Latest / Stuff Keeps Happening / Space Radios and Cyber Crimes

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Space Radios and Cyber Crimes · Stuff Keeps Happening

0:00
Hello. I studied the blade while you were out
0:03
partying. But stuff still happens. So what's
0:07
up? It's Labor Day. Do some labor. Wait, that's
0:10
not the point. It's Labor Day. It's also September.
0:14
Both of those shock me. To be fair, Labor Day
0:17
and Memorial Day are both days that just don't
0:18
exist in my mind until they happen. But - It's
0:22
Labor Day. It's been a noteworthy year after
0:25
a bunch of noteworthy years. I'm out of notes,
0:28
running low, too much paper. Point being, we're
0:31
working our way through this. And it's rough,
0:33
but we're just doing our best every single day.
0:35
So thank you for being here. Last week's episode
0:37
was a lot, but I really appreciate the support.
0:40
I put in some focus to make sure there's good
0:42
stuff later on in this episode. So we'll get
0:45
there, but stateside. At the office of Social
0:48
Security, things aren't particularly secure.
0:51
You may recall that DOGE, the Department of Government
0:53
Efficiency, which was Elon Musk's weird foray
0:56
into governance, wanted to get access to Social
0:59
Security data. For those who are not experiencing
1:02
the freedom of this country, Social Security
1:04
is one, the closest thing we have to, like, everybody
1:07
having a national ID number, and two, literally
1:11
just a number. that we're supposed to protect
1:13
with our life. If someone steals your social
1:15
security number, they can do a lot of bad things,
1:17
like a lot of bad things, like opening up bank
1:20
accounts and shit. It's really whack that we
1:22
don't have something better than just a number.
1:25
It's like if someone found out your phone number
1:27
and that gave them access to your bank. Obviously,
1:29
it's not that simple, but having someone's name,
1:33
address, and social security number can get you
1:35
a lot. Anyway, Doge wanted access to the Social
1:37
Security Administration for reasons, because
1:39
they were like, there's fraud here, but there's
1:41
not really evidence of that. Note, again, the
1:44
amount of times that Republicans have screamed
1:46
that they're targeting waste, fraud, and abuse,
1:48
and there have been exactly no lawsuits regarding
1:51
waste, fraud, and abuse, which are things that
1:53
require lawsuits. So these Musk goons went to
1:56
Social Security and despite being told they can't
2:00
do this, they took all of the data and apparently
2:03
uploaded it to some cloud service. Like they
2:06
made a secondary database that has less oversight.
2:09
One of the people in charge at Social Security
2:11
around like stewarding data resigned because
2:14
they basically said, it is now impossible to
2:16
do my job. These like barely 20 something year
2:19
old tech bros came in, did something without
2:22
our permission that's against the rules. And
2:24
now I cannot guarantee the safety of people's
2:27
information. It is generally frowned upon to
2:30
take government information and re -host it elsewhere
2:34
without permission and with no oversight. Generally.
2:38
Generally frowned upon. There's no upshot here.
2:42
The Social Security Administration is down a
2:45
guy who's supposed to protect data because he
2:47
doesn't think he can anymore. It's just, that's
2:50
just, that's where we are now. Okay, moving on.
2:53
The CDC! Also lost a bunch of top -level people.
2:56
The CDC is the Center for Disease Control and
2:59
Prevention. It makes me endlessly mad that they
3:01
didn't put AP to like CDC AP or something. But
3:05
they are a punching bag for the right, especially
3:07
ever since COVID started. They have just been
3:09
so angry. about the COVID vaccine. They want
3:11
to just completely dismantle the CDC and any
3:14
public health initiatives they can. RFK Jr.,
3:17
who is a well -documented anti -vaxxer, is the
3:20
head of public health in the United States. And
3:23
lo and behold! He's been pushing back against
3:26
vaccines! The FDA just announced new guidance
3:28
for the COVID vaccine, for like, boosters and
3:30
whatnot. If you're 65 or older, you can still
3:33
get the vaccine. If you're under 65, it gets
3:36
far more complicated as to whether or not you
3:38
can get this vaccine. Whereas before, you could
3:40
just go to a pharmacy and say like, hey, I want
3:42
to get a COVID booster, and they're like, cool,
3:43
boop! Okay, bye. if you had insurance, mostly.
3:46
But now it's just a mess. So much so that individual
3:49
states and coalitions of states are trying to
3:51
come up with their own vaccine guidance, just
3:53
ignoring the Fed, because that's nothing. So
3:57
where does it lie? As of right now, here's the
3:59
best way I can explain access to COVID vaccines
4:02
in the U .S. If you are over 65 and you have
4:06
insurance, you can get the COVID vaccine at pretty
4:08
much any pharmacy for basically free, if not
4:11
literally free. If you are under 65, and you
4:14
have a approved pre -existing condition, for
4:16
example, asthma, then with insurance, most pharmacies
4:20
in most states will give you the COVID vaccine
4:23
free of charge. If you do not fall into those
4:25
categories, and I'm ignoring, like, children
4:27
under 12, then you're basically fucked unless
4:30
you pay out of pocket, which might be up to,
4:32
like, $250 depending on where you go. Now, you
4:36
may be able to find something with or without
4:38
insurance. Some insurances might cover more of
4:40
it. Some might not cover it at all. Some pharmacies
4:42
might cover it. Some states might have different
4:44
guidance. Like I said, it's a fucking mess. A
4:48
guy that basically every scientist in medicine
4:51
across the world says is an idiot is the one
4:55
giving them orders now, and they're like, well,
4:57
we're just not going to follow them. But now
4:59
you're just screwed. Deal with it. Deal with
5:01
what they want to do. And if the doctors who
5:04
are like educated in the fields that you want
5:07
information about. If they ignore the guy with
5:10
a worm in his head who eats whales, they're at
5:12
risk of like retaliation from the government.
5:16
So yeah, the CDC, the CDC head was fired. the
5:18
Trump administration got rid of her, and then
5:20
a bunch of top other people from the CDC resigned
5:23
because they were like, what the fuck? These
5:24
aren't shadowy figures that are like making determinations
5:27
about how they're going to trans your kids. These
5:29
are infectious disease experts, people who study
5:32
how disease transmits between humans and wildlife,
5:36
shit like that. And they're just gone now, and
5:38
there isn't political will to replace them. This
5:40
administration is going after research universities,
5:42
public health research, basically all science.
5:45
Scientists are fleeing the US currently. It's
5:48
really sad, and it's especially sad because it's
5:50
just a bunch of scared dumb people who voted
5:53
for this. And the people who are actually doing
5:55
the research and keeping those scared dumb people
5:58
alive have to deal with the fallout of those
6:01
scared dumb people. Maybe be a little less dumb.
6:04
Maybe be a little less scared. maybe think a
6:07
little more about how your actions impact those
6:09
around you. Anyway, speaking of bad policies
6:12
that shouldn't be a thing, Trump's tariffs have
6:14
been declared illegal by a court. An appeals
6:17
court found that Trump's sweeping tariffs on
6:19
basically every country in the world are unconstitutional.
6:22
That's not a power he has. However, they're keeping
6:25
the tariffs in place. For now. Even though they're
6:30
unconstitutional. A court in this land has said,
6:33
yes, we acknowledge that the executive branch
6:36
is illegally taxing citizens, but we're going
6:39
to let it keep happening because it would be
6:41
too much effort to stop. So here's what's happening.
6:44
They basically said, look, this is unconstitutional,
6:46
but there's been so much will they, won't they
6:49
with the tariffs that we're just going to leave
6:51
them in place because we know the Trump administration
6:53
is going to appeal this. And so I'm personally
6:55
mad because a package that I ordered before the
6:58
tariffs went into effect got tariffed. So if
7:00
you voted for Trump, you owe me $62. So are the
7:03
tariffs going away? Probably not. This is likely
7:05
going to the Supreme Court. The Trump administration
7:07
is going to appeal it. Trump has already categorized
7:09
this court ruling as something that could potentially
7:12
destroy the United States of America. Once again,
7:15
this is a court ruling about whether or not the
7:17
executive branch can issue tariffs. It's going
7:19
to destroy us. We'll see. U .S. citizens have
7:22
paid billions and billions of dollars in additional
7:25
taxes to the Trump administration. That's what
7:28
the tariffs are doing. Countries have done stuff
7:30
like Halting shipments to the US none of this
7:33
had to happen and it's just it's so frustrating
7:35
because so many people Very clearly said this
7:39
is not how it works. We shouldn't do this This
7:42
will be bad for everyone and and and and then
7:45
we're here last thing for stateside And then
7:47
I promise there's there's a lot of good stuff
7:49
coming up. Okay, there's a lot of good stuff.
7:53
I Promise, there's a lot of good stuff later.
7:54
But last thing for stateside. What is it? Oh
7:57
FEMA was hacked Kristi Noem, infamous dog murderer
8:00
and head of the Department of Homeland Security,
8:02
announced that 24 people had been fired from
8:04
FEMA's IT department after a massive security
8:07
breach. Now, this is cool, this is cool. Apparently,
8:10
there was some foreign actor that hacked FEMA,
8:14
and they called it a threat to not just the organization,
8:17
but the nation's security as a whole. How do
8:20
we find out about this? We find out because Kristi
8:23
Noem was like, hey, I fired some people. Let's
8:25
move on. FEMA was hacked, and so I fired people.
8:28
Wait, why do you care about the FEMA being hacked
8:30
part? Wait, what does it matter? And so the Trump
8:32
administration wants to use this as another reason
8:34
to shut down FEMA, which is a thing they've been
8:36
trying to do this whole time. This is real. The
8:39
Trump administration fired the head of FEMA for
8:42
suggesting that FEMA should continue to exist.
8:45
That was not in line with this administration's
8:47
policies, and so they fired the head of FEMA.
8:50
For those who aren't, again, freedom, FEMA is
8:54
our disaster relief organization, and our president
8:56
wants to dismantle it. Because of lies. Like
8:59
he wants to - I was gonna move on, but he specifically
9:02
wants to dismantle it because of lies about what
9:05
FEMA did slash does. Like enough people on Fox
9:08
News said enough lies about FEMA's response to
9:11
enough things that Trump believed them. And now
9:15
he wants to dismantle disaster relief. So that's
9:19
cool. Hey, you want a break? I wouldn't mind
9:22
a break. Sometimes life is a lie. and so I escape
9:26
into the world of video games. A while back as
9:29
a video gamer myself, I made a secondary YouTube
9:32
channel, Endeavorance Games, in which I uploaded
9:34
various gaming content. I'm excited to say I
9:37
have resurrected that channel, and already there
9:39
is a new episode of the return of a Minecraft
9:42
Let's Play series that I used to do a while back.
9:46
The series is called Minecraft Sisyphus Edition,
9:48
and it follows me attempting to beat Minecraft
9:51
on hardcore mode despite not really knowing how
9:54
to do that. So it's just me going in with one
9:56
life, trying to beat the game. If I die, I restart.
10:00
But check out Endeavorance Games and that video.
10:03
Okay, moving on. Elsewhere. All right, this one
10:06
sucks. And then I promise it's a lot of good
10:08
afterwards. But it's Israel. Israel launched
10:13
an airstrike against Yemen that killed their
10:15
prime minister. The situation in Yemen and the
10:17
surrounding area is not clear cut. I will acknowledge
10:21
that. But what happened here is Israel just bombed
10:25
the head of government of Yemen. The argument
10:28
is that the Houthi who are in control of the
10:30
Yemen government are a terrorist group that threatens
10:33
Israel and so they got to do this to defend their
10:36
national security, which is just what they say
10:38
about literally everyone they bomb. The Israeli
10:40
military claims that Yemen used cluster munitions
10:43
against Israel recently. I have not been able
10:46
to find an independent source outside of the
10:48
Israeli media that verifies that. At the same
10:51
time, they're ramping up their attacks on Gaza,
10:53
specifically Gaza City, which is declared as
10:55
a famine zone and is also now being bombed more.
11:00
The international reaction is unimportant, I
11:03
would say. I would tell you what the international
11:05
reaction is, but it's the same that it always
11:07
is, which is what the fuck are you doing? Followed
11:09
by nothing. I will say there is some movement.
11:13
There have been more Western countries that are
11:15
saying they're going to acknowledge Palestine
11:17
as a state, which is whack. that that's considered
11:21
progress. So this is really new. We don't have
11:24
a lot more information here right now, but as
11:26
of now, the people of Yemen have taken to the
11:29
streets and demonstrated in huge numbers a desire
11:33
to retaliate and standing in solidarity with
11:35
the people of Palestine. but I think we are overdue
11:38
for some good news. So let's look at Africa,
11:41
where there is some really interesting movement
11:43
in mRNA research for Ebola vaccines. You might
11:46
not know this, but Africa is large. It's real,
11:49
it's big. It's like, it's like real big. Like,
11:53
let's see. I'm gonna take a big sip of a drink.
11:56
It's bigger than that. Mmm. So now imagine that
12:01
you are a vaccine and you want to travel into
12:03
someone's arm in Africa. It's kind of difficult
12:05
if you are a traditional vaccine because you
12:08
need to be transported at a very low temperature,
12:10
just like me. And Africa is very big and does
12:13
not have a whole lot of places to re -up on cold
12:16
while transporting long distance. So distributing
12:19
vaccines is notoriously difficult. But mRNA vaccines
12:22
trend towards shelf stable and are much faster
12:25
to iterate on to tackle new strains. So there's
12:28
been increased research and efforts put into
12:30
production facilities to make mRNA vaccines in
12:33
Africa to target things like Ebola. It's not
12:36
perfect. The investments can be slow. Some things
12:39
have started and stopped, but it's happening
12:41
and it's a good move. mRNA vaccines got a lot
12:43
of flack during the whole COVID thing, because
12:45
again, conspiracy theorists, but they are safe.
12:48
They are effective. and they are the right tool
12:50
for this job. So it's really cool to see more
12:52
investment into all that going on. Technology
12:56
slash science, which I guess that last one was
12:59
also science, but whatever. Technology. If you
13:02
have cancer, just open yourself up in MS Paint
13:06
and edit that shit out of there. It was that
13:08
easy this whole time. Researchers at the University
13:11
of Minnesota have successfully used CRISPR gene
13:14
editing to fight against gastrointestinal cancer.
13:17
Researchers took 12 patients with late -stage
13:20
GI cancer, which is largely considered not very
13:23
treatable, and they used gene editing to convince
13:26
cells to better go after the tumors. They, like,
13:29
went in and deactivated a certain gene that I
13:31
guess made the, like, immune cells too shy or
13:34
something? And boom! There goes the cancer! Several
13:39
of the patients saw reductions in the size of
13:41
their tumors, and one of them saw a complete
13:44
disappearance. of their tumors. Imagine having
13:47
late stage cancer that you told is untreatable.
13:50
And now it's gone. Gene editing is spooky. I'll
13:53
acknowledge that. It sounds a lot like eugenics.
13:56
It sounds like it could go pretty bad pretty
13:59
quickly. But I want to clarify that this is like
14:01
exploratory research. This is not a thing that
14:03
you're going to go to the spa and just get some
14:05
treatment done real quick anytime soon. It's
14:07
expensive, it's invasive, it's rare, but this
14:10
gives us a lot more information on how we can
14:12
target these aggressive cancers. So that's pretty
14:15
fucking rad. Let's talk about space radio. Radio
14:18
-free space. What up, y 'all? It's your boy,
14:20
Glorbomb. Welcome to mornings with Glorbomb.
14:26
That was like my little intro thing. I'm a shock
14:30
jockey, but in space. Space has a lot of stuff.
14:33
Some of it's radio waves. Some researchers in
14:35
Canada were listening to the space radio and
14:38
they heard a giant blast of radio waves. To be
14:42
clear, it's not literal radio. They don't have
14:44
an FM tuner listening to all the aliens jamming
14:47
out in their garage. But yeah, there was a huge
14:49
blast of radio waves that some researchers had
14:52
picked up and they were like, what the hell was
14:54
that? The radio waves were spectacular, bigger
14:56
than anything we've ever seen. We didn't know
14:58
where they came from. So the scientists sprung
15:00
into action and found it. With the use of several
15:04
telescopes, including the ever -famous Jimbly
15:06
Wimbly Simbly Timbly, they found it. They traced
15:09
the radio waves back to essentially a giant field
15:12
of gas that's a birthing ground for stars, slash
15:15
graveyard. Basically, it's a bunch of gas with
15:17
a lot of stars in it doing a lot of gaseous star
15:19
stuff. It could have been that some stars merged,
15:21
maybe one of them imploded or exploded or did
15:24
some star things or turned into a pulsar. Whatever
15:27
that is, something star -ish happened. And then
15:29
it... sent radio waves at us. Now, this is kind
15:32
of not a big deal. It's not aliens. It's not
15:35
a garage band from space, but it's pretty fucking
15:38
rad that we were able to trace it back as quickly
15:40
as we were able to. We now know that we can do
15:42
this and we can better say, oh, we just got like
15:44
a big blast of radio waves. We know how to pinpoint
15:47
that back to where it came from and figure out
15:50
what's going on. Scientists have described the
15:52
act of locating the origin of these radio waves
15:54
as like trying to spot a quarter from a hundred
15:58
kilometers away. So, hooray for the jimbly wimbly,
16:02
Google is entering their Apple era. If you use
16:04
Android, you might be aware that you can sideload
16:07
apps pretty easily. 99 % of the time, on iOS,
16:10
if you want to install an app, you have to install
16:12
it through the App Store, and to get an app on
16:14
the App Store, you have to get it approved by
16:16
Apple. This means there's a pretty rigorous set
16:18
of rules to actually get into the App Store,
16:21
and they test it for stuff like malware, things
16:22
like that. It's not perfect, but that's what
16:25
they do. On Android... That hasn't been the case.
16:28
You can basically install any app on your phone
16:30
from basically any source, and there's not a
16:32
whole lot stopping you from putting whatever
16:34
the hell you want on the Play Store. But as Google
16:36
is continuing to try to compete with Apple, they
16:38
have acknowledged that that's a big security
16:41
issue. I will say, a lot of people specifically
16:43
use Android for the flexibility that they're
16:46
calling a security issue. But if you're like
16:48
an IT professional and you're trying to lock
16:49
down a suite of phones for a corporation or something,
16:52
you know this is a problem. So, starting next
16:55
year, Google is going to take a more Apple -y
16:57
approach. They're going to lock down what you're
16:59
able to install on major approved Android devices.
17:03
Which is gonna be basically all of them. If it
17:05
has Google Play services installed on the phone,
17:08
that's a device that's going to be affected.
17:10
And that's... most of them, unless you've, like,
17:13
installed a third -party Android operating system.
17:16
Which, like, great if you did, but you probably
17:18
didn't. So just a heads up, if you're somebody
17:20
who likes to use third party software on Android,
17:22
you install APKs, you sideload, whatever, you
17:24
might want to look into making sure that you're
17:26
going to be able to do that on your phone next
17:27
year. But let's talk about automating cybercrime.
17:31
First, there was crime, then we made it cyber,
17:33
but now it's automated. Beautiful. A single hacker,
17:37
not even a hacker, a single dude used Anthropics
17:41
quad code. to extort 17 companies to the tune
17:45
of millions of dollars. You may have heard the
17:47
term Vibe coding. Vibe coding is using something
17:49
like ChatGPT, Cloud Code, to build apps without
17:53
really doing a lot of programming. You just tell
17:55
the AI, I wanna build this app, and it's like,
17:57
okay, and it tries to build it for you. Someone
18:00
did Vibe hacking. With cloud code and essentially
18:03
what they did was use it for every step of the
18:05
way to identify and extort 17 companies first
18:10
They used it to identify their targets. They
18:12
were like hey Which which companies would be
18:15
the best to extort then they had it right malware
18:17
to steal information from these companies Then
18:20
they had it analyze the data that was taken from
18:22
the companies to figure out what should be used
18:24
to blackmail the companies then Sent the email
18:27
to the companies saying like hey, I got your
18:30
data. Give me money All of this was done by one
18:32
dude. It was a ridiculously fast turnaround.
18:34
It was a huge wave of cybercrime. And it was
18:38
one guy using a publicly available subscription
18:41
-based software. Anthropic, the people who make
18:44
Claude, they were like, oh, well, you know, we're
18:46
looking into it and we're trying to make sure
18:48
this doesn't happen. You know, just be careful.
18:51
As far as I know, the guy has not been caught,
18:53
which is just wild. We also don't know who the
18:57
17 companies are, but we do know that one of
18:59
them was a defense contractor. So someone was
19:01
able to use an AI to hack a defense contractor
19:05
with vibes. Lightning Round. The Florida concentration
19:08
camp alligator Alcatraz may actually be shuttered.
19:11
It's looking like they may actually vacate per
19:13
the court order that I discussed last week, despite
19:16
the fact that DeSantis is trying to push back
19:18
against that. After a grand jury refused to charge
19:20
him with a felony, the guy in DC who threw a
19:23
sandwich at a fed is being charged with misdemeanor.
19:26
K -Pop Demon Hunters is now the most viewed movie
19:28
on Netflix. If you haven't watched the movie,
19:32
go do that. It's so fucking good. Some dude in
19:36
Canada went on a mission. His wife's wedding
19:38
ring accidentally fell off her finger when they
19:40
were cleaning some stuff up outside. Found its
19:42
way into the trash. The guy figured out what
19:45
landfill it would be at and dug through the trash
19:48
to find it. He is quoted in saying that he was
19:50
optimistic that he could find it. What a guy.
19:53
There's unearned male audacity that does bad
19:56
things. And then there's unearned male audacity
19:59
that finds a literal wedding ring under tons
20:03
of garbage after geolocating which landfill to
20:06
go to. A piece of art that was lost after Nazis
20:10
stole it from a Jewish curator 80 years ago.
20:13
turned up in an ad for real estate in Argentina.
20:17
And finally for today, a Walmart vice president
20:19
in their tech sector has been let go after being
20:22
caught getting kickbacks from contractors to
20:25
the tune of millions of dollars in exchange for
20:27
favoring those contractors. If anyone wants to
20:30
pay me millions of dollars to contract for Walmart,
20:35
I'm all ears. Thank you so much for listening
20:37
to today's episode of Stuff Keeps Happening.
20:39
Head to skh .news for sources, bonus content,
20:42
and the location of your lost wedding ring. My
20:46
name is Endeavorance, we'll talk again soon,
20:48
take care, and be well.