Tech News: In Pennsylvania, Robots are People Too

March twenty one. An internet security company called e set that's e s e T reports that several well funded hacking groups, perhaps as many as six, we're actively exploiting the zero day vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Exchange Server product. I reported on this problem last week, and now it appears as though it's gotten much more serious than it

was first reported. Previously, micros often said it had detected the Chinese backed hacking group Halfnium, that that was the group that had taken advantage of the vulnerabilities in the software. Set says it wasn't just Halfnium, but also hacker groups called calypso w, Nitty Group, web Sick, Lucky Mouse, and Tick.

The Register reports that a cybersecurity researcher in Taiwan with the handle orange Sigh discover the vulnerability way back on December and had even built an exploit that would give a hacker the ability to perform a remote code execution attack on a targeted system with the vulnerable software in place. Now that security speak, that means it would give hackers

the opportunity to run processes on a targeted computer. So you could compromise a machine and then have it execute other code and thus get even further control over the device. Orange Side had actually built out such a potential attack vector by January one, But this hacker wasn't actually looking to cause damage. Instead, it was to see if those

vulnerabilities could be exploited in this way. They could, so he reported his discovery to Microsoft on January five, and then he worked with Microsoft employees to draft a report that was then sent to the company's primary security partners around the world. That was sent out on February twenty three. In the meantime, half of the hum exploited those same vulnerabilities way back on January three, and a second wave of attacks happened five days after Microsoft sentence report, So

the timing raises some questions. As pointed out in the register, it's possible that all of these groups independently found the same vulnerabilities and exploited them. It's also possible that there was a lot of cooperation between those groups of hackers, or it might even be possible that the later five hacking groups learned about the vulnerability from the February twenty three report, or maybe even we're spying on the the Microsoft team and Orange Size as they were drafting their report.

We just don't know the timing. But whatever the case, it was bad. Something odd happened on Twitter over the weekend. Well, okay, many odd things frequently happened on Twitter, but in this case, it was that the word Memphis became the city that must not be named or something like that. Because if you did sendella tweet that contained the word Memphis in over the weekend, you got hit with a twelve hour suspension.

Naughty you. Now, according to those who got hit with this, I think we can call it an over the top reaction. The word was somehow triggering Twitter's moderation policies, specifically in regards to rules against posting private information to Twitter. So, for example, you're not supposed to post someone else's address on Twitter. That's against the rules. Twitter cleared things up in a tweet of their own stating that quote, A number of accounts that tweeted the word Memphis were temporary

limited due to a bug. It's been fixed and the accounts have now been restored. We're sorry this happened. End quote. And here I was thinking that it was Belgium that was the rudest word in the universe. Thanks Douglas Adams, he steered me wrong again. Heading over to Facebook, Reuter's reports that the company has begun adding labels to posts dedicated to discussing the safety of the various COVID vaccines, and soon they are going to extend this labeling system

to all posts about the COVID vaccines in general. It will also launch a vaccine tracking tool to help people in the United States find where they can go to

get vaccinated once they are eligible. Previously, Facebook came under fire due to the proliferation of misinformation about vaccines that spread across the platform, much in the same way as misinformation campaigns affected political discourse in the United States in twenty And this is really a big move in a lot of ways because Facebook has long maintained a very stand office approach when it comes to handling misinformation campaigns

In general, but in particular ones against vaccines, not just COVID vaccines, but all vaccines. So the new labels include messaging that explains that these vaccines go through rigorous testing before they're ever deployed to the public, and they represent a safe course of action, particularly compared to not getting

the vaccination. Now, the company is also building out its list of banned false claims about the COVID vaccine and the disease in general, and as such has removed around two million additional posts from Facebook and Instagram as result over the last couple of months. And uh, this is a crazy one. The company says it's now pulling back on the reach of users who have been flagged for

posting false information repeatedly. Now, who could have thought that by turning off the amplify signal on a message you could reduce its overall impact on people. I get the whole freedom of speech thing, but it's not just freedom of speech. It's that Facebook, like I said, amplifies messaging, and by taking that move to reduce that, that's a huge,

huge thing. As for vaccines, I sincerely hope everyone out there, everyone out there who can get it goes and gets it so all of you folks out there, when you're eligible, I hope you're able to go and get the vaccine as soon as possible. I registered to be notified when I'm eligible. I'm in Georgia. Our state is dead last in the United States when it comes to vaccination, so not huge hopes that's going to happen super fast for me,

but I did register for it. Now, I have a history with severe allergic reactions, so I have some concerns about getting it, but I plan on getting my vaccine in a medical center of some sorts so I can at least be under observation in case I go into ani fyl axis, because trust me, that's not fun at all. But I'm still gonna get it because we do need to get to herd immunity and protect each other. It's important.

So y'all stay safe out there, Okay, be careful, get vaccinated when you can, and hey, I love you, so take care of yourself. The U. S. Department of Justice announced an indictment against the CEO of sky Global, Jean Francois EEP, as well as Thomas Herdman, a former Sky Global distributor. Now the d o J is accusing these two of having facilitated the development, sale, and distribution of special encrypted phones to international drug traffickers in violation of

the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act or RICO. Now, essentially, the d o J is saying, you guys create a way for criminals to communicate with one another in a secret and secure way, and that means your complicit in helping them commit crimes. But those accusations actually go beyond that. They allege that sky Global wasn't just providing the communication infrastructure, but also allowing for money laundering activities, primarily in the

form of cryptocurrency transactions. On top of that, the d o J states that sky Global set up numerous shell companies to try and hide what was going on. So if these allegations are true, I believe we really should see justice served against those who are responsible. Part of me worries that this is also an attack on encryption

in general. That's something that various law enforcement agencies around the world have targeted in various ways, and you can sort of understand from their perspective, right, encryption makes it very hard to suss out what people, including criminals, are doing. But it also provides protection against governments or government agencies or gigantic private companies that might otherwise abuse the rights of citizens and others. So, in other words, criminals might

use encryption, but encryption isn't a crime now. I say that only so that we keep an eye on this story to see how the legal argument shapes up against sky Global, to make sure that we're not seeing an attempt to undermine encryption as a valid approach in the first place. Router's reports that India is poised to pass a law that would make it illegal to mine, trade, transfer, or possess private cryptocurrencies, while leaving the door open for

a state backed digital currency. An earlier version of this bill had even suggested a jail sentence of around ten years for violating the law, though as I record this episode, it's unclear whether or not that penalty made it into the more recent version of the law. It is not available for public review. Now. Should this law pass, and it looks like it's going to, Indian citizens will have a grace period of about six months to liquidate their

digital wallets or face penalties. At the time I record this, cryptocurrency transactions are way up in India, where it's estimated that investors hold about one point four billion dollars worth of cryptocurrency. But I should stress that is just an estimate because there's virtually no hard data available to make a more firm claim than that. It sounds as though investors are determined to stick with cryptocurrency, at least until

the bill becomes official. Now, at that point, are we going to see a massive move to sell off cryptocurrency and it's so, how will that affect the value of currencies like bitcoin? All of that remains to be seen. And while some leaders in India have likened cryptocurrency to ponzi schemes, I think that might be going a bit too far. Yeah, there are a lot of ponzi schemes that lean on the public's general lack of understanding about cryptocurrencies.

But the value of cryptocurrency is at least as real as other kinds of money is, I guess, though I would still argue it's not really terribly useful as a currency due to the volatility of bitcoin. Tender, the dating app, is about to get a new feature, match Group, the company that owns Tender, as well as Hinge Okay, Cupid, and Match has announced that it has invested in a

background check platform called Garbo. As described on the Garbo website, the company is quote a new kind of background check designed to help proactively prevent gender based violence in the digital age end quote. Garbo itself is a not for profit organization founded by women, and the goal is to provide access to public reports and records that could indicate that it's most definitely time to swipe left on that

perspective date. Those records include stuff like criminal records like arrests and convictions, and what or not the person has had, say, a restraining order filed against them in the past, and other data like that that makes it clear that you're not looking at mr right, You're looking at Mr. This guy is seriously bad news. However, Garbo reps have also acknowledged there are disparities to take into account when scraping the internet for signs that your possible date has had

a brush with the law. Here in the United States, there's no denying that there are systemic iniquities in the justice system, and as a result, people of color are disproportionately affected by these flaws. To that end, Garbo has said that they would take that into account and strikes stuff like charges of drug possession out of the equation, so those are not factored into reports. Those disproportionately affect

people of color. As of right now, there is no integration on TENDER yet, so it's impossible for me to say what form this is going to take once it is implemented. But beyond the lookout for that, a group of scientists, including University of Arizona researcher Jacken Thonga, have proposed an interesting project, and it involves sending examples of sperm and egg cells from more than six and a half million species of animals to the Moon, along with

thousands of different types of seeds. It's similar to something we already have here on Earth. This val Barred Seed Bank, which is in Norway, keeps hundreds of thousands of seeds safe in an effort to ensure biodiversity on the planet. As regents cut back on biodiversity, there's an increased risk that a disease or blight could wipe out enormous populations of plants. Because they're all essentially the same plant, they all have the same lack of ability to withstand certain

types of illness. Then if they get wiped out, all the life forms that depend on those plants could suffer, and then the ones that depend upon the animals that depend on the plants, and so on. It goes up the chain. But here's the problem with that. See Norway, at least last I checked, is actually on Earth. In fact, Earth is as the superhero the tick would say, where we keep all our stuff? And if something truly calamitous were to happen to the Earth, all of that would

be gone. Therefore, say these scientists, wouldn't it be a great idea to establish a sort of vault on the Moon to keep safe samples of various life forms, so that should a true catastrophe occur, there will still be samples that survivors of that catastrophe can retrieve to help prepare the damage. The team suggests that we build a vault within the lava tubes that are under the surface of the Moon. These tubes have been dormant for billions

of years and completely untouched in the meantime. Donga estimates that to establish this vault on the Moon would require around two hundred fifty rocket launches, both to send up all the various components to make up the vault itself and the three five million samples that would be housed there. The concept gets really science ACTIONI though it's all based

in science fact. So, for example, the storage temperatures needed to preserve the samples would be so incredibly low, I mean like crazy cold, that metal itself would freeze, which makes shelving a bit of a headache for storing all these samples. So the researchers have proposed using superconductor material that, when cool to these very very cold temperatures, can enter into a type of magnetic lock when paired with a

permanent magnet, and you get quantum levitation. This is something we can do here on Earth if you have access to the right equipment. It's not easy to get hold of, but you can do it, and it's really interesting. Now, the thought of using superconductors as shelving tickles me quite a bit. As it stands, this is all a proposal, it's not an actual project yet. Whether we ever see a real series of missions to carry this out remains

to be seen. And finally, in Pennsylvania, robots are people too, well, not really, but they are kind of sort of classified as podest Trians. If they happen to be autonomous delivery drones. The state has deemed it legal for delivery robots to make use of sidewalks and pathways as well as roadways, and that they will be considered as pedestrians from a

legal standpoint. That means it's officially legal for these robots to share the road and sidewalks with human beings, which is a big deal because making robots that are safe to interact in human spaces that have actual human beings in them, and we human beings tend to be squishy, well,

that's a really challenging field of robotics. It requires a lot of work to make the robots safer operation within those spaces, as well as the designs to keep the robots protected because you know, people are just the worst. Add to that the fact that humans can be distracted, which means the robots might have to factor in someone who isn't really paying attention as they walk down the sidewalk.

I know I've been guilty of that, Or the fact that human beings can change their minds really quickly and stop in place all of a sudden or change direction immediately. You've got a lot of logical challenges you have to tackle. But these rules that Pennsylvania is putting in place well mean companies can at least operate their robots on the sidewalks and such within certain parameters, like once a robot gets particularly massive, it's no longer legally allowed on sidewalks.

But not everyone is a big fan of this idea. I may have to do a full episode dedicated to this, because it's an interesting challenge, not just from a tech standpoint, but also a legal standpoint and then a cultural standpoint. So there's a lot of different factors at play here, but I'll save that for a later episode. Well that's it. Those are the top stories I have for you for Tuesday, March one. I hope you guys are staying safe. Join me for a new episode of tech Stuff tomorrow, and

I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.