The Register Kettle

Far gone are the days when a car was a dumb machine you turned on and drove from A to B. Today it's a smartphone on wheels, and your data is possibly being taken for a ride.

In a judgment affecting multiple class-action lawsuits, a US court has ruled automakers can harvest the data exchanged when owners sync their phones with their car's internal systems. El Reg's Brandon Vigliarolo has the full details, and discusses it today with fellow vultures senior reporter Thomas Claburn, cybersecurity editor Jessica Lyons Hardcastle, and US editor Iain Thomson.

You can replay our whole chat below – or listen in via your favorite podcast syndication channel: Apple, Amazon, Spotify, Google, etc.

Such personal data is both commercially valuable, but also increasingly being sought by governments, as Jessica explains.

And, outside of the Land of the Free, European privacy protections are being wielded in an attempt to curb Big Tech. Thomas has the full details after being on the case for months.

Your host Iain directs the chat, and our video and audio podcasts are produced by Nicole Hemsoth Prickett. Find previous Kettle-casts here

Social networks, once thought to have all-encompassing power to change our mood or voting strategy, have been hitting wall after wall this week.

On Wednesday came the news that Meta's Facebook and Instagram are facing a ban on their personalized ad business in the EU unless they sort themselves out. Meta's also under the cosh over the name for its Twitter knock-off Threads, since a British software company says it owns the UK trademark to the name Threads and isn't in a mood to settle.

With KETTLE Social networks, once thought to have all-encompassing power to change our mood or voting strategy, have been hitting wall after wall this week.

On Wednesday came the news that Meta's Facebook and Instagram are facing a ban on their personalized ad business in the EU unless they sort themselves out. Meta's also under the cosh over the name for its Twitter knock-off Threads, since a British software company says it owns the UK trademark to the name Threads and isn't in a mood to settle.

Then of course there's Elon Musk, who was bizarrely interviewed by the British Prime Minister at the UK's AI Summit this week. Figures out this week showed the value of his social media network has dropped from $44 billion to just $19 billion - a rocketeer who sure knows how to make things crash and burn, it seems.

Discussing the news, clockwise from top left in the thumb: Chris Williams, Brandon Vigliarolo, Thomas Claburn, and Iain Thomson. 

In this week's Kettle the topic is one that's been much in the news this week - the much-underrated insider threat issue.

While there are thousands of security shops willing to sell elaborate firewalls, zero-trust barriers, and AI security systems that claims to be able to spot a wrong'un easily. But time and again the most effective thieves are already inside the building and using their corporate-issued credentials.

Such was the case this week in the NSA of all places, where a rogue systems engineer, who resigned in anger, tried to sell purloined documents to a Russian agent in exchange for cryptocurrency. Brandon Vigliarolo covered the case and explains what motivated the plot and the surprisingly easy way he was discovered.

News of another insider who did get away with it, it seems, came on Tuesday, as an ex-staffer at Dutch chip-making biz ASML appears to have taken a new job with Huawei, and is accused of taking secrets with him. Tobias Mann has the inside information of the case and, as Biden's sanctions bite harder, we may see more of these sorts of shenanigans.

Then there's the ultimate insider - yourself. On Wednesday Jessica Hardcastle reported on an ACLU Freedom of Information lawsuit showing that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement hired security snoops to trawl through social media content to look for anti-American sentiments. She explains the complex web behind this and it's something we all had a lot to say on. You can see the full discussion below.

So join us for 15 minutes of news, insight, and more than a little snark in the latest Kettle, hosted by Iain Thomson and spun to gold by producer Nicole Hemsoth Prickett. There's also an audio version available on Apple, Amazon, Spotify and Google.

 It has been a bad week for thousands of tech workers this week, with multiple corporations announcing that headcount reduction will continue for the time being.

Around 50 percent of Bandcamp were let go by Epic ahead of the site's sale to Songtradr, Stack Overflow cut headcount by 28%, and LinkedIn showed around 700 people - largely engineers - the door despite Microsoft making very healthy profits. Meanwhile, Nokia slashed its worker numbers by 14,000 after profits slumped and Qualcomm let 1,000 people go last week.

As long as there have been jobs there have been layoffs. While the problem will always be with us the last few years have seen these rounds of redundancies increase in size and frequency.

So, as a timely topic and one close to readers' hearts, in this week's Kettle we ask why the layoffs keep happening. Is it post-COVID belt tightening, corporate greed, the demands of Wall Street, or even AI coming to take over certain job types?

This week we have we have journos Brandon Vigliarolo, Tobias Mann, Jessica Hardcastle, and Iain Thomson. The Kettle producer is Nicole Hemsoth Prickett.