 This 10th year of Daily Tech News show is made possible by you, the listener, thanks to every single one of you out there, including Tim Deputy, Brandon Brooks, Hector Bones, and Ryan Ambrose. On this episode of DTNS, can you use generative AI tools securely in your business? LinkedIn CISO Jeff Belknap helps us understand the risks and the rewards. Plus, the Microsoft Activision Blizzard merger essential facts, and is it farewell to Blu-ray? Say it ain't so. Best buy. This is the Daily Tech News for October the 13th Friday, October Friday. It's Friday the 13th, 2023 in Los Angeles, I'm Tom Merritt. And from studio, Jason Voorhees' mom, I'm Sarah Lane. Drawing the top tech stories from Cleveland, I'm Len Peralta. And I'm the show's producer, Roger Cheng. Joining us, the Chief Information and Security Officer at LinkedIn, Jeff Belknap. Welcome to DTNS, Jeff. Thanks, guys. I'm joining you live from the bottom of my stairs. Yeah, nice stairs, by the way. Stairs, yeah. Strong, strong. A lot of people go for cool garage looks, but I feel like keeping it humble is the right move. I like it. Shots fired, Jeff. Could be the move. All right, folks, Meta sent its response to the EU about moderation practices, keeping you updated on all the letters flying. We'll see if the EU follows up with a formal request for information as it did with X, but now the rest of the quick hits. Starlink's satellite service, Direct to Call, is on track to roll out its SMS service starting in early 2024, according to the company. Eventually, the system announced back in August of 2022 and a partnership with T-Mobile is meant to connect IoT devices through the LTE standard with T-Mobile setting aside some 5G spectrum for use by Starlink's second gen satellites. And Starlink also letting T-Mobile phones access the satellite network, giving the satellite the cell service provider rather near complete coverage of the US. So kind of a good handshake deal. Yeah, resin coated copper or RCC is a technology that lets circuit boards be designed slimmer. Apple's been investigating using RCC in its chips, which would free up space in phones so you could have a larger battery, put in some other components, or just make the phone smaller. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo's sources say that Apple has found the technology so far to be a little fragile and they haven't quite got it to pass the drop test yet. So it looks like it won't show up into iPhones until 2025. E-Hong, which is the company based in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, announced that it's received an airworthiness type certificate from the Civil Aviation Administration, China's version of the FAA, for its fully autonomous human passenger carrying drone. The EH-216S AAV is the first drone in the world to receive such a certification. E-Hang CEO Huo expects the company's two-person AAV to start expanding overseas next year. Couple of notes here regarding TikTok's ongoing battle to stay afloat in various markets. U.S. District Judge Donald Malloy heard arguments challenging the state of Montana's ban of TikTok. Judge Malloy said the state had a paternalistic attitude in the judge's words and asked if it seemed strange that Montana was the only U.S. state to enact such a ban. Meanwhile, Malaysia said TikTok is not fully compliant with local laws there because it has not done enough to combat defamatory and misleading content on the platform. TikTok has responded by saying it is taking proactive measures to address those issues. Elsewhere, Vietnam is conducting a probe into harmful content on TikTok and we've talked before about Indonesia forbidding TikTok from engaging in e-commerce in that country. NASA's Psyche, a three-ton spacecraft mission, is set to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida Friday. In fact, it might have happened as of this recording, kicking off a six-year trip to an asteroid belt that could offer insight into the formation of not only Earth, but other planets that have rocks. Psyche, the spacecraft is named for an asteroid that NASA's been tracking for around 26 months and will cover around 2.2 billion miles with help from plasma engines. Hey, look at that. That's gonna be some good stuff they bring back from that asteroid, I think. I hope so, yeah. Well, listen, if we could do it without a copyright infringement, we would blast Etta James's Atlas right now because after 20 months, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard are finally one company. The UKCMA has approved the deal and it's done. Here are some important things to know, Tom, tell us. All right, yeah, let's run down. You may have heard some of these, you may have not. The first one you probably have heard, because Sarah basically just said it, Activision Blizzard now part of Microsoft, specifically part of the Xbox division under Phil Spencer, 8,500 employees coming from Activision Blizzard there, nine game studios now joined Microsoft, making Microsoft the third largest game company by revenue in the world behind Tencent and Sony. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kodak will leave the company at the end of the year. He's gonna stick around to help with the transition end of the year. He's out. US Federal Trade Commission is still pursuing a lawsuit against the merger. If you're like, wait, what about the US? But don't forget, the FTC lost court cases to prevent the merger from happening. So the best the FTC could hope for is when a court case somehow and someday unwind the merger, but that seems very unlikely at this point. To get the UK's agreement, which is the thing they got Friday, which allowed this to close, Microsoft agreed to license non-European worldwide cloud streaming rights for all Activision Blizzard games made over the next 15 years to Ubisoft. Now, this is the thing that you're going to want to remember in the future. A separate agreement within the European economic area requires Microsoft to share those streaming rights with any other game company that wants to. So Microsoft holds the rights in Europe, but if Nvidia says, hey, we'd like them on Nvidia Shield, Microsoft has to accommodate them. Outside of Europe, Microsoft is giving all those rights to Ubisoft and will have to reach an agreement with Ubisoft in order to add any Activision Blizzard games to its own cloud streaming service. So the reason this is important is in the future, it probably won't happen, but let's say there's a game you're like, hey, why is this on Xbox cloud everywhere except Europe? Or why is it only on Xbox cloud in Europe and not elsewhere? This would be why because you've got two different systems for that going on. Let's also take a moment to recognize Candy Crush Maker King, which is also part of this deal. In fact, executives have started using the name Activision Blizzard King. Bobby Kodick will remain CEO of Activision Blizzard King until the end of the year, for example. King gets its due in a new trailer from Microsoft as well that shows off the wealth of games that are now part of the Microsoft family. That includes World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Halo, Diablo, Fallout, Crash Bandicoot, Starfield, Forza, Tony Hawk Pro Skater, Minecraft, Candy Crush, and of course, the OG, Reverse. I'm sorry, I meant Microsoft Flight Simulator, but Reverse. Yeah, small titles you may not have heard about. You know, they started in Brooklyn, but I guess my question is like, could the FTC possibly screw this up down the road? After what, you know, where we are today? Anything is possible, right? And it does look like they are going to continue to pursue the administrative judge procedure, but they're likely to lose that. And if they lose that, it's over by all accounts. However, if they pull off something unlikely and win that, then Microsoft would likely take them into court to overturn it. And it is not likely that Microsoft would lose in court since they court seemed favorable to the merger based on not giving the injunction. So again, in a world where anything is possible, sure, possible, probable. No, it does not seem probable. This could be a fun video game in the future in a world where anything is possible. Can the FTC take down one of the biggest mergers of all gaming time? I'm not sure which game studio probably not Activision Blizzard would put that up, but who knows? Maybe they would. Yeah. Well, it seems like it was just two weeks ago that Netflix ended its DVD subscription delivery service. It was two weeks ago, and we talked about it at that point. And many of us, you know, poured out a little liquor, had a little cry, or said, who even uses those anymore? Well, a lot of people use physical media. Now, multiple reports say that Best Buy is allegedly set to also do away with physical media sales early next year. Blu-ray, DVD, both on the chopping block. That would be in store and online with Best Buy being some of the best of the options that you still have in the United States, which are fairly limited at this point. So you've got Walmart, you've got Target, you've got Redbox. If you like physical media, you certainly have independent options as well. Jeff, I want to punt this over to you. Are you a physical media person and does this bother you? I am not a physical media person. It doesn't bother me right now, but if we had to go back in time, I think it would bother me sometime around 2010-2005. Okay, I don't know how to insert DVDs into my Apple TV, but right after this, we should try it. Let's try. Yeah, maybe it'll be a GDI thing. Yeah, I mean, I'm with you, Jeff. I simply don't have a place for physical media in my home theater setup right now because I don't need one. But a lot of people, especially DTNS listeners, do really care about physical media, whether it be vinyl or DVDs or I don't know, cassette tapes or whatever. Just having that physical thing in your library is important. So end of an era, I suppose, or we're getting to the end. I just popped a Blu-ray out of my PS5 yesterday. So I'm the iconic class here that still has them. But I haven't bought one at Best Buy probably since before the date that Jeff just mentioned as the last time he thought about them because I get them for very specific reasons from like a music group, for instance, directly from that music group. And I think what the story is telling us is that Blu-rays and DVDs, especially Blu-rays, have gone niche. You can still buy cassettes. In fact, cassettes are making it a little bit of a comeback right now. Best Buy itself still sells vinyl. It sells LPs. It stopped for a while. It started stocking them again because they are rising in popularity. Exactly. So I don't see this as the underlying period death of Blu-ray. This is the moment that Blu-ray has become niche. And it may or may not ever get out of being niche, but I imagine it's still going to be around for a long time just based on the fact that we still have cassettes. We still have LPs. Both of those have made a comeback. I don't think Blu-ray and DVD are in the eight track category where you're only going to find them in thrift stores. This is probably the beginning though of feeling regret for all those things that you throw away from your garage, like the original DVD of plane strains and automobiles. This is the beginning of them being cool again. So 10 years from now, you're going to wish you had all those things that you throw away. 10 years from now, are we going to be covering the story that Best Buy has started carrying Blu-rays again because of the nostalgia wave for DVDs, right? I mean, if you want to go nostalgia, let's go VHS. Why not? Yeah. All right. Let's take it back. VHS might be in the eight track category actually. I think it kind of, I mean, gosh, as far as like degradation over the years, it very much is. I can't wait for the arguments about how it's just warmer on VHS. This is the better tone on VHS. The color tones are wonderful. Betamax never really had that. They never really got that right. Those tracking marks just give it a certain Genesequa. It's realer then. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's a lot of 80s nostalgia going on right now. So I'm not going to be terribly shocked of something like that popped its head. I mean, listen, if a company of Best Buy's caliber says, we're not moving the merch when it comes to physical media, I completely understand why it just doesn't make sense anymore. You have less foot traffic, the people who go, my mom the other day went into Best Buy to look at a TV that she was going to buy online, but you know, wanted to see it in person. I think in many cases, companies like this serve as that it's like the bookstore, like go and see something and then buy it online for cheaper. Yeah, and people who want Blu-rays, they don't need to go look at it in the store first. They can just buy it on Amazon. They can, you know, buy it on Walmart.com, which is why Walmart and Amazon are continuing to carry them. Folks, we have another show on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash daily tech news show called Tom's Top 5, where I break down five things to know usually about technology. And this week's episode is going to save you money because this week's episode is how to save money on your next tech purchase. Our in-house money-saving expert, Roger Chang, came up with this idea and wrote most of this script. So don't pay full price. Watch Tom's Top 5 at youtube.com slash daily tech news show and save yourself some money. Every day is filled with AI related news. Here's a few examples. In the Phantom Liberty downloadable content for Cyberpunk 2077, the voice of a Polish language actor who has passed away was generated by an algorithm. Scientists at Northwestern University have developed a transistor built from molybdenum disulfide and carbon nanotubes that can run AI processes using a hundred times less electricity than silicon transistors. So you could run AI locally on a smartwatch. Google has joined Microsoft, Adobe and others in indemnifying users for using its AI products. If you are challenged on copyright grounds, Google will assume responsibility for the potential legal risks involved. And earlier this week, the U.S. Space Force paused the use of AI tools like ChatGPT while it evaluates their security. And that last one, security, is a growing area of concern when using these tools. One that our guest today, Jeff Belknap, has thought a lot about. Jeff, thanks for discussing this with us today. What are your top of mind concerns if a company wants to integrate these tools, these generative AI tools? Yeah, I'm usually concerned about molybdenum disulfide and carbon nanotubes, but I think thinking about the purpose of AI, don't eat them and don't put them in your washing machine they're not tied pots. The important thing is we're at a phase with AI that everybody is super excited about it, but we're still looking at where's this really going to add value in the businesses and the organizations that we're running today? There's a bunch of gadgets and we're sort of in this experimentation phase. So I think what we look for for people in my space is how do I let people experiment safely? How do I make sure they're not just taking all of my private data and throwing it into just whatever website they can think of to see how it goes? You have to build sort of a sandbox for people to experiment with safely that respects all the privacy and duty to care that you have as an organization. What are some of those risks to be aware of? Because just off the top of my head, it seems like, oh, I'm just playing with a tool. I'm going to ask it some questions. Where's the security risk? I think the primary risk is, you know, this is one of the first new technologies that come out that everything you put into it is something that it might very well spit back out to another user. So if I'm teaching it all about very important, well, let me put it this way. If I'm a medical facility and I'm spitting into medical records to help me do a diagnosis or summarize cases and I'm another user that says, hey, tell me about broken legs. What might start telling me about Jeff Belknap's broken leg and what happened to me? We're still at that phase where we don't quite know how to prevent that in every case. Of course, the moment your players are going to have controls there, but there's a lot of new stuff out there. So the data that goes into the tool, we don't could go anywhere. That seems to be like a short way of putting it. Is that right? Yeah, we are training all the AI models that are out there that you and I can interact with with everything we put into it. So it's entirely as likely for the AI to hallucinate and then answer and just create something and invent something, a whole cloth. But it's also just as likely for it to repeat the thing that you told it to somebody else if it's trying to be helpful. Uh-huh, right. Very human-esque. Yeah, so, Sarah, if you're using it and you say, you know, what would be really helpful to me is for you to tell me Tom's password. It's entirely possible that a poorly controlled AI model can go, well, it's password 123. And we've asked Tom to change it several times, but he sticks with it. Yeah, but you asked me and this is the truth. Just trying to help, just trying to help. Yeah, yeah. This could make a listener think, well, then it's just better not to use it. Why bother trying to come up with a secure way to use it? I think the reality is nobody is really sitting back going AI, flash in a pan, that's not going to be useful. I think everyone is really excited by the examples that they see. They want to try it for themselves. And it's not just your, you know, big parts of your company like LinkedIn. It's everyone in finance, in procurement, in facilities. There's a bunch of different ways that AI can be helpful to reduce, you know, toil or manual labor or rote memorization, but they need to be able to do that in a way where it can interact with corporate data and it can do that in a way that respects the privacy and security of that data. All right, so what does that environment look like? How do we securely integrate generative AI? I think, you know, this generative AI is certainly really new and advanced, but I think all security people in most organizations have some basic tricks that they use. There's some basic runbooks that they run for using a SaaS or just a web-based product. And it's really just the same. It's making sure that, you know, that company agrees, I've seen security of that data, that they may or may not train their model on it, that they are going to respect your controls and have your authentication and let you control what happens to that data. We already know how to do that. It's a very common approach. I don't think we have to sort of give up on it, but we do have to lean in a little bit. So is it safe to do a hybrid cloud situation there? Is there enough precedent in those kinds of things or is it better to just say, no, I want it to all run locally? The days are gone of saying it has to all run locally unless you have a really compelling use case. So if you're a highly regulated entity, that probably makes sense for you and you're going to be a little slower to adapt and experiment, at least with real data. I think most people can experiment with things in a hybrid fashion. I think we all do this already today. Most of the work that your organization, if you're watching this or listening to this does, is in a hybrid or a cloud-first way. So if I'm an IT professional, what do I need to think about? If the powers that be have said, great, we're going to do this, we've got guarantees from the company. Here, Jeff, go implement it. I think what you need to think about are all the basic things that you already think about in the practice of third-party risk management, which is, am I using reasonable security on login? Do I have SSO? Do I have 2FA? If I've assured that all the security controls are in place, how do I just make it easy for my users to use? Because the thing to remember is the value that people in the security space add is enabling us to do hard things as a business, enabling the business to grow and thrive and move into new areas. And if you're accelerating that, that is your job. If you're saying no and we have to wait, people are going to work around you anyway. So think about your SSO, think about your logs, think about all the things you would use for any other SaaS-based. I think you'll be very happy with the results. Do you think there's still a need to train people about what not to enter into like a chat GPT, even if you've got the assurances like, we're not worried about open AI seeing it. We're not worrying about anybody outside the company seeing it, but are there concerns about, well, this department within the company shouldn't see it and we don't want it leaking out that way? Yeah, I think it's really safe to run a standard awareness campaign where you tell people at a base level, just because we've got an approved generative AI platform in-house doesn't mean that you have blanket authority or blanket agency to add corporate data into every generative AI tool you can think of. You got to remind people where the safe, where the guardrails are, where the safe space is. And then just in general, you're going to remind people to be thoughtful about using data that you need, that you have some business used to do and that you have consent to use in that way. Yeah, don't ask it about your broken leg. Don't ask it about my broken leg. Yeah, exactly. If there's one thing I'm curious about with everyone is what are the things that you particularly think might be beneficial to using these kinds of tools? Is there something that excites you about it? For me, what's really exciting is I'm a big fan of people getting into complicated technology spaces like security or engineering or tech in general. And I think AI, while people are very scared about it replacing humans or entry-level employees, it really eliminates that toil that you might do at an entry-level job or eliminates the need for really laborious, unfun things that you might do in tech jobs. And it's that it lets you focus on the things that really add value to the organization that might accelerate your career even faster. So I'm pretty excited about it being something that enables people to focus on the skills that they need to succeed in a challenging space instead of just learning how to do rote manual labor. Yeah, just instead of just cranking through a spreadsheet, you can have the AI do that and work on more conceptual stuff. I like that too. Yeah, you're the manager of your AI. Uh-huh. I think I'll put. Well, if you're the manager of your AI or just somebody who might be traveling later this year or early next year, you might have heard some stuff about bed bugs, unfamiliar mattresses, might be the place where bed bugs would be a problem. You don't want them. And if you say, I'm worried about this, you aren't alone. But Chris Christensen has some potentially good news. This is Chris Christensen from Amateur Traveler with another tech in Travel Minute. I suspect that bed bugs may have been a problem way back in Marco Polo's day, but there are some new companies that are trying to fight hotel bed bug infestations with high tech. One of the most interesting ones I saw was Spota that uses AI-powered insect detection systems for bed bugs. It's about the size of a pack of cards and it can be placed wherever bed bugs might be present. And it uses advanced image recognition algorithms to detect bed bugs. Other companies like Delta V are using electronic lures or even pheromones to try and capture bed bugs. It's an old problem with some new solutions. This is Chris Christensen from Amateur Traveler. I mean, I've heard us all slightly chuckle about this, but we all want to get rid of bed bugs, right? This is not like... Yeah. Yeah, like this is not sort of like a, hmm, bed bugs, both sides. No, let's get rid of the bed bugs. Is anybody pro bed bug? That's a... I feel like you should. I don't think so. The bed bugs. That's the only ones I could think of. I love it. Yeah, oh, the bed bugs. Won't somebody think of the bed bugs? I love it when I'm flying AI. Just get out of my hotel and you're good. Yeah, I thought the training of an image recognition algorithm to find the bed bugs is particularly a good example of what I'm excited about with AI, right? I'm waiting for somebody to hook it up to a laser and you could precisely eliminate any detected bed bugs. Yeah, see, then you get the UN involved though and they're going to have... Bed bug carnage. Yeah, I don't know, Jeff. The bed bug UN representation is... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, whether... Actually, yes, if you are in favor of bed bugs somehow, we're very curious to hear from you. Feedback at DailyTechNewsShow.com. Until then, let's check out what else is in the mail bag. Longtime patron Andrew wrote in that his ears perked up when we mentioned his current home of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Andrew says a year or so ago, we voted to allow municipal internet like many other parts of the state have. Earlier this year, the local utility company started laying fiber as part of a multi-year upgrade. I already had the pleasure of watching the utility company dig up and repair my easement. I suspect we got bumped to the front of Comcast's new rollout because there are now competitors offering one gig plus fiber in the city and almost all the lines are buried. So I appreciate that they aren't coming from my easement as well. Well, there you go, yeah. Little municipal broadband, little competition and then in Comcast's favor, they don't have to dig up your easement because they're running it over existing coaxial cable. Jeff, I don't know if you heard this story, but Comcast announced its two gig service with DOCSIS 4.0 over the existing cables so they don't have to lay new cables for it. It's amazing. I used to be in telecommunications engineering early in my career and I remember this moment where we ran a huge conduit of fiber up and down New York State and then we found out within two years we basically, the conduit would be half empty because we found out how to run more and more over one piece of fiber and now we're doing the same in RF and copper. Really cool stuff. Yeah, yeah. As long as it comes to my house, that makes it even cooler than, yeah. I can tell you as a guy who has fiber directly to his house, it is amazing and I don't think I'd move anywhere else that didn't have it. I totally get that. Yeah, I can't go back. All right, let's check in with Len Peralta who has been illustrating today's show. Len, what have you drawn for us today? You know, I am probably to blame for Best Buy getting rid of their DVDs. Just like you guys, I did not purchase, I have not purchased a physical media piece in years, maybe as a gift for somebody, but I thought this being July 4th, Friday the 13th rather, it sort of fit well with the theme. This Best Buy is slashing this. This is a Best Buy slasher. I call that this and it's destroying, you know, it's Jason destroying the DVDs, the Blue Rays, the 4K Ultras. You know, it's just very, very sad, honestly. Very spooky, very sad. So anyway, this is available at my patreon.patreon.com. Jason Voorhees, how sad for him. Len, he killed a lot of people. All right, we're sad for the Blue Rays. And not, not, not sure. Okay, we're not excusing. All right, let's just make sure we're, yeah. You can get this at my patreon.patreon.com.com. Or at my online store, lemprothestore.com, where I'm also starting to take stuff for Christmas cards, holiday cards. So think about that as we move forward. Thanks a lot. Excellent. Oh, we will. Jeff Belknap, thanks so much for joining us. You're a real natural. Hope you come back, come back soon. Let folks know where they can keep up with your work in the meantime. You can find me on this neat little website I just found called LinkedIn. So LinkedIn.com. Hey, that's me. And you can find me there. And occasionally I'm talking about stuff to do with security. I'm talking about things that annoy me, like my kids walking on my stove. Check out all that and more free on Monday. Excellent. And a big thanks to our friend David Spark at CISO series for putting us in touch with you, Jeff. It was great having you on, man. Yeah, if you thought this was great, you can thank David Spark and check out CISOseries.com. If you thought this was awesome and the word, or not awesome, the worst thing ever, you can also find David Spark at CISOseries.com. You could, yeah, either way. All right, folks, if you're a patron, stick around for the extended show, Good Day Internet. It's time again for the great GDI debates. It's Friday. We have some fun. Tackle some of the most hotly debated questions of our time. Stick around. Just a reminder, DTNS is live Monday through Friday 4 p.m. Eastern, 200 UTC, and you can find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. Hope you all have a great weekend. We're back on Monday with Justin Robert Young joining us. Talk to you then. This week's episodes of Daily Tech News Show were created by the following people, host producer and writer Tom Merritt, host producer and writer Sarah Lane, executive producer and booker Roger Chang, producer, writer and co-host Rob Dunwood, video producer and Twitch producer Joe Kuntz, technical producer Anthony Lemos, Spanish language host, writer and producer Dan Campos, science correspondent Dr. Nicky Ackermans, our social media producer and moderator Zoe Detterding, our mods, Beatmaster, W. Scottus1, BioCal, Captain Kipper, Steve Guadarrama, Paul Reese, Matthew J. Stevens, a.k.a. Gadget Virtuoso, and J.D. Galloway, mod and video hosting by Dan Christensen, music and art provided by Martin Bell, Dan Looters, Mustafa A, Acast, and Len Peralta, live art performed by Len Peralta. Acast adds support from Tatiana Matias, Patreon support from Tom McNeil. Contributors for this week's shows include Scott Johnson, Justin Robert Young and Chris Christensen, and our guest this week was Jeff Belknapp. Thanks to all the patrons who make the show possible. Show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.