 This is Tech Talk with Buona episode 295 Facebook decline letterbox edition Welcome to Tech Talk with Buona this technology podcast covers tech news and reviews for the entire week And now here's your host me Buona McCall Please folks and welcome to episode 295 of Tech Talk with Buona. We got a great show lined up for you I've been gone for a minute. It's been about 648 years I Managed to age a little bit got a little bit of a gray hair under the chin and on the brain But it's been a little bit since Tech Talk with Buona was produced Think the last episode was sometime in 2017 back when the internet was in black and white, but we're back We're back. We got a few stories. We want to talk about I'm actually recording this live on my twitch stream at twitch.tv Slash Buona we're here with a bunch of folks watching me talking to a microphone. They're giggling They don't know what's going on, but they're giggling And that we got I just I just was looking at some stories I was like, let me just record and then prompt to Tech Talk with Buona and thinking back That's exactly how game chat want to start. I was like, hey guys Let's just call this game chat with Buona and speaking of game chat with Buona You do know I have a little podcast called game chat one is over there on one of that TV slash podcast We're gonna be setting up a feed for this again I've got to dig up all the mp3 files and try to get as much as I can in terms of the content from the old shows Over here to the new feed or I may just start from this and like I did with game chat one and just start with this episode And go forward with that. Well, without further ado, let's get started with the news If our first story we're gonna talk about as very very serious Windows exploit And this has to do with Google Chrome and Windows 7 primarily according to the article over on ours technical comm There isn't much worry for Windows 10 users, but Windows 7 users There's an unplatched under that unpatched flaw in Windows 7 that could cause Someone to take over your machine and do some really nasty stuff through Google Chrome And I'm gonna have an accompanying article from Google which is basically calling out Microsoft saying y'all need to get on The good foot and start patching Windows 7 even though, you know support is going to end that thing in January 2020 This is a still unpatched exploit that people are starting to take advantage of So this is the article over on ours technical and it reads I'm not identified attackers have been combining an exploit for the unpatched local privilege escalation In Windows with one for a separate security flaw in the chrome browser that Google fixed last Friday While that specific exploit combination won't be effective against chrome users who are running the latest browser version The windows exploit could still be used against people running older versions of windows Google researchers privately reported the vulnerability to microsoft and keeping with Is vulnerability disclosure policy So they're going to talk about the details of it the flaw It resides in the windows windows. I'm sorry the windows win 32k. That's cys kernel driver Just the name alone makes me think that this is nasty It gives an attacker a means to break out of security sandboxes that chrome and most of the browsers use To keep untrusted code from interacting with sensitive parts of d.o.s. And so look at that google's response It is it is pretty harsh. Uh, I think I don't think they're Holding any punches here Says to read on wednesday. We reported this thing Affecting google chrome and another windows vulnerability. We strongly believe i'm going to go to the fourth paragraph We strongly believe this vulnerability may only be exploitable in windows 7 But it could be versions of it that could appear in newer versions as windows To date we have only observed active exploitation against windows 7 32 bit So they're basically telling microsoft, you know, this is happening in windows 7, but it possibly can happen You know in the other versions of windows Um, I don't know how to feel about this because I know that google's doing their new diligence and reporting this microsoft is sunsetting windows 7 as a result of just being old, you know, we got windows 8 windows 10 pretty much Dominating the scene for microsoft's priority meter Uh, so I wonder if microsoft is already starting to move resources away I kind of feel bad for them even though this is something they should fix I kind of feel bad for them. They're probably already moving resources off of windows 7 onto other stuff And they might have to ramp up to get this thing fixed. It's a it's a kernel. It's a kernel level exploit Um, and that ain't something you can fix overnight. I don't think at least i'm i'm It's a no pointer d for d reference at the kernel level uh You know, I think a lot of that stuff may be already fixed in windows 10 the the point i'm trying to make is that Here you got an os that's about to be Unsupported unless you pay for it a hefty fee. I from what I understand Here's a here's an os that's about to be sunsetted and A big bug comes out months before you're about to sunset it Like something that could possibly take months of development work. I don't know how long this is going to take Google's doing a due diligence. I applaud them for that, but microsoft's being put in between a rock and a hard place To the point of where they may have to extend windows 7 support, which could be a huge cost So from a business perspective, I don't I don't know what they're gonna do from a user perspective from someone who uses the os and Doesn't care about all that money stuff. They need to fix it Yeah, you need to you need to fix it period. That's that's the bottom line. It needs to get fixed So we're gonna be watching this one very closely because it could be it. I mean, this is a really nasty exploit This is like owning a system back in the day. We called it pain for you young kids out there We call it pining a system. It's pretty low level and you could do just about anything you want once you get a system Uh exploited with this check it out guys over on ars technica. They got the details over there Also google on their google blog talk about it. I'll put the links in the show description. You can check it out Zero day exploit being currently exploited in windows 7 but possibly could lead to exploits In the newer windows os is as well and for our next story We're gonna we're gonna come from the department of the one that didn't know this department Even if one I didn't know this he didn't know this. Did you know that that that people can track your browser size? You probably didn't know that but they use it To fingerprint your profile essentially to track you across the web This article comes from zdnet.com and it's entitled firefox to add tor browser anti fingerprinting technique called letterboxing Huh, so this is something that's been going on way back since 2015. I'm surprised I didn't know about it But let me read the article to you a little bit mozilla is scheduled to add a new user anti fingerprinting technique to firefox with the release of version 67 Scheduled for mid-may this year advertising networks often sniff certain browser features such as window size To create user profiles and track users as they resize their browser and move across new new URLs and browser tabs Called letterboxing this new technique adds gray spaces to the size of a web page When a user resizes the browser window the general idea is that letterboxing will mask the windows real dimensions by keeping The window width and height at multiples of 200 pixels and 100 pixels Doing during the window resize operation Generating the same window dimensions for all users and then adding a gray space at the top bottom left right of the current page I had no idea that they were profiling your window browser size and as you move move across different URLs You resize your browser. This is This is weird Like what what possible what what what caught what possible Situation could you use that for like? Well, we found that when we play our diaper commercial that 75 of our users resized their browsers from 1024 by 768 to 800 by 950 This data supports the technique that we're using Supports and not only endorses, but also encourages one to buy diapers. We will be In further using this data to promote it during our coffee campaign We're going to be selling used coffee grounds that you can put on the ground and you can shuck and jive and dance to your favorite video On mtv.com and when you do We're going to see if you resize your browser doing sets shuck and jive. I I don't get it I I don't get why they would do that like what I mean. This is cool. All right Let's let's talk about the story. This is cool. Mozilla is adding some stuff that the tour browser has which is awesome You know, I'm all for that I'm glad that they're doing that, but I just didn't know why fingerprinting this this whole fingerprinting existed Like I'm really curious like I'm really I'm really curious and according to some people in chat I've been told that it's a setting in the brave browser as well Which is good because brave does have some tour browser features in it. I just don't know this is weird This is this is the department of the word department. Check it out guys over on zd net.com firefax fire firefax To add tour browser anti fingerprinting technique called letterboxing And I didn't even know this existed check it out And for our next story, we're going to talk about facebook. Oh, boy, you're about to get on the sandbox, aren't you? I can feel it tech talk with one that hasn't been a thing in 20 years and you're just itch. No, I'm okay But check this out us users are leaving facebook by the millions According to Edison research now. That's that's that's a good headline. You know, that's cool That's cool According to the article all the bad press about facebook might be catching up to the company new numbers from Edison research Show an estimated 15 million fewer users in the united states compared to 2017 The biggest drop is in the very desirable 12 to 34 year old group Marketplace tech got a first look at Edison's latest social media research. Now this this article Is cool because it shows some media data Based on demographic when I saw the headline my very first question was What are the demographics? What what's going on with the demographics? What was what's going on? And I scrolled down and low and behold. I saw demographics ages 12 To 34 they break it down on facebook usage Based on the year 2017 79 million 2018 67 million 2019 62 million the most interesting thing was looking at my demographic, which is age 35 to 54 It pretty much is flat Like nobody's joining and nobody's leaving or it's like identical the people joining are equal to the people leaving Uh 72 million in 2017 and then it drops to 69 million in 2018 and it's still 69 million in 2019 Then you got the older folks age 55 plus 49 million in 2017 49 million in 2018 and it has increased The only demographic to increase on facebook is the age 55 plus This is very interesting data Because the young folks are getting off they're jumping over to instagram, which is one of the things I was going to point out There's a graph shows about which social media brands are used most often based on year And this graph actually depicts social media Uh, it depicts facebook declining and it depicts instagram increasing And everybody else is pretty much stagnating except for uh, uh snapchat snapchat is growing as well So the old guard of twitter and just facebook, you know, these new guys are coming in This is probably why facebook bought instagram and all these people are being acquired because they recognize that But I can't help but look at this and go Facebook is still a vast majority of social media users like it's shocking 52 million in 2019 versus only 16 million on instagram And 13 million on snapchat and 5 million on pinterest and 5 million on twitter Twitter and pinterest are at the bottom and then you got 9 million other They're at the bottom And I use twitter the most I use twitter and discord to communicate with everybody And it's just like it's a it's just a staggering how many people in 2019 even though a lot of information about facebook is out there About what they're doing with your data what they're doing. They just can't they just can't get off of it They're still on facebook and I think that's probably why mark zucker bird was drinking that water and looking crazy in that hearing He's just like you guys you wasting your time I got him I got these people They're not going anywhere. I really believe he he probably felt that he's like we got this we can okay We're gonna lose like I don't know 50 million people or whatever, but we're still gonna have 80 million And I think I saw a related article I don't know what the exact number was but the the valuation of mark zucker bird's value Or his value went like down by multi millions In the past couple years because you know facebook's value has gone down apparently So he's losing money, but I mean if you got $20 and you lose a quarter. I mean you'd be like, all right. I'm okay Or not even a quarter if you lose like two cents of your $20 that you got you like, uh, you know It's like a very small percentage of what this man's worth. He's losing. He's probably done even care But I just find it astounding that the older demographic is flocking to facebook Whereas the younger generation is going away and and my demographic is just chilling Maybe I don't know maybe this data in here. I have a suspicion this data Is the other people who delete their facebook account as leaving because I haven't used facebook and I don't know how long I just don't log in my account's still there. I haven't touched it. I don't do anything with it I just don't log in because I know that if you log in That's when they track you um so I don't log in and Maybe they're tracking it that way. Maybe if I go and delete my facebook account, it'll remove it from this list This data that they bought from facebook by the way I don't know man. I just don't see facebook as being relevant anymore I think it did this part. There were some good things that facebook did that i'm proud of them for um And there's some things that facebook did that I I just can't stand and I I think they should be called out for That's why I don't use them It takes me back to my friend feed days when I was a big user of a of a social media called friend feed I made a lot of friends over there. I was very active. I was on there all the time Discussing all kinds of stuff You would if you know if you see how I use social media day versus how I use the back then you wouldn't believe it You're like that's boona. Yeah, I was all over the place talking about every little thing that I could get my face on and Friend feed was purchased by facebook And I just could not believe it. I was like this is the worst possible situation That could ever happen. This is the social media company that I hate and load the most Buying the social media company that I love the most and essentially That's history. That's how it all happened and now Years later facebook has gotten even worse And I'm stuck on twitter and using discord, you know as my social media Check it out guys very interesting stats. I mean the fact that people are leaving facebook to me Is interesting, but I think the breakdown of demographics of who's leaving and you know possibly why is even more interesting And we're going to be watching this very closely over the years I can't wait to hear about 2020 and 2021 how many people are still leaving or coming back to facebook And what new social media darling will pop up by then check it out guys This is over on marketplace.org. They got the details. I'm over there and for our next story. We're going to talk about you millennials Did that trigger you the generation zeds? generation generation z Zeds this article over on usa today Is judging you millennials. How do you feel about that? Hmm? Let me stop. I'm going to make you upset before I ever read the article This article says connected with thousands of friends, but feeling all alone Hmm millennials and generation z. I don't even know what age group is what anymore Like millennials generation x z y for Thursday friday saturday burrito capital I don't even know But this article talks about the idea of this new generation uh suffering from mental health issues And that the separation of Well, this is my interpretation of it is that there's a lot of people who think they have thousands of friends But it's actually the exact opposite So This is the article one of the nation's busiest places are busiest places the texas capital ranks as many of the best lists Um Wait, that's not the paragraph i want to read Oh, yeah this uh, but wilton wasn't feeling that he lived near the university of texas at austin But wasn't a student walking through the social mega place that is ut austin Was intimidating said with almost 52 000 students all seemingly having fun And he says you definitely feel like you're on the outside. It's hard to penetrate that bubble And this is connor wilton A 24 24 year old singer guitars who knew zero people in austin and felt lonely at first and This article goes on to say loneliness with this well-documented ill effects on health have been called an epidemic and a public health threat Especially among the elderly But analysts are now learning that always connected social media mavens in the country's younger generations Are also dealing with this thing called loneliness so Here's here's my thoughts on this because we were kind of discussing this on the stream while I was getting prepared I was talking about just the importance of social Interaction, especially growing up when your brain is malleable And you're developing who you are your personality your likes your dislikes You're you're very you're a very influenceable creature coming up And I was talking about just the benefits of dealing with other people How much it can do for you and there's a lot of people who just don't like being around people But have benefited From being around people like they have negative feelings and negative thoughts and stuff like that But they're able to interact with others and they're able to adapt and adjust And it makes them a better person overall because you have to deal with multiple personalities in real life in multiple forms You've got body language. You've got scent site smell all types of senses Voice intonation all these things you have to deal with to kind of read a person or not read a person That you don't get when you talk to them online Now somebody like to say oh one of that's that's wrong, you know online interactions are exactly the same as physical but better I'm like, well, you know, that's that's debatable But I'll I'll just I'll just say it's okay to be wrong because Physical and social interaction is something that I think children need to do Like you the being separated from others, especially people in your own age group To me is not a good thing for your mental health I'm not saying that if you do Do this that it's going to be a silver bullet to solve mental health issues I'm just saying that it makes you a better person mental health issues aside developing social skills and Physically being near someone and talking to them and interacting with them Can't be awkward if you don't know how to deal with it But guess what you can deal with it if you keep doing it And I think a lot of kids these days and I like a lot of parents these days I'll I'll say parents not kids because kids they they don't know but parents will snatch your kids away from those situations As soon as they feel uncomfortable as soon as they feel awkward and they complain like I don't want to go I don't want to try out for the team. I don't want to join the social club I don't want to join the band. I didn't want to go home You know, and that's that's normal for a kid to do that But I think parents really need to push their kids To be uncomfortable so that they can know how to deal with being uncomfortable And be comfortable and be comfortable with who they are Because how do you know who how you know if you're comfortable with yourself if you've never been uncomfortable It's a it's a thought that I think some of these kids and parents need to learn from um, and I know personally Buona Over the years there was a lot of times where I didn't want to be around people and I didn't want to be You know, I just wanted to be a hermit I didn't want to go outside I wouldn't do anything and I was made to go outside my parents saw it early And it made me the person I am like I'm I can be an introvert, but I can be the best Extravert you've ever seen your life. I'm good with people. I can make friends like that I learned it from my father. He taught me a lot of techniques just by me watching them Just how to deal with people and it makes you a better person But necessarily, you know being a better person and being good at something doesn't mean you always have to be comfortable You know, I think a lot of successful people in the world will tell you that a lot of things and a lot of breakthroughs they had in their life and in their success was overcoming that fear To break through a barrier to be something greater than what they think they could be And that comes from being uncomfortable You know, it's like it's like lifting weights. It's like growing a muscle. It's gonna hurt But at the end of the day when the pain goes away, you're gonna be stronger as a result So I think these millennials I think their mental capacity and their mental or generations of you whoever they're talking to I think their mental Workout skills are weak because they don't they don't push themselves. They they They pull back and they they revert to the comfortable Solo introvert lifestyle to where they're not pushing themselves from a social interaction standpoint Humans need to be near each other You can debate that until the cows come home But I think humans need other humans and when you're not I mean this whole idea of loneliness that they're talking about is that you miss people And you think online people is going to replace that and it actually doesn't check it out guys That's my soapbox of the day you would say the day he's got the article Millennials generation z connected with thousands of friends But actually feeling all along and that concludes this episode of tech talk with one. I thank you everybody for coming by as we As we get back on the horse again, this is probably the 56th time I have Been gone for three years and then come back and do a new episode of a podcast I'm kind of glad I'm gonna do this the initial plan is to do this every friday I've been doing tech. I'm gonna do game chat one every wednesday I think the initial plan is just to do this every friday on my live stream at twitch.tv slash one in the morning And just do all the production one I usually stream I think that's a good idea because I don't have a lot of time outside of when I stream anyone I'm producing my content. I think if I make one of my streams a live recorded show Not necessarily a live show but a live recorded show this might think make things a little bit easier Check out my live stream at twitch.tv slash one that you can find me streaming there almost every day I stream every day except for wednesdays and sundays 10 a.m. And then I go back again at 8 p.m. Eastern time You can find me on youtube at youtube.com slash buana instagram.com slash buana join our discord discord.gg slash Buana, I am all over the place go to buana.tv to see my blog posts and my podcast including this one Ted talk with buana. I think you'll have a great time If you do check out my sponsor Corsair go to go.corsair.com slash buana buy some stuff It's good. It's actually pretty good. Check it out. Check it out. All right guys. I'll see you probably next friday Today is march 8th. I'll probably be back Next friday with a new show I'm hoping to produce this in a uh in his own dedicated rss feed So for now, this is going to sit on an island on my post on my on my blog I have one of that tv slash podcast until I can get the feed and everything published to spotify and everything else like Google play and And on apple itunes and all the different stores like I have on game chat one. So if you guys can catch me follow me That will be awesome as well. You guys have a great day and I'll see you next time. Have a great day. Bye. Bye