Ep 149: MALWARE - 1) The Pro-Tech Agenda, from Elon to Vitalik 2) AT&T Data Breach 3) Metals in Tampons 4) Social Media "Roast Accounts" in Schools

[00:00] Malware is a non-technical look at the tech news of the week. This is a podcast where we learn together about everything from crypto to AI to whatever comes next in tech. I'm Natasha Hoskins. I'm Dina Burke. And this is Boys Club. Wait, is it just Boys Club? It's just Boys Club. [00:18] The boys club podcast. No, no. [00:20] Just boy stuff. [00:22] Welcome to malware. Welcome to malware. I'm Natasha. [00:25] I'm Dina. We're having fun with this podcast. I'm really enjoying it. I'm having a great time. I did want to check in with you. You're doing all the research. I'm just kind of sitting here like talking shit about it, which is really fun for me. I think that's it. Does it work for you? I think that works. Yeah. I think I don't know that that needs to be what it is forever, but I think it works for now. Totally. [00:43] Okay, great. It was just like, I'm jumping into the research. I was like, great. And then I showed up and I was like, man, I get to just sit here and learn. I hope you guys are learning things. I feel like I'm learning things. We... [00:53] would ask if you do enjoy this podcast and you're having a good time that you send it to a friend who you think would also enjoy learning about the tech news from the week from two gals who just like to gab just like to yap about the tech news yeah i hope that it feels accessible and shareable and if that is you and you enjoy it please also give it a rating on spotify or apple or whatever

[01:23] we took a tour around a lot of kind of dark stories, but feel like they're important. [01:30] Anyway. [01:31] We talked about politics and tech. We talked about... [01:34] tampons and metal and we talked about AT&T and data and and [01:40] Kids cyber bowling each other. Yeah. [01:42] But then we ended on a high note. You'll have to listen in order to... Yeah. To get the details, we got to wait till the end. Okay. Enjoy. [01:51] Hey, Natasha. So a question we get asked a lot is, what do you look for in a crypto platform? So let's talk about it. Well, Dina, I look for a secure, no fuss platform that I can dive into right away. That's why I love today's sponsor, Kraken. If you're waiting for the right time to get into crypto, Kraken makes it super easy and intuitive to get started. Plus, if you get stuck, they have an award-winning client support team that's available 24-7, along with a bunch of educational guides, articles, and videos to help you along the way. If you're ready to check out [02:20] go to kraken.com backslash boys club and see what crypto can be not investment advice crypto trading involves risk of loss cryptocurrency services are provided to us and us territory customers by payward ventures incorporated pvi dba kraken view pvi's disclosure at kraken.com backslash legal [02:41] Let's jump right on in. As you know, I have mixed feelings about leading with this first story that we have here, which is about the politics and crypto and tech of it all. But it feels like... [02:51] It's too big to not talk about. [02:53] Too big to not talk about too much of a time-long takeover to not at least acknowledge in some capacity.

[03:00] But it doesn't. [03:02] feel great. It doesn't feel great. It doesn't feel great. I also know that a lot of people are like, [03:08] So fatigued from hearing about and talking about and watching the news about what's happening in politics right now and are just wanting to tune out. Unplug from it. Totally. Yeah, it's really upsetting that... [03:22] You can't escape it. And I wrote a newsletter on it. For those of you who are not subscribed to the Wednesday newsletter to online, this is me shilling it. Chill, baby. [03:33] I do feel like it's a shared sentiment where people are really fatigued. [03:37] by the amount of political rhetoric that is all across the internet right now but [03:42] what's going on with crypto and politics this week. Yeah, we're going to keep it concise. There's a few big bullet points that I want to brief everyone on here today. The overarching note here is that it feels as though Silicon Valley... [03:56] has [03:57] Flipped. Read. Yeah. Publicly. [04:00] And I think that you could argue... [04:03] Silicon Valley and [04:04] most notably like i would say the people in power in silicon valley controlling the tech industry that they have always been read and that they just haven't been willing to be public about it and now that sentiment has totally changed so the big the few big things that have happened [04:18] Elon Musk has come out publicly endorsing Trump. There's been a big VC campaign [04:26] endorsement public endorsement of trump what they're saying is we want to help a protect agenda

[04:31] and that they aren't in consideration or endorsing the social issues like [04:35] Yeah. The many and varied. It's pro innovation in America. Yeah. The sort of American dynamism thesis that you see them talking about a lot. So that's what's happened over this past week is that everyone has kind of come out and has started talking about this publicly. The crypto of it all is really interesting. Jamie Dimon, who's the JP Morgan Chase CEO, who has in the past [04:56] been very anti-Bitcoin. There's this really funny video that I'll link to in the show notes where he calls Bitcoin a pet rock. He's... [05:04] So I remember this. Yes. Yeah. He's bearish. But he has I saw something yesterday that's saying that he's he's changing his stance on it publicly and is cozying up to Trump and eyeing a Treasury seat. So the facts change. You change your mind, I guess. With Jamie Dimon, I saw a tweet. I think it was a quote tweet from Elon Musk around all basically the huge Silicon Valley investors that have now come out and supported Trump or either publicly or. [05:34] in [05:35] financially through a PAC or whatever. [05:37] And... [05:38] My main question is, let's say Biden does fall out of the race and somebody else is actually running on the Democratic ticket. If these people will change their tune again and. [05:50] I don't see that, which is a bummer because I'm like, can we just wait it out another six weeks and see if something changes? And then because I don't feel like you can flip. [05:59] back yeah you can't flip back but now sentiment has changed so much around biden and the democrats and no good options in such a extreme way that i think they kind of were like well this is our moment

[06:11] be public about, probably. [06:13] What the... [06:14] Always done. Yeah. One other thing that's happened this haven't yesterday is Vitalik Buterin. [06:20] Our main man. Oh my God. [06:22] Number one main character. [06:24] king of our hearts co-founder of ethereum on the pod he please come on the pod i know metallic [06:30] Please. We're begging you. We'll talk about whatever you want to talk about. We'll talk about... [06:34] Shared sequencing. We'll talk about Ethereum. [06:40] He posted a blog post yesterday, which I felt... [06:45] brought a lot of much needed nuance to the conversation and basically was like, [06:50] You shouldn't be a single issue voter around crypto. [06:54] You should be a values voter. [06:57] and that if you care about crypto, you need to go one level deeper than crypto. And you should be looking for evidence that a politician is advocating and has in the past advocated for individual freedoms and free and open technology. [07:10] generally and that crypto is one part of it but that there's other things like privacy of communication and access to information and privacy friendly digital identity that it's it's bigger than just crypto and you need to be looking for a track record of people being in support of that not just right now because trump has some tailwinds and whatever all the stuff around that and he's yeah he's choosing his crypto candidates and jd bands and all that that's too [07:40] on free and open technology more generally. - How is he so wise? - He's so wise. - Just a very wise person.

[07:47] - Man. - Three boys man, which I felt like was some much needed balance [07:52] to... [07:53] the conversation because I think even arguably if you're like, okay, I am pro innovation and acceleration because I see these potential benefits to humanity at large. And there's that argument that can be made that I thought we did a podcast with Reggie James and Ruby Tillo a couple months ago. And the argument is that actually we can be using technology to solve humanity's greatest problems. And yeah, [08:17] So I think even if you have that perspective and you're like, okay, this is why I'm pro-innovation. This is why I think that backing the tech positive candidates is important. I think you could argue that a lot of these candidates aren't and they're just saying it and they're not going to do any of the things that... [08:33] would be protect or pro crypto. And it's just like something they're saying right now to get people riled up service. Yeah, so [08:41] Vitalik coming through. I thought you were going to talk about Vitalik's subtweet of Autism Capital. Or not even subtweet. Tweet to Autism. Direct roast of Autism Capital that you sent to Miranda and I and said, this is a subtweet of Boys Club. [08:57] Which I thought was so funny. And basically the tweet was like, why do you have the same Twitter strategy that you had two years ago? It was funny and cool then and now it's just shitty. Either be really funny or really smart.

[09:11] out in a major way. Man, if Vitalik ever tweeted... Like, the... [09:18] That would make me feel... I'd be done. Yeah, I'd be done. Delete my... I'll delete everything. I'd... Off grid. I'd be like a sheep herder in the mountains somewhere. She's logged off. [09:32] Are you an ATT customer? [09:34] I'm not. I am T-Mobile, which is budget, but it does the same thing. It gets to where you need to go. Exactly. [09:42] I'm on a shared family plan with a bunch of friends. Oh, cute. [09:47] And I'm the coordinator of it. So it's really funny because one of my friends works in sales and for a while, I don't know why it was set up this way, but if you're like the. [09:55] primary holder on the account, then everybody whose number is on that account, when they call somebody, it will say their name. And so he was like, oh my gosh, I've been on like, I've been doing like, he was like doing cold calls. And they're like, [10:08] were like Natasha and Hoskins calling. And all of these cold calls came through as my number, which is funny. Anyway, I'm with T-Mobile. [10:16] Okay, well, this won't affect you. I'm an AT&T customer, so I'm affected. There was a big data breach by AT&T, which... [10:23] basically has affected all of their 109 million customers the data breach exposed the call and text records including phone numbers and the number of calls made also potentially the cell tower locations so you could like [10:37] you could triangulate triangulate yeah they're gonna find so many mirror selfies of me to you saying which shoes do you like this do you like that the boots or the mules some hacker's gonna be so disappointed like wow this is so boring so it's a huge hack 109 million people is a lot for people who work in crypto this is terrifying because i'm i've least for me

[11:07] thinking about when I'm [11:08] It's not if it's when I'm going to get SimSwift. And... [11:11] oh oh knock on wood you actually have some assets yeah unlike unlike me where i'm like okay go grab the 0.5 e like have at it but you have um some actual like money in crypto i do it is not secured by anything that would that would be affected be a phone number yeah by sim swap but i mean having said that having said that i don't want to get sim swapped i'm terrified of [11:41] One of the nuances of the story is that there was 5.7 Bitcoin paid in ransom to erase the stolen data from the server where it had been stored to a hacker. [11:50] And for them to also provide video proof but the second line in that story was they don't know if the data has been duplicated and so it's like I [11:59] - Oh, okay. - I know, so stupid. - So dumb. I saw a tweet from Camille about [12:05] her getting an email from AT&T about it five days after the story had broken on Twitter. And she was like, this is so funny and stupid that like these companies move at such a snail speed that it took that long to inform customers of a data breach when Twitter was talking about it. [12:21] five days earlier. Totally. It's crazy. This also relates to the previous story because this is the type of thing that Vitalik privacy maxis. I am getting it more and more. And I think that... [12:34] This is the type of thing these corporations being able to have this data store this data use this data and personal information and make a ton of money off of it and then just be like whoops sorry like sorry. Yeah is exactly what he's speaking to in terms of like what we'd want to not have even be possible in the future.

[12:52] Totally. Is there any recourse for customers? Like, are they going to provide any? I'm sure there'll be some sort of class action, something, something. Okay. But unclear as of right now. [13:02] Man, crazy. [13:04] That's a lot of people. A lot of people. [13:06] you [13:07] It's time for a more open, inclusive, and transparent financial system. A system that serves nearly everyone, everywhere, all the time. That's why we love today's sponsor, Kraken. Kraken is a crypto platform that provides a super simple on-ramp to the world of crypto with a 24-7 support team. Crypto transcends physical and imaginary borders. No matter where you are, you can send funds easily and quickly to almost any part of the world. Plus, forget about waiting times and waiting lines. You can send, receive, and trade crypto anywhere near instantly. [13:36] be at kraken.com backslash boys club non-investment advice crypto trading involves risk of loss transfers to a third party are not available on kraken cryptocurrency services are provided to us and us territory customers by payward ventures inc pvi dva kraken view pvi's disclosures at kraken.com backslash legal backslash disclosures [13:57] Also, our next story here, a lot of people, metals and tampons. A lot of people. A lot of people. Not I, but a lot of people. [14:05] I love my Mirena. Shout out to the IUD crew. Shout out to the IUD crew. There's an incredible... [14:13] I can't believe I'm gonna talk about this, but whatever. I have them right now. I haven't had my period for seven years. I love it. And then all of my like woo woo Brooklyn friends who are like having natural births are like, "Your cycle, it's so important." And I'm like,

[14:27] We have solved this. Science has solved it. You're a menstruation IAC. I'm a woman in STEM and I'm like, this is perfect. But there's this incredible, I'm a huge 30 Rock fan. And there's this incredible 30 Rock episode where Jack Donaghy is dating this woman. Jack Donaghy is like the main character. He's like very successful man. He's dating this sort of younger woman who's in her early 30s who is very successful like news anchor. [14:57] And they are both really busy. So they're like really scheduled about when they see each other. And he's like trying to schedule her to like go on this weekend trip. And she was like, oh, I can't that weekend. It's the one weekend of the year that I get my period. And he was like, oh, no. And she was like, I know. We're so close to solving it. [15:15] I love that clip. And I'm like, we've solved it. We did it. Yeah. From that episode to today. All that to say, I'm relieved because of what's happening here. So give us a scoop. So earlier this month, [15:26] a study from UC Berkeley. [15:28] found arsenic lead and other metals and 14 different types of tampons. [15:32] All different kinds of brands. Different, across brands. Cross brand. [15:37] - Okay. - And the fear, [15:40] Is that that area of our body? [15:43] is one of the most absorbent places. [15:45] that exists. [15:47] and not good. Not good. So there is more research that needs to be done around it because one of the limitations of the study is that they broke down the materials using acid and heat. So it's not clear if that does replicate to...

[16:01] a vaginal environment, but that... [16:05] is something they're gonna be looking at next. Okay. A couple things from this. The first one is that this was the first paper to measure metals and tampons, which I find... [16:14] are you serious insane insane [16:17] Wow! [16:19] Wow, what? [16:21] - Women's health. - Are you sure? - Shockingly underfunded and also like-- - What? - Of all, yeah. [16:29] Of all the things. Of all the things to look at regulating. I feel like this is one that we should be looking very closely at. Pretty closely at. So that's the first thing. And then. Man, that's upsetting. The second thing I was looking at the study and then chatting with Catherine Champagne, who's at Keckers on Twitter. She's an incredible follow for science. [16:50] health stuff science-based health and wellness and fitness stuff but she was posting about the study and i was like so what do we think where do we think this the metals are coming from and she was like the speculation is that it's coming from contaminated soil so the soil contaminates the plants and then the plants are turned into the tampons that's how that's how it happens so it's not like an additive cotton in the manufacturing process it's like it's happening through the [17:14] the raw ingredients already containing the medicine. [17:18] Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. So that's happening. So basically, there's going to be more studies on it. [17:23] But there's going to be no solve in the meantime. No solve in the meantime. And also like for all of us who have been using tampons for our whole menstruating lives, it's kind of like, okay, well, whoopsie.

[17:32] Yeah. Oopsie. I guess it's time to go order a Diva Cup or something. Something like that. Yeah. I will say as... [17:40] someone who used to take recreational drugs in my youth, I don't really feel like I have much of a like to stand on in the story. Totally. Because I'm like, of all, you know, I've ingested so many things I have no idea. Who knows the origin of those? [17:53] Pills. Oh, I mean, people who get totally really uptight about stuff like this. I'm like, you have to look at where there's been other things. [18:02] moments of contamination in your body. Totally. It's like all the, who I love all these girlies, but all the 365 party girls who then won't do seed oils. I'm like... [18:13] Guys. [18:14] There's a little bit. Or the Bella Hadid with her tinctures, and then she's smoking a cigarette. Yes, smoking a cigarette. Totally. [18:23] Okay, next one, also kind of dark. [18:27] But- Back to back here. This is actually not like a news story. [18:33] story but as you know i went on vacation um a couple weeks ago it was amazing i went to yellowstone if anyone is considering a yellowstone trip let me know i have all the details uh and would be happy to share with you had a great time [18:45] I went on that vacation with my best friend from growing up who is a public school teacher. [18:50] and she lives in Seattle and teaches in Seattle. And we were just having a chat, and she started telling me about something called Roast Accounts. [18:59] And I feel like I must bring it here to... [19:02] give all the listeners a new fear. I'm curious what a roast account is. I have heard about

[19:09] Reddit roasts, subreddits. Have you heard about these? Like influencer roasts? [19:14] Yeah. Yeah. Like full subreddits committed to hating on like Alex Cooper or whatever. Yeah. It's similar, though. You would argue that those people have opted into being living a public... [19:24] facing life. Okay. The roast account's [19:28] that are happening in her school at least are people as young as like sixth grade 11 years old oh like teens yeah young creating roast accounts for each who are creating basically these anonymously and then the bio will be like send your ops in like send in people that you don't photos of people that you don't like and they post bad unflattering photos of people and write no really mean things [19:53] on them and [19:55] It's hard enough when you're a sixth grader or seventh grader wrapped with anxiety and insecurity. And you're just like everything is raw and new and you're trying to... Open nerve. Totally navigate like a social, new social life. Dynamic, yeah. Puberty and you're in school. The worst. And you're like doing your best. The worst. The worst. Time in your life ever. And... [20:18] you're trying to [20:20] learn and [20:21] And the whole time you're worried that people are going to be taking a bad photo of you and then posting it on these. So sad. I hate that. I know. And then there's another level, which is that there's bribes where it's like you give me some thing that I want and I won't post it. She was saying that that happens. Sinister. Less common. Like what's more common are these anonymous terrorist accounts. OK, well.

[20:43] Oh my God. There's so many layers of this being fucked up. [20:47] But also, like, if you're a kid who's doing the roast account, [20:51] Like hurt people hurt people. Like what happened to that kid to do that? Like that's so sad. [20:56] Man, I hate that. I was a... [20:59] Very. [21:01] Very. [21:03] uncute middle schooler. [21:05] You know. [21:06] You have seen their receipts. I thought you were so cute. I thought the photos of you, you're very cute. [21:12] Okay. [21:14] Um... [21:15] Sure. [21:18] Other kids did not. I don't think you had a look that was very [21:22] cool it was it was not a trad look it wasn't very preppy as the kids would call it these days but it was you were adorable [21:31] Mm-hmm. Okay. So... [21:33] I just think back to that time in my life, and it was... [21:37] - Yeah. - I cannot think of a time where I felt [21:40] worse, honestly. [21:42] And- [21:43] There was no social media. [21:44] You had all this imagined idea of what people thought about you and all the mean things that they could be saying. Yeah. [21:51] And like, [21:52] There was LiveJournal, which I remember some that was sort of there in MySpace. [21:58] What it is today is just, it's dark. The teachers and the administration are really powerless against it because they're anonymous accounts and they don't have the resources or wherewithal to trace it back to cybersecurity. She's like, it's hard enough to teach them.

[22:15] school and then this is like so distracting and takes up so much time and [22:21] the parents... [22:23] always want something done about it if it's their child who's being cyber bullied of course but if it's their child that's [22:30] is suspected to be doing the perpetrating. They're like, we want more evidence. We don't like there's, there's a whole parent dynamic that the teachers are also trying to navigate, which is really, really sounds really hard. Um, [22:39] and [22:41] And makes it almost impossible for them to do their job. Yeah, I think impossible feeling. There's a movement to ban phones in schools, which... [22:50] I [22:51] support Oscar one of Oscar's classmates eight-year-old has a phone you told me [22:57] That's fucking insane. I know. So anyway, [23:01] Roast accounts, not really anything you do about it. There's like the social media regulation where they're like, oh, yeah, we should put a surgeon general's warning on. I'm like, that's not going to do anything. No. Outlawing people who are under age of 13 to have social media accounts. I'm like, what are you talking about? [23:16] How? What are you talking about? You're Delulu. The Delululand. Yeah. [23:21] So brutal. [23:22] . [23:26] Should we end on a stupid note? I have the stupidest story. You ready? [23:30] Yeah, let's hear it. Sam Altman's Infinity Pool. [23:33] is leaking and it is [23:37] Can you show me? Can you send me? I'm dying. I gotta see. And he is suing the developer for 27 million dollars. [23:45] No.

[23:47] - Sam Altman's infinity pool. - What? - Yep, hold on. [23:52] It's so funny. I can't even handle that. I just want to go on record and say, I think Infinity Pools are overrated. [23:59] Wow. I don't think that is the optimal pool shape. You heard it here first. How much was his home that he could sue his... [24:07] contractor 27 million dollars just for the pool leaking 27 million dollars san francisco luxury abode uh plagued with issues [24:15] One issue is the leaky pool, but also faulty piping that dumped raw sewage onto the property. [24:22] He's saying that he purchased a lemon. [24:24] Oh, man. Wow. In this Verge article, there is literally the PDF embedded into the PDF of the lawsuit embedded into the article. [24:34] Oh man, we've got a bit of a YouTube video here. We'll be using a video 40.5 [24:39] million dollar estate on Lombard Street overlooking Wow [24:43] Sam, Sam, Sam. Did you see the video of him driving his luxury car? I didn't. I haven't seen a lot of Sam recently. [24:49] What does he drive? Oh, it's... I think he's like a car guy. And so it's like some sports car, souped-up sports car that you would never... It's like some... [24:59] He's a car guy. Hyper luxury thing. I... [25:01] Until this conversation, I had this assumption because all the pictures I had seen, he's wearing like some backpack. I didn't think he was materialistic. You thought he was backpack guy? I thought he was like a backpack guy. Yeah. I was like, oh, he's driving like a, maybe a Camry or like a BMW hybrid. Yeah. Like one of those really wealthy people that always keeps driving their Toyota Camry, no matter what.

[25:20] Exactly. Yeah. And doesn't have nice clothes or a nice watch or a nice home. Like I thought he was more Warren Buffett about it. Or who's the other guy that's like so never spends any money. I don't understand. I don't I don't know those people wouldn't be me. But I guess it's not him either. Yeah. I don't I think this was a joy ride situation, but he drove. [25:41] It was a hyper luxury car and he drove it into some populated area and people started taking photos of him and it wasn't flattering. I gotta say, it was not flattering. It made him seem... Oh, man. ...of some sort of way. Unlikable. Also, he's just like not likable right now. Yeah. [25:59] Two for two right now. [26:01] Okay. [26:03] There it is. [26:04] Now you're brief from Sam Altman to lead tampons. Okay, bye. [26:09] *outro music*