read your messages, and Google message will soon get a big upgrade for photo and video quality as well. So, but, again, a more balanced landscape mode, preview for PDF files, an unsubscribe button, and some changes to main actions. So some some big updates, coming to

to Google messages for sure. Made in Microsoft earnings been announced. Wall Street Eyes are now on Apple and Amazon. So so they think it's a crucial week. I I think everyone is going to be, you know, fine, with the with the earnings this quarter. So we'll continue to watch and see what happens. But in the end here, you know, I think the first quarter is not gonna be too much of an impact, maybe quarter two with the tariffs. If that doesn't get resolved, we'll we'll we'll see.

A interesting duo, Mike's, Meta and Spotify are teaming up to lobby against Apple and Google. So this is a interesting combination here. Again, made in Spotify usually, don't like each other in the least. So the Coalition for Competitive Mobic Sprint argues

age verification should be the App store's problem to solve. So many has joined forces with Spotify, Garmin, Match, and others to form a lobby group to represent their interest, especially as they come into conflict with those of Apple and Google. Again, the group's first order of businesses arguing that age verification, should be the responsibility of app stores and not the apps themselves. I think that's a good idea, to be honest with you. That way, you get it done one and done.

But what happens when you're sharing a phone and someone used another app? So there can be a, an argument to either way. That that is definitely for sure. But, which way do you which way do you think? Which way should it be? Should it be the app or should it be the App Store? What side of the fence are you on? [email protected]. Millions of users possibly at risk after Ascension. Again, Ascension Healthcare reveals new data breach, potentially linked to c one o p ransomware.

So, again, one of the biggest private health care system in The United States, Ascension, has notified patients that personally identifiable information including health data was stolen in previous unannounced attack. I need to tell you something. It's it's a personal thing. I got an email, is is part of my when I when I retired from military, I have to pay a premium and it's not big. It's about a thousand dollars a year, for my TRICARE health care. Well worth it. No complaints.

And they they switched the provider. I'm still technically in TRICARE system on the West Coast. Just, yeah, to technicality. But TRICARE West, changed providers, and they set up a new

payment system. And it's been an absolute pain in the ass. First of all, their website is broke. You can't reset your password on the website, so I have to do everything through the phone. Resetting the password has been broke for months. Months. Imagine that, trying to reset a password on a a a health care site, which is on a dot g, g0v domain. Months been able to not fix the password situation. So I'm on the phone, and they have this automated system to be able to make your payment.

Now this payment system is only available from 8AM to 6PM in your time zone. So or the West West Coast time zone. Why? Why is a system that takes automated payments only available during office hours? And I'll tell you what it simply is.

Their phone system is so such a piece of shit is that when you are when they are closed, the only two options on the calling tree are, do you have an emergency, do you need to talk to a psychiatrist, or do you need to transfer a patient from one hospital to the other? All of the functions in the tree are shut off. So, of course, I I'm in a different time zone, and I'm trying to make a payment outside of business hours, and it's just impossible.

So I have to wait until, 09:00 at night here before I make a call, which makes it 9AM in the morning, and their phone system allows me then to make my automated payment. Now they'd sent me an email and said your automated payment needs to be made or, or your payment needs to be made or you are going to be cut out of the system. You're gonna be disenrolled. That's a big deal because enrollment periods are within certain windows. So I call the system. It says you have no payment due.

Like, at the email, says I'm gonna be disenrolled if I don't make my payment. So I wait on hold for thirty, forty minutes and finally get someone on the phone, and you can tell they're exasperated. And she says, sir, you're okay. They send a message out, and and they've got millions of you breaking out thinking your health care is being canceled. Just the people can't get into the website, so everyone's blowing up our phones. I said,

I'm surprised it only took forty minutes. She said, no. This has been going on for a week. So your government at work, ladies and gentlemen, nothing was wrong, but they sent me an email said, you're gonna be disenrolled if you don't make your payment. I was already set up on autopay. Credit card's good. Insanity.

In insanity. After ten years, Flappy Bird is back. You know what Flappy Bird is? I don't. I don't I I guess maybe I've I've seen it at one time. But if you enjoyed having free time with, silly games, Flappy Bird is making a comeback on Android. The revival is being handled by Epic Game Store, which is distributed game on Google's mobile platform. So the trailer just over thirty second long introduces iconic bird escaping cage and flying through obstacle filled environment.

So if any of you love flappy birds, it will be back. This is a new one to me. If you have a I've got Global Entry.

It's it's wonderful. If you're traveling internationally, Global Entry is worth every penny. You don't have to go stand in line. You go have your face scanned. You proceed through the queue. They call your name. Sometimes they look at your passport, sometimes they don't. You're really about a sixty seconds, typically to to enter the country. It's it's wonderful especially if you're on a tight connection, on an international connection.

But it turns out, Chris Krebs, who was the former c s CISA director who is under investigation and is now a current punching bag, for the administration. He had his global entry canceled because he is under federal investigation. It's very interesting. So was this targeted? Was this automated? One would not know, but it is, an interesting move. Apple must pay Optus five hundred and two million dollars as part of a UK patent dispute.

So this is, 502,000,000 for the use of four g patents and devices including iPhones and iPads. Texas based Optus cellular tech sued Apple in London in 02/2019 over the use of its patents. London's High Court ruled 2023 that Apple should pay 56,000,000 plus interest, but Optus argued it was too low and challenged decision. And, so this time, through a London court, Apple must pay 502,000,000 to the, the patent holder.

Tariffs, tariffs, tariffs. Everyone's talking about tariffs. I'd like to have Amazon put a made in The USA sticker on products in its, catalog. Wouldn't that be nice to show where products come from every time you buy something? If it comes from China, Vietnam, India, wherever it comes from, wouldn't that be nice? I I doubt they'll ever do that.

I think they would lose revenue if they did, but it's being stated that tariffs could further disrupt the stability of the PC hardware market, and they say it might be the right time to buy now. I think I've already warned all of you to do that. Now I was

beholden and I I the only thing I could ever afford when I was younger was a used Sony Walkman. Any of you that got a brand new Sony Walkman cassette tape, you know, you're quite the envy because that was the device when I was a kid. Oh my god. Everyone wanted a a Sony Walkman. Someone's come up with a retro.

They call it the cassette Walkman. Please do not please do not tarnish the Walkman name with this specific device. This retro cassette player comes with a pencil, but not the Barbie inline skating outfit it truly deserves. Now I'll just leave it at that. It's a pink and aqua, I guess, is the color. I don't know. Is that aqua? It is a Bluetooth cassette player and it can record on the tapes as well.

But again, please don't call anything a Walkman that doesn't have the iconic Sony beautiful design. I I've, actually recently on eBay scored one that doesn't work no more, but I just wanted one for the retro appeal of having it on the shelf. You know, you get nostalgic. But, you know, how many of you remember the, the that, distinct click and feel of the Sony Walkman? What a

what a beautiful device. Love to hear what what other retro stuff, do you, do you miss or not necessarily miss, but had had an absolute love for. Love to hear from you. [email protected]. First image from the world's largest solar telescope captures the sun in unheard detail. And how do you get science?

You know, I'm I'm looking at this image, and I'm sure scientists are quite thrilled to have this closer in-depth look at the sun. But when I see this, I'm like, yeah. It's fire. And, yes, the sun is hot. So there's image, a close-up of the sun service from the National Science Foundation's Daniel k Inouye solar telescope. Shows magnetic activity around a cluster of sunspots.

So I I'll just you know, I maybe the lines kinda looks like someone that's had a, to be honest with you, been out drinking all night and needs a little Visine, but, you know, that that's just that's just me. I I don't know. But, anyway, I'm sure they're gonna get science out of it, but it to me, I just look at this. I'm like, how do you get science out of that?

The BBC used AI and an actor to bring Agatha Christie to life for its writing master class series with permission from the Christie family in a state. So this is pretty, remarkable now. Ikaika Christie died in 1976, and, they presented her writing tips in four k video and used, AI to create the content.

Definitely, has the ability of of bringing people back to life. There's the third time the camera has stopped today. I I it it's it's OBS. It works the rest of the time, and and I don't have an issue. What is five g advance and what does it mean for my next phone? Well, you know, there's we're kind of in this transition period between five g and six g. And what's, five g is, five g advanced, five g advanced is a friendly name given to the three g g p release 18

standard. It's something referred as 5.5 g. And serves as a bridge between current tech and six g. It offers potentially sick significant improvements in network speeds, efficiencies, and even network. So be looking out for five g and a advanced or 5.5, on your phone. We'll see how they label it. You may start seeing blurred thumbnails on YouTube. YouTube is rolling out experiment feature, make this platform a little more family safe.

Thanks to that. Again, you might start seeing, blurred thumbnails and have to approve it before

it appears. You know, Sam Altman has, you know, this hasn't made the news in a while, but you guys remember the World Crypto Project? Well, the sci fi founding initiative uses an orb to scan your iris to create your very own world ID. Well, you're gonna get this orb. It's gonna be available in United States. Would you like to have your eyeball scanned by this device and use it to unlock crypto and so forth or use it as your ID. It's a little weird to me at this point.

Also, ladies, this this this cracked me up. The Oura ring gets the red carpet treatment and it looks incredible. So what they show is they show a woman's hand with very expensive jewelry on on the wrist. They've got a bot chain. For those of you who don't know what a bot chain is, but you can see it's definitely, Thai gold. And then she's got one, two, three, four bracelets with lots of diamonds.

And then, they've got, the, I guess, the index finger, the finger that you use to, like, scan to unlock stuff, for your fingerprint. They have, a dime it looks like a diamond encrusted, accessory to go along with your aura. This is not incredible. They basically take silver or gold and you put these rings on as a three piece set. You've got the standard ugly aura ring that is a flat, shiny piece of metal,

black, gold, or silver. And you then can accessorize it with oh, they're calling them ring jackets, which are two beautiful bands specifically made to hug the aura ring. I don't think and to be honest with you, ladies, go go look at this article at Digital Trends. Are you aware of this? This does not spell class to me. This this smells like gimmick, and I don't know how expensive it is. I'm not gonna announce the price even if I found it on the article. But really?

You're gonna call this it looks incredible? Were you paid, Digital Trends, to say that? I'm not a fashion diva, but I know what looks good, on someone's hand, and this does not. The global smartphone market grew by a modest point 2% in quarter one. We go from fascia to, use to the smartphone market. So, yep, things have slowed down a little bit. WhatsApp now has more than 3,000,000,000 users a month. I'm one of them. I WhatsApp is used here exclusively. Everyone asks you what's your WhatsApp.

That's, you know, that's that's how people communicate. They use Line in Japan, WhatsApp in most places here in Asia. So, you know, I don't think many most people are what's what's your text number? You text in The United States. Don't do WhatsApp. But here is definitely, definitely a WhatsApp place. An airborne flaw exposes AirPlay devices

to hacking and how to protect yourself. Now Apple's role of a fix with 18.4, but third party AirPlay compatible devices may remain exposed. Researchers have found two major vulnerabilities in the Apple AirPlay protocol. Essentially, allow hackers to breach through compatible devices on the same Wi Fi network. So it's only if everyone's on the same Wi Fi network. So be aware of that. If you're in your home, you don't have to worry about

this. This is not gonna cause an issue unless someone gets on your, on your Wi Fi network. Google CEO Sundar Pichai has testified extraordinary DOJ remedies would cause many unintended consequences. They they are fighting tooth and nail for, for these sanctions to not go through. It it is not boding well for Google. And, you know, I'll be honest.

The more I dig into Google SEM and how they completely dominate, completely dominate that with the tide to search and everything else, yeah, they're gonna have a problem if it's broken apart. I have no doubt. But,

you know, there's no competition. You have to use Google Ads. You have to. There's there's just there's just no other choice. Hey, folks. If you have comments today, [email protected]. Of course, you can find me on LinkedIn and everywhere else, so follow me around. Please do that. Don't forget to support support our sponsor GoDaddy, geek net central dot com forward slash godaddy. And, of course, become an insider, geeknetcentral.com/insider with your 25101520, or $25,

donation. We definitely appreciate it. We'll be covering

all our insiders, on the next show. I failed to get that ready in time for today's podcast. I apologize two in a row, but, we definitely thank you for your support. And, for those of you listening, thank you so much for for being here. Thanks for those of you that are watching, and I got to see me freeze frame a couple of times today. Works all the other time except when OBS is being used, but, go figure. And is there any way to manipulate USB ports on, on a Mac? Anyone know that?

I'm gonna do some googling around. Has to be a power issue. That's the only thing I can think of as we've got too many devices plugged in. But I unplug a bunch of devices before the show to try to lower the consumption on the ports because but, again, maybe it's just an interrupt thing with, with OBS. I don't know. But, otherwise, hey. Thank you for being here. We'll see you next time here on the Geekness Central podcast. Back Monday for another edition.

Everyone take care. See you next time. Bye bye.