Workable Tech (Audio)

This week, we tackle the Facebook data issue, discussing Cambridge Analytica and cell phone call and SMS data scraping. We also show you how to download all your Facebook data. The FCC wants to block Chinese devices because of back doors, and the feds want to add a back door to your cell phone. Oh, and stickers.

Story 1: Facebook Pinky-swears that Your Data Is Safe

Facebook and Cambridge Analytica: What You Need to Know as Fallout Widens (NY Times)

Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and data mining: What you need to know (CNET)

What Did Cambridge Analytica Do During The 2016 Election? (NPR)

Mark Zuckerberg Talks to Wired About Facebook's Privacy Problem (Wired)

Mark Zuckerberg's mea culpa on Facebook

Cambridge Analytica and Our Lives Inside the Surveillance Machine (The New Yorker)

The shady data-gathering tactics used by Cambridge Analytica were an open secret to online marketers. I know, because I was one (The Verge)

Facebook scraped call, text message data for years from Android phones (Ars Technica)

Facebook: call, text history logging requires users' permission (Reuters)

Story 2: US Government Says No to Device Backdoors

FCC aims to block purchases from non-US firms posing ‘security threat’ (Engadget)

Story 3: US Government Says Yes to Device Backdoors (Confused Yet?)

Feds pushing new plan for encrypted mobile device unlocks via court order (Ars Technica)

Etc.

Drop us a line and tell us about yourself and what you’d like to know more about.

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This week, the failure to observe best practices rears its ugly head in a Memcrashed DDoS attack and a Cisco vulnerability. We also discuss the Twitter blue check, Android P, exporting Chrome passwords, and WordPress market share.

Story 1: Memcrashed in the Wild

Code for massive 'Memcrashed' DDoS attack made public (CyberScoop)

Memcached (Wikipedia)

The Cyberwire Podcast

Story 2: WordPress Runs the World

Usage of content management systems for websites (W3Techs)

30% of all sites now run on WordPress (The Next Web)

WordPress now powers 30% of websites (VentureBeat)

Story 3: Cisco Made a Boo-Boo

Hard-Coded Password in Cisco Software Lets Attackers Take Over Linux Servers (The Hacker News)

Cisco Prime Collaboration Provisioning Hard-Coded Password Vulnerability (Cisco)

Story 4: Blue Check Please

Twitter plans to expand its 'verified' service to anyone (CNET)

Story 5: Those Nutty Android Folks

How to Get Android P on Your Phone Right Now (Lifehacker)

Story 6: Get Your Passwords Out of Chrome

Google is making it easier to download all your Chrome passwords (Engadget)

Etc.

Drop us a line and tell us about yourself and what you’d like to know more about.

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Recorded Wednesday, February 28, 2018

This week, we discuss the new Samsung Galaxy 9, rumors about the next iPhone, Google taking on Slack, Amazon buying Ring, and our first podcast recommendation. See, no cryptocurrency or Spectre/Meltdown this week.

Women of NASA Lego Set

Story 1: Cell Phone Wars, Episode XI?

Samsung's Galaxy S9 Packs an Upgraded Camera in a Familiar Body (The Verge)

Report: Apple plans three new iPhones for 2018—and they’re all like the iPhone X (Ars Technica)

Story 2: Slack’s New Competitor

Google's Slack alternative is available starting today (Engadget)

Google Hangouts Chat

Slack

Story 3: Amazon Buys Ring

Amazon is buying smart doorbell maker Ring (TechCrunch)

Electric Dreams on Amazon Video - The episode we talk about is Autofac.

Story 4: Podcast (and TV) Recommendation: Lore

The World of Lore

Amazon renews podcast-inspired 'Lore' series for a second season (Engadget)

Episode 79: Locked Away (Winchester Mystery House)

Lore on Amazon Video - Episode 1 discusses making sure the dead are dead

Etc.

Drop us a line and tell us about yourself and what you’d like to know more about.

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Recorded Sunday, February 18, 2018

This week we celebrate Kerry's birthday by discussing Spectre and Meltdown, the Chrome ad blocker, the possible future of cryptomining, and the GPU shortage. And we wonder who's watching us in California...

Women of NASA Lego Set

Picture of Margaret Hamilton on which the Lego minifigure is based

Story 1: Another Day, Another Spectre/Meltdown Exploit

New Security Exploit Found for Meltdown and Spectre Vulnerability (ITPro Today)

Meltdown-Spectre: Now the class action suits against Intel are starting to mount up (ZDNet)

Story 2: Chrome Says Goodbye to Annoying Ads

Good news: Chrome debuts automatic blocking of annoying ads (Ars Technica)

Story 3: Now That You're Blocking Ads, Sites Want to Borrow Your CPU Cycles

Salon website asks readers to mine cryptocurrency (The Telegraph)

Story 4: Are Cryptominers Ruining Computing for Everyone?

How cryptocurrency mining is hurting astronomers (The Verge)

Cryptocurrency boom, a problem for gamers, is a bonanza for GPU makers (Ars Technica)

Inside the Chinese Bitcoin Mine That's Grossing $1.5M a Month (Motherboard)

Etc.

Drop us a line and tell us about yourself and what you'd like to know more about. Please don't say cryptocurrency or Spectre/Meltdown ;)

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Recorded Sunday, February 11, 2018

Exploits, exploits everywhere. This week we discuss exploits of the Cisco vulnerability, Spectre, and Meltdown, as well as a bug in WordPress and the coming release of Office 2019. Also, Kerry demos the new Amazon WordPress plugin that creates audio versions of blog posts.

Story 1: You Can't Say We Didn't Warn You

The bad guys are starting to hammer feverishly at the Cisco device and Spectre/Meltdown vulnerabilities.

That mega-vulnerability Cisco dropped is now under exploit: Bug with maximum severity rating is generating plenty of interest among hackers (Ars Technica)

Meltdown & Spectre Emerge (Security Now!)

Story 2: WordPress Auto-Update Broken

WordPress 4.9.3 broke auto-update, so you need to manually update to 4.9.4 to fix it.

WordPress Update Breaks Future Auto-Updates. Manually Update Now! (Wordfence Blog)

Story 3: Office 2019 Release Details

Office 2019 is coming... for most of us.

Office 2019 Releasing Later this Year Only for Windows 10 Users (AskVG)

Story 4: Amazon Polly Plugin Demo

With the new Amazon Polly plugin, you can easily generate auto versions of your blog posts, and the results are pretty good.

Amazon launches a Polly WordPress plugin that turns blog posts into audio, including podcasts (TechCrunch)

Amazon Polly for WordPress

Give Your WordPress Blog a Voice With Our New Amazon Polly Plugin (Amazon AWS Blog)

Amazon AWS Free Tier Info

Chronically Zen (Kerry's blog)

Recorded Saturday, February 4, 2018 (and Thursday, February 1, 2018)

Seems like the bad Spectre/Meltdown news will never end. We also talk about issues with CISCO devices, YouTube, and some models of the iPhone 7. And we wrap things up with a discussion of the new YouTube live TV app for the Apple TV.

Story 1: More Spectre/Meltdown News - Can’t they just get it right?

Microsoft's new Windows 10 Spectre patch disables Intel's 'fix' because it's rebooting computers

Story 2: Some iPhone 7 Models Say You Can't Connect When You Can

Apple offers free repairs for iPhone glitch

Story 3: Critical VPN Bug in CISCO Devices

Cisco: This VPN bug has a 10 out of 10 severity rating, so patch it now

Story 4: Is YouTube Stealing Your CPU Cycles?

Now even YouTube serves ads with CPU-draining cryptocurrency miners

Story 5: YouTube Live TV Now on Apple TV

YouTube’s live TV service is now available for Apple TV devices

Recorded Tuesday, January 23, 2018

This week we share more bad Spectre/Meltdown news, we talk about Apple's contribution to the Malala Fund, we try to figure out why Facebook is creating units of time, and we ramble about other tech stuff.

Story 1: More Bad Spectre/Meltdown News

Dell Advising All Customers To Not Install Spectre BIOS Updates

Intel halts some chip patches as the fixes cause problems

InSpectre by Gibson Research - “Easily examine and understand any Windows system's hardware and software capability to prevent Meltdown and Spectre attacks.”

Story 2: Apple Helping Malala Educate More Girls

Apple partners with Malala to support education for girls

About Malala on Wikipedia

Malala Fund

Malala Yousafzai at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Sunday September 3, 2017

Leadercast

Story 3: Facebook Invents a New Unit of Time

Facebook Invented a New Unit of Time

OculusVR/Flicks, A unit of time defined in C++

Rambles

HomePod: Everything you need to know about Apple's smart speaker

Alexa and Cortana still don't work together

We accidentally took a yogurt from Amazon's new grocery store without paying, but Amazon told us to keep it

Amazon HQ2 Shortlist: Details On The 20 Finalists In $5B Sweepstakes

Alexa Voice Shopping

Recorded Tuesday, January 16, 2018

This week we discuss changes to the Facebook news feed algorithm, missile alerts, audio-based hard drive attacks, and why you should put tape over your computer's webcam.

Story 1: Facebook Changes News Feed

Facebook Is Changing. What Does That Mean for Your News Feed

Facebook’s startling new ambition is to shrink

RIP, Facebook News Feed for Publishers

Story 2: Hawaii Missile Alert

The Hawaii Missile Alert Was the Software Developer's Fault

Story 3: Audio HD Attack

Playing low frequency noise to disrupt hard-drives: denial of service for CCTVs, data-centers, and other computing environments

Story 4: Fruitfly Indictment

Ohio Man Charged With Putting Spyware On Thousands of Computers

Recorded Monday, January 8, 2018

This week we discuss the Spectre and Meltdown CPU vulnerabilities, show how to tell if your iPhone has been slowed down, and review the new Google Pixel Buds.

Story 1: Spectre & Meltdown

Spectre and Meltdown are vulnerabilities that affect CPUs in all modern devices (except Apple Watch). While there are no know exploits, be sure to patch, patch, patch... because there eventually will be.

Steve Gibson discusses Spectre & Meltdown on The New Screen Savers (start at 11:08)

How the Spectre and Meltdown CPU flaws affect phones and tablets (includes Android information)

Meltdown and Spectre CPU flaws: How to protect your Mac and iOS devices

How to Protect Against the Meltdown and Spectre Vulnerabilities

Story 2: Apple iPhone Battery Replacement

After getting slammed for slowing down older iPhones, Apple announced a big discount on iPhone battery replacement for phones back through the iPhone 6. If you're eligible, take advantage of the deal.

You can check your iPhone to see if it's been slowed down using the Lirum Device Info Lite app.

How to check if Apple is slowing down your iPhone

Story 3: Google Pixel Buds Review

Jackie reviews the new Pixel Buds and demos the Google Translator function.

Pixel Buds on Google Store

Recorded Monday, January 1, 2018

2018 Predictions

IoT and other data will combine with the blockchain.

Fortune: 4 Technology Trends That Will Transform Our World in 2018

Apple will begin to phase out the Mac.

PCMag: Apple Is Ready to Ditch the Mac

Three-factor authentication will become standard.

2017 Review Lightning Round

Favorite Tech Gadget

Jackie: Google Pixel

Kerry: Apple Watch Series 3

Favorite App or Service

Jackie: WordPress

Kerry: Canva

Biggest News Story

Jackie: Google Pixel Buds released

Kerry: Tech companies getting called out for bad behavior

Favorite Movie

Jackie: War for the Planet of the Apes (that’s what he meant)

Kerry: Wonder Woman

Favorite Show

Jackie: Vikings

Kerry: The Crown

Good Memory from 2017

Jackie: Starting to work with Kerry; First episode of Workable Tech

Kerry: Creating new websites; Seeing the Avett Brothers in Birmingham, AL