Popzara Interview, Facebook Followup, Uber Settlement, Chromebooks By Computer America

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Listening to computer America, the computer America show we are the nation's longest-running nationally syndicated radio talk show on computers and technology. Thank you for joining us. I'm, your host, Ben, Cross man and I. Hope of you well I hope you're having a wonderful day better than we are here at the studio and yeah I'll, just say that welcome into the program I'm your host Ben, Cross man and yeah, we have a great show planned for you today with a regular correspondent, and that is of course, pops. Our magazine, you can find them at Father's are calm and Nathan Evans.

So this is going to be a lot of fun as we have a ton of topics and a number of them that are, you know relatively. You know, still big, and we haven't really touched on, and that includes things like hashtag, delete Facebook and, and so many others, but yeah before we get into that. A couple of things, including the social media contest, brought to my Logitech that can be found at computer, America comm and also be sure to check out the live video stream brought to you by O WC. So with that being said, why don't we go ahead and just bring on Nathan, and we'll get started with today's topics because, as usual I don't think we're going to get to all of them, but once again pops our magazine, your collection of gaming movies, politics, technology reviews, things like that, all in one convenient place, Nathan how you're doing know what Ben I've been a've been better. So the reason I'm so upset is that I did something really stupid, so I for those who don't know.

This is the first time I've been on the show, since we've interfaced in person right, right, face, face to face to face I actually met this guy and I actually met Craig, and they took me to this crazy pizza shop. That was a combination of psychedelics and pepperoni, and it turned out to be pretty good, especially when they picked up the check, and we had a lot of fun. We had a talk, and I was so inspired by something Ben told me about cell phones. That I did something silly I went out and I switched sides. Ben I gave up by doing the rebellion.

You know. I now have a cell phone now have a smartphone I do have a smartphone I actually have a phone that doesn't flip you, you touch it. You fondle it I actually now have an iPhone therein, and you know just, just real quick I mean if you want to walk us through the know, I will never camp ? and why don't? We just go off the deep end and get an iPhone like. Why am I on, and not one of these other Android phones? Well, I will tell you exactly why it's actually good thing. So it's for today is Good, Friday, correct, yep, so there's a very religious connotation to what I'm going to tell you sort of how I've come to Jesus with the iPhone so or should I, say Jesus came to me so part of it was the fact that the during the trip we've talked about.

This I used a Mini, a portable hotspot' to do my own podcast and to communicate, and I ended up having an iPod, Touch I ended up having the may I had a laptop and I ended up end using a friend's phone as a hotspot, because the Mini thing wouldn't work at the time and I said to myself. Why am I carrying around three things? So it turns out that I won't say that I won't say it, because I want to get them free advertising on your show. If you want the advertising call Ben. Okay, let's just say it's a very inexpensive, no contract national chain that you probably shopped at many times. Maybe even today, but anyway, so I got the phone.

I have the iPhone SE now, for me, that's a big deal because it's the cheapest iPhone I have to be cheap I'm. Not getting this Evan I'm, not getting the 8 of the X, so I got the iPhone SE and part of the reason I did this. Ben is because, with the service I have I can turn into a hotspot, as I was taught King to you about before the the show started. By the way have you been? What did somebody drug your coffee? That's the funkiest music you've ever had on the show. I love, funk, I mean bad I love to I, just like I, don't I was ready to get dance, been I almost danced it's a personal preference and funk I feel like computer America needs more of it, but no good music.

It was much better than the elevator porn music before, but so, but going back to it, though so now I have an iPhone. It's working pretty! Well, although, as expected, people are calling me when they shouldn't have their facetiming skyping. Even you, when you try to call me for this program, you came in on like five different channels on it, because I have so many apps connected, and so I need to learn airplane mode, but generally speaking, I'm happier with it. Because, let me here's a little caveat. Why I did this, so I got my bill from my landline now, for those of you don't know, I'm a VoIP guy I'm, a Voyage person I've been a varnish person for 13 years, I, don't like luggage, because it's its there.

It doesn't harm me, there's no fanciness to it. It's cheap. Furthermore, it does its job like an alarm clock and my bills were getting steadily higher when I first joined voyage. My bill was about 15 bucks a month with about a dollar in taxes. They lowered the price of the service, but the taxes working through the roof and a lot of it has to do with VoIP being over regulated through local sales tax, local phone tax.

So my service ended up being about sick I paid $10 a month for the service. I ended up paying another 13 dollars in taxes, it's ridiculous, so it turns out it's actually more affordable for me to have a cell phone right now that a landline and that appeals to my cheapness and that also appeals to my tech saltiness, because now I can do a lot more than I could before for about the same amount of money. So it is evens out it's you know and that's the way of technology, because you mentioned voice of RP. We had you know when, when things like Voyage and magic Jack things like that, they were regularly guest here on the show when it first opened and yes yeah. You know we were just trying to get the word out that hey.

There is now an alternative, and you know I think it's kind of come I, don't say full circle, because it's its a straight line. It's just an evolution that now hey even data is pretty darn cheap on carriers, and it's only going to get cheaper. So you know I, guess my tipping point by the way. Thank you for reminding me. That's actually how we met to avoid, because one of your guests it turns out was one of my mutual get PR people they put us together.

It was Nelson, ya, know yeah, and he worked for a company called net phone or net to phone or something I, don't think they exist anymore, but he was a nice guy, and he's the one who brought computer American pop star together through the power of void, see ya. It seemed like so long ago, but but but no, it makes perfect sense. So you did your road trip, you, you know you. You came out with some kind of weird. What do you call it? It was like a pilgrimage or like a or like a spirit journey that you came out with an iPhone, that's uh.

You know if if I was Amish it'd be my Rumoring right, whichever way you get there, but now you are, you are part of the smartphone, and you know yeah like I, say that's kind of weird and considering the timing and a lot of the stories that were probably going to cover today, one of them being, of course, with Facebook we've touched on it. Lately we've tried to explain those relationships. This story just keeps getting worse for them that it absolutely does, but if you know a lot of this, the data that they collect, and you know that's really at the heart of it- that people are upset about how much data, how is being used, blah blah blah. It is enabled by cell phones, cell phone I'm, so smart, yes, so now yeah I'd well, I'll tell you this, though I think I'm actually better prepared. Now, because a lot of this crap, no offense people like you and the rest of the world and every everybody under the age of 12, who has a cell phone, has been sort of my canary in the mines, because I've seen, everybody else make mistakes, and I'm taking notes I'm sitting here, going, don't do this? Don't do that? Don't do this, don't do that.

You know when you're driving across the country, by the way. Thank you me when you're in the backseat of a car, with a very good driver by the way, Our Mutual Friend Herman sitting in the backseat of a car, with a MacBook with a WiFi adapter, with headphones, recording a podcast going 90 down a down an interstate shooting Coca. Yes, that earns you a little of credit in being able to comment on this stuff and I saw people going faster than us talking on their cell phones playing games like that's the part when you're going about 90 and other people are speeding past you on cellphones, that's when you're only doing better by comparison, you're, still reckless you're, still horrible you're still accidental, you know, cause it prone to accidents, but they're worse than you, so you feel better about yourself and that's yeah, so it's yeah, but you should be. You know better than worse the lowest common denominator, though you should really strive to be a safe and cautious driver. You know not, unlike Uber self-driving cars.

Oh, look at this look at how we just did that so smugly they yeah I'll. Tell you this, though. If Uber had driven me across the country, I probably wouldn't have made it because Herman as my not chauffeur, but he was helping me drive. We were in Washington DC. We were in parts of North Carolina.

Furthermore, we were in Georgia every dumb. You know what was jumping out of the forests running across the street, especially in DC. Were it's so populated, so populated, with travelers, with backpacks and Birkenstock they're, just jumping in front of cars? Hey look at me: I'm, protected by the law, no you're, not you're, protected by the law, but you're not protected by from physics, yeah yeah. You know a couple broken bones. You know you, may you know I kind of have a legal case but a physical case, and that's so much, but now, and you know actually why don't we get started with the whole Uber thing because yeah I, you know, unfortunately, before this like a week before this happened, I remember, reporting on Uber and there I kind of did like a self-driving car technology roundup, where I kind of went through company by company their latest news.

Where are they all at in development and I? Remember a week before this unfortunate accident I mentioned that Uber is in last place because every time I think of them I think of the Uber SUV on its back like a turtle- and you know they- you know it just either they're getting in a more accident than the other ones. They have funding or partnerships that back out at the last minute. They seem to have hiccup after hiccup and then the accident happens. So I was, you know, I feel like I was unfortunately vindicated there, but so for everyone out there who doesn't know this. May national news that Uber hits and fatally struck a woman who was trying to cross the street.

She had a bike and, of course everyone kept on saying. Is this the first? You know real case of a self-driving car killing a person, because you know there have been other cases, but this is one where you know struck appetite struck a pedestrian, yes to be fair, I, think the woman was homeless. Correct did the victims homeless, don't think so. I know she was heading somewhere. I didn't hear anything about.

There 's's a lot of shadiness here and, let me say: I'm not so much interested in the story about users car because can I full disclosure sure these things. These things happen, the technologies new, it's going to happen, and we've talked about this before. In fact, you could probably find the show where I said this people are going to die in this technology. It's going to happen because that's what happens in every technology? That's what happened when they sent planes in the sky. It's what happens when they send someone to the moon.

It's what's going to happen when they, when Elon Musk said if you, if you take my rocket ship to Mars, you're, probably not going to survive like this- is what happens with the adoption of technology. There's an overlap in the two competing forces. One success, two mortality, so at some point, there's going to be those people who give their lives to die so why we have animal testing for the most part, because we want to minimize the tragedy by having bozo the chimp. Instead of you know, bozo the hobo go inside the self-driving car. Here's.

The problem, though it's gonna, happen, I, think. For the most part, the technology has been mostly safe, but let me let me explain what my real beef with this whole thing is, and we'll get to the accident. First, you're right, it seems to a lot of the information, seems to Center on uber. We've discussed why this is probably the case. The tech industry has decided to piggyback on Uber, for whatever reason yes, they've done things that are bad, but it does not merit the sort of not schadenfreude, but it doesn't merit the sort of childish nitpicking on the company.

The way the tech industry is the tech industry, press, the RS Toucans the end gadgets, the verges they're all pretty much owned by different conglomerates of investment capital and a lot of those companies have parented our parent companies that invest in computing technologies like way mo like Google Apple, maybe getting into the game and most specifically Lyft. So if you're, a parent company is a sponsor of Lyft, then you're. You know, of course, you're going to accentuate the faults of a competitor and Uber adjust has awful representation. They do a terrible job at defending themselves, they're also the leading company that does this stuff and because they have more self autonomous cars, and they have more drivers out there. They collect the most data and because that's and by the way, let's talk about statistics.

So when people say planes are statistically safer than cars, of course, they are because there's about 500,000 times more cars than there are planes when people say Oh, autonomous cars don't get in crashes, that's because there's every for every one autonomous car there's about fourteen million human driven cars. So we have so when, when you have this particular accident, where this, by the way there was a driver behind the wheel, let's be clear here, there was a driver behind the wheel that was supposed to inoculate this from happening. There's the problem there's a problem for two reasons. Let me tell you the real reason. Let me tell you the controversial one.

The first reason is that there are companies, I, believe it's Volkswagen that is trying to petition the state of California to allow them to exempt them from having steering, wheels and brakes first, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. Even if they're, just even if they're, just sort of peripheral you don't even let's say they could be made out of plastic- have them there. Please. No technology is perfect, so your car has brakes right. Your car has brakes I, assume yeah, oh yeah, no, it's uh! It I! Think a sensor breaks yeah! Yes, when you still have you still have an emergency break right, so why is it called an emergency break because of emergencies and Hills by the way drifting III use it for drifting III, don't know what everyone else uses theirs for, but you guys guess us yeah good Oh.

Someone said that uh, the Grand Tour is being canceled but anyway moving forward, so the driver behind the car should not have been behind the car, and let me explain why now a lot of people I'm not going to get into the muck. The person was a transgender person and the only reason I bring that up is because the person before they transition from a man to a woman was a convicted felon with road rage incidents. This person by the rules of Uber should not have been driving should not have been behind. This wheel should not now I'm not trying to put any necessary blame on this person, but this is the sort of statistics that gets hidden. When we talk about self-driving cars, Oh will blame the driver.

Will blame this. I have a feeling had this person not been a transgender person, then Uber would solely be putting the blame. Oh I, don't understand how this person got behind the wheel. We can't do this. We can't do this.

Furthermore, we can't do this I believe that's the case and I believe. There's big leap, leap. Let me I have proof. I have proof I'm, not a conspiracy theorist. Every time something happens with an Uber driver when you have a sexual assault.

When you have a kidnapping, when you have what you have a beating, and we've covered this before, they always bring up the criminal history of the driver, this person has multiple felonies. This person should not have been behind the wheel of this car. I am wondering because of the changed designation of the person's gender. If maybe, who burrs users background system was unable to detect this person had a previous history with felonious assault and bad driving. If that's the case, then, if we're going to put up statistics saying that all these things are caused by drivers or the self autonomous cars are driving, I think we need data that says maybe putting a reckless driver behind a testing vehicle is not the best way to collect data.

Maybe we need someone who hasn't committed felonies. Maybe we have needs someone who hasn't had their license revoked, so it skews the data, been excuse, the data, and, if we're not going to be upfront about it, then I'm by the way I'm not trying to imply that the transgenderism has anything to do with the person driving or not. But it does. It does bring up the fact that there's a changed identity and this person's previous identity would have never passed. The background search would have happened, yeah and- and you know, I'm just trying to be because I've heard a different one didn't hear anything, but that, but the qualifier that I had heard was that people were looking at the stretch of road where it was and the lighting, and essentially you know what people experienced firsthand after going to the scene is not what was representative in the video.

And you know there were some data points, but they were it. It really muddled the whole thing up for me because, oh the whole exactly the whole, the whole thing was just in genuine way. It was reported. Iii really did feel like, though, that this shouldn't have happened because, regardless of the driver, regardless of how they drove or anything like that, I feel like these shows. You know not just a flaw in Huber's background checks or a flaw in any kind of you know, person taking control with the wheel.

If anything, this whole incident- and you know, according to the article that you linked I, think they avoided a lawsuit. But you know because they settled out of court, but yes, I, think that very, very fit by the way, almost record settlement right, oh like less than a week. Well. Well, you know, and I think that has to do with a lot because soft traffic technology, it's a new technology, and they have a lot of money invested into it, and they don't want this. One accident wasting hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, of dollars on the part of Uber or its partners anyways.

But the thing that's you know, the thing that I want to bring up was that, this more than anything more than background check more than the person behind the wheel. More than you know, any kind of flaw of you know the pedestrian is that this shows a flaw in Uber technology, because LIDAR was the first technology used by Google and you know they're, you know they're pioneering self-driving car program, and it seems like Uber, took the cheap way out because each one of those cars I think last summer her cost like 250,000 dollars for the sensors to hook up wait, not lame. Oh I'm, sorry Uber is looking to get cars on the road, get data, get testing, get real-world driving experience, and they opted out of LIDAR. You know, or at least as many LIDAR sensors, they went with cameras, they went with motion tracking. They went with AI things like that, but you, by the way, all of those all of those features, can be very easily tricked with simple things like they're, not perfect, and yet in fact, that's why I like LIDAR is because it's much more sophisticated, much more accurate, but it is more expensive, and I feel like that's the big takeaway from me from this whole incident was Uber, just isn't up to par when it comes to collecting data about their draw about their driving and when it comes to the Uber car, not having LIDAR, they did, but only in certain directions like instead of like a full 360.

It only had yeah. It only had like fronts and behind it didn't have anything off to the sides or anything like that, so it didn't sense. The pedestrian you know like a Google car would have been able to send someone in the median and would have you know, kind of slow down or erred or would have said you know this person is heading to walk into the road. Uber didn't have that technology available, get to it. I have a question, so I'm not educated enough on the intro, the intricacies of all the self-driving cars, I'm, learning and learning.

So have you seen the movie Sulla from honey solely about Tom Hanks and does a plane, but no I haven't seen it, but yeah. The the centerpiece of the movie is that he, the insurance company, does not believe that they should be responsible for the crash that silly help you know could help to avoid becoming much worse right because they think that Sulla was human, was responsible for human error and so as I believe it ought. The movie doesn't show this, but it's a big court battle and there's a big centerpiece at the end where the insurance company tries to replicate, and they have hundreds of hours of pilots going through virtualization the simulations and none of them are able to do what Sony did so Sully comes in, and he talks about the human touch and talks about house. Every computer will fail at some point, and therefore you need to have someone a steady hand and once they're able to add these new triangulation to the software. Sully's story gets proven, and so the idea that we're having is with the self-driving cars is that they're supposed to be autonomous, almost I, don't want to say machine learning, but they're supposed to be able to take variables from the environment and sort of direct the automobile to avoid swerve.

Stop-go that sort of thing right, so the idea that a person could come out of the woods by the way. If I said this person was homeless, I apologize, I'm, not 100%, sure there's been more than one case in the last week, so nothing's perfect and the problem I have with Silicon Valley is that they have a Silicon Valley, the proprietors they tend to be of a certain age. They tend to be of a certain age where they think that software is perfect, and we've talked about this at length on this show that no software is perfect, and would you put your mother in one of these cars? Would you put your family member in one of these cars and my answer would probably be not yet but nothing's perfect, and I've already seen that many companies, like Toyota, have already pulled out of the market there? If some states are having legislation to sort of ban these from the roads, that sort of Luddite reaction is terrible. I'm. Sorry this happened, but this is what happens.

Yeah, and I. Think at the beginning of all that you mentioned insurance companies solely blah, blah blah one thing, I'm kind of noticing about the whole idea of insurance. You know if if you're a autonomous car strikes a person, is it the company who made the car? Is it the company who developed the software? Is it is the perfect example? I have an example so Kansas, where I'm from there's a very big case about a water slide about a ten-year-old boy who went on the waterslide, and he went out looking up, he went down the waterslide, and he was decapitated and this is unprecedented I've. Never seen this happen, the person responsible for the waterslide was arrested and charged with manslaughter mm-hmm. You know so to me that sort of that sort of case might be a good precedent to say well who's responsible for this stuff.

Can you imagine the CEO or me all then well I mean that that's that's already being settled, though pretty much any company out there who's putting on self-driving cars? You know to kind of head off that argument that people seem to be having they all take it into their own hands. It's a know: its Tesla is taking it. You know if if they're, if they can prove that their software malfunctioned, they will pay all the insurance money. They'm not taking insurance money. I'm talking this guy was arrested, he was booked, he was brought into prison in handcuffs yeah.

Oh no, it's uh, I, but I mean like there's a difference between like negligence, which you know he was probably I, can't speak to that. But you know there's negligence and then there's just you know kind of whose, going to pay the bills, and things like that I think self-driving. Cars have a ways to go. What happened with Uber was unfortunate, I think you're. Absolutely right: it's a know: it's its one incident, and I'm sure.

If you took the data of you know that day's car accidents in the entire country- you know human driven cars, probably to the nth degree, cause much more damage. Destruction. Yes, okay, us, but this shouldn't happen so early like I feel like this is still the beta. This is not testing and it should be early. I'll, be honest, I'm surprised! This is the first like again, I want to be clear: I'm, not a conspiracy.

Guy I only bring up. The transgender per reason for a data point is the fact that the data itself becomes damaged when you no longer have clean data week, like I'm not going to hire a drunk driver to test myself autonomous car, you know, I'm, not going to hire a bad character to test my thing: I, don't want them to be a representative sample. I want clean data. I want data points that I could that can be reproduced. However, in the case of Tesla and I, don't want to bring up Tesla too much, because why pile on when the bad news is coming, but in the case of Tesla there was another, someone else died.

The Tesla car that last week as well. Did you see this last week, yeah I did not hear about that? Yes, Tesla driver died because and they're saying that the self-driving portion may have veered his car and to the side of the road they're saying that he had reported that his so is uh I. Don't what do you call it with Tessa what it takes over the driving for you, autopilot the autopilot was veering, and now the family thinks the Tesla might be responsible. I bring this up for the exact same reason. We've talked about this again before where Tesla was requiring drivers who owned their cars to sign NDA's, saying that they will not report damage, they will not report accidents to their insurance company or to the state that they happened in which, by the way, is totally illegal.

So, in order to get your Tesla car fixed, you have to sign away your rights to tell the story. Tesla was artificially degrading their accident record by enabling NDA's, which are non-disclosure agreements. So if you got into a Tesla car and your car exploded- and you walked away with it- like you know, like Arnold Schwarzenegger from a flame, then you're not allowed to tell anybody about it, you're not and that data it doesn't get registered with the state. So, therefore, we can't calculate the safety value. Tesla doesn't sound a beep, because you are signing away your right to legal.

You know retros, whatever it's reporting, it's reporting accidents need to be reported to the state, and every state has a different regulating body and the idea that a Tesla accident couldn't be reported in the same way. By the way, there is precedent for this. There is precedent. Most states also have what they call diversionary programs for non-fatal non-certain types of moving violations, for example, you hopefully you've never sped, you've, never drove drunk, but let's say you're speeding, and you get caught by a police officer, and he says okay, you've been speeding, you have to pay $120 ticket mm-hmm. Most municipalities will allow you to go in and pay double the amount in the ticket, so you paid 240, plus court costs and in return for this bribe, the state will not report this moving violation to your insurance company.

This is what happens so there. There are bribes built into the system already at a base level, but what I'm talking about is the data that Tesla gives you that our cars are so safe and this happens. The data cannot readily be believed if the data itself is not 100% self accurate, and so if now you have someone dying from a Tesla car by the way. In the same week, the Uber guy drive the uber death. So the focus right now is on the autonomy of these cars, the technology they're used and how much we're willing to trust them.

I'll be honest with you: it's like Samsung, Samsung, Galaxy phones. All over again, you had a phone that exploded. When the next one came out it sold even better people. Don't people are willing to risk a certain amount of safety if they've, if they feel that the trade-in for convenience is there I hope this does not derail the self-driving car thing. I think it's kind of cool, I'm kind of waiting for it to happen because again 90 miles at down the road someone goes 100 on a cell phone, no I'd, rather car, be driving them around, and you know I think we're gonna kind of leave that off there because right about in one second, the music is gonna, start playing for us a good break, real quick, and he, of course there we go.

We are, of course, going to come back, and we're going to switch off of the self-driving and the death and destruction, and we're gonna talk about the death and the destruction of Facebook and what they're dealing with. But now it's an it's going to be a whole thing because you are probably one of the know. One of the people I must want to hear about hashtag delete Facebook, so everyone stays tuned, more compute, America and more pop Zara. For after this Dish TV is better than cable TV. Why? Because you can save 45% on packages compared to your high-priced cable bill, Wow, take those giant scissors out and cut the cable and save with Dish TV.

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We are talking with Nathan Evans, pop Zara and yep, just getting off of all things: self shipping, cars and yeah, we're gonna, you know in your know, I, think you said this I can't agree more that it's a technology that is fast on its way and yeah. It's its, hopefully only going to improve, so there's that alright, so, but I wanted to get back and kick it back into talking about Facebook, because for this entire week and folks, if you listen to the computer, America shows on the regular we apologize this week has just been atrocious, with glitches behind the scenes, and you know thank you for tuning in today. Hey at least nobody died hey, they almost did trust me, but with and yes that was a threat. But with that being said, I will say that we haven't kind of gotten our teeth into what happened with Facebook Cambridge analytical would happen to everyone's reaction to the idea of you know, kind of what Facebook is going through, and I'm kind of surprised. That Facebook is the know.

One kind of facing the brunt of this backlash, so I kind of want your take on this Nathan, because I'm sure you have been watching this with the utmost interest, talk about a hashtag delete, Facebook and just what is happening here well, so I'm, not the biggest fan of Facebook, and so I. You know. If we're gonna talk about Facebook, we got to talk about three things. We have to talk about what Facebook was before what Facebook is now what Facebook says they're going to be, so I am on Facebook, Ben I think you are too mm-hmm, but I don't use Facebook I, don't like Facebook I, don't I, don't I, don't use Facebook for the same reason. I don't take heroin like because you'd enjoy it too much.

Folks, I don't do here much I would just I would just lose myself, and I was like wow. Where was this all my life? No but uh, but the fact of the matter is it's actually closer to World of Warcraft by the way but um, which is actually closer to Oxycontin, but I digress so moving forward. So anybody who is surprised that Facebook was scraping information. Anybody is surprised that Facebook was selling information or misusing information deserves to get what they've gotten. This has been a transparent company from day one from day one what they do with your information.

You have Mark Zuckerberg the lead. Oh, guy very famously said: hey quote: unquote. They just give me their information, dumb bleeps. This is a company that we have known since day. One has done this.

Here's the difference. I don't want to get into politics, but you asked me what happened. Why now? Well, of course, it's all politics, I call this the Kanye West effect. So let me explain the Kanye West effect, so care West before 2016 was kind of a known entity for saying stupid, outlandish things and ranting conspiracy theories and calling out everybody and, and everything and people loved him they put up. They would have him on the Jimmy Kimmel show he would have provisos.

Where that he could talk for 20 minutes without being under weight. Excuse me eight minutes without being interrupted. He would stop his shows in the middle of the show and give Reyes. He was a genius yeah, absolutely genius. So after the election of Donald Trump in 2016, Kanye meets Trump one day and says I, like the guy the very next day he's at a mental institution.

So what changed between the preceding 10 years and the one day? This is the thing about Facebook now this is where Facebook is today, so we're all talking about a company called Cambridge analytic, which of course purports to have scraped data from easily accessible data pools from Facebook. They keep saying the data was. What's the word breached, they said it was like illegally gathered because they are allowing people to well it. You take like a personality test. You know it tells you that you are a wonderful human being, and it gave permissions that this happened a lot.

Furthermore, you know this is something that we actually advocated on the show. Look at the permissions that you're giving before you hit. Ok and one of those permissions was really outlandish and really shouldn't have even been an option which is yes, you can search my friends profiles as well. That's where they kind of you know it is like. It was nothing yeah, and they did it by the way.

LinkedIn. Does this already like if you've, if you've ever joined him to LinkedIn you're gonna, you and your friends are going to get spam. All hell, I'm, not even in LinkedIn and I, will change maps between PR and just you know, people I meet on the show, and things like that, there's probably already enough data points that I'm a little I'm a little black dot in a web that is connected to me in any which direction yeah you are called part of. This is just the statistical cluster and network in network theory. There are clusters there are nodes and there's the wedding and unfortunately bend you're kind of the webbing, so you're a little dot in a very big sea of communications, as am I, so which is what Facebook is you know and yeah which, but Facebook is, and they've been transparently such and by the way, so that, so we get into Cambridge analytic, and we talk about permissions which, by the way, I don't believe anything that Cambridge NLO could do was inherently illegal.

I. Think what happens? Are you come across the idea that people discover that they've given too much permission they do? This we've talked about this with video games. Where people sign away, you won't sue us, you don't own the software, you rent it. No one reads the EU ELS. No one does this insurance work the same way.

No one reads the insurance. They just sign everything because they want to have the operation it works. On the same on the same thing now in 2012, Facebook came out: I think it was Sheryl Sandberg who was their CEO oh, and they would brag about how instructive Facebook's data pools were to helping with the election of Barack Obama, and it was celebrated that this is the future. It's so savvy. Look at this is so great.

We've used this data Facebook themselves. Members of Facebook's team have come out and said that they partnered with the certain entities of the Democratic National Committee to give out user data to help micro-target things. It was celebrated again so why now why Cambridge analytic? Oh, the Kanye West effect Hillary Clinton, has talked about Cambridge ed, oh gosh she's been on the front of this. By the way, no one listened to her, I can't believe I'm supporting Hillary, but no one's listening her when she talked about this company a year ago and people sort of poo pooed it. So the question is why now, why is it so controversial? Now I don't know the trigger I, don't know what was the final straw and why this became a big thing.

I think it's there's this one person who claims to have worked at Cambridge, analytic, oh and he, but he claims to also have quit in 2015, which was prior to any involvement with the Trump campaign versus I. Think what was that- and you know again just about timelines- is that like people are upset about this, but they're upset about something that happened between 2012 and 2014, which is when the data was collected. You know that's when the permissions were, you know going bonkers developers were allowed to set any permissions they wanted. They didn't have to justify anything, and you know by 2015 2016, that particular you know kind of hole or breach and security that they claim you know kind of. Let them collect.

This data had been patched like you know they Facebook and many other developers out there made you justify. Why do you need their contacts to provide this service and their so by 2015 2016? It happened stopped, but the data had already been compromised a couple of years prior. Well, the data like I said and there's no actual evidence. The data moved any needles any way or the other. This is the problem about this thing.

Is it again? I can't talk about this without getting into politics, but it ties into the sort of the hysteria the media has for trying to find Russian collusion and trying to find how Facebook helped generate fake news. How Twitter helped propagate fake news, how Snapchat propagated fake news- and you know penis pics, but the fact is- is that there's no evidence any of this happen, and we keep trying to find things. One thing is I'm glad Facebook got caught with this they've been doing this crap for a long time by the way, but so does Windows 10. So does Apple Systems to some expect people collect data and another story. We're going to talk about I, don't want to get into it about I'll, just say an Apple update issued an update to clarify their position on this, which is kind of monumental.

That a company would do that, but when it comes to Facebook right now, why now why delete Facebook? So the fact is, we know a little more about data collection. We know a little more about app permission now. It also came out this week that very a huge portion of Android users up to a certain point. Worse, the Facebook app on your Android phone was siphoning off information. I've noticed this too by the way, and it wasn't one of those opt-in.

It was one of this opt-out. Like we're going to do this. Can we do this? Could we upload your contact list and then get them to join? Very actually remember reporting on that a couple of years ago, and it was when the Facebook Messenger app was taking like 50 of the battery. It was ruining people's phones seconds yeah, siphoning data as much as it could. So, yes, and by the way this was apparently, this was not an issue on iOS just to be clear and that again that's not an anti Google slot.

Google has problems with permissions because the entirety of what Google does there's some shared there's some shared livelihood with Facebook in that Google and Facebook posts, thrive, I'm, collecting data about you and so to Google. It's not so heinous that that Facebook app would collect your data. They would probably welcome it. Hey that's one less thing: we need to worry about open up to API's and for those who don't know what an API is when you log in to a website. It says log in with Facebook you're logging with credentials that you've provided to Facebook, but it's, but in turn for that access, you're going to provide that website with some of your data and that's where a lot of this problem comes from.

That's where Cambridge analytical and all this other comes from is that too much data was being shared, so they say again, then I, don't believe that what Cambridge analytic could do was necessarily illegal. I do think it was maybe unethical, but I also think what Facebook would allow is unethical, and so I'm really glad to see they're getting a public thrashing but boy. He was coming. This is the problem. If that was all it was, they could survive this.

So here's my problem, this whole thing delete Facebook sure if you are just now realizing the consequences of being on Facebook. You know that is your prerogative now that you know what you're getting into sure deleted your right from the very beginning. This is what they do. They collect data I, think that when they first started in 2008 2007, whatever it was, the idea of collecting data. Wasn't that big a deal you couldn't? You know like if you had hundreds of million of points of data for people that didn't really tell you anything, because we couldn't process that much data.

Now we have billions of users and then tens or hundreds of billions of data points, and you can actually do some. You know not damage, but you can see trends you can see. You know a lot of you can infer. Furthermore, you can see what it is more though, but that's what it's for. That's what for, but at the time it's its! This idea that, what's your knowing like we allowed this to happen, and it was because they couldn't do anything with it now we're at a point where they can.

You can influence not out. You know again, I really don't care about the election, but you can purchase a hey, hey, let's, let's make it. Let's make a pact when you and I talk about the election, we're not talking about it from a political standpoint, we're talking about it from a historical standpoint, because it happened, and these allegations happened, and it doesn't matter who you voted for or who you voted against. It matters that these stories are being brought up in context with the election like fake news or Cambridge analytics or whatever. So again.

So when we talk about the election, let's just talk about it as sort of time period, right and I mean, but like all this and then also even going forward. It shows that all this data and that we now can infer things from it, I feel like that's the point of delete, hashtag delete, Facebook or whatever is that the Facebook of 2007 when they started collecting your data is not the Facebook of today. The Facebook of today is crazy, powerful, because data is power and I, don't I. Think Amazon is in a similar position. I think Google is in a similar position that it's you know again.

This is a good personal. It's time to re-evaluate just should we be okay with this and I think that's what delete Facebook is. Are you know, people reassessing that for themselves, I agree, but it's also it's also sort of lopsided, because Facebook's not the only one doing this they're all doing it. Twitter they're, all everything, yeah they're, all doing it worse, Facebook at least as being somewhat transparent about it now, and I will give Facebook a little of credit. I will give Facebook little credit out of all the social media.

They have been the least crazy. Now they think Twitter's done I. Think Twitter is they've gone so far off the deep end. I would actually applaud them going away. They serve no purpose other than to rile the population they are.

They are in the middle of experimenting with this Giants social paranoia experiment where they do that Twitter thinks they have the the user base to sort of change. The way we talk and think and act and I. Don't particularly appreciate that I think that they're they're horrendous trolls I wouldn't mind seeing them go. But when it comes to Facebook they've been much more transparent about this and I think part of it is because they make money and Twitter does not, and when you, for example, when Facebook was caught deleting conservative news sites, they admitted it, and they actually invited those media come they invited those media companies to come in and talk with them. It might have been just a PR stunt, but at least they did it.

At least they did it, and whether most people at Facebook feel a certain way politically or not. At least they made some outreach into that area. At least they made some ideas and there, and they don't out-and-out ban people the way other social media do they do not like Occupied? Oh, you did a Nazi salute. You don't deserve love, you know or Twitter. Oh, we don't.

You can't use this word. You know Facebook's from pretty transparent about this stuff and I actually think. That's part of the reason for the backlash is that they're not they're, not totally in to the censorship brigade that the rest of the social media is now a month ago. Is it a month ago or two months ago, I told you that there's going to be a reckoning. I said this on this show just a couple of weeks ago that not all these social medias are going to survive and one of the big ones going to go away.

I told you this, and I assumed it was gonna, be Twitter, mm-hmm I, don't think it's going to be Facebook, but you can see that we're moving in that direction. We're not everyone's going to be happy with the permissions that are being given to these companies, but I have no love for Elon, Musk I. Think he's a think he's a charlatan so when he comes out, and he deletes Facebook for Tesla whatever he didn't delete, his Instagram is Facebook too. So that's what I'm trying to say is that you have to be consistent in your moral outrage, and you really have to do this. If you're going to quit this stuff, you have to quit it, and so one question I asked another correspondent, you know, and he was a cybersecurity expert.

I'm asking you, as you know, just your opinion. Do you think Facebook was naive because you know I'm looking for some kind of personal responsibility from Facebook I even asked you about the part? Do you think Facebook was naive to assume that Cambridge analytical because they did go, they did say you did not have permission and shouldn't have had permission to collect this data? Delete that do you think Facebook was naive to think that again, because data cost money, that's how Facebook makes money is that they sell all these data points that we're talking about. Well, they claim they don't sell it, but what they do. That's like that's like saying you don't buy windows, you lease it. It's just it's semantics.

Of course, they sell it, that's how they make money so like yeah, so my question was: do you think Facebook was naive to think that Cambridge and Lucca would delete that much data, because that much data has value. That's like saying: throw 50 million dollars out the window. Please well, I'll. Tell you what to answer your question. I think you got to look at studies.

The way colleges do it when you do studies in colleges, colleges which, by the way, is how Facebook allowed this company to do this under the guise of academia is the idea that you are allowed to interpret certain data, for example the single largest data collection in history of man before Facebook was the US government. They did a census every 10 years. They would do a census and even now, we're embroiled in some burrow lo, where certain questions are now controversial. But that's data point. That's what the government uses to help determine policy, but they're fighting over questions like? Are you a legal citizen or not? Can you imagine that my new show of data Facebook has? Can you imagine not just because of the questions you answer, but all this every click you do everything you buy every website you go to they're collecting so much data? They can probably recreate you just from the data and no one could ever tell they could make a Ben bot and I could be talking with artificial Ben right now, and I couldn't tell the difference, I'd be like hey Ben.

You know what you much more buzzing. Now you are outlining that episode of black mayor yeah I am but it's like Thank You, Nathan buy coke. You know, but Craig and I enjoy a nice refreshing coca-cola, but the fact of the matter is no I, don't think they're, naive, I, don't think they saw a problem, because this is what keeps the cash flowing in, and I did ask them to delete it. They just didn't follow up, but that's not naive, though that's not neat that they didn't have a protocol for doing this is negligent now if they were naive, they thought. Oh, we'll just believe everybody does this.

The question is how many other studies have been infiltrated? How many other things that we don't know about again? Go. Look it up. I, don't have the facts on me right, the second, but it's very clear that during the 2012 election, when a very similar data, siphoning experiment was happening, it was rewarded. It was applauded that we could use this new data to help determine the results of elections.2012 is also the same year. Facebook got caught by the way, engaging in some sort of psychological testing where they admitted that they would.

They would engineer people's newsfeeds to affect their mood, so we didn't have a problem with psychological affecting, but we have a problem that Facebook may have helped Trump win. The election did we did get it back, they did get it back whatever. No one deleted Facebook. This is what I'm saying is that when you look at the people that are really pushing to delete Facebook, it's the same people, that's sort of aligned with putting Kanye West in a mental institution. It's I'm not crying any crocodile tears that your shenanigans caught up to you.

You need to read your you ELS now. If Facebook says they weren't going to show your information, and they did that's a different conversation, but they've been entirely transparent, they're, going to use and abuse your data, so here's the reason why I would be completely for anyone deleting Facebook, and it would be because Facebook collects a lot of data and if you are just now realizing how much they have- and you know you can turn on the local news any time and see one of these reporters saying. Oh, we took our intern she's 24, and we had her print out at her entire Facebook archive, and it's you know, 900 pages of information I think that until and it this isn't, you know again it's not about politics, but until the rights of data as soon as we have a digital Bill of Rights or something you know, that's just a phrase I heard, so I like it. Some way that says that your data is yours and here's. What you can hear are the rights as a person you have over your data and what people collect of you.

I am completely for this movement, you know, and it's not just Facebook I think Twitter does Uber any app on your iPhone, your iPhone, all of them do it and well. Let me ask you question asking: if change has to come gosh, it's basic human psychology that we don't know what we hate until we're told what it is, and it's like anything else, it's like we don't and I, don't want to get it to the minutia of it, but there 's's significant research to show that human beings are very acceptable with things as long as they're not aware it's happening. It's sort of you know we don't we love hamburgers. We don't want to see how the meat is made, and so, when you come, when you talk about data being private I have some news for you. None of your data is private.

Your social security number is not even your information like if you, if you go to the doctor's office, and you get treatment, and you give them your social security number, you give them your date of birth, your mother's maiden name, you give your private information that was issued by the government, your driver's license um, and you don't pay that bill that data that you gave the doctors can be sold as a commodity family. Your social security number was never meant to be well, it was never meant to be used as a personal identifier. It was a number that was unique to you, but there were no safeties to it. There were no words, know exactly there's so at the fundamental level, even your most private of information is not secure, and what happens is that your personal information now becomes a commodity that could be sold. So the doctor wants to sell the information to a bill collector, so the bill collector buys the information in a bulk by the way you're.

Basically, just a data point on an Excel spreadsheet, and they can call the hell out of you and nag you until you pay the bill and then, if they don't get you, if they don't get justice, they'll sell it they'll in turn sell your information to another company. So at the very apex of this, if your basic private information could be sold to the scummiest people bill collectors on the planet, what hope is there to find out your food patterns? And you know what pictures you said are Bahama? We are so far away from rights management. We are so far away from this. That I don't know if this can be fixed and patched and, most importantly, just to bring it full circle. Just like the self-driving cars are gonna, kill.

People I actually think the vast majority of people not only don't know about this. They don't care, they don't care. They shave they've, made the devil's bargain a long time ago for free apps for free to play for free access, free, free. Furthermore, they keep saying the word free, but they don't understand. Furthermore, they've already paid the toll.

The toll was unfettered access to everything about them and in return these quote unquote. Free companies will abuse that privilege by selling you crap that you didn't need to know. I'm going to give you an example: I have the app Uber eats friend recommended Uber Eats because he wanted to get five bucks, so I put on new breed's, and I'm looking at the local restaurants and I. Look at this restaurant called like grandpa's steak, shack or something well. This is silly name I'm.

Looking at the store on the app five minutes later, I get an email from Grubhub 'he's. Are you still interested in grandmas? The app knows that I was looking at it takes the information emails. If I never gave this app. My email address, I never did, but this app emails me because I was looking at something. That's the devil's deal, I made MMM and so and I don't know.

If we can,, I don't know if we could put the genie back in the bottle so easily and by the way I. Don't think that genie should be put in the bottle with this particular political climate, because I, don't trust anybody there. Fortunately, at least from my standpoint, they're working on it Europe has a lot of data rules that they're trying to put into place that will affect us here in America. I will say that as far as data goes like, let me give let me give you an example where it did work out, and that was the know. They said that Gmail was reading your emails, looking for keywords, doing targeted advertising blah blah blah Gmail.

Stop that practice. They stopped that last year, when they said you know this wasn't waiting. This wasn't making enough money, and your data really wasn't worth your peace of mind. We take out this feature, and we're going to focus on other things, but Microsoft not only did not stop it. They expanded it.

Microsoft just announced last week that they would allow more companies access to your email if, if they think, there's any sort danger and again, but you and I are you and I haven't even touched on the revelations that came out in the last year or so got about prism and about collusion between governments and private data, because what happens is that one of the reasons why Microsoft Facebook Twitter all the stuff over the last year and a half Minor just be fair, I mean we first reported on prism when the Xbox One launched like what a year that was I? Think I was like three or four years ago now, yeah, it's been, it's been a while, so I forget my I forget my outrage, but the fact is that one of the reasons why it was so acceptable in the tech communities because they said oh we're, gonna use this to prevent any other was some outrage and there was some backtracking, but here's the thing. The fact is, it happened. It was allowed, and one of the reasons I've always contended that there's been so much collusion between the government and these tech companies. Is that there's a back-channel again. This is not conspiracy.

This is proven fact, there's been back channels that allowed government access to certain data sets and data pools that they claim they're using for policing and anti-terrorism which maybe so but at the at, but there has also been cases of governments abusing that information to for political ends, and we've we've seen this again in the outcome of the 2016 election on both sides. This abuse of personal data to engineer election shenanigans on both sides and I have to tell you, I, don't really see the outrage of it. I see some outrage that people have been caught, but I wonder how much of this quote-unquote outrage is due to anti-trump hysteria as opposed to a violation of personal liberty, and- and you know what the really sad thing is- here's the sad thing I want to caution your listeners. This is not an endorsement. This is not a combination, but the fact is I've said this before we now have a president who's very, very willing to go after these big tech companies.

He doesn't like I, don't want that any more than I want a president not going after these tech companies. I, don't think we've had a good, medium yeah, and you know we're going to leave the conversation there. You know very, very interesting, and you know when a few turns that I think we don't normally go here on the show. But hey you know, that's what that's what you hear for Nathan is to take us into unknown territory. So with that being said, though, music means we're done.

If people want to find out more. These writings review movies work in the go Nathan. They can go to pop star calm after they're finished listening to computer America. There you go so yeah, and we have a link to that in the show notes at computer America comm, along with everything else and hey, be sure to check out the podcast, which is just the entirety of the show rebroadcast wherever podcasts are hurt. So in the meantime, folks, thank you so much for tuning in happy Good Friday, like Nathan, pointed out earlier I hope you all have a great Easter find some eggs or don't good luck with that and yeah Nathan.

Thank you for joining us here on the program. Thank, You Ben, all right. Everyone else be sure to tune in bright and early Monday 4 to 5 p. m. Eastern and yeah looking forward to it.

Everyone have a great day. Thank you. So much bye, bye.

Source : Computer America