1 00:00:02,320 --> 00:00:06,940 This week's Surveillance Report covers the EU bringing back chat control, and there is 2 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:09,500 a lot to discuss there, so let's buckle in. 3 00:00:09,770 --> 00:00:14,480 We also have a brutal stretch of Microsoft security and tracking news, the age verification 4 00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:19,980 wave hitting both sides of the Atlantic, and the growing resistance to Phlox license plate 5 00:00:20,160 --> 00:00:23,440 surveillance, plus a double-week defense bulletin. 6 00:00:23,840 --> 00:00:28,080 Welcome everybody to the Techlore Surveillance Report, your essential weekly tech news delivering 7 00:00:28,100 --> 00:00:33,940 deep analysis on the latest threats to security, privacy, and digital freedom, empowering you to 8 00:00:34,160 --> 00:00:38,980 reclaim control and defend your rights. I might be wondering what happened last week. I have been in 9 00:00:38,980 --> 00:00:43,280 the middle of a crazy move, which for whatever reason, everything takes three times as long 10 00:00:43,520 --> 00:00:47,860 as it needs to, including even getting home internet. So I'm finally all locked in. So 11 00:00:48,020 --> 00:00:50,780 everything should be back to normal, but I want to thank you all for your patience. 12 00:00:51,380 --> 00:00:55,920 So this is a double week and I did try to consolidate as best I could to keep this 13 00:00:55,960 --> 00:01:01,500 in a reasonable time frame. Without further ado, let's get into chat control. So this is an EU 14 00:01:01,740 --> 00:01:06,300 specific thing, but don't get carried away thinking this doesn't impact the rest of the world. Again, 15 00:01:06,360 --> 00:01:11,520 we see how these fights are globalized in the sense that something that happens in one country 16 00:01:11,820 --> 00:01:16,040 inspires other countries to follow in their steps. We see this right now with age verification, 17 00:01:16,220 --> 00:01:20,420 which we'll talk about later, but Australia passes a social media ban and now everybody 18 00:01:20,660 --> 00:01:25,900 wants a social media ban. If you're new or you want a quick recap, chat control is this overall 19 00:01:25,900 --> 00:01:32,260 of message scanning. It's supposed to try to keep children safe, prevent abuse. We've heard all 20 00:01:32,260 --> 00:01:37,040 these arguments about these very serious issues, but the questionable ways of dealing with them. 21 00:01:37,300 --> 00:01:42,860 Now, the one thing that is often confused is that there's chat control 1.0 and chat control 22 00:01:43,460 --> 00:01:51,060 2.0. Now, between those two, we don't want either of them, but 1.0 to me is slightly less of a 23 00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:56,100 concerned in 2.0, and I'll talk about why in a second. But this still is very bad news. Now, 24 00:01:56,640 --> 00:02:00,940 we did coverage for this, and I do these hot style videos that I was putting out earlier this year. 25 00:02:01,010 --> 00:02:06,480 And of course, while I'm going through a move, I watch all this happen as I'm sitting on my phone 26 00:02:06,630 --> 00:02:10,500 just watching these things happen. I don't have a recording set up yet. And all of you who are 27 00:02:10,780 --> 00:02:14,480 emailing me, I think we got a few emails from you guys asking, like, hey, where's the coverage for 28 00:02:14,560 --> 00:02:18,880 this? So I have to apologize because it really sucked to be on the sidelines while all this was 29 00:02:18,900 --> 00:02:23,920 going on. But this actually was temporarily held off not that long ago when we were doing coverage 30 00:02:24,120 --> 00:02:29,880 for it earlier. But it was always kind of with an asterisk, right? I think even the thumbnail I used 31 00:02:29,940 --> 00:02:34,320 for that video had an asterisk. And then a big point I made is that this is going to come back 32 00:02:34,420 --> 00:02:39,020 at some point. But they really made it come back like that before anybody could really react very 33 00:02:39,180 --> 00:02:43,860 well. There was a potential for it to be overruled, but it would have required a supermajority, 34 00:02:44,120 --> 00:02:48,000 and that vote didn't come across as a supermajority. So this did end up actually getting 35 00:02:48,020 --> 00:02:52,600 through. Now to actually answer what ChatControl 1.0 does, which is probably what you're wondering, 36 00:02:53,110 --> 00:02:57,600 so Patrick Breyer breaks this down in his blog really well. So what's coming back is that he 37 00:02:57,760 --> 00:03:02,760 specifically says U.S. tech companies. Now the reason he's specifying U.S. tech companies is 38 00:03:02,880 --> 00:03:07,300 because there's a big movement right now, especially in Europe, to get away and have 39 00:03:07,480 --> 00:03:11,640 digital sovereignty so that their own companies are handling their own data. We're seeing this big 40 00:03:11,840 --> 00:03:17,120 wake-up call of, hey, maybe it's not the best idea to trust a government who doesn't maybe align with 41 00:03:17,140 --> 00:03:21,160 our interests with all of our data because people now realize the power that that entails. 42 00:03:21,520 --> 00:03:26,280 So Patrick is making a point here of saying, hey, yeah, this is enabling the U.S. tech companies 43 00:03:26,660 --> 00:03:32,060 to start scanning private messages without a warrant or prior suspicion. They can just do it. 44 00:03:32,420 --> 00:03:36,400 This affects direct messages on platforms like Instagram, Discord, Snapchat, Skype, and Xbox, 45 00:03:36,680 --> 00:03:42,040 as well as emails via Google, Gmail, and Apple iCloud. Now, good news and why I believe chat 46 00:03:42,060 --> 00:03:47,040 Control 2.0 would be worse in some capacity. I think both of them together are the worst package. 47 00:03:47,280 --> 00:03:52,020 My understanding of Chat Control 2.0 is that it actually allows scanning of end-to-end encrypted 48 00:03:52,220 --> 00:03:57,200 chats, meaning chats that theoretically only you and somebody else have access to because those 49 00:03:57,400 --> 00:04:02,000 encryption keys belong to you too. And so scanning those messages requires some kind of encryption 50 00:04:02,240 --> 00:04:07,100 backdoor, which is what Chat Control 2.0 pushes for. This is not that. This means that things like 51 00:04:07,100 --> 00:04:12,340 WhatsApp, Signal, etc. are exempt from these scans. Additionally, European providers of messaging and 52 00:04:12,450 --> 00:04:17,720 email services have never implemented chat control measures. And so there are some good news, I guess, 53 00:04:17,859 --> 00:04:21,720 here, but it's not really good news, right? Like this is really just saying like this could have 54 00:04:21,820 --> 00:04:27,040 been a lot worse. But I think this is a huge warning of like, hey, the things that are the 55 00:04:27,130 --> 00:04:30,760 worst that haven't been touched yet could still be touched. And I think this is a big wake-up call 56 00:04:30,760 --> 00:04:34,180 that we need to get our, yeah, we need to get our stuff together, right? You guys know the word I'm 57 00:04:34,160 --> 00:04:37,860 trying to say there, but we got to get our act together. Now, Patrick breaks down why this 58 00:04:38,020 --> 00:04:42,640 doesn't really work. They talked about how the abuse reports actually spam police. The actual 59 00:04:42,840 --> 00:04:47,300 number is 48% of all incoming alerts are not criminally relevant in the first place. Crime 60 00:04:47,500 --> 00:04:51,260 stats reveal that 40% of the resulting investigations actually target minors themselves. 61 00:04:52,120 --> 00:04:57,080 And under the chat control system, an estimated 99% of reports generated by Meta consist of 62 00:04:57,400 --> 00:05:01,080 previously known material, which generally does little to stop ongoing active abuse. 63 00:05:01,440 --> 00:05:07,300 And of course, Patrick makes the point that people who are abused need their own privacy to escape these abusive situations. 64 00:05:07,690 --> 00:05:16,140 And so he cites some actual case studies and individuals who have had to go through this and how they are against chat control and their reasons for doing so. 65 00:05:16,580 --> 00:05:22,640 So I hope that I did a good job kind of covering what happened and maybe, you know, potentially what's next. 66 00:05:22,960 --> 00:05:29,380 Important thing that Patrick continually tries to drive home is that Patrick sees this as a distraction from real child protection. 67 00:05:29,820 --> 00:05:39,220 The more we're trying to just pass this needless scanning that hasn't even been shown to be helpful to victims of abuse, the less time we can actually dedicate to really protecting children. 68 00:05:39,320 --> 00:05:40,580 So here's a direct quote from him. 69 00:05:40,860 --> 00:05:54,600 As long as EU governments can use procedural loopholes to continually extend their comfortable status quo of voluntary indiscriminate mass scanning, they have zero incentive to engage with the parliament's targeted, legally sound, and far more effective child protection strategy. 70 00:05:54,700 --> 00:06:01,440 And I think that's really the core point that I'm always trying to make in our content, but really everybody else, even if they don't say it directly. 71 00:06:01,870 --> 00:06:08,620 The reason why people in the digital rights space are against this mass scanning and mass surveillance is because they don't care about keeping kids safe. 72 00:06:08,800 --> 00:06:13,160 It's just they question whether or not these strategies are actually doing what they intend to do. 73 00:06:13,490 --> 00:06:24,380 And it's not just politicians coming forward and saying, oh, but think of the kids while we, you know, push all this stuff that probably isn't going to help anyone to try to get those things passed and convince people that it's good. 74 00:06:24,400 --> 00:06:35,540 We're seeing the same thing right now as social media bans and trying to say like, oh, yeah, we're going to solve this and think of the kids and upload your ID to every platform now while we don't do anything to actually solve the real problems on these platforms. 75 00:06:35,900 --> 00:06:40,460 So it's kind of a universal thing that we see politicians really utilize, which is unfortunate. 76 00:06:40,660 --> 00:06:43,260 Now, I did miss doing hot coverage for this as it was happening. 77 00:06:43,440 --> 00:06:44,460 So I do want to apologize again. 78 00:06:44,520 --> 00:06:45,640 I know a lot of you reached out. 79 00:06:45,760 --> 00:06:52,560 But one thing I am going to do to at least try to make it up, but it's something I want to do anyway, is put together some kind of guide for all of you in Europe. 80 00:06:52,660 --> 00:06:58,100 This was actually something requested in the comment sections by a few of you as well of like, hey, what can I do about this? 81 00:06:58,260 --> 00:07:04,060 Like, how do I protect myself from the scanning so I can put together some resources and put out a guide for that in the next several days. 82 00:07:04,160 --> 00:07:06,960 So keep an eye out for that on the main Techlore YouTube channel. 83 00:07:07,300 --> 00:07:08,200 And that should be live soon. 84 00:07:14,080 --> 00:07:14,300 All right. 85 00:07:14,540 --> 00:07:17,160 Coming later, we have the flock resistance. 86 00:07:18,020 --> 00:07:20,660 We have the age verification wave, which is hitting everywhere. 87 00:07:20,760 --> 00:07:22,180 But I have a ton. 88 00:07:22,360 --> 00:07:23,980 You guys can see this on the video right now. 89 00:07:24,480 --> 00:07:25,600 A ton of Microsoft stories. 90 00:07:25,860 --> 00:07:27,900 Microsoft made a lot of rounds this week. 91 00:07:28,080 --> 00:07:29,080 So good and bad news. 92 00:07:29,200 --> 00:07:32,740 And we're going to start with some bad and then kind of bounce back and forth between good and bad news. 93 00:07:32,800 --> 00:07:34,020 I think it's mostly bad, actually. 94 00:07:34,260 --> 00:07:36,420 So I think there's like one or two good stories in there. 95 00:07:36,600 --> 00:07:42,320 But the first story here is Microsoft's secure boot has been broken for a decade and no one noticed until now. 96 00:07:42,880 --> 00:07:50,580 Before I even get into the story, I think a lot of people who are really into the security world would know that secure boot is maybe something good. 97 00:07:50,880 --> 00:07:52,780 but it's never been the most robust tool. 98 00:07:52,810 --> 00:07:56,360 It should never be like your main protection security net on your system. 99 00:07:56,810 --> 00:08:00,200 But still, this is something that should reliably be trying to prevent malware 100 00:08:00,310 --> 00:08:01,840 from being persistent on your computer. 101 00:08:02,040 --> 00:08:03,740 Now, this is from the security firm ESET, 102 00:08:03,790 --> 00:08:07,380 and they identified 11 firmware images, at least one from 2013, 103 00:08:08,220 --> 00:08:11,900 that were known to be defective but remain signed by the software company anyway. 104 00:08:12,300 --> 00:08:15,380 These are known as shims, which were invented to extend secure boot 105 00:08:15,460 --> 00:08:17,300 to Linux devices and utility software. 106 00:08:17,800 --> 00:08:20,400 Using a technique simple enough to be performed by novice hackers, 107 00:08:20,640 --> 00:08:24,380 these old forgotten shims can be used to completely circumvent secure boot protection, 108 00:08:24,920 --> 00:08:27,560 which is embedded into the UEFI of the device's motherboard. 109 00:08:27,710 --> 00:08:32,340 The overall idea here that the researchers claim is that Microsoft didn't do a good job 110 00:08:32,580 --> 00:08:35,380 of actually overseeing that the things that they were signing 111 00:08:35,940 --> 00:08:39,800 were actually trustworthy pieces of software that don't have vulnerabilities in them. 112 00:08:40,060 --> 00:08:43,780 The big gotcha for this, and actually I was close to making this the highlight story, 113 00:08:43,930 --> 00:08:46,780 because think about it, like this actually impacts Linux users as well, 114 00:08:46,980 --> 00:08:50,600 because it's not just a Windows concern, because a lot of people using Linux 115 00:08:50,620 --> 00:08:51,780 are still using Secure Boot. 116 00:08:52,000 --> 00:08:54,700 Because again, this is upstream of your operating system. 117 00:08:54,830 --> 00:08:56,880 And so especially if you're dual booting 118 00:08:57,020 --> 00:08:59,020 or if your motherboard requires Secure Boot 119 00:08:59,130 --> 00:09:00,300 and you're using Secure Boot, 120 00:09:00,700 --> 00:09:02,700 either way, it's upstream of your operating system. 121 00:09:02,790 --> 00:09:04,920 And so if somebody was able to exploit it 122 00:09:05,060 --> 00:09:07,260 and pretty much implement one of these 11 installations 123 00:09:07,620 --> 00:09:08,980 that have vulnerabilities inside of them, 124 00:09:09,200 --> 00:09:10,640 Microsoft would have allowed that to happen. 125 00:09:10,780 --> 00:09:12,800 Now, how do you know if you're safe from this? 126 00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:14,180 So a couple things here. 127 00:09:14,250 --> 00:09:16,460 So if you're just using a basic Windows computer, 128 00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:19,480 the secured core PCs in their default state 129 00:09:19,500 --> 00:09:21,280 should actually be immune to this problem. 130 00:09:21,430 --> 00:09:23,300 You can read more about why that is. 131 00:09:23,380 --> 00:09:24,680 It's a bit of a complicated response, 132 00:09:24,950 --> 00:09:25,700 but if you want to learn more, 133 00:09:25,750 --> 00:09:26,980 you can always check out the show notes 134 00:09:27,080 --> 00:09:29,120 to dig into the why if you want to learn more there. 135 00:09:29,400 --> 00:09:30,460 And if you are a Windows user 136 00:09:30,530 --> 00:09:32,800 who has installed Windows Microsoft June update batch, 137 00:09:33,060 --> 00:09:34,360 you are no longer vulnerable to this. 138 00:09:34,800 --> 00:09:37,720 Linux users should check the Linux vendor firmware service 139 00:09:37,980 --> 00:09:39,140 or consult their distributor. 140 00:09:40,020 --> 00:09:41,280 Revocation statuses are available 141 00:09:41,540 --> 00:09:44,100 using the UEFI DBX audit script as well 142 00:09:44,240 --> 00:09:45,220 if you want to do that manually. 143 00:09:45,410 --> 00:09:46,800 I think the scariest thing about this 144 00:09:46,900 --> 00:09:48,480 is that this has technically been possible 145 00:09:48,480 --> 00:09:49,940 for over a decade now. 146 00:09:50,220 --> 00:09:52,140 So hopefully nobody else knew about this 147 00:09:52,140 --> 00:09:53,820 and was just randomly using it in the wild. 148 00:09:53,960 --> 00:09:56,140 I didn't see anything indicated here 149 00:09:56,700 --> 00:09:58,400 that hinted at whether or not they knew 150 00:09:58,430 --> 00:09:59,820 if this was abused in the wild. 151 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:01,920 So I hope the answer was nobody else knew. 152 00:10:02,820 --> 00:10:05,280 But I guess we might never find out. 153 00:10:05,700 --> 00:10:06,520 Now let's move on. 154 00:10:06,620 --> 00:10:08,620 There was a patch for Windows Defender Zero Day 155 00:10:08,720 --> 00:10:10,600 that could allow attackers to fill your hard disk. 156 00:10:10,880 --> 00:10:13,040 So this is another Nightmare Eclipse story. 157 00:10:13,380 --> 00:10:15,640 So I take two weeks off, but some things go unchanged, 158 00:10:16,160 --> 00:10:17,340 including Nightmare Eclipse, 159 00:10:17,560 --> 00:10:18,780 who has still been causing problems. 160 00:10:19,010 --> 00:10:20,320 And so that's from July 9th. 161 00:10:20,530 --> 00:10:21,460 Just make sure you're up to date. 162 00:10:21,570 --> 00:10:23,020 If you want to read more about that saga, 163 00:10:23,460 --> 00:10:24,640 it's been going on for a while now, 164 00:10:24,770 --> 00:10:26,140 but you can check it out in the description. 165 00:10:26,680 --> 00:10:28,220 TLDR, if you're using Windows Defender 166 00:10:28,480 --> 00:10:29,800 and or Windows for whatever reason, 167 00:10:30,100 --> 00:10:31,080 make sure to get yourself updated. 168 00:10:31,320 --> 00:10:35,540 This next story I know isn't a massive wake-up call 169 00:10:35,550 --> 00:10:37,780 to anybody who consistently listens to this podcast, 170 00:10:38,040 --> 00:10:39,660 but it's an important thing to keep in mind 171 00:10:39,880 --> 00:10:41,380 as a reminder to yourself. 172 00:10:41,750 --> 00:10:43,860 It also gives us actionable data. 173 00:10:44,060 --> 00:10:45,080 This is really important 174 00:10:45,230 --> 00:10:47,520 because people talk about the Windows concerns 175 00:10:47,540 --> 00:10:52,040 privacy. And there are a lot of things we can measure. We can tell you how much telemetry is 176 00:10:52,100 --> 00:10:55,860 being collected from network analysis and all this stuff. And there's tons of really interesting 177 00:10:56,020 --> 00:11:00,120 reports on this. And yes, Windows is not privacy respecting, but we have to remember that's a very 178 00:11:00,400 --> 00:11:05,140 vague way of saying something. What does to a regular person, hey, Windows is privacy invasive. 179 00:11:05,420 --> 00:11:10,180 What does that mean to them? And I think that these very distinct stories can actually help us 180 00:11:10,340 --> 00:11:16,040 see what that means. So there was a teenager who was a hacker who did bad things. You can read more 181 00:11:16,040 --> 00:11:17,580 about what they did in the show notes. 182 00:11:18,140 --> 00:11:23,060 But the arrest actually revealed something called a GDID. 183 00:11:23,380 --> 00:11:24,920 It's a unique identifier that's tied 184 00:11:25,020 --> 00:11:26,900 to every single Microsoft Windows installation. 185 00:11:27,560 --> 00:11:29,240 And it's because of that GDID 186 00:11:29,380 --> 00:11:31,220 that they were actually able to track this guy down. 187 00:11:31,380 --> 00:11:33,000 Surveillance is such a big word. 188 00:11:33,300 --> 00:11:35,740 And I think Microsoft actually probably does 189 00:11:36,000 --> 00:11:40,000 far more egregious things in terms of privacy issues 190 00:11:40,660 --> 00:11:41,620 on their operating system 191 00:11:41,670 --> 00:11:43,300 and the amount of data they collect about you 192 00:11:43,420 --> 00:11:44,900 and things like recall, et cetera. 193 00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:49,860 So there's actually a lot of things that I would classify as like surveillance status technology. 194 00:11:50,090 --> 00:11:52,200 This to me is a milder version of that. 195 00:11:52,360 --> 00:11:59,840 It is an identifier that is tied to your operating system that I think most people would assume Microsoft would have some way of getting anyway. 196 00:12:00,180 --> 00:12:06,120 So I don't think this is as maybe riveting as the PCMag team seems to portray it as. 197 00:12:06,370 --> 00:12:08,040 But it is still something that we need to remember. 198 00:12:08,090 --> 00:12:11,500 And even at the end, they say this probably isn't a Microsoft-specific issue. 199 00:12:11,640 --> 00:12:41,000 But ultimately, if you really want full transparency, and it's weird because they pose this as if you want to be fully anonymous, you have to use Linux, FreeBSD, that's what it says in the article. But I don't think, you know, somebody, and actually that's a three-buddy problem podcast that said that. You don't need to want to be anonymous to use Linux. I think if you just want an operating system that you can simply answer the question, hey, is there a unique identifier tracked to me? I just want to know. You have to use Linux to do that, right? Because these companies aren't very transparent about what they're actually collecting about you, which is the whole problem. 200 00:12:41,140 --> 00:12:42,940 is you don't know what you're consenting to. 201 00:12:43,240 --> 00:12:46,000 So I actually am fine if somebody wants to use Microsoft, 202 00:12:46,260 --> 00:12:48,060 if they want to use macOS, if they want to use Linux, 203 00:12:48,420 --> 00:12:48,980 it's all fine. 204 00:12:49,580 --> 00:12:51,240 I just think that you as a consumer 205 00:12:51,520 --> 00:12:52,900 should fully know and understand 206 00:12:53,300 --> 00:12:54,280 what you're getting yourself into 207 00:12:54,370 --> 00:12:57,280 so that you know whether or not you even consent to it. 208 00:12:57,440 --> 00:13:00,000 Okay, now we have the, I believe, the one good news. 209 00:13:00,030 --> 00:13:02,760 I guess the next article, and you'll remember this, 210 00:13:02,920 --> 00:13:04,860 the next article could be interpreted as good news 211 00:13:05,120 --> 00:13:05,960 depending on who you are, 212 00:13:06,120 --> 00:13:07,840 but Microsoft has added another year 213 00:13:07,920 --> 00:13:09,540 to Windows 10 extended update program. 214 00:13:09,820 --> 00:13:13,880 So the drama around this, I'm calling it drama, it's light drama, it's not actually that serious, 215 00:13:14,320 --> 00:13:17,880 but Microsoft has been a little bit iffy on whether or not they're going to continue 216 00:13:18,090 --> 00:13:19,940 extending security updates for Windows 10. 217 00:13:20,680 --> 00:13:23,080 And normally this makes sense, you know, at a certain point, 218 00:13:23,330 --> 00:13:26,800 a company needs to let go of their old operating systems and 219 00:13:27,620 --> 00:13:30,000 maybe put more of their attention to the newer ones. 220 00:13:30,300 --> 00:13:33,420 And that's just a natural thing that happens with older software. 221 00:13:33,420 --> 00:13:35,320 And Windows 10 is quite old at this point in time. 222 00:13:35,440 --> 00:13:36,480 It's crazy how time flies. 223 00:13:37,260 --> 00:13:42,080 But why people were upset about this is that they were forcing a lot of people to move to Windows 11, 224 00:13:42,640 --> 00:13:44,580 but their computers were still fully functioning. 225 00:13:44,800 --> 00:13:49,080 So Microsoft had far steeper hardware requirements for Windows 11 devices, 226 00:13:49,300 --> 00:13:52,880 and it left all of these millions of devices still running Windows 10s 227 00:13:53,080 --> 00:13:57,080 that weren't capable of going to Windows 11 that were no longer getting security updates, 228 00:13:57,280 --> 00:14:01,420 making them practically dead weight for anybody who values just basic digital safety. 229 00:14:01,720 --> 00:14:03,320 So Microsoft put out this program. 230 00:14:03,520 --> 00:14:05,560 They originally were going to charge money for it. 231 00:14:05,600 --> 00:14:10,560 If you are still stuck on Windows 10 for whatever reason, they are actually extending this for another year. 232 00:14:10,670 --> 00:14:12,720 If you're in the EU, you get these updates for free. 233 00:14:13,460 --> 00:14:16,100 So go pro user regulations. 234 00:14:16,460 --> 00:14:16,820 That's awesome. 235 00:14:16,970 --> 00:14:22,260 But in other regions, you have to sign in with a Microsoft account and sync your system settings to be eligible for free updates. 236 00:14:22,960 --> 00:14:27,380 Otherwise, it costs $30 or don't forget 1000 Microsoft rewards points. 237 00:14:27,450 --> 00:14:28,480 I forgot that's still a thing. 238 00:14:28,940 --> 00:14:29,820 So you can join the program. 239 00:14:30,380 --> 00:14:33,600 Once you're in the program, the ESU license works on up to 10 devices. 240 00:14:33,900 --> 00:14:36,740 but they do stress this is for personal use, not business use, 241 00:14:36,850 --> 00:14:38,520 which you do have to pay for if you're in a business. 242 00:14:39,100 --> 00:14:42,180 So I actually think that from where this originally started 243 00:14:42,210 --> 00:14:43,780 when we were doing coverage for this when it happened, 244 00:14:43,930 --> 00:14:46,820 which is Microsoft is like, hey, we're going to drop it completely. 245 00:14:47,060 --> 00:14:47,540 You're screwed. 246 00:14:47,980 --> 00:14:50,580 To, hey, we're going to make you pay, which still isn't a good situation. 247 00:14:50,840 --> 00:14:55,300 To, hey, actually, yeah, we've kind of like overall made this a lot easier to access. 248 00:14:55,460 --> 00:14:57,300 So I think this has really moved in the right direction. 249 00:14:57,580 --> 00:15:01,440 But still, keep in mind, there are some genuine security enhancements in Windows 11 250 00:15:01,530 --> 00:15:02,700 that Windows 10 doesn't have. 251 00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:07,080 So I'd still overall recommend that if you are leaning into this to get security updates, 252 00:15:07,520 --> 00:15:08,140 that's good. 253 00:15:08,370 --> 00:15:10,720 But start thinking about what your next device looks like, 254 00:15:10,880 --> 00:15:13,920 or if there's some way to get Windows 11 on that machine anyway. 255 00:15:14,040 --> 00:15:17,820 And the last story, which I will let you all decide if this is good or bad news. 256 00:15:17,960 --> 00:15:19,860 I assume most of you will think this is good news. 257 00:15:20,080 --> 00:15:27,480 But data has shown that Windows dropped their overall share below 60% for the first time in years, 258 00:15:27,670 --> 00:15:31,660 whereas Linux reached 4.39, which is one of the strongest recent showings. 259 00:15:31,880 --> 00:15:34,120 Now, these are calculated based on web traffic. 260 00:15:34,260 --> 00:15:35,300 They're not actually exact. 261 00:15:35,460 --> 00:15:39,600 There's no real way to track this deep down and actually get an actual number. 262 00:15:39,720 --> 00:15:43,000 But typically, this is probably accurate as a pattern over time. 263 00:15:43,060 --> 00:15:46,680 And to see Windows drop and Linux go up, I think is extremely exciting. 264 00:15:47,240 --> 00:15:51,560 And I think reflects overall the one that's valuing people and what people really want. 265 00:15:51,560 --> 00:15:55,240 I don't think people want this crap that Microsoft has been pushing the last few years 266 00:15:55,580 --> 00:15:57,560 of just shoving AI into every single thing. 267 00:15:57,600 --> 00:16:01,020 And that's why Microsoft is literally backing off their AI stuff. 268 00:16:01,380 --> 00:16:05,340 They're removing it from different things or at least trying to rebrand it so it's not as obvious. 269 00:16:05,660 --> 00:16:09,840 And I just saw earlier today, I didn't put this in the show notes, but they are now trying to 270 00:16:10,140 --> 00:16:14,880 redo their search in Windows that has less ads and it's more useful. And it's like, wow, imagine 271 00:16:15,140 --> 00:16:19,160 that a search that actually is designed to be useful and search for things on my computer. 272 00:16:19,840 --> 00:16:24,680 Wow, that might actually get me to enjoy the operating system a bit more. So I think Microsoft 273 00:16:24,940 --> 00:16:28,160 might be getting their asses handed to them and they're starting to realize, hey, we got to 274 00:16:28,080 --> 00:16:31,440 actually make a user-friendly OS. So I hope it continues that way. 275 00:16:37,260 --> 00:16:41,480 All right, coming soon, we have the big flock movement that's happening and the flock resistance. 276 00:16:42,160 --> 00:16:47,620 But before we get there, we have a few updates when it comes to overall age verification, 277 00:16:48,520 --> 00:16:53,080 social media limits, all this kind of stuff. Not so long ago, Texas put forward an age 278 00:16:53,280 --> 00:16:58,040 verification law, which is quite unique in that it didn't target platforms. It didn't target 279 00:16:58,060 --> 00:17:04,180 operating systems, it actually targeted app stores, specifically mobile app stores like the Apple App 280 00:17:04,339 --> 00:17:09,100 Store and the Google Play Store, so that anybody had to essentially verify their age just to start 281 00:17:09,319 --> 00:17:13,319 downloading apps. That means if you just get a new phone and you want to download a calculator app, 282 00:17:14,020 --> 00:17:19,180 you have to upload your ID. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has actually sided with Texas in 283 00:17:19,380 --> 00:17:25,699 light of this because there was an ongoing lawsuit. The big tech companies sued and tried to undo this 284 00:17:25,720 --> 00:17:26,760 and say, hey, this isn't fair. 285 00:17:26,829 --> 00:17:27,800 We shouldn't have to do this. 286 00:17:27,810 --> 00:17:29,340 But the Supreme Court sided with Texas. 287 00:17:29,620 --> 00:17:31,940 Now, what this does, and I want to be very clear here, 288 00:17:32,200 --> 00:17:35,900 this allows them to uphold the law and actually implement the law 289 00:17:36,180 --> 00:17:40,020 because the law is theoretically, I think June is when it should have passed. 290 00:17:40,420 --> 00:17:42,260 But it allows them to essentially move forward, 291 00:17:42,590 --> 00:17:44,900 even though the lawsuit hasn't finished yet. 292 00:17:44,950 --> 00:17:48,980 And I do want to be a bit specific here because I read over this a few times 293 00:17:49,070 --> 00:17:52,380 and I'm still a bit lost because they didn't specify this super directly. 294 00:17:52,740 --> 00:17:54,860 But it's unclear if they even took the case 295 00:17:54,880 --> 00:18:03,800 Because at the very bottom of this article, it says by declining to take up the emergency appeal from the computer and student groups, the Supreme Court has left the Fifth Circuit's decision in place. 296 00:18:04,020 --> 00:18:09,080 So I'm unsure if the Supreme Court actually sided with Texas and actually made an active decision. 297 00:18:09,420 --> 00:18:13,280 And then the computer and student groups did the appeal, which I think is actually run by the big tech companies. 298 00:18:13,520 --> 00:18:14,780 It's synonymous with them. 299 00:18:15,420 --> 00:18:16,720 And then they just didn't hear it. 300 00:18:16,740 --> 00:18:17,980 So therefore, the law goes anyway. 301 00:18:18,320 --> 00:18:21,040 Or I'm not sure of the details on what happened behind the scenes. 302 00:18:21,160 --> 00:18:23,260 This article didn't do a good job of breaking that down. 303 00:18:23,520 --> 00:18:28,180 But the overall takeaway is that in Texas, they can still uphold this and the case is still ongoing. 304 00:18:28,400 --> 00:18:29,340 Now, that's not all. 305 00:18:29,440 --> 00:18:36,420 And this is a very U.S. heavy week because the House voted on the Kids Act last week, something else that I would have made a hot video about. 306 00:18:36,760 --> 00:18:38,840 And I was unable to, which is a bit sad. 307 00:18:39,210 --> 00:18:48,080 So the package combines a revised version of the Kids Online Safety Act, which was COSA, CASA, with several other Internet bills, study bills and reporting requirements and different regulations. 308 00:18:48,720 --> 00:18:53,520 The problem with this, as good and noble as it might sound, is that it actually pressures 309 00:18:53,820 --> 00:18:57,380 online services to impose different age-gating schemes using different standards. 310 00:18:57,780 --> 00:18:59,620 The EFF is strongly opposed to this. 311 00:18:59,720 --> 00:19:04,580 This article actually comes from the EFF, and they clear the field on why they feel that way. 312 00:19:04,740 --> 00:19:06,820 The TLDR is things we talk about. 313 00:19:06,960 --> 00:19:11,820 There's no way to reliably verify age in a privacy-respecting manner that also keeps 314 00:19:12,000 --> 00:19:13,200 children safe along the way. 315 00:19:13,600 --> 00:19:16,180 And we haven't really seen the evidence that these things work. 316 00:19:16,380 --> 00:19:20,860 In fact, we've actually already seen breaches of age verification providers, and that's exactly what they say here. 317 00:19:21,040 --> 00:19:23,080 There's not too much more beyond that right now. 318 00:19:23,280 --> 00:19:27,340 It's a very short article that the EFF put forward there, but I do recommend checking it out. 319 00:19:27,500 --> 00:19:30,820 And if you are in the U.S. right now, you need to be contacting your politicians. 320 00:19:31,200 --> 00:19:35,680 That's like the number one thing that you have in terms of direct kind of action that you can take. 321 00:19:35,840 --> 00:19:41,720 I know it doesn't seem like much, but when hundreds or thousands of people contact the same rep about a problem, 322 00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:45,800 that makes them pay attention to it and think twice about how they're going to vote for it. 323 00:19:46,060 --> 00:19:46,740 It really does matter. 324 00:19:46,900 --> 00:19:47,840 So make sure to get involved. 325 00:19:47,940 --> 00:19:49,820 And if you're not going to do anything about it directly, 326 00:19:50,520 --> 00:19:53,580 then try to support the EFF or another organization that's doing the fight. 327 00:19:53,700 --> 00:19:58,300 This whole episode is a good example of people who think they get to decide where your data goes. 328 00:19:58,500 --> 00:20:00,700 Cameras who log your plates on the way to work. 329 00:20:01,020 --> 00:20:02,520 Governments that want to scan your messages. 330 00:20:02,900 --> 00:20:04,820 So there's something almost funny about it. 331 00:20:04,820 --> 00:20:08,680 The one map of your life that you'd actually want every city you've walked through, 332 00:20:09,200 --> 00:20:12,960 every trip, every road trip, restaurants that you love, places you went to with your family, 333 00:20:13,560 --> 00:20:19,740 get actually turned into the creepiest things that you can own purely because it's normally handled by big tech companies like Google. 334 00:20:19,920 --> 00:20:21,460 But it doesn't need to be that way. 335 00:20:21,490 --> 00:20:26,120 If you want to see a map of places you go and restaurants you enjoy, parks that you went to, 336 00:20:26,310 --> 00:20:29,860 you can actually own that map of everywhere you go, every park you love, 337 00:20:30,240 --> 00:20:33,940 every place that you've taken a picture of a bird, all with Dava Itch. 338 00:20:34,120 --> 00:20:38,520 They are an open source, optionally self-hosted location history app. 339 00:20:38,760 --> 00:20:42,060 They're basically Google Timeline, except the map belongs to you. 340 00:20:42,320 --> 00:20:46,360 If you've been using Google Timeline or someone in your life has been using it, it is easy to swap. 341 00:20:46,410 --> 00:20:51,560 They have a Google data import, and then you just have your same data accessible, but you actually control it. 342 00:20:51,590 --> 00:20:52,880 And that's really what everything is about. 343 00:20:52,990 --> 00:20:58,540 You should be able to collect your location history and do it in a way where you actually control the data. 344 00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:01,660 And nobody's selling it or feeding it into a police database. 345 00:21:02,140 --> 00:21:02,640 Take that, flock. 346 00:21:02,800 --> 00:21:09,360 Now, there still is a layer of trust when you use Dava Itch, but that's why they also allow you to self-host it if you want to go completely trustless. 347 00:21:09,560 --> 00:21:12,820 The difference that really matters to me is that they are a privacy-first organization 348 00:21:13,160 --> 00:21:17,540 that's open source, and their entire premise is that your data is safe and belongs to you. 349 00:21:18,040 --> 00:21:22,380 You can self-host them for free or grab the hosted version down at davahitch.app, 350 00:21:22,520 --> 00:21:26,740 that's D-A-W-A-R-I-C-H,.app, slash tec hlor. 351 00:21:27,080 --> 00:21:29,760 And the code Techlore gets you 20% off your first year. 352 00:21:30,100 --> 00:21:31,680 All of that will be in the show notes. 353 00:21:32,040 --> 00:21:35,540 Whether you're an athlete saving your favorite runs, tracking office days for taxes, 354 00:21:35,900 --> 00:21:39,140 or you want a year of your life, or a map that nobody else owns, 355 00:21:39,440 --> 00:21:40,220 It's worth a look. 356 00:21:40,540 --> 00:21:41,920 And now, back to the show. 357 00:21:47,820 --> 00:21:50,000 If you don't know, Flock is a very creepy company. 358 00:21:50,020 --> 00:21:55,040 It's been making a lot of headlines because they are a license plate tracking company that's being served to police. 359 00:21:55,520 --> 00:21:58,420 And they all go and do this without warrants. 360 00:21:58,700 --> 00:22:03,760 And it's just a creepy surveillance dragnet that just catches everybody in the mix. 361 00:22:04,100 --> 00:22:06,980 And they even tried partnering with Ring in the Super Bowl. 362 00:22:07,180 --> 00:22:08,700 And it didn't go well for them. 363 00:22:08,840 --> 00:22:12,540 So people are kind of waking up and they've become kind of the face right now. 364 00:22:12,780 --> 00:22:14,120 It's always changing who the face is. 365 00:22:14,120 --> 00:22:19,200 But right now, the face of like the commercial corporate surveillance ship that keeps moving 366 00:22:19,520 --> 00:22:19,900 is Flock. 367 00:22:20,260 --> 00:22:25,800 And the LAPD has let their contract with Flock expire, citing serious concerns over civil 368 00:22:25,920 --> 00:22:26,840 liberties and privacy. 369 00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:30,300 I don't know if that's actually how LAPD really feels about it. 370 00:22:30,320 --> 00:22:34,580 But ultimately, they probably had enough public pressure to say we can't renew this. 371 00:22:34,960 --> 00:22:36,000 And that is excellent news. 372 00:22:36,600 --> 00:22:39,040 Good job, LA, and good job, LAPD, for making that call. 373 00:22:39,500 --> 00:22:45,220 And on that note, there's actually going to be a deflock week of action that I wanted to draw some attention to. 374 00:22:45,440 --> 00:22:49,800 So if you want to learn more about this and get involved, that's also going to be found in the show notes. 375 00:22:50,020 --> 00:22:51,859 It's noalprs.com. 376 00:22:52,660 --> 00:22:58,060 It's the National Week of Action Against ALPRs, and that's August 16th through 22nd. 377 00:22:58,360 --> 00:23:01,360 And you can actually see all the participating cities all around the U.S. 378 00:23:01,420 --> 00:23:02,740 There's over 100 of them. 379 00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:06,840 So if you want to get active and meet other like-minded people, this is a great opportunity 380 00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:11,340 not to show what you're passionate about and show that you don't want this stuff in your 381 00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:13,300 local towns, but connect with people. 382 00:23:13,500 --> 00:23:14,620 This is really important stuff. 383 00:23:14,780 --> 00:23:17,540 It's far more impactful than just connecting online. 384 00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:22,160 I really think those in-person connections are worth 10 times more than online connections, 385 00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:26,820 and you will actually feel kind of that camaraderie when you're around other people who think 386 00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:27,280 like you. 387 00:23:33,140 --> 00:23:37,760 right and now we're going to get into the defense bulletin again there are three subsections here 388 00:23:37,790 --> 00:23:42,440 the first one is the data breaches which is what it sounds like then there's the threats which are 389 00:23:42,470 --> 00:23:46,280 things that you should know about to keep yourself safe and the people around you and then we have 390 00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:50,300 the open source updates so starting with the data breaches i'm going to try to keep this really brief 391 00:23:50,410 --> 00:23:54,739 this week guys just because of time requirements and i just want to get this out so we can get back 392 00:23:54,760 --> 00:24:00,160 on schedule. But the telco giant KDDI says a data breach affected over 12 million people. That's a 393 00:24:00,360 --> 00:24:04,320 Japanese telecommunications giant. So if you have any kind of relationship with this company, 394 00:24:04,820 --> 00:24:08,400 check out the show notes. And that's going to be the advice for all of these stories. If you want 395 00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:12,340 to learn more, check out the show notes. It has all the original sources there. There's also been 396 00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:16,740 another massive data breach exposed that had millions of driver's license numbers. And this 397 00:24:16,820 --> 00:24:20,859 was from the U.S. insurance provider Assurance America. And they have confirmed that it impacted 398 00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:25,360 7 million people. And you may or may not know you're involved with this company. So it's worth 399 00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:31,880 looking into this to see what to do and if you were involved. IT services giant Accenture has 400 00:24:32,220 --> 00:24:38,240 confirmed a breach after hacker offers stolen data for sale. And so that is that data breach there. 401 00:24:38,550 --> 00:24:43,260 We also have Mount Royal University who has confirmed a breach as hackers claim attack. So 402 00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:47,840 if you have any kind of relationship or you previously had a relationship with MRU, 403 00:24:48,260 --> 00:24:53,080 the university. Make sure to look into this. I don't see a cited number of students yet, 404 00:24:53,500 --> 00:24:56,720 but this is probably going to have more information as more comes to light. 405 00:24:57,280 --> 00:25:00,960 My gosh, I feel like this is a common German brand. Yeah, German discount supermarket. 406 00:25:01,320 --> 00:25:07,260 Little Lytle has notified customers that they had a online shop breach after a service provider 407 00:25:07,500 --> 00:25:10,760 hack. They should have already notified people about this, but if you want to learn more or you 408 00:25:10,860 --> 00:25:14,860 have an ongoing relationship with them, you should dig into it to see if it impacts you. All right, 409 00:25:15,100 --> 00:25:16,500 Health tech firm Zolis? 410 00:25:16,990 --> 00:25:21,960 Actually, it's funny because the title here says X-O-L-I-S, but the actual article and 411 00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:24,800 the image say X-S-O-L-I-S. 412 00:25:24,850 --> 00:25:25,740 So I'm not sure which it is. 413 00:25:25,740 --> 00:25:29,740 I feel like it's X-S-O-L-I-S and their headline is wrong. 414 00:25:30,100 --> 00:25:33,000 But they suffered a data breach impacting 1.4 million people. 415 00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:35,460 This is a healthcare technology company. 416 00:25:35,850 --> 00:25:39,200 And so if you have, again, any relationship with them, check it out. 417 00:25:39,580 --> 00:25:41,760 And that one specifically might be more downstream. 418 00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:45,720 So you might not know you do because it's used in hospitals, health insurers, etc. 419 00:25:46,130 --> 00:25:47,800 So make sure to look into this one. 420 00:25:47,930 --> 00:25:52,660 We also have the DHS that's confirmed that hackers breached the H-S-I-N info sharing platform. 421 00:25:53,220 --> 00:26:00,840 That is the Homeland Security Information Network, which is a sensitive information sharing platform used by federal, state, local and private sector partners. 422 00:26:01,360 --> 00:26:03,600 So if you want to learn more, again, show notes. 423 00:26:03,770 --> 00:26:10,140 Okay, similarly, I'm trying to keep the threats a bit more compact this week than normal, but I'll try to highlight main takeaways when I can here. 424 00:26:10,460 --> 00:26:15,780 So Google's actually paid $250,000 for a Linux vulnerability that allowed guest VM escapes. 425 00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:21,740 So if you had a virtual machine, it would actually escape the virtual machine and infect your main computer, which is a pretty scary thing. 426 00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:24,420 Both flaws have received patches in the Linux kernel. 427 00:26:24,550 --> 00:26:28,340 So if you're a Linux user, you just check your distribution to make sure the fixes have populated. 428 00:26:28,470 --> 00:26:34,060 And if you want to learn exactly what the fixes are and how this happened, I would check it out in the show notes. 429 00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:40,360 Now, there was a hidden backdoor Intenda, T-E-N-D-A, router firmware, which grants administrative access. 430 00:26:40,700 --> 00:26:42,380 That one is still ongoing, I believe. 431 00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:45,420 So I really recommend following this if you have this router. 432 00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:46,860 It's a pretty spooky attack. 433 00:26:47,300 --> 00:26:48,620 This is a really good story. 434 00:26:48,740 --> 00:26:56,000 There was a European Parliament member that was investigating Pegasus spyware, and it actually ended up on one of their phones. 435 00:26:56,100 --> 00:27:01,820 If you don't know what Pegasus is, it is the creepiest form of malware you could possibly imagine, which is a government doesn't like you. 436 00:27:01,900 --> 00:27:03,980 So you wake up and you have malware on your phone. 437 00:27:04,180 --> 00:27:04,860 It's zero click. 438 00:27:05,090 --> 00:27:07,620 It just kind of works and it just allows instant hacking. 439 00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:08,360 It's crazy. 440 00:27:08,500 --> 00:27:09,640 It's like what you see in a movie. 441 00:27:09,860 --> 00:27:13,160 Now, if you're on an iPhone, the main way to prevent something like this is lockdown mode. 442 00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:16,520 Apple does have a feature designed specifically to target these attacks. 443 00:27:16,860 --> 00:27:22,400 And Apple still hasn't found a single case where someone was actually able to bypass lockdown mode yet. 444 00:27:22,820 --> 00:27:26,180 This doesn't mean it's impossible, but they haven't seen it yet, which is really impressive. 445 00:27:26,500 --> 00:27:28,160 So I do recommend checking out the story. 446 00:27:28,460 --> 00:27:29,300 It's quite interesting. 447 00:27:29,740 --> 00:27:31,240 and there's some good nuggets here as well 448 00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:32,480 for those of you who want to learn more 449 00:27:32,620 --> 00:27:34,180 about these government-grade spyware. 450 00:27:34,340 --> 00:27:35,600 Now, on the topic of Apple, 451 00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:37,600 there was a macOS piece of malware 452 00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:39,060 which is called Pamstealer 453 00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:40,900 and it goes into this, 454 00:27:41,100 --> 00:27:43,080 the execution chain, how it works. 455 00:27:43,220 --> 00:27:44,400 I do recommend reading into it. 456 00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:45,980 We just don't have the time today for it 457 00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:47,620 but it is a very interesting one. 458 00:27:47,980 --> 00:27:49,400 There's also a Crashstealer malware 459 00:27:49,700 --> 00:27:51,960 that's posing as Apple's crash reporting tool 460 00:27:52,300 --> 00:27:53,880 and it is targeting password managers 461 00:27:54,360 --> 00:27:55,660 and crypto wallet extensions 462 00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:57,640 and it's actually a notarized malware. 463 00:27:58,080 --> 00:27:59,400 So lots of fun stuff here. 464 00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:02,880 So if you do care and want to see how these like macOS exploits are going, 465 00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:05,500 again, normally I would dig into these a little bit deeper, 466 00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:07,360 but this week I am keeping it more brief. 467 00:28:07,500 --> 00:28:10,680 This is another PSA, but there are 300 GitHub repos 468 00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:12,800 that pose as legit software to push malware. 469 00:28:13,260 --> 00:28:16,420 It's pretty much impersonating real services you might try to find on GitHub, 470 00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:19,360 but it's not actually the real thing and it's instead malware. 471 00:28:19,420 --> 00:28:21,820 So just always make sure that you're going to the right repo. 472 00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:24,180 This isn't some kind of GitHub specific issue. 473 00:28:24,620 --> 00:28:25,840 It's just a universal thing. 474 00:28:26,020 --> 00:28:27,140 Anytime you're installing software, 475 00:28:27,340 --> 00:28:29,660 Make sure you're getting it from the actual trusted provider. 476 00:28:30,140 --> 00:28:38,640 I do like to, it's one of the reasons actually I don't like people who don't have their own dedicated websites and they just have GitHub be their website. 477 00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:42,800 I like having a dedicated website where someone is like, I have planted my flag on the internet. 478 00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:46,140 Here is how you download my software in the most trustworthy manner possible. 479 00:28:46,620 --> 00:28:53,420 Because if the person doesn't do that, it opens up the opportunity for scammers, hackers, etc. to take that spot for them. 480 00:28:53,860 --> 00:28:57,280 Now, LastPass, Bitwarden users were also targeted with fake security alerts. 481 00:28:57,510 --> 00:29:00,560 And so if you want to see what this ongoing phishing campaign looks like, 482 00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:01,740 it's nothing too crazy. 483 00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:05,500 It's just a malicious email you get that, you know, tries to get you to do something. 484 00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:06,900 It's all phishing. 485 00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:09,200 It's nothing new, but it is worth flagging, 486 00:29:09,300 --> 00:29:11,540 because I know a lot of you are Bitwarden users especially, 487 00:29:11,900 --> 00:29:13,060 that this is an ongoing thing. 488 00:29:13,110 --> 00:29:14,480 So just be on the lookout for it. 489 00:29:14,540 --> 00:29:15,360 All right, everybody. 490 00:29:15,510 --> 00:29:17,760 And now we are in the open source news. 491 00:29:18,090 --> 00:29:19,580 And this is one of my favorite things. 492 00:29:19,690 --> 00:29:22,320 And it's an easy way for me to also promote our signal group. 493 00:29:22,620 --> 00:29:25,920 We've had signal polls for a while now, and I even use them in our signal group sometimes. 494 00:29:26,350 --> 00:29:27,640 We have about 150 people. 495 00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:28,680 It's for our tech laureens. 496 00:29:28,690 --> 00:29:35,060 And so if you want to support us and gain access to a little private community just for other people who like our content, you can do that. 497 00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:38,760 But now they've extended the capability for individual chats, too. 498 00:29:38,890 --> 00:29:48,340 And so if you want to send something to an indecisive friend or recapture the magic of passing a note to your crush, you can send polls in an individual chat now as well. 499 00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:52,900 Now, Graphene OS has updated their secure exec spawning feature with a new implementation. 500 00:29:53,300 --> 00:29:57,320 They're also adding a per app toggle to enhance application compatibility, which is really good 501 00:29:57,540 --> 00:30:01,140 because if an app didn't agree with it or somebody doesn't want it for a specific app, 502 00:30:01,340 --> 00:30:03,060 now you can turn it off, which is pretty awesome. 503 00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:04,700 There's also a few bugs that they fix. 504 00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:08,280 And so if you want to update to the latest version, that's probably a good move. 505 00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:13,960 CalyxOS is also back with version 7.2.2, bringing the Shift Phone 8 support, 506 00:30:14,100 --> 00:30:16,260 which I have one in my closet that I still need to review. 507 00:30:16,480 --> 00:30:17,740 Now, a few things to flag here. 508 00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:19,580 It has that new phone, which is really exciting. 509 00:30:19,700 --> 00:30:21,740 But if you are on an older version of Kallax OS, 510 00:30:21,820 --> 00:30:23,180 which I kind of hope you aren't on 511 00:30:23,420 --> 00:30:25,820 because they haven't had security updates in a long time. 512 00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:27,740 But if you are on those older versions, 513 00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:31,820 you do need a clean install to go to version 7.2.2. 514 00:30:32,220 --> 00:30:35,020 Once you're updated, then you go back to normal over-the-air updates 515 00:30:35,100 --> 00:30:36,520 and everything's kind of back to normal. 516 00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:38,980 One really cool thing is they have this new signing thing 517 00:30:39,060 --> 00:30:40,800 and they actually really detail it on their blog 518 00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:41,740 if you want to learn more. 519 00:30:41,840 --> 00:30:43,960 But it's like a hardware security module-based 520 00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:46,720 open source signing thing that is actually really awesome. 521 00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:48,420 So it's cool to see them back. 522 00:30:48,660 --> 00:30:49,980 I'm really excited to see them back. 523 00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:53,200 I was a little concerned when they just randomly dropped off to face of the earth, 524 00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:54,740 kind of, with their announcement of like, 525 00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:57,720 yeah, we're just stopping and coming back at some point in time. 526 00:30:58,100 --> 00:30:59,960 But I'm glad at some point in time actually happened, 527 00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:02,180 and it's cool to see another ROM option for people. 528 00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:03,340 We got a lot of ROM updates, 529 00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:06,480 and so Lineage OS has introduced web flashing tools, 530 00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:07,400 which is really exciting. 531 00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:08,940 They have revamped their stats page. 532 00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:11,280 They have Android 17 plans that they've announced, 533 00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:12,560 and quite a bit more. 534 00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:14,480 They've also migrated from GitLab to GitHub. 535 00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:16,600 They got a dark mode in their documentation. 536 00:31:16,700 --> 00:31:20,260 and they've also deployed security patches along some other updates. 537 00:31:20,660 --> 00:31:23,660 They've also announced that Lineage OS 24 development is underway 538 00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:25,780 based on that latest version of Android. 539 00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:27,640 So there's something for all custom ROM users. 540 00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:31,760 And even PostMarket OS has introduced KDE Plasma 6.7, 541 00:31:32,140 --> 00:31:34,640 better USB gadget handling, and WayDroid updates. 542 00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:39,460 So if you use any kind of non-Apple or non-stock Android operating system, 543 00:31:39,460 --> 00:31:41,400 you probably got some kind of update this week. 544 00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:45,080 Now, Linux Mint has planned full Wayland support and security updates, 545 00:31:45,620 --> 00:31:46,780 And that will be in the next release. 546 00:31:47,030 --> 00:31:50,080 And they're going to be supporting Wayland in Cinnamon, which is pretty exciting. 547 00:31:50,310 --> 00:31:54,800 We also have Brave that now has working containers just like Firefox for tab isolation. 548 00:31:55,100 --> 00:31:59,500 It's quite funny because not that long ago, the main reason and the main debate that I 549 00:31:59,620 --> 00:32:04,700 saw between Brave and Firefox is that Brave uses profiles and Firefox uses containers. 550 00:32:04,910 --> 00:32:08,800 And it's kind of this preference of like, do you want to have pretty much different versions 551 00:32:08,890 --> 00:32:11,440 of the same complete browser, which is what profiles are? 552 00:32:11,670 --> 00:32:15,120 Or do you want the same browser, but just like containers for specific sites? 553 00:32:15,660 --> 00:32:19,380 And this very different way of using these web browsers 554 00:32:19,660 --> 00:32:21,380 kind of separated two different people. 555 00:32:21,780 --> 00:32:25,960 But recently, Firefox introduced at least the concept of profiles in Firefox, 556 00:32:26,140 --> 00:32:27,580 where I think, I don't know if they released it yet, 557 00:32:27,640 --> 00:32:29,520 but at least they announced they're intending to do it. 558 00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:31,140 And now Brave is working on containers. 559 00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:34,120 And so now I guess the debate's going to be gone soon 560 00:32:34,340 --> 00:32:36,120 because you can do either on either browser. 561 00:32:36,180 --> 00:32:39,660 The really cool underrated thing about this is, and it says this here too, 562 00:32:40,060 --> 00:32:44,540 Brave's release marks the first time containers are available in a Chromium-based browser. 563 00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:48,720 I actually haven't used this yet, and I might do a live demo of this if it's interesting enough. 564 00:32:48,820 --> 00:32:50,580 So I will keep an eye out on our YouTube channel. 565 00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:52,540 I might demo it if you guys want to see how it works. 566 00:32:52,700 --> 00:33:03,460 Image, which is the open source self-hosted photo and video management solution by Fudo, has hit version 3.0, and it adds non-destructive editing and OCR on mobile and some other interesting things. 567 00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:05,420 So if you use Image, definitely check that out. 568 00:33:05,820 --> 00:33:09,220 Organic Maps, who I've interviewed on Techlore Talks, if you want to learn more about them. 569 00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:14,380 It's our sister podcast where I just interview founders, experts, et cetera, from different things in the space. 570 00:33:14,500 --> 00:33:19,500 but they've added satellite imagery, public transport routing, alternate routes, and more, 571 00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:23,420 which is really exciting. And I know a lot of people literally in the comments of that interview, 572 00:33:23,460 --> 00:33:27,000 which was quite recent, asked for those things specifically. So that's pretty big news. 573 00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:32,800 ProtonVPN has officially launched a Snap package for Linux. I think maybe some of you are going to 574 00:33:32,860 --> 00:33:37,180 be really excited about this, but many of you probably don't use Snap. But either way, I think 575 00:33:37,180 --> 00:33:40,939 it's one extra option, which is pretty cool. And yes, they already have a flat pack. So this is 576 00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:45,000 really just in conjunction. I do want to play around with this a bit more before I really add 577 00:33:45,180 --> 00:33:52,460 too much commentary, but Lumo is Proton's AI chatbot, and they did introduce Lumo 2.0, 578 00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:57,540 and they've completely redefined it, and they say it's a lot smarter, and they bring more personality. 579 00:33:58,160 --> 00:34:02,880 So if you are interested in AI chats, but with more privacy, I think Lumo is actually a great 580 00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:07,580 way to do it and kind of dip your toes to see if you find any value in it. And now it's going to 581 00:34:07,460 --> 00:34:11,460 be a bit smarter and they kind of break down the new design, how it works. So if you want to learn 582 00:34:11,530 --> 00:34:15,820 more, check out the show notes there. And then Proton Sheets also got an update with custom 583 00:34:16,159 --> 00:34:20,919 formats, drift detection, and some bug fixes as well. Now, this is an update for those of you who 584 00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:25,419 use the DuckDuckGo browser, but it now blocks YouTube video ads. So it's going to be pretty 585 00:34:25,780 --> 00:34:30,159 similar to what Brave provides maybe. But if you use DuckDuckGo's ecosystem for one reason or 586 00:34:30,300 --> 00:34:34,279 another, you now get to block YouTube ads too, which is pretty awesome. This one I'm also really 587 00:34:34,300 --> 00:34:39,679 excited about. So Proton has always, not always, but for a long time now, has had an easy way to 588 00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:44,419 migrate your data from Gmail. And Tuta has always lacked this. And it's been one of the main reasons 589 00:34:44,500 --> 00:34:49,580 when I've consulted with individuals, when they ask me Tuta or Proton, I say, well, do you want to 590 00:34:49,820 --> 00:34:54,320 migrate your emails? Because if the answer is yes, Proton is kind of your only option if you want an 591 00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:59,859 encrypted provider. But now, Tuta has a one-click migration that is now in closed beta. So it's 592 00:34:59,880 --> 00:35:04,020 closed beta. They have not given me access to this one, so I don't have closed access right now. 593 00:35:04,420 --> 00:35:08,460 But I'm sure when I get my hands on it, I'm at least going to try to play with it. I don't have 594 00:35:08,460 --> 00:35:12,980 a Google account with Gmail to play around with, actually. So I don't know if I can even test this. 595 00:35:13,080 --> 00:35:16,800 But either way, I know a lot of people in your life do. And now you can get another email provider 596 00:35:17,060 --> 00:35:21,720 option as well to do an easy migration. All right, this is the one that I know. You know, 597 00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:26,139 you guys follow this podcast every week for the best news. Sometimes it's every other week because 598 00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:31,260 I'm moving or whatever's going on. But, you know, this is the news you guys came for. And it's that 599 00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:37,820 Hannah Montana Linux has been revived with a modernized stack and still a lot of pink. This is 600 00:35:37,930 --> 00:35:44,880 one of those more humorous meme-ish style Linux distributions, but apparently they have completely 601 00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:50,780 revived it. So if you are interested, I guess, check it out. All right, this next one is, I guess, 602 00:35:51,160 --> 00:35:55,320 open source adjacent because WhatsApp is not open source. But I do know a lot of you, even those of 603 00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:59,640 who use Signal still have to use WhatsApp for some of your contacts. Now WhatsApp has rolled out 604 00:35:59,900 --> 00:36:04,200 usernames, so you can hide your phone number from contacts. It's going to be very similar from what 605 00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:08,080 Signal does. In fact, Signal did it first, and it's kind of why I put it in the open source section 606 00:36:08,270 --> 00:36:12,440 because the open source software led the way on this. But now I'm guessing it's quite similar. You 607 00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:16,840 still need a phone number to sign up for your WhatsApp account, kind of like Signal, but you can 608 00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:20,940 reserve a username, and that way you can just share a username with people without needing to share 609 00:36:20,990 --> 00:36:24,619 your phone number. So I recommend a lot of you probably implement that unless you have a good 610 00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:30,660 reason to use your phone number. Tails hit version 7.9.1. That's the anonymous-based operating system. 611 00:36:31,140 --> 00:36:35,480 They've updated just basic things there. And also we got Kali Linux, the pen testing operating system 612 00:36:35,510 --> 00:36:40,680 that hit 2026.2 with nine new tools and some NetHunter updates. So if you use any of those 613 00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:44,660 operating systems, check out the show notes. All right, everybody, and that concludes the week's 614 00:36:44,820 --> 00:36:49,280 surveillance report. If this analysis helped you reclaim control, you can become a Techlorian by 615 00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:53,879 visiting the link in the show notes and or just follow the newsletter for this podcast. I also am 616 00:36:53,900 --> 00:36:58,600 publishing a written version of this, which is like the quick five minute read that you get in 617 00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:03,060 your email inbox each Wednesday. It's completely free to join and it's not spammed or anything. 618 00:37:03,260 --> 00:37:08,280 It's just like a written accompanying guide to this if you can't listen to the full audio for 619 00:37:08,460 --> 00:37:12,000 whatever reason. No matter who you are, I also really encourage you all to leave a rating, 620 00:37:12,400 --> 00:37:16,180 share this episode with people you know. It keeps other people in your life stay safe and maybe get 621 00:37:16,180 --> 00:37:20,919 them interested in these discussions as well. And it also helps us grow this podcast so we can reach 622 00:37:20,940 --> 00:37:25,900 more and more people and keep this going forever and keep it super sustainable as time goes on. 623 00:37:26,380 --> 00:37:29,060 Thank you all for listening and I'll see you in the next episode of Surveillance.