 Coming up on DTNS, Jen Briney from Congressional Dish helps us understand where all that government information is hiding on the internet. Plus, Big Tech is doing some things and not doing other things in Russia, and NASA's plan to start refueling satellites and build things in space. This is the Daily Tech News for Monday, March 7th, 2022 in Los Angeles, I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. And I'm Roger Chang, the show's producer. Joining us, host of the Congressional Dish podcast and one of the political triad with Heaton and Justin Robert Young. Jennifer Briney, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here. Thanks for being here. We were just talking with Jen about her digital nomad lifestyle on Good Day Internet. If you want that extended conversation, become a patron, patreon.com slash DTNS. Big thanks to a few of our top patrons today. They include Allyson Jobby, Andrew Bradley and Dale McKayhee. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Samsung confirmed Monday that attackers stole internal company data and source code but said no personal data was accessed. Samsung didn't state who was responsible, but one group said it obtained 190 gigabytes of data, including code used in Samsung's trust one environment, bootloader and activation servers, as well as algorithms for all biometric unlock operations. Now, while the group didn't leak all the data that it had threatened to on Friday, security researchers say that expired Samsung digital certificates are now being used to sign malware. These are a threat because Windows will still load drivers signed with expired certificates. While you can configure Windows Defender to control what drivers are loaded, a better solution would be Windows adding the expired certificates to the revocation list. Until then, normal, be careful what you click on and install. Advice applies. We all know DTSS audience is well aware of this, but just a reminder for us all. The group that claims responsibility for the attack on Samsung is reportedly conducting a poll on Telegram about who their next target should be. For more details on this particular story, check out today's episode of NTX with Dan Campos. Intel announced its Mobileye unit confidentially filed for an IPO. CEO Pat Gelsinger said in December that Intel would receive the majority of funds from the sale and would use them to fund construction of more chip fabs. Intel will retain a majority stake in Mobileye after the IPO. Google wrote in a company blog post that Chrome 99 latest version of Chrome is the fastest web browser on Mac OS. Overall, 7% faster than Safari and 50% faster in graphics performance over Safari. Other chromium-based browsers, Microsoft Edge, Vivaldi among them, should see the same improvements once they update their code bases. Google used Spidometer 2.0 for these results, which was developed by Apple's WebKit slash Safari team. Google announced that Android 12L will come to devices later this year, quote, with planned updates from Samsung, Lenovo, and Microsoft, although no firm dates were announced. Android 12L was announced in beta back in October and is designed specifically for tablets and foldables. More tech companies issued reactions to the war in Ukraine over the weekend. Let's run through them now. Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, and Epic Games all suspended sales of video games in Russia. Nintendo suspended all digital sales there, too. Netflix and PayPal are shutting down services in Russia, and Adobe is stopping new product sales in Russia. Samsung suspended shipment of its products, including smartphones and semiconductors to Russia. Coinbase is blocking approximately 25,000 cryptocurrency addresses linked to Russian people or entities that it believes are engaged in illicit activity. On Saturday, Visa and MasterCards have suspended service in Russia, meaning that credit cards issued by Russian banks can only work on terminals that support Russia's national payment card system, which means mostly cards from Russian banks inside of Russia. And Twitter said it's aware of being blocked, but it's partially available in Russia and is working to restore full availability. TechCrunch says that users report being able to access Twitter and Facebook using the mobile app. TikTok said it would suspend live streaming and posting new content in Russia specifically due to a recently passed law that threatens prison time for spreading unapproved information. TikTok's in-app messaging is still working, however. All right, so we've been doing that every day. Summary of tech service suspensions for about the past week or so. So let's step back and take a broader view of these efforts. All right, so if you look at what the big companies are doing, let's start with Google. Google says we got limited use of Google Pay for customers using sanctioned banks. We've stopped selling ads in Russia. We've removed RT and Sputnik to the Russian news organizations. Monetization on YouTube. So that's where that has been stopped. However, not suspended, maps and search. So there are Google services that are still working, but partially suspended. On the Apple front, the company has suspended product sales similar to Apple Pay restrictions. RT and Sputnik again, out of the App Store and they are available in Russia but not elsewhere. When you look at Metta, Facebook owner, Instagram owner, RT and Sputnik have been removed from IG and Facebook. State media in Russia can't monetize them. That is something that we mentioned last week has caused a lot of contention. Links to state media that are algorithmically been surfaced in the past have been demoted. Microsoft sharing threat intelligence with Ukraine. This has thwarted at least one attack that we know of, blocking Sputnik and RT from its ad network as well. Microsoft has suspended selling new products and services, Oracle and SAP have as well. TSMC, Samsung, Intel, AMD, Big Chick Makers have all moved beyond the minimum requirements of sanctions. So they've gone a step further which stopped any sale that could have military applications to stopping all sales overall. SK Heinecks has not stopped sales to Russia. It has applied for a license with the US to sell sanctioned technology. Interesting. Amazon is supporting cybersecurity efforts for companies and governments in Ukraine. So says Amazon, a product that sells all the time and logistics to get supplies to people. This is also kind of Amazon still shipping things. If you want to read the tea leaves there, no moves that reduce Russia revenue, at least not at the time of this recording. No one of these companies is totally devastating Russia in any way, but obviously strengthen numbers. The more of them that build the bigger drag to the Russian economy, the more inconveniences people notice or worse. However, in the end, shutting off Russia's central bank from accessing overseas reserves appears to be considered the most substantial of any of these acts. So collectively, definitely making a statement, but certain things still making the most of a dent. Yeah, I'm curious what's going on with Amazon. Microsoft's stopping products and supporting security efforts with demonstrable results there seems like a solid thing that they're doing. Whereas what Amazon's doing sounds like they're saying, we're continuing to do the things we always do, but we'd like a credit for them. They're also donating money and stuff like that. So I'm a little surprised that we haven't seen more performative actions from Amazon. But again, none of these things on their own really are going to do anything to Russia, but there are so many of them, it is starting to feel like it is at least noticeable to the Russian public. And I'm not sure, these are also not cost free, but they're fairly easy things for these companies to do because Russia made up such a small percentage of their market share that at least temporarily, we'll see how long they want to keep this going on, but temporarily they can afford the small hit to the bottom line. What do you have thoughts on this, Jen? Any of these companies stick out in your mind as leaving more of an impact on any other? So I'm looking at this all a little bit differently. I'm kind of looking at just the big global scale that there is really this economic system that we call a global system, but it's really not. We're trying to make it a global system, but China and Russia and a bunch of other countries are really not participating. So the idea that we're going to shut Russia out of a financial system that they're kind of wanting to get out of anyway, they're kind of interested in the de-dolarization of global commerce. And Putin said so himself in the speech that he gave the night before the invasion, where he said like, they're just going to sanction us anyway, so we're going to do what we're going to do because I think they're just going to find reasons to sanction us. So now that I'm watching just all of these companies line up, I think the Russian people are the ones that are going to be punished by this, but Putin has already told the world that he doesn't care and the bombs are still falling. So I'm just sitting back and watching and feeling terrible for the people that live in Russia. I mean, the guy's a dictator, they didn't, I mean, we don't think he was fairly elected. I mean, that's kind of the running theory in Russia. So I just see this as punishing the Russian people and they don't know what good it's going to do. Well, a reaction in Russia, again, as this all unfolds in real time, the Russian Ministry of Digital Transformation is proposing amendments to the Russian civil code to allow people to continue to use software after the expiration of a license without compensation to the software maker if the copyright is held by a company in a country that has supported sanctions against Russia. That would be a lot of countries at this point. The change would apply to software where there is no Russian-based alternative. Leaping computer reports that Russia is also contemplating enacting its plan to disconnect from the wider internet to a domestically controlled version called Runet and domestically made chips are being promoted as replacements for those no longer being sold in Russia, at least not being sold right now. An example is the eight core Elbrus 8C made by MCST on a 28 nanometer process. Yeah, when Intel's getting flack for not getting off a seven nanometer process, 28 nanometer doesn't sound that enticing. So I feel like that is not a total replacement there and the RUNET has been in the plans that's similar to what Jen was just alluding to is Russia's been making plans to disconnect itself from lots of global or proto-global situations. This could usher in more of a splinter net where RUNET connects to China, but not to anywhere else. That would be something to look out for but they've been walling things off so that they could plan for just this day should it happen. The copyright thing is very interesting to me because this is a bad precedent. You might look at it and say, ah, well, easy for Russia to say like, oh, these companies that aren't doing business here, fine, steal their software, we won't punish you anymore. We'll change the code for that. But Russia generally weaponizes its strong copyright law to its advantage. So weakening it even for companies outside of the country is not something that they would normally wanna do so that is a bit of a drastic measure for them to take and very limited, don't get me wrong, but interesting to see them going ahead and crossing that line there. All right, Landsat-7 is a satellite that's been orbiting Earth since 1999, taking images of the planet's surface for ecological research. Arstectica points out that it's done things like help spot melting glaciers in Greenland, deforestation in Papua New Guinea, but it ran out of fuel and can no longer maintain its proper orbit and so it's no longer in service. NASA wants to use it to test the idea of being able to refuel satellites to extend their useful life. Two projects are the next step in this effort. Back in 2007, NASA made two spacecraft designed to refuel each other. So just to show that you could do refueling in space, they weren't touching any other satellites. And in 2020, we talked about the Northrop Grumman spacecraft that attached to a satellite and sort of shoved it into a new orbit. So it was not refueling the satellite itself, but it took up some fuel and was able to move the satellite. We've never refueled a satellite already in orbit. Two missions from NASA want to demonstrate that that can be done as well as demonstrate how to build things in space without needing humans around to do it. These are all robotic and they're semi-autonomous. The first of the two projects is the DARPA funded robotic servicing of geosynchronous satellite or RSGS scheduled for 2024. That will test docking with a spacecraft that it wasn't specifically designed to dock with. In other words, a satellite that's already up there. And then the RSGS spacecraft will use cameras and a laser rangefinder to get within two meters of that inactive satellite. It'll use one of its two arms to grab an aluminum ring on the satellite. That ring was there to attach the satellite when it was launched. It wasn't meant for this, but they're gonna make use of it. And that will help the docking. The RSGS craft can manipulate solar cells and antennas that failed to deploy. So they'll try to mess with it and get them back into working order and attach new instruments like cameras or transmitters to the outside of the satellite. Once that's all tested, the next step will be docking and refueling. Sometime after 2025, the On-Orbit Service Assembly and Manufacturing One spacecraft or OSAM-1 will launch and refuel Landsat-7. Now, this isn't gonna be easy. It's gonna have to cut through some insulation. It's gonna have to cut two wires and unscrew a bolt before pumping in 115 kilograms of hydrazine fuel. OSAM-1 will also bring along the space infrastructure dextrous robot, AKA spider, to demonstrate building stuff in space. It will assemble a seven piece, three meter antenna and use a 3D printing like process to build some beams, you know, like construction beams out of spools of carbon fiber and other material. All of these missions have to be semi-autonomous because there's a few seconds delay between the ground. So you can't send commands in real time. If these missions are successful, it could bring down the cost of what we can do in space because not every satellite will have to have everything it needs to last for 10 years. Reduces the amount of fuel they have to take up with them. Reduces the redundant systems since you can send repair missions. And it brings about the possibility of building things in space, roomier space stations where you got more room to move around, fuel depots, space mining, all that stuff starts to become actually possible or at least affordable to do. Yeah, I mean, when you think about the details of what is being proposed here, you kind of go, okay, well, you just gotta get the fueling satellite close to this satellite in orbit. And sounds hard, but, you know, okay, right? It's, yes, it's the fuel. It's cutting through insulation. It's cutting through the appropriate wires while not severing the wrong wires and unscrewing a bolt in space. This is hard. It reminds me of fixing a house before standards where, you know, all the wiring is plastered in and you don't have drywall to cut through. You just have to tear down part of the house to fix stuff. And there's so much that has always fascinated me about a satellite doing its thing and eventually decommissioned and kind of left out there, you know, in space camp, back behind the space shed for all eternity, because there's just not anything else you can do with it. And yeah, to your point, Tom, to have a satellite that doesn't have to have all of the materials that it would need for more longevity, at the start of it being launched into space, but to be able to be like, some little weirds going on with the satellite, but it's still really useful and doing its job on some level, we just need a little tune up. That is really cool. That antenna got bent. We need to send the robot over to unbend it. Jen, what do you make of this story, anything? I'm like excited about it. I love all the space stuff and I'm a big weather nerd. So just the idea that we can, and I think Sarah kind of addressed what I was excited about where you can fix these things instead of just turning outer space into our next giant garbage heap. Like I love the idea that even as taxpayers that we can fix the things we've already invested in, I think it'll save us money. I think we can do amazing things. And I also am kind of into solar storms. So I do know that solar storms can mess with this technology. So just anything that speeds up repairs, I'm just, it's exciting to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're right, like there's so much space junk that clutters up the orbit. If we can reduce that by actually fixing things and I don't know, maybe they can get to the point where they can scavenge parts from old satellites and use them, I mean, it opens up a lot of possibilities. Hey folks, have you thought about something on the show that you'd like us to talk about or you have an observation or you have a question but you're like, what's your email address? Well, it's feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. Now, you know. Jen Briney provides a service to the world called Congressional Dish where she takes the time to actually read the legislation that exists and then tell you what's in it. Trust us, that is not a small task. I imagine if she were trying to do this 30 years ago, she'd have to live in Washington, D.C., make lots of phone calls, send letters, show up at actual buildings like government documents libraries and gather all that information by hand to produce her show. Thankfully, the internet exists, which makes it possible to download electronic documents, watch congressional hearings online. It's still a Herculean task, but the tech makes it just possible. Jen, thanks so much for being willing to share how you track these resources down and maybe give some folks an idea of where to find things that they're interested in as well. Can we start with like, what are your go-to resources? Where do you start when you're looking for information? So my favorite thing is called the Daily Digest, and it's a part of the Congressional Record. And every single day, it's the first six to 12 pages of the Congressional Record that just gives you a summary of what happened this day. So I at least get my eyes on every single Daily Digest, just to see this is what became law, this is what they're working on, and then it has the list of every hearing that took place in Congress. Because a lot of people think that C-SPAN has all of the hearings. It's not even close. There are way more hearings than C-SPAN could possibly air. And so that's where I can find all the hearings that happened, and unless it's a closed hearing, which is Congress speak for secret, unless it's a closed hearing, which are actually quite rare, I can find every single hearing on the internet. So I use those Daily Digest to give myself a list of the hearings I wanna watch. These are the bills I wanna read. These are the laws that need to be read. And that really guides where my show goes because that way I know what Congress did. And it's very, very quick. I can get through 30 of them in an hour. And the Daily Digest, anybody can go to. That's not like a special resource that you have to get permission to see. Pay for something. No, it's free for everyone. And in fact, it's a part of the Congressional Record. So it's like every day the Congressional Record will tell you everything that happened in the House and the Senate. And it's kind of like the table of contents of that day. So you just have to go to Congressional, you just Google the Congressional Record and then you can click on any day and the Daily Digest will be the first part of that record for that day. I mean, you mentioned it was somewhere between six to 12 pages. I think for a lot of folks who consume news, as we do here on DTNS, six to 12 paragraphs can be a lot. Especially when you're trying to be like, okay, let me make sense of what this all means and how it affects the people that I'm trying to reach. Is there, do you find that there's a writing style where you can kind of get around it? Or have you gotten good at being like, okay, of these 12 pages, like the middle three are really the ones that we have to worry about? It's that. And you don't have to read them all because a lot of the text is telling you who wrote the amendment and what's in the amendment. Like I don't really care about that. I'm just trying to see, did a bill become law today? And a lot of the stuff that happened during the day, I'm scanning through that. I'm really looking at the Daily Digest for what hearings happen today. Because I look at Congress as my window to the world and the hearings is where we get the questions and the answers and the expert testimony. Like I love the hearings. So most of the time I'm scanning most of those pages real, real quick just to see what became law. And if we have like a weird declaration of an emergency that doesn't make any sense because those go in there too. Anything outside of that, I'm kind of skipping to the hearing section and that's where I get to find where my expert testimony is. Now, is there video of all of those kinds of hearings? And if so, where do you track that back down? Is it linked from the congressional record? No, it's not. Like that is something I would love to have happen. I have to do it the hard way and find it all myself. So this all changes based on who's running Congress, but right now pretty much the House of Representatives is airing all of their hearings on YouTube. So the House of Representatives hearings are pretty easy to find. The Senate is using something called the Akamai Adaptive Media Player and I hate it because I cannot figure out how to download those files. So sometimes I get lucky and C-SPAN will have been in the room and I can download it through C-SPAN and sometimes I have to sit there with a screen recorder and record the hearing and I hate having to do that. But the Senate has some good hearings. But pretty much if you're looking for a hearing, so let's say like you see the Daily Digest, oh I wanna watch this hearing. The key is to find out what committee it took place in because going to the committee website, that's where you're going to find that hearing and that is where the video will be linked from. Yeah, so tech-wise they're doing it differently but the path to them is always through the committee websites. Are there any documents where you have to request them rather than just search them out where you have to email somebody or fill out a form or anything like that? I've never had to do that. Like when it comes to what becomes public law, the public is actually allowed to see it. And if you're not allowed to see it, you're not gonna get it, sounds like. Well there's freedom of information requests but usually when I'm going deep on something, it's I'm going back to watch five hearings about how it became law. So I don't really need to do that. There is a path but so far I haven't needed any secret documents to do my job. It seems like from what you're describing, Jen, is that it is a mixture of an incredible time commitment, figuring out where everything is because it's not being handed to you on a platter and then figuring out, okay, what of this large data dump do people really care about and what will affect all of us? Or at least the people that are tuning in to find out about this. And how much time does that take you? I mean, I've been doing this now, I'm on my 10th year and I'm still trying to figure out how to do this. So the show has just evolved so much because it is so much data and the way that they are passing laws now is we're not getting a lot of laws, we're getting a few laws that are thousands of pages each. So digging through those, it feels so impossible. I mean, for a while I was trying to read bills and laws and now I've just kind of given up on the bills because I just know that a lot of stuff, like build back better is a perfect example of this. We heard about build back better for an entire year. It's not a thing. It's not a law, it's probably not going to become a law, at least not in any of the forms that the media was paying attention to for the last year. It was a giant waste of their time. So I'm now focusing on laws and I'm constantly changing how I do this and how I report this because I still haven't figured it out. Like, we really do need an entire media paying attention to this because it's an enormous, I mean, Congress, they legislate every topic. So to look into these laws, you have to become an expert in a week on every topic. It's very, very hard to do. The hearings are fascinating and I learned so much and so it's just, I have more content than I could possibly know what to do with and the trouble is narrowing it down. You nailed it on the head. Yeah. If people want to find government info for themselves, I would tell them go to the congressional dish show notes because you do a great job of documenting everything in your episodes. In addition to that, what other tips can you give people? Well, thank you. My website is good for the topics I cover, but like I said, there's so much that happens that I can't. And as much as I love congress.gov, you kind of have to know what you're looking for. I actually love govetrack.us because I actually met the guy, Josh, who put it together and he grabs all of his information from longer.gov. So it's the same exact information, but it's much more user-friendly. So if you're looking for bills on a certain topic or at a certain part of the process, I just find it really nice to navigate. So I would go there, but really, I mean, the congressional record, like I said, that daily digest, if you're looking for something that happened on a certain day, that and if looking for a certain topic, find the committee on that topic. So it's like, if you're into the environment, the committee's on natural resources, you can just scroll through the bills they're working on or their hearings in particular and just find a treasure trove of information on these committee websites. And they change based on which parties in control, but pretty much all of them are proud of their hearings. And so yeah, just like poke around their websites. You'll find all kinds of stuff you weren't expecting. Fantastic. Well, as I mentioned, we talked to Jen on Good Day Internet about the fact that she's traveling around, just living as a citizen of the world. If you'd like to travel, Sarah, do we have anyone that can help people with travel tips? I'm glad you asked, Tom. If you're like me, you might feel a little anxious about your next trip because you may not have traveled for a while. You made kind of wonder, is it gonna get canceled? Is it gonna be an issue? Chris Christensen has some advice, if so. This is Chris Christensen from Amateur Traveler with another tech in travel minute. The news this week has not been great from a world news point of view. With countries getting invaded and then also the possibility of yet another COVID surge happening, it might be better off if you insured your trip this year with trip insurance. There's a couple of different places you can go like insuremytrip.com or squaremouth.com to compare different policies from different companies. This year in particular in 2022, I would suggest you might think about a cancel for any reason policy because since you're deciding to travel when there is a pandemic that may come back and you knew that when you booked your trip, you may not get your money back if a country were to close unless you have that kind of coverage. Here's to more travel this year and to peace breaking out. I'm Chris Christensen from Amateur Traveler. Thank you, Chris. Yes, in our mail, yes, thank you, Chris. Always really good tips and that is not something I've ever invested in, travel insurance. Good to know that there are options besides what the airline wants to sell you. Yeah, the airline's always got something they want to sell you. Yeah, which is, that might be perfectly sufficient but good to know that there are options. All right, let's check out the mailbag. Let's do it. So we had a conversation about Epic games buying Bandcamp last week and we were kicking around like, okay, who's this good for? Jared had some thoughts. Jared says, there are a few things to consider about Epic in the past couple of years that leads me to a different conclusion than the ones drawn on the show. Number one, Epic is very interested in making metaverse plays. Number two, Epic recently also bought Harmonix, the music game company behind Guitar Hero, Rock Band and Dance Central. And number three, Epic has been holding concerts in Fortnite. We've talked about pretty much all of this but Jared takes it a step further saying I think Epic could be looking at developing a virtual music experience as a more robust part of their portfolio going forward. Sure, they also get Bandcamp's Marketplace expertise but with them already running the Epic store and having dealt with licensing, the Unreal Engine and other assets for it in the past, I'm not sure the Marketplace expertise by itself is enough to have made Bandcamp a lucrative acquisition target. Virtual concerts and other interactive music experiences, however, are a market in which they are poised to lead. Everyone wins here. Artists can get a chunk of revenue from each experience they put on. Epic gets to take a cut from each experience on their platform. Yeah, in fact, I don't even think it's an either or. I think the stuff we were focusing on is probably the more immediate reasons, the Marketplace aspect of it that we were talking about on the show. But these are also long-term benefits that Epic is gonna get. You're absolutely right, Jared. Thanks, Jared. If you have feedback and anything, any episode of a subject that we talk about, please do send it our way. Always makes the show better to hear from you. Feedback at DailyTechNewShow.com. We also have a couple new brand new bosses we got over the weekend. Michael and Patrick just started backing us on Patreon. Thank you, Michael, and thank you, Patrick. Yay, Michael and Patrick, they get all the glory today. Could be you tomorrow, patreon.com.com slash DTNS. Also, thanks to Jennifer Briney for being with us. Such great information. Thank you so much for sharing. I know we talked about congressionaldish.com, but are you on the socials? Where can people keep up with you? I am, thank you for asking. At Jen Briney on Twitter is my obsession. And so I'm on there all the time. And then if you wanna see pictures of my dog at Jen Briney on Instagram, she's a star over there. Oh, I'm sold. My dog will follow your dog. Not me, you know, because I don't know your dog, but our dogs will follow each other. That's kind of how it works. Well, thanks again for being with us. And jealous of all your travels. For anybody who wants to hear about Jen's travels, do listen to today's GDI. It's very eye-opening. On this show, we are live Monday through Friday at 4 30 p.m. Eastern, 2130 UTC. You can find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. We are back tomorrow. It's an Apple announcement day and we'll have coverage with help from Nika Monford and Terence Keynes from the Snoboes podcast. Talk to you then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. I hope you have enjoyed this program.