The Results of Bad Decision-Making - Episode 655

F5 Live: Refreshing Technology (Audio)

Description

This week, hackers disabled most of Las Vegas, Unity destroyed its value, Microsoft had an AI nightmare, and the EU fined TikTok.

Participants

Scott Ertz

Host

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram Piltch

Host

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

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Las Vegas hackers using basic tactics to bring city to a standstill

Over the past few weeks, a seemingly powerful hacking scheme has been going on in the city of Las Vegas. Casinos from both Caesar's Entertainment and MGM have been brought to a standstill. And, while it would appear to be a sophisticated attack by a group of professionals, the reality is far less impressive. The team behind the attacks is surprisingly young and uses standard social engineering to achieve their goals.

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Unity changes fee structure & entire industry revolts against platform

It has been an interesting few weeks for the video game industry. Starfield released with ironic issues rendering a field of stars. The head of Fortnite has left Epic Games. But the one action that happened that has captivated the entirety of the industry is a very weird announcement from Unity Technologies that completely changes the way developers may use the gaming engine and how they will pay for its usage.

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News From the Tubes

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Microsoft allows another insulting AI-generated article on Start

We know that AI-generated content is often garbage. The content is often garbled and incorrect, with boilerplate text and details of unrelated events. But an interesting new trend has emerged in recent weeks - purely insulting articles. These articles are beginning to find their way onto mainstream websites - particularly Microsoft Start (MSN News). This includes this week's article calling a former NBA player "useless" for having the audacity to die.

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EU fines TikTok $368 million for violating child privacy regulations

TikTok has often found itself in hot water - sometimes with consumers and sometimes with governments. It seems that nearly every major government in the world has taken an interest in the Chinese-owned company and its practices. Some are interested in the way the algorithm surfaces content, while others are interested in how they store data. The latter is what has led the EU, through Ireland's Data Protection Commission, to fine TikTok $368 million over the handling of children's privacy and data handling.

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