DevNews

Latest Episodes:

S5:E3 - GitHub CoPilot, Oculus’ Passthrough API, Security Concerns About QR Codes, and Why Covid-19 AI Predictive Models Fell Short Aug 04, 2021

Show notes

In this episode, we talk about Oculus' new experimental API, which blends virtual reality with your real surroundings, and we get into the sudden boom of QR codes, and the security issues it brings. Then we talk about some potential ethical and legal issues regarding Github Copilot with Andres Guadamuz, Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law at the University of Sussex and the Editor in Chief of the Journal of World Intellectual Property. Then we speak with Laure Wynants, Assistant Professor at Maastricht University Department of Epidemiology about why hundreds of AI predictive models built aid in the covid-19 pandemic fell short.

Show Notes

Andres Guadamuz

Andres Guadamuz is Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law at the University of Sussex and the Editor in Chief of the Journal of World Intellectual Property. His main research areas are on artificial intelligence and copyright, open licensing, cryptocurrencies, and smart contracts. Andres has published two books, the most recent is "Networks, Complexity and Internet Regulation", and he regularly blogs at Technollama.co.uk.

Laure Wynants

Laure Wynants is interested in methods to handle heterogeneity between populations when developing and validating diagnostic and prognostic models, and in the utility of models in clinical practice. Her applied work includes models for gynecological cancers, hospital-acquired infections, and covid-19. Since March 2020, she leads an international consortium to systematically review models for covid-19, for which she has been awarded the Edmond Hustinx science prize. This review already has over 1300 citations and has been picked up by policymakers, including the European Commission and the WHO.

S5:E2 - Activision Blizzard Discrimination and Harassment Suit, Security Issues With Some Independent Phone Producers, and the Incredible Gail.com Jul 28, 2021

Show notes

In this episode we talk about a major sexism and harassment suit against Activision Blizzard, and what might be one of the best websites on the internet, gail.com. Then we speak with Kyle Rankin, Chief Security Officer at Purism, about their mission to make computers and phones focused on security and privacy, and what people should potentially beware of when using phones from independent phone producers such as the newly announced Freedom Phone.

Show Notes

DevDiscuss (sponsor)
CodeNewbie (sponsor)
Avalanche (sponsor)
Gail.com
WIPO Case D2006-0655
Activision Blizzard Sued Over ‘Frat Boy’ Culture, Harassment (1)
Calif. Dep’t of Fair Emp. & Housing v. Activision Blizzard Inc.
Freedom Phone Announcement
Purism
Freedom Phone

Kyle Rankin

Kyle Rankin is the Chief Security Officer at Purism, SPC, and the author of a number of books on security and infrastructure, most recently Linux Hardening in Hostile Networks for Pearson.

S5:E1 - Pegasus Cyber Espionage Tool, Steam’s New Console, Gunshot-Detecting Tech, and NATO Condemns a Cyberattack Jul 22, 2021

Show notes

In this episode, we talk about a gunshot-detecting tech used by law enforcement, the new Steam Deck handheld gaming console, and an unprecedented move by NATO condemning China for a hack exploiting Microsoft's Exchange Server.

Show Notes

Marcus Carey

Marcus J. Carey is an Enterprise Architect at ReliaQuest where he does security research and product development. Prior to joining ReliaQuest, Marcus was the founder and CEO at Threatcare (acquired by ReliaQuest) and has 20 years of cybersecurity experience. Marcus has worked in penetration testing, incident response, and digital forensics with federal agencies such as NSA, DC3, DIA, and DARPA.

S4:E8 - An Elaborate Phishing Hack, Autonomous Lethal Drones, a Questionable m1 Security Flaw, and a Devnews Behind the Scenes Jun 03, 2021

Show notes

In this episode, we talk about an elaborate phishing hack, a questionable M1 security flaw, and the first autonomous lethal drones targeting humans. Then we chat with our producer, Levi Sharpe to give a behind the scenes look at how we make DevNews.

Show Notes

Levi Sharpe

Levi Sharpe is the senior podcast producer at Forem, currently making their CodeNewbie, DevNews, and DevDiscuss podcasts. Previously, he was lead podcast producer at Gizmodo Media Group, where he produced Lifehacker’s Webby-nominated podcast, The Upgrade, as well as Jezebel's DirtCast and Big Time Dicks podcasts. You can hear his sound design work on the narrative fiction podcast, Roommate From Hell, and the Webby award-winning comedy musical podcast, Propaganda.

S4:E7 - Freenode’s Mass Resignations, NVIDIA’s Less Crypto-Friendly Chips, Twitter’s Crop Algorithm Investigation, and Remote Employers Excluding Colorado May 27, 2021

Show notes

In this episode, we talk about companies excluding the state of Colorado from remote opportunities due to the Equal Pay For Equal Work Act, NVIDIA making their graphics cards less desirable for cryptocurrency miners, and Twitters report on its investigation into its cropping algorithm, which many people criticized as having a racial and gender bias. Then we speak with James Eaton-Lee, former staff member at Freenode, and current staff member of Libera.Chat, which was created in response to entrepreneur and Crown Prince of Korea, Andrew Lee, taking control of Freenode, which led to a mass resignation of many of its staff developers.

Show Notes

DevDiscuss (sponsor)
CodeNewbie (sponsor)
Avalanche (sponsor)
Equal Pay For Equal Work Act
Colorado Excluded
NVIDIA cripples cryptocurrency mining on RTX cards
Sharing learnings about our image cropping algorithm
The Freenode resignation FAQ, or: "what the fuck is going on?"
resigning from freenode
Libera.Chat

James Eaton-Lee

James is a staff member at Libera.Chat and was a Freenode staffer from 2007-2021. He has worked in tech for almost 20 years, and presently works in privacy and cybersecurity for an INGO.

S4:E6 - Babel’s Money Challenges, What It's Like to Work on Rails, and Coinbase’s End to Salary Negotiations May 20, 2021

Show notes

This week we’re talking about cryptocurrency company CoinBase refusing to negotiate job offers and a blog post by the Babel core team titled, “Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?” which created a bit of a Twitter storm, and speak with Babel Core Maintainer Nicolò Ribaudo. Then we speak with Principal Engineer at Heroku and Rails Contributor Richard Schneeman, about what it’s like to work on Rails in the aftermath of Basecamp co-founders Jason Fried and Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson’s highly criticized blog post, which raised concerns about Rails' independence from its creator.

Show Notes

Nicolò Ribaudo

Nicolò Ribaudo is an open source maintainer working on Babel and on many related projects. When offline, he's a math student in Turin, Italy.

Richard Schneeman

Richard Schneeman created and maintains CodeTriage.com, a tool for helping people contribute to open-source When he isn't obsessively compulsively refactoring code he spends his time reminding his kids to wash their hands.

S4:E5 - Apple AirTag Security Concerns, a Deep Neural Network Hack, an Oil Pipeline Cyber Attack, and a Shortage of Semiconductors May 13, 2021

Show notes

In this episode, we talk about Apple’s AirTag security concerns, a US oil pipeline cyber attack and shutdown, and a shortage in semiconductors. Then we chat with Sanghyun Hong and Yigitcan Kaya Ph.D. students in Computer Science at the University of Maryland College Park, and co-authors of a research paper about how hackers could make AI networks consume much more energy than they already do.

Show Notes

Sanghyun Hong

Sanghyun's research interests lie at the intersection of computer security and machine learning. His current research focus is to study the computational properties of DNNs from a systems security perspective. He was invited as a speaker at USENIX Enigma'21, where he talked about practical hardware attacks on deep learning. He is also a recipient of the Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowship.

Yigitcan Kaya

Yigitcan Kaya is a fourth year PhD student at University of Maryland. His research focus is on security risks and vulnerabilities of deep learning models, such as their sensitivity to malicious inputs or their tendency to memorize and leak private information. In the past, being inspired by neuroscience, he identified the overthinking problem in neural networks then proposed a generic solution to this problem.

S4:E4 - Video Game Studio Instability, Basecamp’s Mass Resignations, Apple’s Monopoly, and Donald Trump’s Facebook May 06, 2021

Show notes

In this episode, we talk about Basecamp’s mass resignations, the European Union saying Apple breaks antitrust laws, and Facebook's decision to continue the ban on Donald Trump's account. Then we chat with Jason Schreier, reporter at Bloomberg and the author of Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, and now Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry, coming out May 11, 2021.

Show Notes

Jason Schreier

Jason Schreier is a video games at Bloomberg news, and the author of "Blood, Sweat, and Pixels," and "Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry."

S4:E3 - Basecamp Backlash, Remote Work Harassment, Linux Kernel Submission Ban, and Crypto Miners Killing Free CI Apr 29, 2021

Show notes

In this episode, we talk about the problematic blog post put out by Basecamp CEO and Co-founder Jason Fried, and we also get into how crypto currency miners are killing free CI. Then we chat with Hector Monsegur, security researcher and former blackhat hacker, about how University of Minnesota security researchers submitted security vulnerabilities to the Linux kernel to show flaws in the approval process leading to a call for a ban on anything submitted by umn.edu emails. Finally, we speak with McKensie Mack, founder & CEO of MMG and a co-author of a report put out by the non-profit, Project Include, about how remote work is leading to more gender and racial harassment at tech companies.

Show Notes

Hector X. Monsegur

Hector X. Monsegur is director of research at Alacrinet and a former black hat hacker.

McKensie Mack

Researcher, strategist, and digital organizer, McKensie leads the data-driven organization, MMG, which leverages mixed-methods research to transform culture and stop harm.

S4:E2 - U.K. Central Bank Digital Currency, the Environmental Impact of Digital Currency, a Problematic Spotify Patent, and WordPress’ Google FLoC Block Apr 21, 2021

Show notes

In this episode, we talk about WordPress blocking Google’s Federated Learning of Cohorts tracking technology, a web app that received so much negative feedback from food bloggers it was taken down in less than a day, and The Bank of England and HM Treasury creating a joint task force to explore the possibility of creating a central bank digital currency in the U.K. Then we speak with Tim Swanson, founder and director of research at Post Oak Labs, and head of market intelligence at ClearMatics, as well as the author of the research paper, “Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare,” about the environmental impact of digital currency. Then we chat with Isedua Oribhabor, U.S. policy analyst at Access Now about their letter to Spotify on why the company should abandon their recent speech-recognition patent of a technology to detect emotion, gender, and age.

Show Notes

Tim Swanson

Tim Swanson is the founder and director of research at Post Oak Labs, head of market intelligence at ClearMatics, as well as the author of the research paper, “Bitcoin and other PoW coins are an ESG nightmare,”

Isedua Oribhabor

Isedua is Access Now's U.S. Policy Analyst and Business and Human Rights lead. She works to promote human rights in the digital age, focusing on the responsibility of tech companies to respect human rights.