Click here to Watch this Episode
Has China Benefited More During COVID
John C. Morley: (00:00)
Let's say taken off course because of some other company's agenda. And I just feel that this is what COVID is, COVID was a plan. People may not agree with me. It was a planned strategic effort to knock the US off and look, what's happened to our shipping to everything. And who's making all the money, not the United States.
Marcus Heart: (00:28)
Oh no, not at all.
John C. Morley: (00:28)
China.
Marcus Heart: (00:29)
Yeah.
(JMOR tech talk show where we answer questions about technology, explain the way they should work and why they tone sometimes)
John C. Morley: (00:45)
Well, hey everybody, it is JOHN C. Morley serial entrepreneur here. And welcome once again to another issue of the JMOR tech talk show. Hey Marcus Heart, it is great to have you here. After Thanksgiving. I ate a lot of turkeys I am about you but I ate a lot of turkeys.
Marcus Heart: (01:04)
Yeah. I'm stuffed still stuff.
John C. Morley: (01:07)
I had some pumpkin pie and I had some pecan pie and pretty soon we're going to be getting into the new year. I know I keep saying this, the months and the days, keep rolling by where are they going, Marcus Heart?
Marcus Heart: (01:18)
They are out of here John you know out of here and they will answer to the next.
John C. Morley: (01:20)
I'm thinking you might be stealing, stop stealing them. All right. You know, let's talk about some reasons. So, you know, I know if you guys are following the ISS, the international space station. Well, the international space station has had some challenges and the challenges that they're having right now, if you guys have not been following, is that this particular you know, supposedly a helpful mission you're starting to get space debris from the Russian test flight and it's forcing astronauts on the ISS to now taking shelter. Let me think about that.
Marcus Heart: (02:00)
Oh, Wow. You know, are we surprised? because this is not anything new, you know, we know that a lot of debris comes from a lot of these test flights and a lot of just routine flights that, that happen anyways.
John C. Morley: (02:15)
And it's so dangerous that the national security officials are worried. It could be used as a weapon in future space wars. That's an interesting conundrum.
Marcus Heart: (02:26)
Yeah. Thank God. We got SpaceX. What is it? Space force.
John C. Morley: (02:31)
Yes. But you know, I just don't know where these people are going and like what they're even doing. You know, I would think there's like a protocol Marcus Heart that when you do stuff like, you know, like I said, a checklist or something like that.
Marcus Heart: (02:45)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (02:45)
But I'm guessing, I don't know for, for, whatever happens, you know, money talks with these ventures because you know, that's how we went over to Russia because we didn't have the money to fund it ourselves or we weren't putting the money up, let me put it that way. And because we weren't putting the money up, well, Russia kind of came to the table. Do you know what I'm saying?
Marcus Heart: (03:03)
Yeah. It was very interesting, John, it's very interesting.
John C. Morley: (03:07)
I know we're going to have to keep an eye on it. Just like global warming.
Marcus Heart: (03:11)
Yeah. Then many other things.
John C. Morley: (03:15)
Exactly. You know another interesting thing that's happening, you know, we always say men and women are equal. Well, and I believe that however more than a third of the women in tech now are looking for an exit in the next two years.
Marcus Heart: (03:29)
Hmm. Why, why do you think that is?
John C. Morley: (03:33)
Well, 38% of the women in the tech industry are planning on leaving their jobs in the next two years. And this is according to some national surveys. It's because of the pandemic,
Marcus Heart: (03:45)
You know, John, you said it once before a lot of things get planned on the COVID nowadays. And I think it's the quick go-to for when things get rough.
John C. Morley: (03:54)
I just think this is just another plethora of instant excuses. Well, let's just call it COVID and then we can just say we don't have to have the event or we can just stop living our life. Cause it's COVID.
Marcus Heart: (04:09)
Yeah. And, and we do know that a, a lot of things came from uncle Sam that, you know, that was all in the goodie bags that that's benefited a lot of people drew this pandemic. And so it makes more sense to, okay, well, I can just find something to do at home and be a freelancer.
John C. Morley: (04:26)
Now, according to CNA and I quote, the COVID 19 pandemic has changed everyone's lives over the last year and a half, including women who work in the tech field, the report said survived a thousand women in tech were ranging in salaries from less than 25 to a hundred thousand and a variety of work environments, including in-office and remote and hybrid. So what that's telling me is that they're piling on more work and expecting people to pay less money.
Marcus Heart: (04:54)
Yeah. Which, which is just ridiculous. It's quite ludicrous on the parts of these corporations. Who's pretty, who's just not doing a good job of just like, you know, expanding their workforce and, and, and increasing those pocketbooks for their employees.
John C. Morley: (05:14)
I agree. And I am all for equality in the workforce, whether that's men, women, whether it’s a sexual orientation, color, race, I'm all for that equal opportunity employer. But you know the tech industry, is you and I know, and it it's no secret. It's kind of been a guy's club.
Marcus Heart: (05:36)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (05:36)
It's not something you bring up at the ladies' table because they never want to hear about it. And it, it's not that, you know, they couldn't talk about it, but usually, there might be one lady and they're like, oh, you know, let's not talk shop Glenda, you know, let the boys talk that. And, you know, and that's what happens. And then they wonder, why are we, I don't want to say discriminating, but why are we saying that the women can't talk about, it's not that they can't it's that they don't want to it's almost like it's like a non-cool clique to being if you talk about tech if you're a lady.
Marcus Heart: (06:09)
Yeah, exactly. That is right on track John. I, I think you are point to something that, that is, you know, speaking about a little bit more
John C. Morley: (06:20)
And something else that I think is terrible. The other reason is pushing women out. A lot of people of color are still getting paid less in tech because they're saying they're inferior and they don't have the same knowledge as the white people. But I think that's unfair too. And, you know, the day reinforces these similar findings McKenzie, a company in the annual women in workplace report. And they released this several months ago and they found that one and three women across industries are considering either leaving their jobs or downshifting their careers to something at home or something as simple as being an Uber driver. I mean, that's terrible Marcus Heart that somebody wants to, you know, you have all this potential, right. And now you don't want to use it because of COVID. I mean, get off it.
Marcus Heart: (07:08)
Yeah. We gotta do better. You know, I think on the corporation parts and us as individuals, we can't, you know, we can't allow, you know, a little bit of pushback to stop us advancing ourselves.
John C. Morley: (07:20)
Yeah.
Marcus Heart: (07:20)
You know, we got a hold, we got a hold the corporations through the, to their fire, you know, and call them out.
John C. Morley: (07:19)
Yeah.
Marcus Heart: (07:20)
But you know, and not also use in the same mouth use COVID as an excuse.
John C. Morley: (07:31)
Yeah. I think that's gotta stop. I am just so tired of the word COVID, I get that people still have it, and there's still some surge coming in, but it's not like it's not an everyday breath word. Like, let's live our life, like 911 happened, right. Quite a while ago. Right.
Marcus Heart: (07:50)
Right.
John C. Morley: (07:50)
And, and again, we didn't forget about 911 right. We didn't forget about it.
Marcus Heart: (07:57)
No, we didn't. You know the good thing about we had happened with 911, there was a
John C. Morley: (08:01)
10 years ago.
Marcus Heart: (08:01)
Yeah. 10 years ago, there was a huge emergence of people ready to come out and come together and get it together.
John C. Morley: (08:09)
And I think what I've noticed about a lot of these things, because, you know, 911, I don't want to call it a pandemic, but I, I think it might border close to a pandemic, even though it wasn't medically related.
Marcus Heart: (08:22)
Right.
John C. Morley: (08:22)
It's still kind of, oh, let's say you know kind of stunted people in where they were going from their growth to incapacitating them, to be able to live their lives. So I think that as we have these things, it's not a matter Marcus of if these things are going to happen because they still could happen. We as business owners, entrepreneurs, serial entrepreneurs, executives, parents, volunteers, first responders, must live our lives and not be let's say taken off course because of some other company's agenda. And I just feel that this is what COVID is, COVID was a plan. People may not agree with me. It was a planned strategic effort to knock the US off and look, what's happened to our shipping, to everything. And who's making all the money, not the United States.
Marcus Heart: (09:29)
Oh no. Not at all
John C. Morley: (09:31)
China.
Marcus Heart: (09:32)
Yeah. Yeah. It is quite interesting how they have recovered quite fast and I think you pointed out a brilliant observation, John, and it was very brilliant on your part, just what's happening from the very beginning to up until now.
John C. Morley: (09:50)
I, I don't know. I it's crazy, but you know, speaking about crazy, you know, do you ever go around your home and have to I don't know to get things done, you know, like have these whether it's honeydews or I'm not married, but if you have honeydews or whether you have things that have to be done for yourself and you just don't want to do them, I don't know whether that's yard work or, or maybe it's putting together a bookcase that your significant other wants you to put together or move something or vacuum something or clean out something, but you just don't want to do it. Right. So can you relate to that?
Marcus Heart: (10:27)
Yeah. All the time.
John C. Morley: (10:30)
well, I've got a solution for you. There's a company out there called Task Rabbit and we'll allude a little bit more about them in the program, but we want to thank them for being our sponsors because they're the people that are little busy rabbits for you.
So you can do what you want to do and put those tasks off to someone else, pay them a little bit, and let yourself enjoy life. You can visit them by the way, Task Rabbit that's www.taskrabbit.com
And we'll have a link a little bit later to let you save a little bit of money from them on your first task. So if you have one of those honeydews/ don't risk your marriage or risk a relationship or even frustrate yourself into unnecessary stress and health disorders, check out Task Rabbit. Okay.
Marcus Heart: (11:25)
Absolutely.
John C. Morley: (11:27)
You know well present Biden's even at it now, he signed legislation, get this to tighten the US restrictions on Huawei, H, U, A, W, E, I and ZTE. Now, what the heck am I talking about? Well, there is something called an NDA. Okay. Now I'm not talking about a nondisclosure act. Okay. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of an NDA before Marcus Heart have you?
John C. Morley: (12:01)
Well, you know, you can educate me a little bit more as well, the audience. Sure.
John C. Morley: (12:08)
So an NDA nondisclosure agreement, but what it is an NDA is to prevent countries from importing things or bringing them into their country. Well, that's the simple part of it. And without getting into all kinds of acronyms, because everyone's not going to remember them. Anyway, it is there to keep our country safe. So, Biden, this was around was around the 11th of November. And I, if, you know, routers, where we get a lot of information from routers, is the largest media company for Thompson routers and they report on financial data and all kinds of data to millions of people around the world. So we're getting it from a key source and US president Joe Biden on Thursday had signed, this is November 11th, the legislature to prevent companies like Hawaii technologies and ZTE that are deemed security threats from receiving new equipment licenses from US regulators.
So why is that happening? Great question. You may have remembered a few years ago there were some cell phones.
Marcus Heart: (13:21)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: 13:21)
They were not permitted to come into not our country, but they weren't allowed to go into any corporate building that was associated with the government or the government agency cell or any schools. So when that had government funding on it, you had to leave that device at the door. If you went to the white house that device could not be brought and it would be confiscated at security and you get it back on your way out.
Marcus Heart: (13:51)
Yeah. I remember I was talking about this earlier in the year, you know, this was coming down the pipeline. We, we talked about this little bit last year too, you know,
John C. Morley: (14:00)
We did last
Marcus Heart: (14:01)
You know, as the administration was pushing off for this.
John C. Morley: (14:05)
Yeah. So, the reason, so the reason this is happening Marcus is really simple. These companies are, are potential, well, maybe more than potentially, very probably planting bugs in there. And I don't mean bugs. Like, you know, the ones you, you kill for them, or the fly water these are bugs that actually would spy on you without your knowledge. So if you have a cell phone, for example, and it's coming from one of these companies, they have a strong inclination to believe that these devices are listening to you and maybe trying to get information about our country, maybe creating espionage.
Marcus Heart: (14:54)
Yeah. There's no surprise that this type of stuff is happening all the time. And there's no bigger surprise that they would try to do something sneaky like this through, you know, something that we use every day.
John C. Morley: (15:07)
So in case, you guys didn't know, espionage is was of the act of 1917 and it makes it a crime to interfere with or attempt to undermine or interfere with the efforts of the United States armed forces during a war. So let's just say we had one of these devices and something was happening and now certain information was getting back and forth that could compromise our position on how and when, and if we attack.
Marcus Heart: (15:36)
Yeah, Absolutely.
John C. Morley: (15:36)
so you can see why signing this document into law was very important because you know, devices get made all the time. And I think about this, you know, I always like to buy things the United States, but you know, the signing comes a day before days before Biden and Chinese leader was inside I'm going to kill his name. Jinn Ping is expected to hold a virtual summit. Now rooters reported the meaning is expected to be getting deep into what's happening, but they're going to have a meeting that's expected to hopefully alleviate tensions over trade, human rights, and military activities. I just don't see that happening.
Marcus Heart: (16:16)
No, I don't. And, and I remember the last time we talk about this, you know how the daughter of the founder of this company was, you know, advocating very hard to get it back distributed, widespread, and to the United States. And it was just a bunch of lives that would come out of her mouth and you know, this is not going to happen, you know, it's not, it can't fly. And we gotta continue to push back against this type of stuff.
John C. Morley: (16:46)
So they call it the NDA, the national defense authorization act. So we call it NDA for sure, but it's the NDAA, so the national defense authorization act, and started with a hike vision. Do you remember me talking about this in 2018? Do you remember that?
Marcus Heart: (17:02)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (17:03)
And so what had happened companies like Honeywell, hike vision, Swann, LTS, Wbox, interlogix, fleur even Bosch, IC real-time, QC Panasonic, ADT, indigo vision, Monte view, and many more were using products or chipsets from hike vision. And the Dawa sanctions had prevented this because they had figured out that they were listening in to conversations in buildings, when these cameras weren't supposed to even have microphones on board, they had another microphone. So even if you order it without a microphone, it still had a microphone and it was transmitted through the primary connection. And there was no way to turn on or turn it off.
John C. Morley: (17:58)
So these sanctions prevented these companies from using US technology or standards in future software firmer releases from using US patents in future hardware models. So this means that they are going to face a situation where they either don't update the firm was for cyber security concerns or lose the ONVIF compliance features. Okay. And the firm where it's updated. So now you're probably saying to me, John, what the heck is ONVIF? Well, that's a great question. So I'll get into that here in a second, but ONVIF is a global and open industry forum to facilitate the development and use of global open standards for the interface of physical IP-based security products. Now, this all happened when we got into IP cameras.
Marcus Heart: (18:45)
Right.
John C. Morley: (18:45)
Because the US rolled them out and then China and other countries, and Korea and other places, but Korea's not been sanctioned yet.
John C. Morley: (18:54)
It's just been China. But I'm not here to tell you that, you know, everyone's I'm going to say off the hook, I've gotten so strong with this, that we now use companies the United States that only manufacture their own devices and their chipsets. So you can get good DVD systems for several thousand dollars. With cameras, typical installation, five to 10 grand, you can do the same thing on a US-based system. It's going to cost you about 30 or 40% more, but you've got a product that is made and maintained only in the United States of America.
Marcus Heart: (19:37)
Yeah. It will make more sense, to have it based here in the United States.
John C. Morley: (19:44)
So I think people, I don't know, I think they just look for the cheapest thing. So again, ONVIF in case you just tuned in, stands for open network video interface forum. And so you can get a lot of great free information on there. You can even learn what cameras are possibly bad. So camera models made by Honeywell as I said, Panasonic, Dyna color, Sony, Samsung, Pelco, Bosch even Axis, Hike vision, Eric vision can be on an ONVIF compliant network. The question is, if it's an open interface network, are there protocols in place on their systems that are, are going to prevent anybody from trying to back feed in?
Marcus Heart: (20:36)
Yeah. That's the biggest concern there. The biggest problem, and you know, we talk about that all the time.
John C. Morley: (20:41)
There was a guy out Marcus, not too long. I'm much. Remember he was posting the link to a piece of software. You could download it to unlock anybody's Hike vision DVR.
Marcus Heart: (20:58)
As it
John C. Morley: (20:59)
You run the program, you enter some information. And in bam, now there is a process I'm not here to educate people about how a hack a DVR, but you, there's a very specific process if you forget the master password. And it's not three steps, it's usually like 8 to 12 steps, and they all have to be done within so many seconds. And there's no indication whether you've done the right or done them wrong until you're all done.
Marcus Heart: (21:23)
Yeah
John C. Morley: (21:24)
So your kind of gotta knows what you're doing. You have to write it down because you're not going to know how to do it. So usually somebody has to give you something you go through after you've done it a few times. You can remember it but isn't that terrible, how, you know, we're getting exploited by these things. So I think it's good what Biden is doing. And you know, I, I don't know. I, I think, you know, with this new law requiring the federal communications to no longer review approve it, authorization, the allocation for equipment that poses an unacceptable risk to national security I don't know. That could be a problem.
Marcus Heart: (21:58)
Yeah. It can, you know, it can get ugly quickly. And it is good that we got, you know experts like yourself John that's like giving us the light on this stuff,
John C. Morley: (22:06)
But the FCC commissioner, federal communications commission Brennan Carr said, and I quote, the commission has approved more than 3000 applications from Huawei since 2018. So the law will help to ensure that insecure gear from companies like Huawei and ZTE can no longer be inserted into America's communication network, Carr said. And so I think where the problems coming in to be very honest with you is really at our FCC
Marcus Heart: (22:33)
Right. Yeah.
John C. Morley: (22:34)
We are just pushing things through like candy.
Marcus Heart: (22:39)
Yeah. It is. They, you have any issues excited to do is they're not
John C. Morley: (22:44)
About things. So things don't come through from these, from these areas. And when we sense more problems, then we'll put more roadblocks up. So in March the FCC designed five designated five Chinese companies as posing a threat to national security under the 2019 law aimed at protecting US communication networks. The name companies previously designated Huawei and ZTE, as well as high terror communications Hangzhou hike vision digital, there they are again. And Zigong, Dahoo technology comp. The FCC in June had voted unanimously to advance the plan to ban approvals for equipment in the United States, from developing communications networks from those Chinese companies, even as lawmakers pursued legislation to mandate it. So the FCC voted to draw opposition from Beijing in the United States, without any evidence still abuses national security and state power to suppress Chinese companies. So I don't think they're abusing anything. I think this is a political bunch of BS.
Marcus Heart: (23:49)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (23:49)
Because the people are trying to put threats on the US saying that we're doing freedom of speech. That's so much a crock. It's not even funny.
Marcus Heart: (23:59)
Yeah. It's a crock of change on that. Like we can't use and what, we're the concerns me it's like, you know, just how long this took, you know, for something to even be brought to the table like this. And it's like.
John C. Morley: (24:11)
The IP cameras. When did they come on? The first IP DVR was in, I'm trying to remember now, the first IP DVR was manufactured. I'm trying to remember that was around, the cameras were not made in China, but the DVRs were, and then the two biggest non-Chinese manufacturers were axis and Lilian LIP cameras.
Marcus Heart: (24:43)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (24:44)
And then the PTZ was designed in Taiwan, manufactured in Taiwan. I don't know. We started seeing these, I think right about we started seeing them heavy me about 8, 10 years ago.
Marcus Heart: (25:03)
Wow.
John C. Morley: (25:05)
And so it became a problem when people, you know, were going to like your stores, like your superstores, any of them from best buy to Costco, to BJ's, to Sam's club. And they were buying a camera system for 399X and said, oh, gee, I got a great deal.
Marcus Heart: (25:26)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (25:28)
And then when they realized that their personals and unmentionables were winding up on other people's sites and other businesses, that's how they learned out about it. Marcus Heart. It was, it was first about just people's company data that was winding up. So it wasn't the government stuff that was causing the flag. It was the fact that competitors were learning intelligence from other people in the industry.
Marcus Heart: (25:57)
Absolutely. And, you know, and people were screaming for health for a long time. And here we are now 10 years later almost. So this is crazy.
John C. Morley: (26:07)
It is a thing, but as I said, so, you know speaking about help, lots of people need help every day. And, you know, we talked about Task Rabbit, but what I want to share right now about Task Rabbit is that I'm an engineer, but I'm not a mechanical person. I'm not someone who puts desks together. I've done it a few times. I prefer not to. And I remember I had to have, it was a desk or a chair, and it probably would've taken me a few hours to put together. I looked at the instruction manual and there were no instructions. It was just a bag of screws, a hundred screws and bolts and nuts or whatever, and a tiny, very low-quality printed document with the smallest diagrams. I even put it on my copier and blew it up and it still was confusing.
John C. Morley: (26:58)
And so I said, this is just nuts. So I had gone to one of the stores and I said, what am I a charge that went together? And they were like a fortune. So I said, this is crazy. I'm paying more money than the stupid chair or the desk. So I went online, I did some searching. And then I found this company called Task Rabbit. I didn't know anything about them. And I said, well, gee, I said, you know, I'm going to put one of these things up. Hopefully, I get some offers. I didn't know how it was going to work, but I was pleasantly surprised you know, you don't pay anybody. You put an offer out there and then you accept that and all the payment is handled through Task Rabbit. So it's very secure and you get offers and you can check them, let's say their credibility.
John C. Morley: (27:40)
It's just a great platform to connect people that have a job that they want to have done an odd job. It could be something like you want to put flyers out, could do that for you. If you want somebody to come and paint your home, they could do that for you, but you could look at their skills online. So somebody is out there and they need a task done or a job is done, or an odd job, or what have you, or even going to the dry cleaners or something. You can go try to find somebody on task rabbit. And that could be, a nice part-time thing. But the other thing I want to bring Terry's attention is you may know, TaskRabbit is a great site for helping you get your jobs done, but what you didn't know about TaskRabbit. And I think Marcus is working on this to get a different link, is that you can apply if you're skilled in an area and you know how to put things together and maybe, you know how to paint, or you have extra skill and you want to make some extra money.
You can apply to be a person that does tasks on TaskRabbit.
John C. Morley: (28:48)
So a great way for people to make extra money. And they even have a thing there about how people are staying safe with COVID. So I would check it out. Marcus Heart its taskrabbit.com, www.taskrabbit.com
We'll pop a link a little bit later in the program to let you know, but like, I had a personal experience with this company and I was pleasantly surprised. I figured it was just going to be like another, you know, Uber deal or Lift deal and hope you get the right driver, but you know, you interview the people and they don't just let people come on there. They try to make sure they're good quality people. And if you have a concern or a complaint, they address it. It's not like, you know, these people can hide behind this iron-clad box. They have to live up to what they say they're going to do, or they're going to remove them from the platform.
Marcus Heart: (29:39)
Yeah, absolutely.
John C. Morley: (29:41)
You know I think as we talk more about security, it's not so much, I'd say the danger of what they're doing, but the danger that people don't know what they're doing, because what they're doing, isn't going to kill anybody or hurt anybody to date. It is going to cause problems, you know, and dangers are an issue, but what if danger could be so vital that it could affect somebody's safety we'd want to know about that, wouldn't we?
Marcus Heart: (30:17)
Yeah, we should be the first to know, you know.
John C. Morley: (30:19)
Yeah, I would think so. And, and speaking about that there is one that I would like to let you know of. So we house Democrats urged the FCC to avoid potential air safety wireless dangers. What are we talking about? Well, when you use certain communications there are potential safety risks from the use of the C band spectrum of the 5G wireless. What am I talking about? I'm not talking about cancer, I'm not talking about you know, getting a suntan. I'm not talking about anything like that. I'm not talking about interference to, you know, your TV. I'm not talking about any of those and annoys I'm talking about something that could affect your life and hundreds of other people, the risk of altering and interfering with radio limiters. Do you know, what a radio limiter is?
Marcus Heart: (31:15)
What’s that John?
John C. Morley: (31:15)
Okay. A radio limiter in, in, in short, is a device that is found on all Aircrafts
Marcus Heart: (31:23)
Wow.
John C. Morley: (31:25)
Commercial government military etc. And what’s an alto limiter is, it's an altitude meter is an instrument used to measure the altitude of an object above a fixed level. So that's very critical.
Marcus Heart: (31:40)
That sounds like a needed object.
John C. Morley: (31:44)
When you're flying
Marcus Heart: (31:44)
Very needed
John C. Morley: (31:45)
When you're flying a plane.
Marcus Heart: (31:48)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (31:49)
So
Marcus Heart: (31:52)
Yeah
John C. Morley: (31:52)
This is a serious problem and
Marcus Heart: (31:55)
This sounds more serious than the conspiracy theory that that was surrounding 5G.
John C. Morley: (32:00)
Yeah, exactly. And the gentlemen here in a letter to the FCC chair from the house representative transportation committee chair, Peter DeFazio, and representative, Rick Larson said, we're now on the precipice of a dangerous situation in which the safety of flight hangs on the telecom industry decision regarding when to switch on its 5G networks said, house of representatives, transportation committee, chair, as we just heard. And so that means that something has to be done. Does that mean that alto limiters need to be modified? I don't know, but I think it's a conversation that has to be done in union with everyone. It's not just a cell phone company. I always say that when you make a decision Marcus and your decision is going to affect other people.
Marcus Heart: (32:56)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (32:57)
You gotta consult those other people.
Marcus Heart: (32:59)
Yes. You do.
John C. Morley: (33:00)
Even if they're not knowledgeable about what you're doing, you know, they may not know about the C spectrum, but they need to educate them on it. They need to test it.
Marcus Heart: (33:10)
Yeah. And these things went up so fast. You know, it seems like none of that conversation was mentioned. No one took the time out to like, you know, even consider this.
John C. Morley: (33:22)
So the one thing I'll let you know is that they have currently agreed to as of November here 18th and Verizon communications isn't that nice to delay the commercial launch of the C band wireless until January 5th.
Marcus Heart: (33:39)
Oh, that's, it's so shorter time. Oh, man. That's not a lot of time to deliberate this thing. You know, you would think that you would push this out more?
John C. Morley: (33:51)
Well, the race safety concern, as we know, is the telegrams warn that a six-month delay in deployment could cost us 25 billion in economic benefits. See, we're always talking about them, money margin, Marcus
Marcus Heart: (34:01)
Oh, man. So, we're going to, we're going to put money before safety here, you know, so that's
John C. Morley: (34:06)
That, I don't go for that.
Marcus Heart: (34:09)
Yeah. I can't agree with that. And, you know, man, you know, more people should speak up about this to push this out further, you know, screw the money at this point. You know, because the lives are going to cost more than the money.
John C. Morley: (34:22)
Exactly. And the federal FAA, in case you guys didn't know the federal aviation administration is what it stands for on a bulletin earlier this month, Warren, the action may be needed to address the potential interference caused by the 5G deployment. So now they're starting to wake up
Marcus Heart: (34:39)
Hmm
John C. Morley: (34:39)
The FAA may issue an emergency directive to airlines and lawmakers said that it could include Drake Kenyan but necessary restrictions on many types of critical flight operations. You know, we've had these restrictions in the past where they say you can't use a cell phone, but you know, it's never been a problem in the past.
Marcus Heart: (34:58)
No.
John C. Morley: (34:59)
You see we've been extra proactive. Because we know people use cell phones when the 911 happened. Right.
Marcus Heart: (35:05)
Right.
John C. Morley: (35:05)
So, but they were doing it for different reasons. They were doing it for landing reasons.
Marcus Heart: (35:10)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (35:11)
Okay. They had nothing to do with the alto limiters and altitude. That's very serious.
Marcus Heart: (35:17)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (35:18)
So the two lawmakers asked the FCC to prohibit 5G broad venues in the C band until the FAA has conducted a robust risk assessment. The FAA did not immediately comment on the letter. The lawmaker then said after a year of discussion, we appear no closer to resolving the serious concerns that the use of C band for 5G would create in it to the harmful interference.
They then went back and this is scary. And I quote, they said the 2019 Boeing 737, 800 accidents near Amsterdam, as an example of how an erroneous radio alto limiter reading could potentially result in a fatal air disaster with multiple fatalities, even on a clear day
Marcus Heart: (36:05)
Hmm
John C. Morley: (36:06)
So we already had a fatality,
Marcus Heart: (36:09)
Oh wow.
John C. Morley: (36:12)
That crash ladies and gentlemen killed nine people. They will never get their lives back. The people briefed the team at, Reuters and the potential mitigation measures included small exclusion zones around airports, downward tilts of some antennas, and reduced power levels to areas around airports, big deal.
Marcus Heart: (36:35)
It's a big deal, you know?
John C. Morley: (36:37)
No, I mean, what they said to do that, the big deal, they did that little thing. What, what was that? That was like that was a drop in the bucket.
Marcus Heart: (36:44)
Oh wow. You know, that's like minimizing, you know, the situation here, you know and we can't do, we can't minimize lies. We can't minimize, you know, collateral damage, you know these damages in their aircraft loss, it that, you know, that's going to amount up to a lot, you know, in the long run.
John C. Morley: (37:04)
Yeah. And I see other things happening to Marcus as, you know, a lot of our traffic lights enough, you know, some of them becoming wireless. Yeah. And as you know, a lot of these being first responding know they have like those blue lights on the traffic lights enough if you know this, but when the light that light, they can make it bloom when they do that, they can change the light and they can affect the light. And you can see that, that the firehouse or the ambient squad if they're like right at the intersection, they can control that light.
Marcus Heart: (37:32)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (37:32)
So that's being controlled wirelessly. Now let's just jump a little bit higher and let's just presume that maybe one of these spectrums that we haven't talked about yet could potentially cause interference to be able to change that light in an emergency.
Marcus Heart: (37:50)
Oh wow. That just imagine that damage and, and delay is going to cause to serious emergencies certainly.
John C. Morley: (38:00)
Maybe somebody's life. We know that in, emergencies seconds
Marcus Heart: (38:04)
Seconds matter. Yeah. They do.
John C. Morley: (38:06)
Yeah. They matter. Yeah. So we've been talking a lot about security in case you guys haven't known and it's very, very apropos right after Thanksgiving because you know, we're getting to the holidays, and everybody gung ho about technology, which I am too. However, I think that we need to be cognizant of what we're doing, the choices we're making, and how that's going to affect the safety and livelihood of our lives. Well, another for the end, I want to talk about Amazon. Amazon knows a lot of personal details about us. Yeah. And I want to quote a democratic member of the Virginia House of delegates. Are they selling products or are they spying on everyday people?
Marcus Heart: (39:05)
Well, you and I know that they collect data, you know?
John C. Morley: (39:08)
Oh yeah.
Marcus Heart: (39:10)
This is, and I don't know why they try to make it a secret, you know, like as they're not. Yeah.
John C. Morley: (39:19)
You know routers collect data too. Routers collect data. But I am a lot more, how can I say trusting in them than I am of Amazon?
Marcus Heart: (39:30)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (39:30)
Maybe because they manage financial data too. I mean, they're one of the largest so Reuters is very, very large. And the largest media aggregate and platform for Thompson routers, financial and other types of data all around the world. And Samir was among the few Virginia legislators who opposed an industry-friendly Amazon draft of state privacy bill that was passed this year at the router's request, Samir asked Amazon to disclose the data. It collected on him as a consumer. That says something.
Marcus Heart: (40:15)
It says a lot.
John C. Morley: (40:16)
the company gathers a vast amount of data from us customers. They make that data available to all upon request. If you should decide, if you write them, they have to tell you everything they have on you. It is the law.
Marcus Heart: (40:36)
Right.
John C. Morley: (40:38)
So seven Reuters reporters obtained their Amazon files. The data reveals the company's ability to amass strikingly intimate portraits of individual consumers.
Marcus Heart: (40:48)
Mm-Hmm
John C. Morley: (40:49)
They were not only gathering data of people's let's say shopping habits, dating sites, profiles Facebook chat messages, emails. It's frightening.
Marcus Heart: (41:12)
That's a lot of stuff, John.
John C. Morley: (41:13)
Amazon clicks data on consumers through its Alexa, voice assistant. You and I have to talk about this. We, we knew they did this.
Marcus Heart: (41:19)
Yeah. We, we, we knew that
John C. Morley: (41:21)
Kindle e-readers’ audible audiobooks. So I belong to audible and I get audiobooks, but so they know what I buy. Okay. It’s no secret what I buy, but some people maybe don't want to share that.
Marcus Heart: (41:32)
Right.
John C. Morley: (41:33)
Its video and its music platforms, it’s home security cameras and fitness trackers. I told you they did this
Marcus Heart: (41:40)
Yeah. And then now we're going into health-related things at that point.
John C. Morley: (41:44)
Alexa enables devices to make recordings inside people's homes, even ring security cameras. And the data all sit where on the Amazon server. Information can reveal things like people's height, weight, health, their authenticity, any cultures they belong to buying habits, whereabouts on any given day, what their patterns are. One reporter revealed that Amazon had collected more than 90,000 Alexa recordings of family members between December 2017 to 2021 averaging about 70 daily. That Alexa is no good.
Marcus Heart: (42:31)
No, it's not
John C. Morley: (42:33)
The recordings contain such things as names of people and young children and even their favorite songs and where they go to school, etc. Imagine what could happen if this got into the wrong hands, Marcus.
Marcus Heart: (42:50)
Yeah, just even a fraction of that. You know,
John C. Morley: (42:53)
Amazon Captured children asking how they could convince their parents to let them play and getting detailed instructions from Alexa on how they could manipulate this to trick the kids into doing what they wanted. Alexa advised the kids to refute common parent arguments, such as being too violent, too expensive, and teaching kids how to go against their parents' wishes. Amazon said it does not own the Wikihow, but Alexa sometimes responds to questions with information from websites. Of course, they're going to say that.
Marcus Heart: (43:30)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (43:33)
So some recordings involve conversations between family members using Alexa to communicate across different parts of the house. Children apologize to their parents after being disciplined. And it's just interesting how they pick certain situations to keep.
Marcus Heart: (43:50)
It's very interesting. You know, you gotta, man, you gotta wonder, you know, what's going to happen with this stuff after so wrong.
John C. Morley: (43:58)
And, in one particular recording, a child is asking Alexa about human reproduction and being shown and told words that are considered vulgar.
Even giving the child different definitions to words that you and I would use every day, but wouldn't be using them in the adult context. Alexa has suggested that there are other meanings for those words and opening up Pandora's boxes. The kid should not be getting into it. Amazon says its Alexa products are designed to record as little as possible. Yeah, bull. With the trigger word, Alexa, and stopping when the user command ends. But that's not true.
Marcus Heart: (44:44)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (44:45)
Amazon said, and I quote, it has scientists and engineers working to improve the technology and to avoid false triggers and that they apologize for recording too much information, but they're just trying to make sure that they hear the customer's wish. And the only reason they're recording extra data is they just want to make sure they're giving the customers the full experience.
John C. Morley: (45:10)
Amazon also said that they record all this extra data because they want Alexa to know that she could just pick up where they left off. If it was days or weeks later, the only way for customers to delete much of this personal data, you know, how they can de delete it is to close their account. The company said it retains some information such as purchase history. Even if the account has been closed to comply with legal obligations.
Marcus Heart: (45:36)
Hmmm hmmm
John C. Morley: (45:36)
Amazon said that it allows customers to adjust their settings on voice assistants and other services to limit the amount of data collected. Alexa, for instance, can stop Amazon from saving the recordings or have them automatically deleted periodically and they can disconnect their contacts or calendars from their smart speaker devices. We already learn from a show not too long ago that they're not going to allow interaction with outlook and Gmail.
Marcus Heart: (46:06)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (46:07)
That was causing them. I think a real problem because you're sending messages and now bam, it's all the available a customer can opt-out of having the Alexa recordings examined, but they must navigate a series of menus that are so confusing that most people give up before they even get halfway through turning it off.
John C. Morley: (46:28)
Why do they need to know so much? And this is what Samir asked after he lost a re-election bid earlier this year, law enforcement agencies seek data on customers from technology companies, Amazon willingly discloses that it complies with search warrants and other lawful court orders seeking data. I think they're a little too willing to provide data.
Marcus Heart: (46:51)
Yeah. They are, you know this is no protection at all for the customer.
John C. Morley: (46:58)
Amazon stopped disclosing how often it complies with such requests last year. That's interesting.
Marcus Heart: (47:04)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (47:07)
Amazon's 3,500-word privacy policy, which keeps changing links to more than 20 other pages. Just relay privacy and user settings. That's absurd.
Marcus Heart: (47:17)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (47:18)
The information, as we know, can get extremely personal and there are no limits. For example, there was a family matter that read the Mitchell sisters, a complete romance series. It told the date the time when they finished and how many pages they flipped. It also told them which pages they spent more time on. I think Amazon is becoming a little bit like a Facebook.
Marcus Heart: (47:56)
Yeah. They're already treading those waters.
John C. Morley: (47:59)
And I think if they're not careful, Marcus, they're going to be having the same problems that our friends that, oh, excuse me, not Facebook, it's now called metadata and now their new thing is they can take two worlds and make them become three. I don’t know, Marcus, I think as I've always said to you from the very beginning of all of our shows is that security and privacy is a concern, but we need a consortium it's set up that can be unbiased and can report what's going on to the general population. You see, most people don't know that when Google was set up, they did what they had to do in a very certain way. Right. And I gotta let you know that this has been a great show and we're at the top of our hour already. So it has been a great one ladies and gentlemen, I gotta wish you all the best happy, healthy holidays. We'll be back again with another great show just for you. And remember to give our sponsor a try. We thank TaskRabbit and getting all those honeydews done around the house. And I'll catch you next Friday. Remember to get your holiday shopping in soon.
(Thank you for tuning in to the JMOR weekly technology show, where we answer your questions about how technology is supposed to work. And sometimes while you have challenges, getting into work that way. For more IT support and tips, just text IT support to 888111, that's IT support to 888111 and you will get tips on technology, I will see you next week right here on JMOR tech talk show)