Tech News Weekly 297, Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

Jason Howell (00:00):
Coming up on Tech News Weekly, it's me, Jason Howell, and I speak with Joseph Men from the Washington Post about the C d C known, not the Center for DI Disease Control. We're talking about the cult of the Dead Cow in their encryption scheme from next week's Def Cock.

Mikah Sargent (00:14):
And I'm Micah Sergeant. I speak to CNET Stephen Shanklin about his incredibly in-depth and yes, pun intended piece about these sub C cables that are the backbone of the internet.

Jason Howell (00:25):
That's a fascinating interview. You have to check it out. Also, the i r s getting more digital than before, and Micah is not convinced.

Mikah Sargent (00:34):
<laugh>, I'm not convinced I get a little salty. Uh, but we route things out with a cool story about I B M and NASA teaming up to build what amounts to like nasa, G P T for Earth Sciences. Plus, we talk about how, uh, we would like to see more of AI being used in these kinds of fields, these hard sciences. It's all that coming up on Tech News Weekly podcasts you love from people you trust. This, this is Twitter is twit.

Jason Howell (01:08):
This is Tech News Weekly, episode 297, recorded Thursday, August 3rd, 2023 C'S Encryption Solution.

Mikah Sargent (01:18):
This episode of Tech News Weekly is brought to you by the A WSS Insiders Podcast. Search for a w s Insiders in your podcast player, or visit cloud fixx.oria.com/podcast. We'll also include a link in the show notes. Our thanks to AWS Insiders for their support

Jason Howell (01:35):
And by Collide. Collide is a device trust solution for companies with Okta, and they ensure that if a device isn't trusted and secure, it can't log into your cloud apps. Visit collide.com/tnw to book an on-demand demo today.

Mikah Sargent (01:51):
And by bit Warden, get the open source password manager that can help you stay safe online. Get started with a free teams or enterprise plan trial, or get started for free across all devices as an individual user@bitwarden.com slash twi. Hello and welcome to Tech Newsweek, the show where every week we talk to and about the people making and breaking the tech news. I am one of your hosts, Micah, Sergeant,

Jason Howell (02:17):
And I'm the other guy, Jason Howell coming calling from my house. You might hear a little squeaking in the background. That's because I got a brand new puppy a couple of days ago, <laugh>, and this is the only day that I couldn't figure out like for my wife to be home. She's out of town, so we're just gonna have to deal with it. I don't know. I

Mikah Sargent (02:35):
Hate, I hate to make the pun, but I don't hate to make the pun. The last name is particularly appropriate this morning.

Jason Howell (02:42):
<laugh> Ling. That's right. Exactly. Exactly. Oh, well, hopefully Bronson will, uh, keep himself entertained for the next hour. I'll check in on him here a little bit. But first let's get to our first interview, the Cult of the Dead Cow. I have, uh, very, like, I, I have very, uh, profound memories of Cult of the Dead Cow from the 1980s when I was using the Commodore 64 connecting to bulletin boards. And I would see these c d C docs rolling around. They were a hacking group, uh, from the eighties, and apparently they are still doing some actually pretty important work. They're hard at work on a coding framework for encryption. And the plan is to showcase this at Defcon, which is coming up next week. Joining me to talk a little bit about this in advance of the Hacker Conference is Joseph Men. Joseph actually wrote the book on the C d C entitled Cult of the Dead Cow, how the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World Recently though, wrote about this new technology for the Washington Post. So it's good to have you back. Joseph. Thank you for joining us.

Joseph Menn (03:43):
Yeah, it's good to be here.

Jason Howell (03:45):
Yeah, good to see you. So before we get to Veli, which is what the technology is called, before we get to that kind of catches up a little bit to date on what the C d C, and by the way, I do mean cult to Dead Cow for anyone listening, not, uh, <laugh> Centers for the Disease Control, but, uh, what they've been up to in recent years, um, let alone decades. But in recently, has there been much that we've been seeing from this group, aside from this news that we're about to talk about.

Joseph Menn (04:14):
Uh, individual members have done more than, than the group as a whole. The group as a whole, you know, gets together and talks about, uh, things and plots, um, privately, and they sort of help each other on their, on each other's, uh, personal projects. But they haven't had like a big show release, uh, for years. Uh, so this is, um, this is kind of a return to the glory days. You know, I'd say the late nineties and early OOS is when they were like, uh, the, the biggest deals. Uh, but they've had a resurgence, um, actually, honestly, in, in part due to the book. But, um, there's been a sort of a, a broader embrace of hacktivism generally in the last few years. And they're kind of the, you know, the OGs in that regard. So people have turned to them. And then, you know, some of the individuals who have been making big news, um, most notably Mudge zko, uh, testifying before Congress last year, that the, uh, the security at Twitter where he had been head of security was so bad that it put the company in violation of multiple Federal Trade Commission agreements.

(05:17)
And the F T C opened a pretty massive investigation that's now ongoing.

Jason Howell (05:22):
Mm-hmm. Okay. So they've kept pretty busy, uh, individually and now together this technology that they're working on, it's an encryption technology, um, called Veli, I think I'm pronouncing that right. Um, this is the code that the C D C is working on. Who exactly is veli for? What exactly is it intended to do, and I guess how does it differ from what we already have out there?

Joseph Menn (05:46):
So it's really interesting. It is. You got that right. Um, we'll know more on, um, a week from a week from Friday, uh, at the, the first day of DEFCON when they're opening the conference, uh, with a, uh, an introduction to veil it and, and the technical parts of it. But the idea is that it will, um, be a, a basis for other people to make apps. Um, the group tends to make, intends to make its own apps, including a messaging app, uh, and a social networking app. But all of them will have this, uh, framework they're providing like the, the building blocks for this. And it, it sort of combines elements of, of BitTorrent. Um, it's a distributed network such that everybody who joins makes the network faster and more effective. Uh, and all the apps will interact over that. It'll be end-to-end encrypted.

(06:32)
And the idea is that it will work for anything messaging, uh, or, uh, sharing files or even social networking. And in none of the cases, will they be harvesting data on the individual. So for the messaging app to be, it will be like signal only. You don't have to give up your phone number, uh, which makes it actually more secure than Signal if they get it right. So they're, they, um, it's the building blocks, or it's, or it's like a, one of them described it as a, as a house, uh, that's not furnished yet. And then the developers, they have to convince the developers to come in and put in some nice furniture individual apps that will, that will run on the Veit framework.

Jason Howell (07:10):
Interesting. Okay. So then it, it occurs to me that without this data collection, um, I mean, at the end of the day, C D C hopefully, you know, is hoping that that developers will be intrigued by this code base by, by what they're doing around encryption, uh, intrigued by this idea of a lack of data collection. I mean, that is kind of at the core of what this, uh, is going to be about. How, how do they entice developers, uh, people building products to do this. And, you know, granted, I I fully realize we, there's only so much we actually know about this, but I mean, from the broad perspective of the fact that like, data collection is housed, so many of these kinds of apps make money nowadays, if you're not making money on that. Like, what, what, what other directions do people turn if they wanna use?

Joseph Menn (07:58):
So, um, there are other ways to make money. You can charge for your app, uh, you can, um, uh, you can have like freemium services. Um, you could, you could even advertise if you wanted to. It just can't be this sort of micro-targeted advertising, you know, data vacuuming norm, uh, that, that we all love, uh, when Facebook and Google and Twitter do to us, um, you know, you're right that, um, you know, it, it ha it's less obvious a pitch. Um, but, you know, there's been a lot of resentment of particularly the biggest tech companies, but also the shadowy data brokers and the ad, you know, the instantaneous ad transactions where everybody is bidding on the right to, you know, sell to a, you know, a given person in their thirties in a given neighborhood who drives a given car. I mean, it's just, it's gotten outta control.

(08:50)
And I think you asked me earlier who this was for, and the end user is intended to be regular folks. It's, you know, they tour is not used by regular folks. They want the apps that are built on veiled to be used by ordinary folks and people that will be happy not to be targeted by ads and to have their conversations private. So that includes, you know, populations that are more at risk or heavily surveilled, uh, and also just regular people. And I think one thing that's going for it is that people are so fed up with Twitter most lately, uh, that they're willing to experiment. I mean, there are all these, you know, attempts at Twitter replacements or partial replacements that're having, you know, surprising numbers of people try it out, you know, right away. So I think there is clearly an appetite for something other than the giants we all know and love slash eight.

Jason Howell (09:43):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Okay. So then, is that the biggest challenge that you think they, they face, uh, in getting people to use this, the, the monetary aspect? Or are there other potential kind of tech technological aspects of this that might be a, a hard pill based on what we know? Of course.

Joseph Menn (09:58):
I think we'll, we'll, we'll know more after Defcon. Um, you know, people need to be, you know, so far the testing of it is small. They're going to expand that. So lots of people will be kicking the tires. I mean, one of the things that the, you know, it is a framework, so people will have to do some coding on top of it, but the people who are not in the group, who have played with it, who've tested it, who've kicked the tires, say it's really good and it should be pretty robust. Um, and one of the things that has going for it is that it's majority written by Chris Ru, uh, who is actually a genius. You know, he and Mudge were the two great technical minds of, of, you know, the heyday of C D C. He founded a multi-billion dollar company called Veracode, which, you know, it was a, a real innovator in, in binary analysis of, of code.

(10:42)
So you didn't have to, you know, rely on what vendors of code were telling you the code was going to do. You could even if you didn't, you know, you, you could find out yourself what it was doing. And sometimes that was different. So really innovative guy. Um, and he's been putting, you know, three years into this, um, you know, he, he doesn't have to work at all. He's, you know, filthy rich, and he is, he hates what the, the internet has decayed into. I mean, a lot of people use, I dunno if I can say this on air, you know that term n ification, um mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's true. I mean, people coming online don't know that the web was better before, you know, which is crazy, you know, tech is supposed to get better all the time, but the actual user experience is getting worse and worse. I mean, Google's front page sucks. I mean, <laugh>, how can you screw that up? <laugh>?

Jason Howell (11:30):
Yeah, yeah. Um, we've been saying on the network in certification just to, uh, <laugh>, but we are, and you'll know exactly what, uh, <laugh> what you're talking about <laugh>, um, when it comes to the more kind of encrypted, protected protocols like this. What about content moderation? Because this is something that, you know, becomes a much more difficult, uh, task when you're talking about encrypted, you know, technologies like this. Have they shed any sort of light ahead of the event, uh, next week on how they plan to tackle that?

Joseph Menn (12:05):
I think that's one of the most interesting issues, and one of the hardest, it's hard for everybody. Anybody who does anything on the internet has to think about, uh, moderation, um, in part for legal reasons and in part, you know, 'cause it'll deteriorate and get horrible if there, if there's nothing. So they've had to think about this really hard. And the people who've been involved in the policy discussions about this, um, you know, said, said that in some ways it's terrifying. In some ways it's liberating because they mentioned federation, you know, lots of people are doing Federation. Mastodon is, is part of the Fedi verse. Um, and in, you know, the appeal of that is you can have your own community with its own rules. Um, and if you don't like it, you can go to another server. But it also means that there, it, it's kind of a mess and you can't count on stuff lasting and their number.

(12:55)
And the big companies can sort of push off responsibility, uh, to, uh, you know, a, a given node. Uh, you can't get away with that, um, in something that's completely distributed, like, like Bill. So one of the decisions that they've made is that in the first iteration of their own social networking app, and I, they encourage other people to do different social networking apps, it'll be invite, it'll be by invite only. So, um, I, you know, I'm going to pick the people I want in my social network, and therefore I'm not gonna have Mad Stalkers show up and, you know, you know, call me racial slurs. And that's, you know, that that's, that's one of the decisions that they've been made. I think there are a lot of others, and, and there's some still in the works, and they're inviting other people to join in the discussion and ths this out. But, you know, it's a tough issue. But, um, you know, they're providing the tools and you can build something crappy with it or something terrific with it, uh, or at least try. So it'd be up to the individual app developers to make most of these calls.

Jason Howell (13:55):
Okay. Well, Joseph, I want to thank you so much for taking time to talk to us about this. And of course, I imagine, you know, we're all gonna know a lot more next week, including, uh, Bronson in the other room. He's really curious to hear all about, uh, Veed. So that's happening next week at Defcon. Uh, you can read Joseph's piece at the Washington Post. And Joseph, it's great to talk with you again. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. <laugh>.

Joseph Menn (14:16):
Good to see you in Bronson <laugh>.

Jason Howell (14:19):
Thank, appreciate

Mikah Sargent (14:20):
It. Bye bye. Oh, all righty, folks. Up next. I'm super pumped to be talking about the, uh, below slash sub slash undersea cables that are kind of the backbone of the internet. Uh, we'll get there in just a moment, but I do want to take a quick break to tell you about our first sponsor of today's episode of Tech News Weekly. It's the a w s Insiders Podcast. A w s Insiders is a fast-paced, entertaining, and insightful look behind the scenes of a W Ss and Cloud computing. And look, this isn't your typical Talking Heads Tech podcast, so imagine you listen to many of those in each week. Uh, so add one that's a little bit different because you've got high production value, high energy, and high entertainment. It's full of captivating stories. From the early days of a W Ss to today and Beyond hosts, Rahul Supermanium and Hilary Doyle dig into the current state and the future of a w s by talking with the people and the companies that know it best.

(15:17)
Rahul is a veteran, a w s pro. He's got, uh, more than 15 years of experience managing more than 45,000 a w s instances. He's known for pushing a W Ss products to their limits and for believing a w s is truly the operating system of the future. A w s Insiders is a show that's full of opinions, takeaways, and also untold stories about the challenges, innovations in the mind blowing promise of cloud computing. Uh, there was a recent episode, it's actually the latest episode that's out called When Netflix Bet on a w s. And I found this one really interesting because it talks about how kind of Netflix and a w Ss worked together to make each other better. Uh, and so what they did was they brought on Adrian Cock ruff to the, uh, former Netflix Cloud architect to talk about it, and, uh, is now the a w s VP of Sustainability Architecture.

(16:15)
So, somebody with a lot of chops talking about the sort of history of Netflix and how they used a w s to get things up and running. Uh, there's also in episodes in season two, it's episode three, it's called Moderna mRNA and a w s, and I think this is a particularly, uh, interesting episode. Rahul, Hillary and Moderna's, director of Data Engineering and Cloud architecture discuss how Moderna depends on a w s and the cloud, and how Moderna was kinda a cloud first company and the impact that had on their medical research. So, if that sounds interesting to you, and how could it not, you should search for AWS Insiders in your podcast player, or visit cloud fix.oria.com/podcast. That's cloud fix dot A u r eea.com/podcast. And of course, we'll also include a link in the show notes. Our thanks to a w s insiders for their support.

(17:10)
And we are back from the break. So let me, uh, get things kicked off here. Um, I was scrolling through the, scrolling through the internet. Hmm, yes. Um, a little bit ago now. And I, uh, was over on cnet and I came across this headline. And, uh, immediately was, was, uh, taken in, it's called the, the headline was The Secret Life of the 500 plus Cables that Run the Internet. And I thought, I need to know more about that. And boy, howdy did I learn a lot. Uh, joining us today to talk about it is the author of the piece, Stephen Shanklin, from cnet. Stephen, welcome back to the show.

Stephen Shankland (17:53):
Thank you for having me on again.

Mikah Sargent (17:55):
Yeah, it's always a pleasure to get to chat with you. And, uh, I'm again, so happy that you, you, you, you and the team put this together. Uh, before we do get into the story itself, I do wanna know what led to the production of this piece? Like what made you want to look into subsea cables? How did this come about?

Stephen Shankland (18:13):
Okay. I've been, I've been writing about internet infrastructure for decades, right? So I've always had sort of a, a, a high interest in this general technology area, but subsea cables in particular intrigued me. I've been actually wanting to write this story for about five years. I would hear of some new cable arriving or some other cable getting cut and it being disaster. Uh, the Tonga, uh, volcanic eruption, uh, a few months ago peaked my interest again. I finally had a chance to clear my schedule out, talked to a whole lot of people, and put this piece together. So I've been wanting to write it for, for a while, but the thing that actually got me to write it was Tonga, and then also the, actually curiously, the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Mm-hmm. And then all the saber raping with China and Taiwan because, um, internet infrastructure is really important, and now it's militarily vulnerable. So that's what got me to write it right now.

Mikah Sargent (19:07):
Yeah. I, and, you know, kind of thinking about that aspect of it, the geopolitical, uh, geotech, nonpolitical, <laugh> aspect of it is something else. Now be, you know, there, there's a lot to cover here. And, uh, importantly, folks, I am not going to let Steven tell you everything about the piece, because you need to go over to CNET and read it. Um, but I do wanna cover some of the highlights. Let's start by talking about the cables themselves. Um, because when I was thinking about, uh, these, these cables, I'm thinking these are, you know, massive Mario bros pipes that are running underneath the ocean from place to place. Uh, so let's, uh, let's tell the listeners what they look like, how long they can end up being, and what exactly it is that they do.

Stephen Shankland (19:56):
They are skinny. They're about the width of a, a garden hose, maybe about as big as my thumb around. I had a sample, I don't have it right here, but they're about that big across, for the part that's stretched across much of the bottom of the ocean now, at either end of the cable where they, uh, go across, um, you know, uh, closer to to shore. They get beefed up armored. They have, uh, thicker metal, uh, you know, steel housing, the armor around it, that, that, uh, protects them against things like, uh, uh, you know, just people banging into them, ship anchors, a lot of other wear and tariffs. They do get thicker toward the shore, but mostly they're actually really pretty skinny. They get very long. 20,000 kilometers, I think are the longest ones, 12,000 miles or so. That's huge to go across, uh, the Pacific Ocean. Many of them, of course, are, are much shorter. And, uh, right there are about 870,000 miles of these laid across the surface, excuse me, across the bottom of the, the ocean floors around the world. Wow. About 550 of them right now, either in operation or planned in the next couple of years.

Mikah Sargent (21:02):
My goodness. And what's inside of, of one of these cables? Like, what are the materials, at least that are inside?

Stephen Shankland (21:10):
Well, of course, they're made up of several layers. Now, the most important one is at the very center. They're super thin fiber optic strands. So these are the same fiber optics that carry, uh, you know, information all around the world. Uh, but strangely, this was really came as a big surprise to me. There are very few of these fiber optic strands, usually only eight or 16. Most of the, uh, cables right now maxed out at 16. But, uh, various, uh, efforts are underway to increase that number. And the reason that there are so few of them is because, not because of, of, um, problems with the, the cables themselves, but because every 50 or a hundred miles or so, you have to boost the signal mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so inside these cables, every few, uh, you know, 50 or a hundred miles, there's something called repeater, or it's a big, sort of a fix section in the cable that boosts the light signals going through those fiber optic lines.

(22:02)
And those repeaters need power. So that is what limits the length of the cable. Uh, and so outside the fiber optics, there's, uh, actually a little, a little less tube of copper, and that's what carries power to the repeaters. So, uh, the repeaters, uh, are, are kind of the limiting aspect of the technology right now, because you need those repeaters to boost the power, and you can't, uh, excuse me, to, to, to boost the data without those, uh, excuse me. And so you, you can't, um, fit more and more, excuse me. You can't fit enough strands in there without more repeaters. So it's power limited right now.

Mikah Sargent (22:40):
Right. Yeah. And the, the, I remember you talking about kind of the, the heat aspect of it and, uh, just, yeah, it's, it's sort of a, it's a really huge balancing act, right? Trying to figure out exactly what you need to do in terms of repeaters and, and, uh, power, and I mean, the kind of incredible amount of power where, uh, you mentioned that they can essentially, if they wanted to, they could provide power from one side of the cable and reach out to get all of the repeaters. Often though, there is power on both sides, just for redundancy's sake. That alone was kind of mind boggling to me. Now, with all of that in mind, um, I mean, you've got you thousands of kilometers, right? Uh, how much do these cables cost and who the heck is paying for them? Is this something that, um, you know, Xfinity Comcast is covering? Uh, or is the, is it funded by the government? Like, who out there is paying for these things?

Stephen Shankland (23:39):
Well, uh, a few decades ago, it would be telecommunications companies and the information you'd put over the cables be phone calls, and now of course, it's internet data that you're putting across these cables. And with that change has come a change in ownership. So it used to be the phone companies, national or private would, uh, fund these cables, the, the construction of them and the operation of them. But now, increasingly, it's actually the big tech companies, Google, Facebook, meta, Microsoft, Amazon, these are the folks who have the huge data appetite to fund these cables. They cost a lot of money. So a new modern, uh, transatlantic cable, about $250 million to $300 million to, to design and install. They're not simple, they're complicated and expensive. You have to do site surveys, you have to buy a lot of equipment, you have to pay ships to lay the cables.

(24:34)
So they're very expensive. But for these companies that have a lot of data centers and have to move data from place to place to transfer your emails, your YouTube videos, your social network posts, your business, uh, data that a lot of these companies house, they are the ones who, who have a powerful financial need to have enough capacity in place to handle all this traffic. So something like 99% of the traffic that's going across continents or to con or to to island nations, goes across these subsea cable. You might think satellites are important, satellites are important, but they're not nearly as important as these subsea cables when it comes to international communications and commerce.

Mikah Sargent (25:13):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Now, I was hoping you could also talk about the process of installing these cables. I was, uh, shocked to hear that in deeper parts of the ocean. Uh, as you mentioned, they're just kind of hanging out on the sea floor, uh, just ready for anything to happen to them. But what, what does the process involve? Are we having like divers going down and with little trows and digging them out and putting little sandcastles on top of them? Uh, what's the process for that? <laugh>?

Stephen Shankland (25:42):
No, actually, uh, divers are occasionally involved, uh, especially over at the shore ends of things. But mostly this is done by ships. So at the shore ends, the carries the ca the cables are buried fairly deeply. You don't notice them, but they go across beaches. In some places you might, you know, if you can just walk right across one, you don't even know it in some parts of the world. Uh, and the, so the way they're installed is there's gonna be some non-descript building on the shore that'll have a bunch of network equipment in it and a whole lot of power supplied to it. And then the cable will go underground underneath a beach somewhere, and then out, uh, you know, across the sea. So the, the first step that these companies, uh, have to figure out when they're, uh, uh, building these tables is, is where to put them.

(26:25)
So obviously the data demands, you know, between one city and another, or is the first question, then they have to pick a route that avoids, you know, marine sanctuaries, places where there's lots of fishing or other activity and geological problems like earths earthquakes, uh, mudslides, uh, and, uh, uh, volcanoes, things like that. Those sort of hazard natural hazards. So it's difficult to plan the route. Once they plan the route, they put the end stations in, and then they get a, a very large ship that has huge tanks with the cables coiled inside, and they just drape it as they, as they travel this, this route, they drape it very carefully. Now, one of the interesting things is toward, uh, the, the shore ends in particular of the cable route. They have a special plow that gets dragged behind the ship that actually buries the cable underneath the sea floor.

(27:18)
So it's a, mm-hmm. A pretty laborious process. Uh, a ship can, can carry, uh, several thousand miles of, of, uh, of cable, but they still often have to make multiple trips, uh, out from the shore, uh, to the, to where they're, to lay, where they're laying the cable. Obviously that takes a long time, and sometimes they can't do it all just from one end to another. They'll have to lay one stretch and then another stretch. Sometimes they'll have to do it in backwards order, which means they have to laboriously re spool all the cable so they can put it the correct end down at the bottom. So it's a very complicated process.

Mikah Sargent (27:51):
Wow. Can you imagine getting through a process and then realizing, oh no, we put it the wrong way. That sounds mortifying. Um, now something that, uh, and by the way, folks, there is so much, uh, that Steven has put together in that part about installing the cables that you'd have got to go read the piece to learn more about it, where they talk about flipping spools and doing all this other stuff. So, uh, that is something to be saved for you to go check out. But another highlight that really stuck out to me, uh, I what, like any given time, there are about 10 of these cables that are just cut. Like what, tell us about, uh, cable cuts, how that happens and what, what does, what do they do about it? I mean, does, will the internet just suddenly go out everywhere if, uh, enough of these cable cuts happen? What, what do they do? What are there backups?

Stephen Shankland (28:44):
There are backups. So first of all, on the capacity of, of, on the cables themselves, they deliberately size the capacity larger than they need because they know that there are going to be outages, uh, somewhere at some point. So they actually plan very deliberately for, for outages. So yeah, every two or three days, another cable somewhere in the world gets cut. And you might ask, well, why, why do they get cut? Mostly it's because of anchors of ships dragging across them. Oh. Or because of fishing equipment getting tangled up. And most of those happen. Uh, most of those, uh, problems happen closer toward the shore, which is good because it's easier to repair the cables that are closer to the shore across the bottom of the Pacific. The cables are very deep. There's, you know, they're not dragging fishing equipment across the bottom so much.

(29:31)
So that's actually where fewer the, the cuts happen. It tends to be, you know, in higher traffic areas. But yeah, they do happen. It's a problem. And there are lots of things that, uh, that the companies do to protect against this situation. So, as I said, the first one is they size the cable capacity higher, so that if one cable from New York to London breaks, while they have another cable from Boston to Ireland that has some extra capacity. So they turn that on for a while, while they get the other, the, the, the original cable fixed. Another thing they do is they actually swap capacity. So say meta might borrow a little capacity from, uh, Google cable. They might actually, you know, swap a, uh, ownership of a few fiber pairs from each other's cable so that if one company's cable goes down, they have more capacity elsewhere.

(30:16)
But of course, then there are the repairs. So when a cable cut is cut, they know where it's cut, they can tell where it's cut, they send a ship out to actually splicing a new piece. So they reach down with a grappler, which is, you know, centuries old technology. They grab the cable 'cause they know pretty well where the cables are laid on the bottom of the ocean. They pick it up and they will graft on a new, um, you know, new fiber optics onto one end, float that cable, pick up the other end graft on fiber optics to the other end, and then attach that strand to both sides so they can repair it. It's a routine part of the operation. You pay these, uh, uh, you pay a contractor to be on call with ships to repair the cables when needed.

Mikah Sargent (30:57):
Wow. Okay. Well, lastly, uh, I was, I want to ask you, you mentioned earlier, uh, and I do think it's true, we are often kinda looking up and thinking about, uh, that, that, you know, there's a lot more coverage, I think, and, and, uh, conversation about the satellites that are, uh, providing connectivity around the world. But what we know to be true, and especially after reading this, is that really it's the subsea cables that are providing most of what we have. Um, so I'm kind of curious, based on the conversations that you've had, is there a slowing in the installation of new subsea cables as, uh, tech companies look to the skies? Or is this just such a great way of doing it that we will continue to see more, um, undersea or subsea cables installed? And when it comes to that, is it a matter of somehow upgrading the cables that are already there? Or is it just we keep adding more cables?

Stephen Shankland (31:56):
So mostly, uh, we're adding more cables. So satellites are great, but I tend to think of satellites as chiefly useful for kind of retail connection broadband to homes that are in rural areas, or, you know, some military operation in someplace. So those guys like starlink or Hughes or ViaSat satellites that are way up there. Uh, but that's, that doesn't really provide anything like the amount of data capacity that the hyperscalers, the big tech companies need. So that's why there's actually a cable, a subsea cable building boom, going on right now, kind of a surge. There are $10 billion being invested, uh, this year through 20, 20, 25 in new subsea cables because these guys, their, their data demands are going up at something like 50, 60% per year, huge growth. Wow. So yeah, they're building out new cables and the satellites, there's just no way they can keep up.

(32:52)
Now the satellites are getting more important and, uh, I think, you know, that's gonna be a, a bigger part of our, you know, internet, uh, interaction is gonna be coming over satellites, especially if you're somewhere, you know, away from the cell networks. But if you need, you know, to send these, these cables send, you know, the, the fastest one just went online, 400 terabits per second, that's something like 400,000 times faster than fast gigabit broadband. So this is, you know, these subsea cables provide vastly more capacity. And, and that's really essential to, uh, you know, the functioning of the global economy.

Mikah Sargent (33:27):
Absolutely. Okay. Well, uh, Steven Shanklin, I wanna thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to today to talk about this. Of course, everyone should head over to cnet, uh, to check out this piece. You can, uh, find the link in the show notes. Um, but if folks wanna follow you online and, uh, stay up to date with your work, where should they go to do so?

Stephen Shankland (33:46):
Sure. Well, I publish@cnet.com. Uh, you can <laugh> find me on Twitter now known as X at, uh, SST Shank, which has a link to all my other social profiles since who knows what's gonna happen with x slash Twitter over the next, uh, next year or five. So that's the easiest way to follow me.

Mikah Sargent (34:05):
Awesome. Thanks so much. Uh, we appreciate it, and, uh, we'll, uh, look forward to having you back on again soon.

Stephen Shankland (34:11):
Great. Thank you.

Jason Howell (34:13):
All right. Thank you, Steven. Uh, one of my favorites. I love reading his pieces, and especially, this is fascinating stuff. So it's nice to know more information about these things that like literally are like hidden and obscured under the sea. There's a lot we, you know, haven't known until now, so it's really fascinating. Uh, coming up next though, the I r s our favorite topic in the world finally stepping, well, I'd say further into the digital age, so we've got some news there. But first, this episode of Tech News Weekly is brought to you by Collide. Collide is a device trust solution for companies with Okta. They ensure that if a device isn't trusted and it isn't secure, uh, it's not gonna be able to log into your cloud apps. That's it. If you work in security or IT and your company has Okta, then this message is, especially for you.

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Best of all, you can get employees to fix their own device security issues, <laugh>, they can fix it themselves without creating more work for your IT team. And the really good news here, of course, is that you don't have to imagine this world at all. You can just start using Collide and you'll get everything that I just spoke about. So visit collide.com/tnw. You can book an on-demand demo today and see how it works for yourself. And I'll spell it out for you. K o l i d e.com/tnw. That's collide.com/tnw. I wanna thank them for their support of Tech News Weekly. I'm looking around because Bronson's in here, but you know what, he's chomping on a bull stick. So I think I'm good to go. I'd prob probably have it easy, another 10 minutes in me, uh, before he starts getting impatient. And, and, uh, if my video goes away, he found the power plug and he is bit happen prevented from happening.

(36:52)
Uh, let's talk a little bit about the US tax system, the I R s US tax paperwork process, about to get, uh, a whole lot more high tech, which is to say that there is a digital, um, kinda aspect to filing our taxes already, but not everybody is using it, and the system actually has a lot of ways that it can be improved. Um, catch up with the Times. In other words, president Biden actually passed the Inflation Reduction Act last year, and then, uh, and that was actually passed for I believe, $80 billion to go into improving the agency's technology systems over the next 10 years. There was a reduction this year of around 20 billion. So that leaves about 60 billion, uh, in total for the coming years, uh, to put into this, I think it's over the next, yeah, I said the next 10 years, it's the largest influx of funding for the I R s.

(37:47)
And this week the reason that it's news is this week the Treasury Department announced a bunch of improvements to the tax paperwork process, and it all involves just making it more digital, more, uh, yeah. Uh, reducing the need for all of that paperwork, which if you've done your taxes, I'm sure you have, my goodness, is there a lot of paperwork? So anything that can make it a lot easier, it's dubbed the Paperless Processing Initiative. And, uh, there are a number of changes there, uh, including the ability to digitally submit all paperwork for the 2024 tax season that files in 2025. That includes non-tax forms. Uh, it includes electronic communication methods so you can keep your communication all electronic, um, and in a completely paperless filing season. In other words, you could still have everything electronic and doing so would actually cut the, uh, processing times in half according to the I r s.

(38:46)
So they're looking to cut down because they actually have had a backlog, um, which I'll talk about in a second. But this is the first part. I said it's a 10 year process. It's gonna cost that $60 billion over the course of that 10 years to totally modernize and transform the system. That's their approach. Um, and it will impact how they enforce kinda the processes behind the scenes on how they enforce around their taxes, um, and the efficacy of that. But I said that they're kind of backlogged. And as with everything <laugh> in this world right now, covid wreaked havoc on this system in particular, it resulted in a backlog of 22.5 million unprocessed paper returns. And when you think about the scope of that 22 and a half million paper returns that all require manual processing, that just sounds like a nightmare to me. I suppose it's the way that it's been done for a very long time, uh, as they've kind of stepped further and further into this digitization, uh, this digital realm that they're, that they're trying to move even further into.

(39:51)
But my goodness, having that much of a backlog, so this would actually convert, um, to digital form all of that, uh, it's being, as it's being received by the I r s going forward. So the idea would be that starting in 2025, any any paper, uh, filings that do come in, which, you know, they're never gonna totally and completely get rid of the ability to file on paper. Uh, 'cause not every, you know, maybe not everybody has the ability to file digitally, but as they come in, instead of those kind of piling up and, um, you know, taking, creating a further backlog, the idea is that the system will be nailed down in such, in a way that in 2025, as those things come in, it's part of the process to digitize them on the way in. And so it converts everything to digital eventually.

(40:42)
Um, so paper, you know, filings don't stay in the, in the, uh, non-digital realm, they get converted, uh, makes it easier and more appealing to do it digitally from the onset as well, just kind of makes things faster or so they hope <laugh> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But like, but like I said, filing paper, um, will always be offered for those who can't submit that digitally. Um, the i r s is pledging to digitally process all paper submissions and the correspondence as well. So that hopefully brings everybody, whether they're filing by paper or filing digitally into that digital realm. Um, and it actually has a cost savings <inaudible>. Um, they would also be digitizing up to 1 billion of these historical documents that they've had stored, um, to give access to that data to taxpayers that would have an even bigger tax or a bigger savings for the i r s in storage costs around which they pay around $40 million annually just to just to store all that historical documentation. So that would be moving into, oh,

Mikah Sargent (41:44):
Because they're doing it physically and real estate is expensive. Got it. Yes,

Jason Howell (41:48):
Absolutely. They have to have the space right to, to store this and to reference it and all that kind of stuff. So digitization of all this stuff just, uh, improves the efficiency and the cost on everything. So I guess the more the, hopefully the moral of the story is in the coming years, this might actually lead to faster turnarounds. I know, you know, a lot in the last couple of years, you file your taxes, you're waiting to get your turnaround, you know, to get your refund or whatever. Sometimes it can take a long time for that turnaround to happen. Um, this would hopefully speed things up.

Mikah Sargent (42:21):
So, you

Jason Howell (42:22):
Know, I'm, for the I r s getting more into the, you know, encouraging more of that digital, um, the digital aspect of, of filing. And

Mikah Sargent (42:31):
I think especially if that means that thing is,

Jason Howell (42:32):
That I think it's over, it's overdue is is I think the point.

Mikah Sargent (42:36):
Yeah. And, and especially if it means that the companies who are spending so much money to lobby our, um, lawmakers to keep the tax code so complicated so that you buy their software, um, yeah, I'm talking about Tax Slayer and, uh, TurboTax and H r Block and all of those companies. Um, if it means that more people are able to just file their taxes directly with the I R S and not have to worry about it, then, um, you then, then yeah, that's good. Um, but I, this is kind of wild to me because, uh, I don't know that I know anyone who has any level of affinity for the I r no, no, no. That has any level of affinity for the I r s. And so one would think it's kind of difficult to pass through legislation that gives so much money to an organization that is so like, so fundamentally disliked <laugh>, and, um, so it's kind of wild they were able, uh, and in the beginning, what was it? It was like, um, 80 billion and then it, or maybe was it 80? And then it got, got, it was,

Jason Howell (43:50):
Was 80 billion got cut back to 60. So,

Mikah Sargent (43:52):
Yeah. Um, so I'm not surprised that, uh, or I mean, I am rather, I am surprised, sorry, I'm reading the chat at the same time, I am surprised that they were able to push that through, uh, because ultimately it does lead to a better thing for everybody. But yeah, it's one of those things where you're going, yeah, but do we really wanna give this organization, uh, money that when if we don't like this organization in the first place? Yeah.

Jason Howell (44:19):
Uh, it's kind of like when it's kinda like when you buy a house and the work that needs to be done is work that isn't seen, it's not cosmetic,

Mikah Sargent (44:27):
It's like Right. You know,

Jason Howell (44:28):
Underneath and it's like, well, it's necessary and it's expensive, but it's no fun. <laugh>.

Mikah Sargent (44:34):
Yeah, exactly. You

Jason Howell (44:36):
Don't feel like you get any immediate, you know, uh, gain out of it. I suppose in this case though, if it really does speed things up, if it really, if the, if the, uh, further movement into the digital realm for I r s and taxes and all that does make the process suck a little less and mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, go move a little bit faster and stuff. I goes, I guess, you know, for something that people don't necessarily enjoy, that's at least a little bit of a, of positive out of it. And yeah,

Mikah Sargent (45:07):
And the headline of this was Suppo. The reason why they said they were giving the i r s so much money was to go after high income folks who aren't paying their taxes. Like, that was the big, the reason why we're giving them so much money is we're trying to hire more people to do more analysis to make sure that everybody's paying their fair share share, um, share it instead of what, you know, I guess it's current state where it's kind of nickel and dimming, uh, folks who are not high income earners and, uh, yeah, just disregarding the high income earners. So if it's also actually truly being used for that to make sure that, uh, high income earners are paying their fair share, great. I'd love to see that. Um, do I believe that that's what's going to happen? No. Um, do I think that it will just result in, uh, people who are struggling to make a living doing jobs like, uh, you know, hair cutting and things like that where they use, uh, the quick payment platforms to, uh, be able to, uh, you know, receive money for the work that they're doing, and those forms are going to end up having to be reported to the I R s, which is going to result in those folks being taxed even more money.

(46:22)
Yeah. That's what I think is going to end up happening. Um, unfortunately, so yeah, I'm not, I'm not, uh, bullish about this at all, as you can tell. Um, but yeah, at least, uh, the i r s is getting to save more money by not having buildings where they're storing a files

Jason Howell (46:41):
And scene. There we go, <laugh>. Alright

Mikah Sargent (46:46):
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(49:42)
That's bit warden.com/twit. And of course, we thank Bit Warden for their support of this episode of Tech News Weekly. Alright, back from the break and I'm gonna a quick, uh, story. Uh, you know, we think about the generative AI being in the news a lot lately, uh, as this sort of chat bot system, the personalized ai, um, the AI that is, uh, going to help you tell stories or write email or, uh, do all of these, you know, different things. But what, uh, I think sometimes is, is glossed over or is forgotten, is that AI can be very good at taking vast amounts of data and finding little, uh, trends in that data or taking, um, you know, vast amounts of photos and being able to, uh, be trained to understand certain aspects of the photo. So something as simple as feeding an AI a photo and then having it tell you if there is a hotdog in the photo, that is a silly use of it, but it can be taken to a, to the next level where you, uh, feed it in images of skin and then you show skin that has, uh, melanoma and then it starts to understand the difference between a mole or a melanoma.

(51:11)
And then you suddenly have a system on your phone that can help determine if you should go to see, uh, a doctor about, you know, the latest, uh, uh, pigmented area to show up on your skin. Well, another place where this is, uh, popping up or cropping up is, uh, in with nasa, uh, I B M and NASA have teamed up to create a means of studying and understanding, uh, climate, uh, to look at, uh, to track deforestation, to predict crop yields and to rack greenhouse gas and to track, excuse me, greenhouse gas emissions. Um, which all are of course incredibly important and all are of course incredibly difficult and, uh, unwieldy to be able to track, uh, or predict in the case of crop yields. Um, there was a study done in, I can't remember what year it was. It's been a few, uh, several years ago now, but actually, let me look it up.

(52:16)
Um, there are, uh, there's a study done, whoops, uh, by researchers in the, um, here we go. Sorry, I know this is, okay. So in nature, in 2015, in September of 2015, um, researchers did a study trying to figure out tree density, uh, on the earth. And they estimated that the number of trees on Earth is 3.04 trillion trees, 3.04 trillion trees on the earth, which means that there are more, and this is going to, I think, blow some people's minds. It blew mine. And I like even after reading it and understanding it, I still didn't believe it. There are more trees on earth than there are stars in our galaxy, more trees on this single planet than there are stars in our galaxy. We understand the number of stars in our galaxy to be, um, around 400 billion at the most. And again, there are 3.04 trillion trees on earth.

(53:30)
So if you can imagine that tracking deforestation is not an easy thing when you have so many doggone trees on a planet. Uh, and by taking this data and, um, working with I B M, which released its, uh, Watson x.ai, I, I imagine they pronounce it Watson X ai, um, they were able to, uh, kind of train those sets of data and help to label, uh, flood areas, burn scar areas, and use that for its predictive model. Um, what's cool is that hugging face, uh, which is kind of the open source system for showing, uh, different AI models and, and, and, uh, systems, I guess, uh, it, it it's a platform rather that shows AI models and systems and stores them. Um, hugging Face has this, uh, model and so you can actually check it out and make use of it if you want to. Um, but yeah, this is all being made available, um, and is something where we are hear, we're hearing about two companies that kind of aren't at the forefront of the latest coverage, right? Because we've seen OpenAI get a lot of coverage and some of the other companies Meta of course, and, uh, Microsoft, which is kind of OpenAI in the background, but to hear about I b m going, Hey, don't forget about us. We're still here. Uh, and then working with NASA to build what is kind of like nasa, G P T is pretty cool.

Jason Howell (55:03):
I love that. I love these kinds of applications for ai. 'cause you're right, it is easy to always fall into the generative AI trap. Like, oh, check out, check it out. It can make, uh, something that, you know, that sounds like something else or looks like something else. Or we can, you know, like train <laugh> Ron said, don't do that. Uh, or we can, here, I'll just bring him up here. He could be part of the show. Or we can just train an AI to recognize things that are very, very complicated for the human eye to recognize in things that are incredibly important on like a world scale. You know, there's, there was a news story just this week about how ai, uh, trained in medical, um, uses, you know, was able to detect like, um, on, uh, mammograms, the existence of breast cancer, um, at, at least according to one report, uh, 20% higher, uh, likelihood of, of detecting these things. Those seem like ways where AI like, like that just seems like the perfect fit for these things. You do come, you know, through the other side though, and go, okay, but we know about, you know, the, what people, some people call the hallucinations aspect mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And you've gotta still be darn sure that what you're getting is 100% accurate, and that requires human fact checking.

Mikah Sargent (56:24):
But I love this.

Jason Howell (56:25):
I think this is fantastic, a fantastic use of this

Mikah Sargent (56:28):
Technology. Love it. Yeah, I agree. Um, I want to see more of this, you know, we're seeing, uh, AI being used in medical research to, uh, look at the folds of proteins and, uh, perhaps suggest new types of proteins that can be used in medicines. Um, and, you know, from the democratization of some of the more simple aspects. Um, like I, the one time, uh, not too long ago, I was, uh, I, okay, so it's kind of an involved story, but essentially, um, due to my, uh, like metabolism not, uh, properly making use of, uh, carbohydrates, um, I had read and learned about how you can kind of temporarily go onto a ketogenic diet, and in doing so, it sort of resets your metabolism and makes it so that whenever you're back, uh, to a more standard American diet, that those carbohydrates will be processed better.

(57:34)
Um, so I went on the ketogenic diet and for some reason, uh, it's very rare for people not of, um, of, of Indian descent, and I mean from India, um, to have this happen, I got what was called keto rash. And it's, it has to do with, uh, your body's like reaction to ketones, which of course is what is at the heart of keto, uh, of the ketogenic diet. And it basically produces this, um, like three stage rash on you. Um, that, uh, has like a period of horrible, horrible itching. I mean, it's just, it's, it's a nightmare and it's like all over your neck and everything. So, um, I reached out to my doctor about it, um, went in and, uh, you know, sent photos and whatnot, and my doctor, um, misinterpreted, I guess what I was saying and what she saw and thought that I had, um, uh, what's the thing where you, you had, uh, chickenpox early in life and then it stays in your nervous system for a while, and then you get older and it's, um, what?

(58:42)
Sad. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about, right? It's on the tip of my tongue. Yes. But I can't remember. Yeah. I wish I could remember. My great grandma had shingles, shingles was huge at room, had shingles. Yes. I should've known that, right? Sh right away. Yes. It's not fun. Yeah. So sh shingles almost always only presents on one side of your body. It's either on the left side or the right side. Uh, it's typically not mirrored. And she didn't realize that mine was mirrored or that it was appearing on both sides. And so she thought I had shingles. Um, and so she started to, you know, treat for that. Well, I was pretty sure I didn't have shingles because I knew about the left side versus the right side. So I started to do my own research and I ended up having to dig into medical, um, uh, like research papers and found this thing, um, that is I, and, um, the name escapes me, but essentially it is keto rash.

(59:37)
Um, and it, uh, the only way to treat it was through an antibiotic, which is kind of weird because typically an antibiotic, um, is not something that you would use for an allergic reaction, right? She had given me steroids for it. Um, but I had to not only, um, figure that out, say, Hey, look, it's not appearing on both sides of my body. It's appearing on one. But then also link to these different peer-reviewed journals that had these articles about keto rash and everything else, and, uh, send that information off to her. She was still not certain. And of course, doctors like, they don't like to give, uh, antibiotics because it's, you know, it, people take them when they shouldn't and then it leads to superbugs, right? So totally understand. But she sent it off to the dermatologist who was immediately like, yeah, he absolutely has keto rash.

(01:00:24)
Give him the antibiotics. She did. And within a week it was cleared up That me, me just talking about it right there took forever to do. You can only imagine how much longer it took from the start to the end and all of the work that I had to do to sort of advocate for myself to make that happen. And so all of that's to say, it would've been cool if I could have taken some photos with, uh, you know, my phone or whatever, and then uploaded it. And it could even be a system that the, the, you know, they use on their side, but they have the massive amounts of data, including access to those journals where they're seeing, um, that exact kind of pattern appearing on the body. Plus I'm talking about my symptoms that AI can put all of those together and go, oh, this guy has Perrigo pigmentosa, thank you scx. Um, and then I would've been able to be, you know, uh, helped with that earlier on. So yeah, any of these kinds of uses of AI where they're taking these gigantic sums and masses of data and looking for patterns across all of them, I, uh, and we will continue to celebrate this and cheer this on and, uh, hope that we see more and more of this.

Jason Howell (01:01:35):
Yeah, I think it's gonna continue to be, um, more and more kind of the biggest, some of the biggest breakthroughs will be in exactly what you're talking about, where we go, okay, this is legit. If you haven't already felt like it was legit, now it is. 'cause check out what it's doing in the, the medical field or the environment. You know, being able to scan for certain things that just for humans is a lot more complicated, takes a lot more time, and that can be incredibly useful.

Mikah Sargent (01:02:00):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,

Jason Howell (01:02:01):
That's interesting. That's that. Well, we've reached the end, all three of us. Um, I don't know what Brons is chewing on right now, but he's chewing on something. I can hear it. Tech News Weekly Pro publishes every Thursday at twit tv slash tnw. That's where you can go to subscribe, uh, to the show in audio and video formats. Just subscribe. You'll get the download automatically. That's kind of why we do it that way. It makes it easier for you. So twit tv slash tnw,

Mikah Sargent (01:02:28):
If you would like to get all of our shows ad free, by the way, you should check out Club Twit because for $7 a month or $84 a year, you out there can join the club. When you do, you get every single show with no ads, it's all of the content, none of the ads. Uh, you get access to the Twit plus bonus feed that has extra content you won't find anywhere else behind the scenes before the show, after the show, uh, as well as Special Club TTT events that get published there and you get access to the Club twit Discord, a fun place to go to chat with your fellow club TWIT members and also those of us here at twit. It is always busy and fun and, uh, popping in the club, as I like to say. Uh, lots of different, you know, conversations and different, uh, topics of conversation.

(01:03:12)
So anything you want to nerd out or geek out about, you can right there in the club again, starts at $7 a month, not because it's a tiered system, but because some folks said, Hey, we'd like to give you some more money. Uh, so you can choose to pay more than $7 a month if you'd like. But hey, even that $7 a month is incredibly helpful and we appreciate every single one of you, uh, who not only join the club, but tell others about the Club twit tv slash club twit. And folks, we continue to add great shows that are Club Twit exclusives. So you really do wanna hop on and join the club. You can, uh, check out the Untitled Linux show, which is, as you might imagine, a show all about Linux. There's also Hands on Windows, which is a short format show from Paul Thoro that covers Windows tips and tricks.

(01:03:55)
There's Hands on Mac, which is my short format show that covers, uh, apple tips and tricks. I have my, uh, part two episode coming out today for the new features in Mac OSS Sonoma. Shout out to Sonoma. Um, that is launching soon, probably in October. Uh, by that I mean the software, the video is coming out today. Uh, and also Home Theater Geeks from Scott Wilkinson has, uh, relaunched in the club. So you can check that out there too. And there will soon be a show from Jason Howell covering artificial intelligence. We were just talking about that. Uh, so you really gotta join the club, gotta check it out. Um, and in the meantime, of course, you can also hang out with Jason in the club. Um, most weeks. He's, uh, kind of doing a little bit of, uh, chat live and, and video in the club, uh, leading up to the introduction of the show.

(01:04:48)
So if you want to kind of help get your ideas and thoughts in there, uh, that's a good time to do so. I'll let Jason talk about it more if he wants to. But, uh, if you wanna follow me online, I am at Micah Sargent on many a social media network. Or you can add to chihuahua.coffee, c h i h u a h u a coffee where I've got links to the places I'm most active on online. Uh, check out now, hands on Mac later today. If you're a member of the club on Sundays, you can watch, ask the Tech guys with Legal Report and me where we cover, um, all sorts of

Jason Howell (01:05:16):
Questions that you call in or email in or video in or voicemail in to ask. And while we do our best to answer, answer them on that show. And then on Tuesdays, you can watch iOS today with Rosemary Orchard and yours truly, uh, where we cover all things, uh, Apple's, various, uh, operating systems. Jason Howell, what about you at Jason Howell on Twitter, tweet social slash at Jason Howell, um, on Mastodon It, just look for me and insert your social media, uh, of choice here. And you'll find me there probably some in some way, shape or form. Yes, I am doing the AI show right now. We're tentatively calling it just because we don't have a, an official title for it. The Untitled AI Show. I don't think that's gonna be the official title, but I do know that the work has been done to pull it out into its own feed within the club.

(01:06:08)
So if you're a Clip TWI member, you'll be able to actually subscribe to the feed, even though the show isn't officially launched. This will give it a home for all of these tests that I'm doing. And, uh, by the way, I've got another one happening today here in about an hour and a little more than an hour. 1:15 PM Pacific, uh, today, Thursday, August 3rd. So if you remember the Club, either check it out, live with me then, or, uh, we will share some information on how to subscribe. I don't actually have that information yet, but I will once I do. Big thanks to everybody at the studio for helping us do this show each and every week. Couldn't do it without you. Also couldn't do it without you at home or commuting or wherever you are watching and listening. Thank you so much for, uh, watching and listening. We appreciate it. We'll see you next time on Tech News Weekly. Bye everybody. Bye-bye.

Jonathan Bennett (01:06:56):
Hey, we should talk Linux. It's the operating system that runs the internet, watch of game consoles, cell phones, and maybe even the machine on your desk. But you already knew all that. What you may not know is that Twit now is a show dedicated to it, the Untitled Linux Show. Whether you're a Linux Pro, a burgeoning SISs man, or just curious what the big deal is, you should join us on The Club Twit Discord every Saturday afternoon for news analysis and tips to sharpen your Linux skills. And then make sure you subscribe to the Club twit exclusive Untitled Linux Show. Wait, you're not a Club Twit member yet? We'll go to twit tv slash club twit and sign up. Hope to see you there.