TEH 049: We Deserve Better

In This Episode: Google again steps up as the Internet Police. Is Bitlocker the problem, or the solution? Fuzzbots to the rescue? Can you be arrested for remotely wiping your cell phone? (Yes!) Jump to shark, and being informed about Informed Delivery.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 58:46 — 26.9MB)

This Week’s Hosts

• Randy Cassingham, founder of This is True.
• Leo Notenboom, “Chief Question Answerer” at tech education site Ask Leo!
• Gary Rosenzweig host and producer of MacMost, and mobile game developer at Clever Media.
• Kevin Savetz, web site publisher and Computer Historian at Atari Podcast.
• Longer Bios on the Hosts page.

Show Notes

• In the warmup, Randy participated in a mass shooting response exercise last weekend, and found it really interesting — he wrote about it on his blog today. Kevin had electricians in to set up 240V charging for his new Tesla Model 3, and had quite a variable experience (NEMA is the National Electrical Manufacturers Association). Leo liked a plugin used on Randy’s sites and swiped the idea: the FooBox lightbox.
• Randy says Google has announced that the next version of their Chrome browser (version 71) will block any and all ads on sites with “abusive experiences” (Ars Technica. That led to a discussion — again — about Google being the Internet Police …even if this is a good idea. They did, at least, say they would notify site owners that would be affected …but does that mean they have to be signed up with Google Webmaster Tools to get that notification?! (Here’s where that tool is.)
• Clickbait headlines say you “can’t trust Bitlocker” to encrypt some SSD drives, but Leo says the solution to the problem is …Bitlocker. Which then led to a discussion of Leo’s first Tweetstorm calling Microsoft on the carpet for the recent terrible user experience with the Windows 10 “October Update” (actually “1809”). Leo’s article on the problem is Microsoft: We Deserve Better.
• Kevin talked about Google’s automated fuzzbot, which has found over 9,000 bugs in open source software in the past two years (Ahttps://www.zdnet.com/article/googles-automated-fuzz-bot-has-found-over-9000-bugs-in-the-past-two-years/
• Gary saw a news story about an iPhone taken into evidence by police in a crime that may have then been wiped remotely, leading to evidence tampering charges against its owner.
• Kevin talked about Netflix’s Hack Day, which resulted in some interesting eye tracking applications, but the winner may be a ‘jump to shark’ button (The Verge), which led to a discussion of the helpful movie app Run go Pee.
• And Kevin says the USPS “Informed Delivery” service is open to abuse — which problem was brought to their attention by the U.S. Secret Service. And why the Postal Service didn’t use, oh, we don’t know, mail verification(!!) is beyond us. (Krebs on Security).