Tech News Today 228

Tech News Today Episode 228

Tech News Today 228: Chaos Monkey Saves Netflix

Netflix is saved by Rambo architecture and a Chaos Monkey, Facebook re-invents email, your IP address is not your identity, and more.

Hosts

• Tom Merritt (@acedtect)
  • TomMerritt.com
• Jason Howell
  • JasonHowell.net
• Sarah Lane (@sarahlane)
  • SarahLane.com
• Darren Kitchen
  • hak5.org

Top Stories

• Facebook Launches ‘Send’ Button For More Selective Sharing, Announces 50 Million ‘Groups’
  • Facebook Send button, shares with groups or friends oremail
  • Facebook Groups gets photo albums and FB Questions, and group admins can choose to approve every memeber of a group. You can also merge groups. Facebook is adding a handful of features to its existing Groups product, which was overhauled last October. First is the introduction of photo albums for Groups. Before now it’s been possible to upload a single photo to a group, and now you’ll be able to upload a whole set.

• Barnes & Noble adds apps to Nook e-reader: Gets email app before PlayBook
• Why The Nook Upgrade Is A Big Deal For The E-Reader Market
• Get the update manually
  • B&N releasing Nook Color 1.2 software update today. Brings FroYo (Android 2.2) and Flash 10.1 along with the B&N app shop . Nook Color is $249. Manually download now, get it automatically OTA in the next few weeks. App shop will have 125 apps at launch. Pandora, Angry Birds, Epicurious. B&N also has built an email client IMAP and Pop. Also with Flash, more interactive books and magazines. No Android markeplace. Nook Friends integrates with twitter, facebook, contact list and e-lending function.

• Nintendo confirms Wii Replacement 2012
• Nintendo sells 3.61 million 3DS handhelds, but sees 2010 net profit decline by 66 percent
• “We would like to propose a new approach to home video game consoles,” Iwata said, as reported by Bloomberg. "It's difficult to make 3-D images a key feature, because 3-D televisions haven’t obtained wide acceptance yet."
  • Nintendo Co., Ltd. has decided to launch in 2012 a system to succeed Wii, which the company has sold 86.01 million units on a consolidated shipment basis between its launch in 2006 and the end of March 2011. We will show a playable model of the new system and announce more specifications at the E3 Expo, which will be held June 7-9, 2011, in Los Angeles.

Discussion Stories

• Sony Blames PlayStation Outage on “External Intrusion”
• PSN down due to "external intrusion," no news on fix, credit card security
• PSN update: Sony isn't sure your credit card data is safe
  • Satoshi Fukuoka, a spokesman for Sony Computer Entertainment in Tokyo, spoke with PCWorld and claimed the company "has not yet determined if the personal information or credit card numbers of users have been compromised, but that Sony would promptly inform users if it found that was the case." Sony's James Gallagher (EU)and Patrick Seybold (US) posted the same things on different blogs. **"Unfortunately, I don't have an update or timeframe to share at this point in time," he wrote. "As we previously noted, this is a time intensive process and we're working to get them back online quickly. An external intrusion on our system has affected our PlayStation Network and Qriocity services. In order to conduct a thorough investigation and to verify the smooth and secure operation of our network services going forward, we turned off PlayStation Network & Qriocity services on the evening of Wednesday, April 20th. Providing quality entertainment services to our customers and partners is our utmost priority. We are doing all we can to resolve this situation quickly, and we once again thank you for your patience. We will continue to update you promptly as we have additional information to share. "Our efforts to resolve this matter involve re-building our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure," Seybold wrote in yet another update. "Though this task is time-consuming, we decided it was worth the time necessary to provide the system with additional security."

• Lessons From a Cloud Failure: It’s Not Amazon, It’s You
• Amazon Web Services outage: 'Detailed post mortem' coming
• Amazon Cloud Outage Didn't Stop Recovery.gov
• GigaOm runs down who did what, who stayed up and who went down and why
  • As of Sunday, most of Amazon EC2 was back
  • Amazon wrote Sunday at 10:35 p.m. Eastern. ""The vast majority of affected volumes have now been recovered. We're in the process of contacting a limited number of customers who have EBS volumes that have not yet recovered and will continue to work hard on restoring these remaining volumes.""
  • "We are digging deeply into the root causes of this event and will post a detailed post mortem," Amazon wrote.
• Sites on AWS:
  • Everyblock on Amazon failure "Frankly, we screwed up. AWS explicitly advises that developers should design a site’s architecture so that it is resilient to occasional failures and outages…"
  • Netflix called AWS "our Rambo Architecture. Each system has to be able to succeed, no matter what, even all on its own." (in Dec Netflix Blogpost) The Chaos Monkey is a set of scripts that run through Netflix’s AWS process and randomly shuts them down to ensure that the rest of the system is able to keep running. Think of it as a system where the parts are greater than the whole. Recovery.gov--which the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (RATB) moved to the AWS cloud a year ago--was unaffected by the outage and remained online without incident, said Mike Wood, the executive director of RATB.

• FBI child porn raid a strong argument for locking down WiFi networks
• Bizarre Porn Raid Underscores Wi-Fi Privacy Risks
• FBI Raids Apartment of Alleged King’s Speech Uploader
  • AP is circulating a story - Several people accused of downloading child porn, turns out it was another person using accused open Wi-Fi. A Buffalo man, Sarasota man, and Syracuse man all found themselves being raided by the FBI or police after their wireless networks were allegedly used to download child pornography.
  • Wi-Fi Alliance published a survey saying that 32 percent of Internet users have tried to connect to a WiFi network that wasn't theirs. FBI has raided actor and clothes-shop owner Wes DeSoto’s apartment. The Feds believe DeSoto uploaded The King's Speech, Black Swan, The Fighter and other films to The Pirate Bay in January from Oscar screeners. "I’m nobody in the online file sharing world. This investigation is excessive and a waste of tax dollars,” he said. --- DeSoto is accused of using the Pirate Bay handle mf34inc to upload the films. The authorities pinpointed DeSoto as the alleged culprit because the screeners he viewed contained specialized watermarks. What’s more, the guild had snail-mailed traceable iTunes codes to its members, who could use the code to access the screener movies. On Pirate Bay mf34inc commented back that “SAG now sends out iTunes download codes for screens” and “I’m a SAG member and thought I’d share these,” according to the affidavit. A contractor watched the userid and nabbed an IP address while it was uploading Rabbit Hole on Jan. 28. Authorities subpoenaed Time Warner Cable to get the person associated with that IP at that time then obtained a search warrant.

• Illinois AG Presses Apple, Google for Location Data Details
• Apple Sued Over User Location Data Storage on IPhones, IPads
• Really? House Democrat Warns of Sex Predators Using iPhone Tracking
• Microsoft phones don't track you and neither do Apple's. In a purported email to a reader of MacRumours, Steve Jobs allegedly wrote: "We don't track anyone. The info circulating around is false. " In a more traditional announcement of company policy, a Microsoft representative told PCMag unequivocally that phones running Windows Phone 7 do not store location history.
• Steve Jobs email story
  • Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan says she has sent a letter to Google and Apple asking them to detail exactly what information their devices are collecting, how long the information is stored and for what purposes. Apple Inc. (AAPL) was sued for alleged privacy invasion and computer fraud by two customers who claim the company is secretly recording and storing the location and movement of iPhone and iPad users, according to a federal complaint filed today in Tampa, Florida.

News Fuse

• The tablet space is about to get more cluttered. According to ThisIsMyNext.com, Lenovo will roll out a Tegra 2-based tablet that runs Honeycomb. What's different about this tablet? It will come with a stylus! While it will have a capacitive touchscreen, the stylus is there for sketching and notetaking. The tablet also appears to be dockable to make it more like a laptop. It will either be called the ThinkPad Tablet or Think Slate.

• In an effort to stop any patent wars from breaking out, Google has announced the new WebM Community Cross License, where members who join will cross-license any WebM-related patents to each other. 16 members have joined so far. WebM is Google's codec for audio and video designed for HTML5.

• Google exec Wael Ghonim who had been running a Facebook fanpage central in the Egyptian Revolution will step away from Google. Ghonim announced his decision via Twitter: “Decided to take a long term sabbatical from @Google & start a technology focused NGO to help fight poverty & foster education in #Egypt”

• Iran is under attack - this time it's the "Stars" virus. What does it do? According to Iran civil defense organization, it is capable of "inflicting minor damage." There are not a lot of details about Stars. The last attack on Iran was back when the country was hit by Stuxnet.

• Yahoo has just picked up start-up IntoNow for somewhere around $20-30 million. The company makes an iOS app that can listen to TV programs to identify them - then you can share what you're watching with your friends. Yahoo hasn't wasted any time - the IntoNow website already has Yahoo Branding on it. The IntoNow app launched about 12 weeks ago. That was quick.

• Storify opens to the public Monday hoping to help journalists and others collect and filter information from social networks. Users can select publicly available content from Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube and other sites. They can also add text and embed the resulting collages of content on their own sites. During a private test period, reporters from The Washington Post, NPR, PBS and other outlets used the service to cover topics like the Egyptian revolution.

• Some new reports take a look at mobile data. Cisco's Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast says that tablets generate 5 times more data traffic than smartphones and that last year's mobile data traffic was three times the size of the entire Internet in the year 2000. Another report from Goldman Sachs says that by 2020 it expects tablets to account for 17% of all mobile wireless data demand. People like to be connected on the go?

• Netflix released their quarterly earnings and everything was above expectations. The company has 23.6 million subs up from 14 million a year ago. Revenue was 719 million up 46% year-over-year. CEO Reed Hastings pointed out that content licensing deals, AM-ortized over several years, have not been draining the budget and indicated the company will try a couple more stabs at original programming.

Kickers and Weird Science

• Computer Opens Unmanned Store For Holiday

Calendar

• ASUS Eee Pad Transformer hits US for $399 tomorrow 4/26
• Cloud Girlfriend launches tomorrow 4/26
• Social browser Flock will no longer be supported as of tomorrow 4/26
• Sony's Norio Ohga passed away on April 23 at 81 years of age from multiple organ failure. Ohga is perhaps best known for driving the development of the compact disc, which Sony first released back in 1982.

Voicemail

• Sprint & Google Voice

Email

"Hey Tom, I've been watching TNT for the past week or so (and other TWiT podcasts longer), and on one of your recent podcasts, you guys mentioned the story about Google deleting all their content on Google Video. I just received this email (forwarded below) from Google. They state that they're eliminating the April 29th deadline and instead moving all content to YouTube instead. Google Video users can also make the switch immediately, if they wanted to.

- Connor"

"Hello TNT Gang!

I just wanted to bring to your attention the official MSP response to their data extraction devices that Iyaz brought up in episode 225. http://www.michigan.gov/msp/0,1607,7-123-1586-254783--,00.html. The MSP has stated there are only 6 of these devices that they use (not in the hands of every officer as the media made it sound) and they are not allowed to use them on traffic stops. If Michigan had a ""hands-free"" law I could see how the use of them might be good evidence in court, however since Michigan has no such law, it wouldn't do them any good to use them in traffic stops. I hope this helps clear up some mis-information.

Sincerely,

Stacy L. Lansing, MI"

Sponsors

Gazelle

• Gazelle.com offer code TWiT
• Gazelle-5
• ad times: :35-:45 and 12:43-14:06

Production Information

• Edited by: Jason
• Notes:

This area is for use by TWiT staff only. Please do not add or edit any content within this section.