Tech Tho(ugh)ts

Software as a Service- with an acronym like that, how bad could it really be? Many pieces of software these days require a subscription, or at least, an always-on internet connection. Examples include Adobe’s Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, and… your favorite video games? How did this even happen? Better yet, is there anything that you can do?

EPISODE NOTES/MISTAKES: Adobe CS6 is no longer available to purchase, Creative Cloud is the only option for the Adobe suite.

Sources:

• Cisco’s website, ‘What is SaSS?’
• Adobe’s website on being a SaaS product
• Pricing for Microsoft Office Professional 2019, Home & Student 2019, 365 (Subscription Service)
• Pricing for Adobe Creative Suite, Single Application
• ProfitIntelligently.com (ProfitWell), 13 October 2020, ‘How Adobe, GoPro, Microsoft, and Gillette saved their businesses through subscription revenue’

Alternatives:

• Microsoft Office alternative: LibreOffice
• Adobe Creative Suite: Affinity Suite (Photo, Designer, Publisher), GIMP

Website: https://techthoughts.gay
Instagram: https://instagram.com/techthoughtspodcast/

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Planned Obsolescence, also known as ‘why things that you buy might break much sooner than you wanted’. Why is your inkjet printer always out of ink? Does your iPhone get slower every update? (spoiler alert: it used to!) Tune in and find out the whys and hows!

Sources:

Inkjet printers:

• Ars Technica, 6 June 2007, ‘Study: Inkjet printers are filthy, lying thieves‘
• Top Class Actions, 24 September 2018, ‘HP Ink Cartridge Monopoly Class Action Lawsuit Settles for $1.5M‘
• Top Class Actions, 16 April 2020, ‘HP Class Action Alleges Printer Ink Defect‘
• ClassAction.org, 29 May 2020, ‘HP Intentionally Failed to Disclose OfficeJet Printers Won’t Print Black and White Without Color Ink, Class Action Alleges‘

Misc.:

• Battery University on How to Prolong Lithium-based batteries
• CBS Boston, July 15 2020, ‘Apple Customers Can Submit Claims As Part Of Settlement Over Slowing Down iPhones’
• Medium.com, Ryan Finlay on Appliances lasting longer in the past

Website: https://techthoughts.gay
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The mouse, touchscreen smartphone, and the removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack; these are all things that Apple has pushed the tech industry towards. Did Apple create all of those things? No (with the exception of the headphone jack)- but they have made these things staples of the platforms they are used on. But, why do they get the credit? And, furthermore, why does it matter?

EPISODE NOTES/MISTAKES: The Xerox 8010 Star was the first computer with a two-button mouse, whereas the Xerox Alto from 1973 was the first computer with any kind of mouse. The Apple Lisa mouse was, in fact, based on the Alto’s.

This episode was recorded prior to the iPhone 12 announcement, with the ~$40 magsafe wireless charger. Still overpriced.

Sources:

The 2007 released Blackberry Curve 8300:

• TechRadar, 2007 May 14, ‘RIM Blackberry Curve 8300 Review’

Touchscreen Phones before the iPhone:

• Time, 2014 August 18, ‘First Smartphone Turns 20: Fun Facts About Simon’
• GSM Arena’s page on the LG KE850 Prada, first capacitive touchscreen phone

Xerox 8010 Star & Alto:

• The National Museum of American History’s page on the Xerox 8010 Star
• History-Computer’s page on the Xerox Alto

iPhone Woes (glue, headphone jack, notch, in that order):

• iFixit’s page on replacing the iPhone 5 battery
• TechRadar’s iPhone 7 Review
• Medium, 2018 October 9, ‘Why Your iPhone Has a ‘Notch’
• Nerds Chalk, 2018 May 3, ‘Here’s a list of Android phones with iPhone X-like notch’

iPhone 7’s Plastic Spacer & Strange Parts:

• Thrillist, 2016 September 16, ‘Apple Replaced the iPhone Headphone Jack with a Piece of Plastic That Does Nothing‘
• Strange Parts’ video on installing a headphone jack in an iPhone 7

Website: https://techthoughts.gay
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Apple recently announced Apple Silicon, their overall transition to the ARM architecture. If you’re suddenly terrified of the idea of Macs running around with ARMS (and generally worried about the future of traditional computers), you’re probably not alone! But what does an announcement like this mean for the future of computing? Is this a good thing, or is it just another attempt by Apple to secure a monopoly? (Spoiler: Likely the latter, or at least a mix of both)

EPISODE NOTES/MISTAKES: We referenced that Linus Tech Tips had used a thermal pad to fix the Macbook Air’s cooling. They instead milled the plate to screw in more tightly, accomplishing the same end result (more mounting pressure).

ARM is not only more power efficient due to being a RISC architecture; generally, it’s also expected to be in sleep mode more often than x86 chips, and is often on a smaller nanometer process than x86, meaning it is a physically smaller chip. Decreasing the size of a processor increases efficiency, but is often difficult.

We neglected to mention that Windows on ARM has x86 emulation, allowing for usage of 32-bit Windows applications to run on it, recently they have also added 64-bit support.

Sources:

Apple moving to Apple Silicon:

• Apple Newsroom, 2020 June 22, ‘Apple announces Mac transition to Apple silicon‘
• Engadget, 2020 June 22, ‘iOS apps will run natively on ARM-powered Macs‘
• Apple’s page on running iOS apps on macOS

Apple’s architecture swap from PowerPC to Intel (x86):

• PCWorld, 2020 June 22, ‘Why Apple’s move from Intel to ARM means we should stop buying Macs‘
• Apple’s page on the original Rosetta

Website: https://techthoughts.gay
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How do you get apps on your iPhone? Well… the App Store, of course! Absolutely nowhere else, unless of course you have the money to start publishing your own apps, listen to all of Apple’s rules, and let them make money off of it even if it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

EPISODE NOTES: Jade mentioned that the unix kernel is why Linux and MacOS (and iOS and iPhone) are ‘safe’ from tampering. Not exactly! It was more about the implementation of sandboxing for both.

Sources:

Cost of publishing an app:

• ($99/yr) Apple Developer Program
• ($25/one time) Google Play Publishing

Apple’s NFC Chip & Germany Requiring it to be Public:

• DW.com, 15 November 2020, ‘German Parliament passes anti-money-laundering laws’

On why the app store is locked down/NFC lockdown is due to security and privacy:

• Engadget, 13 August 2020, ‘What if Apple was forced to allow app sales outside of the iOS store?’

Apple vs. WordPress:

• Engadget, 21 August 2020, ‘Apple apparently blocked WordPress app updates to force IAP support’

Apple vs. Epic:

• The Verge, 25 August 2020, ‘Epic judge will protect Unreal Engine — but not Fortnite’
• BGR, 18 September 2020, ‘‘Fortnite’ and Epic now have much bigger problems than Apple’
• Engadget, 19 September 2020, ‘Epic rejects Apple claims that ‘Fortnite’ on iOS was dying’
• USA Today, 19 September 2020, ‘Epic Games vs. Apple: Fortnite creator files new court documents against iPhone giant’

Sandboxing on iOS & macOS:

• Apple’s developer page on App Sandboxing
• GeoSn0w, an iPhone hacker and developer, on macOS and iOS sandboxing

Website: https://breadnet.xyz/podcast/
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Now that you know about the complicated reality of designing social media websites, let’s get into those gritty details. Does blocking work the same on every website? Are your profile’s privacy settings safe by default? Will you shout your thoughts into the endless expanse that is the World Wide Web? (hint: no, no, and m̸̧͓͙̘̳̝̞̉͌͑̄́̽́̅̄̈́́͊̒̇̃͑ą̵̜̱̬̣̮͔̄͑͒̌͆͜͝ͅỵ̸̢͓̘̑̏̌̊͝b̴͍̟̗̟̯̻͎̌͒̐̆͗̓͒͗̌͑̒̕̚͜͝͠͝ë̵̛͕͇͙̝͍̙̪̥̫̰͖̹̜͕́͗͑̓̓͒̈́̿̑́͠)

Guest: Lexi Galantino (@_gallexi on Twitter)
(Mentioned): Ben Balter
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Website: https://breadnet.xyz/podcast/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/techthoughtspodcast/

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Season 1, finished? Well… certainly! But well, a person much more qualified than us is here to share the methods that social media platforms use to develop their Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. So come on in and find out what exactly makes your (least) favorite website a Hellsite!

EPISODE NOTES: A study on fact-checking was conducted by MIT. Jade’s opinion on the study mentioned by Lexi was due to the misunderstanding that Facebook had ran the study.

Mentioned Articles:

• New York Magazine, 2018 April, ‘‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’
• MIT News, 2020 March 2, ‘The catch to putting warning labels on fake news‘

Guest: Lexi Galantino (@_gallexi on Twitter)
(Mentioned): Ben Balter

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Website: https://breadnet.xyz/podcast/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/techthoughtspodcast/

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Tweet, Post, Status, Tik,… Tok? You are more than likely on one of the many social media networks that have risen over the last decade. Your life is, at least partially, tied to them- but do they have your best wishes at heart? (-Sometimes!)

Sources:

Instagram Unencrypted Password Leak:

• Forbes, 2019 April 19, ‘Facebook Quietly Confirms Millions Of Unencrypted Instagram Passwords Exposed — Change Yours Now‘

Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg on Apple:

• Buzzfeed News, 2020 August 28, ‘Mark Zuckerberg Said Apple Has A “Stranglehold” On Your iPhone’
• Forbes, 2020 August 30, ‘iOS 14: Facebook’s Apple Nightmare Keeps Getting Worse‘

Unsecured Facebook Database, 419 Million User Leak:

• Forbes, 2019 September 5, ‘Unsecured Facebook Databases Leak Data Of 419 Million Users‘

Snappening Leak:

• Business Insider, 2014 October 10, ‘Hackers Access At Least 100,000 Snapchat Photos And Prepare To Leak Them, Including Underage Nude Pictures‘

Twitter Bitcoin Scam:

• CNN, 2020 July 18, ‘Twitter says some accounts had personal data stolen in massive hack‘
• Vice, 2020 July 15, ‘Hackers Convinced Twitter Employee to Help Them Hijack Accounts‘

TikTok & Privacy:

• The Washington Post, 2020 July 13, ‘Is it time to delete TikTok? A guide to the rumors and the real privacy risks.‘
• iPhoneTricks, 2020 July 2, ‘TikTok Background Microphone Access Confirmed By iOS 14‘
• CNN, 2020 July 7, ‘The United States is ‘looking at’ banning TikTok and other Chinese social media apps, Pompeo says‘

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Website: https://breadnet.xyz/podcast/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/techthoughtspodcast/

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What is the cloud? A mystical place where all your stuff goes? A pocket dimension? A literal glowing cloud watching over us all? And what is it hiding? Pictures? Documents? Your friendly neighborhood hacker-ma— wait, what?

Sources:

What is “The Cloud”:

• Cloudflare, ‘What Is The Cloud? | Cloud Definition”
• National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), 2011 September, ‘The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing”

iCloud Leak, ‘The Fappening”:

• CBS News, 2014 September 4, ‘Apple’s celbrity iCloud leak probably has mundane causes’
• The Washington Post, 2014 September 2, ‘4chan: The ‘shock post’ site that hosted the private Jennifer Lawrence photos’

Verizon Cloud Leak:

• Dark Reading, 2017 July 12, ‘Verizon Suffers Cloud Data Leak Exposing Data on Millions of Customers‘

AWS – Related Leak (Small Business Data) + Breaches are due to client/setup error:

• Infosecurity Magazine, 2020 March 18, ‘Cloud Database Leak Exposes 425GB of Small Biz Financial Data’
• The Wall Street Journal, 2019 August 27, ‘Human Error Often the Culprit in Cloud Data Breaches’

PRISM & Dropbox:

• The Washington Post, 2013 June 7, ‘U.S., British intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program‘

Self-Hosted Cloud Options:

• Nextcloud
• Pydio
• Seafile

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Website: https://breadnet.xyz/podcast/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/techthoughtspodcast/

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Almost everything is a ‘smart’ device these days, but what are the implications of that? Is your TV going to start streaming you, instead? Are your light bulbs going to leak your pictures? Find out the answer to at least one of those things (and more)!

Sources:

Deleting Smart Assistant/Speaker Data:

• The Guardian, 2020 March 8, ‘How to stop your smart home spying on you’

Malicious Apps/Skills/Actions:

• BBC News, 2019 October 21, ‘Amazon Echo and Google Home owners spied on by apps’

The FBI on Smart TVs:

• FBI, 2019 November 26, ‘Oregon FBI Tech Tuesday: Securing Smart TVs’

Hue Bulb Vulnerability:

• Check Point Software, ‘The Dark Side of Smart Lighting: Check Point Research Shows How Business and Home Networks Can Be Hacked from a Lightbulb’

Sonos Ending Support/Separating Old Devices:

• Wired, 2020 January 21, ‘Sonos Will Soon End Software Support for Its Older Speakers’
• CNN, 2020 March 17, ‘Come June, Sonos is splitting its ecosystem in two. Here’s what it means‘

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Website: https://breadnet.xyz/podcast/
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