The Hacks

Chunga is thinking there is going to be a prominent theme for the 2024 season of The Hacks. Last week, the FBI and additional government agencies, announced an imminent attack on United States infrastructure and corporate entities. The group responsible is a Chinese nation state hacker group called "Volt Typhoon".  

The FBI has been very public about the extreme urgency related to these incoming attacks, and Chunga has a bunch of questions as to why. For example, why is China being so aggressive, right now, and why is the Federal Government being so vocal and public about it? Is the Chinese Government more desperate, and perhaps less stable than we think they are? Tom says "ABSOLUTELY"! He'll give us an explination why they have chosen to ramp up their nation state cyberattacks at this moment, and help us understand what Volt Typhoon actually is!  Is the Federal Government legitimately worried about this group or are they using the American public to play cat and mouse with China?  Listen now to find out!! 

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Have you been following the news story about the airplane that lost one of its doors shortly after take off?

Tom has been fascinated with this story.  Chunga has been following it closely, as well. He's honestly shocked that in todays world, something thats as important to a passenger jet as an air tight door, can fall through the cracks and create a potential tragedy.  Luckily, nobody has hurt, let alone killed. 

Think about it for a minute. All of those check and balances, all of the goverment regulation, all of the human oversight and still...  Tom looks at this scenario much differently and is frankly suprised that in our world, disasters like this don't happen more!  Especially in our tech industry.  In this episode of The Hacks, Tom and Chunga talk about how to prepare for when-not if-but when something falls through the cracks and what to do when it happens.  They also talk about the tech industry's acceptance of catasrophic mistakes and how they can be evey bit has tragic as this recent story with the airplane.  Listen NOW!

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Typically, when Tom accurately predicts the outcome of a large event or the large event itself, Chunga will tactfully remind everyone that Tom had previously said something was going to happen. This time however, he feels that Tom really does need to celebrate and take a victory lap, which he would indeed do, if the circumstances weren't so dire. 

About a year ago, as conflicts around the world were starting to intensify, Tom said there would also be a "ridiculous uptick in corporate, and financial institution cyberattacks". These attacks would nation states and Russia, in particular.

Did you hear the news last week about J.P. Morgan & Chase? They've revealed that they're currently dealing with billions of cyberattacks, every day--every, single, day. In this episode of The Hacks, Tom and Chunga talk about why and how these attacks on financial institutions in particular are happening, how thousands of top-teir SecOps professionals are defending against them, and what our world will look like if they fail. Are we, as an industry, doing enough to keep defending against attacks of this volume? Listen now to find out?

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Tom Hatch has long thought that as creators and members of the open source world, the current dogmatic views that are shared by so many, need to change.

In this episode of The Hacks, Tom and Chunga talk about all of the foundational "stuff" that Tom says isn't working. He says the open source model that we've been using for so long has already started to collapse and will eventually fail.  Tom isn't alone in this way of thinking. There are many other thought leaders and open source creators that are saying the same exact thing! Who else is saying this? By this time next year, how different are things going to be?  Listen now to find out!!

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Happy New Year!  Tom and Chunga are back from their extended holiday break!

During their time off, Tom went on on a cruise!  He also took a trip to Las Vegas to hang out his old buddy Chunga. They had a great time relaxing and doing things that had nothing to do with work. Althought they tried their best, they eventually did end up talking about the world of tech and what people will be focusing on in the new year.  

Tom has previously said on The Hacks that he thinks 2024 is going to be a "nuts and bolts" year, where people and the tech industry is going to focus heavily on the essentials and simplicity. With that said, he thinks this focus will lead to 2024 being a transformative year. It will be a year that will get credit for creating a foundation for the future of tech, for the next 12 to 15 years!  Why does Tom think 2024 is going to such a milestone for the tech industry? Why does he think its going to set the table for nearly two decades of transformation?  Listen now to find out!

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HAPPY HOLIDAYS from The Hacks!

Tom and Chunga are getting ready for their year end holiday break!  Wow, what an incredible and chaotic year its has been for both of them.

As the year comes to a close, The Hacks has historically chosen to spend their last episode reviewing the biggest events of the past 12-months, etc. This year however, Tom has asked to change things up a bit and focus on something super nerdy.  He wants to have fun getting into the weeds of a process hes known about but hasn't bothered doing for decades.  It's called "Compiler Optimization".  Chunga has no idea what that is, but ok!  He's all in to talk about it!

As most of you know, Tom loves Arch Linux. It's been his preferred for as long as he can remember. Recently, he learned about a new system that recompiles all of the Arch Linux packages, and optimizes them to current and/or different benchmarks, so that everything runs faster and simply put, better on x86, 64-bit, CPU's. 

How does it work and is it something that you should try?  Listnen NOW and decide for yourself!

Tom and Chunga would like to thank each and every one of you for listening to The Hacks!  They hope you have a wonderful holiday season and wish you all a Happy New Year!  See you in 2024!!

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Here on The Hacks, Tom Hatch has had a near perfect record when predicting what the coming year is going to look like.

In the past, he's delivered all kinds of predictions that were often times completely different than what many of the industry experts were forcasting for that particular year!  Much to Chungas dismay, Tom accurately predicted that the past two years were going to be extremely volatile and challenging. He also correctly predicted record layoffs all accross the tech industry.

So... What does he think is going to happen in 2024? Will the coming year be as crazy as the previous two? Will the mass layoffs and volatility continue for another 12-months? Or, is 2024 going to give us all some much needed relief?  Listen NOW to find out?!

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2023 has been a wild ride! That statement has been especially true for Tom Hatch and Chunga. Afterall, they were each part of one of the largest tech acquisitions in history!  Yep, they're both overwhelmed and exhausted.

To say 2023 had a lot of drama and surprises would be a colossal understatement, so the timing our annual "Toms Biggest Surprises" episode is perfect! Toms biggest surprises for this year may feel a little bit different that they have in years past. That could be because he accurately predicted many of this years larger events, including the increase in political conflict around the world. Tom was surprised not by the events and outcomes themselves, he was instead surprised by the decisions and actions that precipitated and ultimately lead to the events he predicted at the end of last year. So, where did he screw up and where did he get it right? Listen now to find out!

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The holidays are here!!  Tom and Chunga couldn't be more excited and they're proud to present The Hacks 2023 Holiday Gift Guide!

Are you looking for techie gadgets and gifts for family members, co-workers, bosses, or maybe your own employees? If so, this episode is perfect for you! Tom and Chunga have some of their favorite tech based items that are virutally guranteed to brings smiles to even the hardest person to buy for on your list! They have goodies in almost every price range and they personally own and use everything that they've put in this years list!

Get a solid jumpstart on this years holiday shopping with The Hacks!  Listen NOW!

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Tom and Chunga would like to wish all of you, no matter where you are, a Happy Thanksgiving!

It's become a tradition here on The Hacks! Every year at this time, Chunga sits down with Tom for a special Thanksgiving episode called "Things Tom Is Thankful For"!  Historically, this episode is one of the more popular episodes of the entire year, thanks to Toms unique and somewhat quirky answers! 

This year however, Tom may surprise you. Rather than spending the time talking about tech, Tom has chosen to be more personal. 2023 has been an interesting and challenging year. Maybe thats what makes this particular episode so special. What is Tom thankful for in 2023? Listen NOW to find out!

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