Ryan:
[0:00] This week, we are live celebrating our 400th episode. 400 episodes. Now, I know I’ve been on more episodes than anyone else.

Michael:
[0:13] None of us have been on 400 episodes.

Ryan:
[0:15] No. But I’ve probably been on 350 of them, maybe? 300?

Michael:
[0:20] I think more than that. I think you’re around 370. That’s crazy. Yeah, something like that.

Ryan:
[0:26] That’s why everyone’s so sick of me.

Michael:
[0:28] 43.

Jill:
[0:29] Oh, I’ve been on over 202 times.

Ryan:
[0:34] Oh my gosh.

Michael:
[0:36] Wait, was it 202 or is it just over 200? And you just said, did you actually know it’s 202?

Jill:
[0:42] Yeah.

Michael:
[0:44] Okay.

Jill:
[0:44] So somewhere around 202.35. Episode 198 was my first official full time with Destination Linux.

Michael:
[0:57] I love how Jill looked it up to what it was for her, and we have no idea.

Ryan:
[1:02] I have no clue when I started. Sometime ago, a while.

Michael:
[1:05] At some point, we did this, yes.

Ryan:
[1:07] All right. We have a lot of content planned for you. But first, I think the most important thing we can do is thank you. Thank you so much for supporting us by watching, listening, however you do it. We really do love your faces.

Michael:
[1:20] That’s right.

Ryan:
[1:20] And without you, there would be no 400 episodes. And I mean that. the financial support of our patrons of the sponsors is how this show survived. Because unlike a lot of networks we, to keep the incredible talent that we have, we pay for a lot of stuff to help people out that help the show out and things and we have a lot of services we pay for and if it wasn’t for the patrons and sponsors, this show would not exist. We couldn’t afford to do it, frankly. So, thank you all very much and with all the listeners whether you support financially or not just by watching this show, like you’ve helped this show become what it is and we’re.

Michael:
[1:55] Very thankful for it you make it you make this show possible because like there’s no way we would have barely got past seven episodes if it wasn’t for the community where most podcasts fail between exactly seven exactly and we’ve got to 400 which is just an insane number to think about so thank you so much for being a part of this community and of and everybody in the chat doing this random silly stuff i said in the show, I put an F for respects and thanks, thanks everybody.

Ryan:
[2:25] So yeah, we’re live this week and we actually did this show live for a long time in the past and then long time because of all of our schedules changing, people moving. We’ve had all kinds of life events happen between the three of us that went away. But for 400th episode, we had to bring it back, which is super special for everyone. By the way, we had a special celebration that we were doing for 400. We wanted the world to know because this show is listened to in over 197 countries. That’s a fact. And a lot of the different countries have already sounded off in the YouTube chat, which I love. If you’re here, sound off. Let us know what country you are representing or listening from. That’s amazing to us. One of the things that we did, we spent a lot of money on, Michael, is we sent drones out into New York to celebrate our 400th episode. It just hasn’t gone over very well. The news is covering it.

Michael:
[3:15] They get stuck in New Jersey?

Ryan:
[3:17] Yeah, in Jersey. So those drones were like, they were supposed to have banners that said, we couldn’t afford the banners, so we just sent the drone.

Michael:
[3:25] And they were supposed to go to New York. For some reason, they just stopped in New Jersey. We don’t know why.

Ryan:
[3:30] Yeah, that was part of our big plan to let everybody know about the 400 episodes. It’s not going so well. Welcome to Destination Linux, where we discuss the latest news, hot topics, gaming, mobile, and all things open source and Linux. My name is Ryan, and with me are the masterminds behind binary chaos. Jill, and Michael.

Jill:
[3:50] I’m a human binary calculator and can decode anything. Try me.

Michael:
[3:56] Let’s test this. 1-1-0-0-1-0-0-1.

Jill:
[4:03] Ooh. Those are the names of the binars and the 15th episode of the first season of Star Trek The Next Generation.

Ryan:
[4:11] You’re such a geek. You’re such a geek. Is that true, Jill, by the way? Is that binary?

Jill:
[4:17] That’s absolutely true. Yes.

Ryan:
[4:18] Wow. Amazing. Incredible. Nerds. This is the 400th episode. Now let’s get this show on the road toward Destination Linux.

Michael:
[4:35] Our feedback this week comes from Jason and they have this to say. Greetings. It’s been a while since I’ve contacted last. Wanted to give you an update on my stuffed crust pizza situation.

Ryan:
[4:46] I was wondering. I was like, what is happening with Jason and the stuffed crust, you know?

Michael:
[4:50] Yes. I mean, it’s just, everybody’s wondering what could be the outcome.

Ryan:
[4:56] There’s the drones, where are they coming from? And Jason’s stuff crust. Those are the two things I need answers.

Michael:
[5:01] Well, the big question is, do the drones carry stuff crust pizza?

Ryan:
[5:05] I mean, I would like the drones. The drones would be pretty cool then.

Michael:
[5:08] So he goes on to say, so far, I’ve been able to manage with one fewer stuff crust pizza per month. Well done, sir.

Jill:
[5:15] Nice.

Michael:
[5:16] And he says, I’m sad to say that I’ve been using Jack’s frozen pizzas to supplement my pizza supply, though.

Ryan:
[5:21] What if this is the owner of Jack’s pizza and this is them plugging their show without paying for sponsorship?

Michael:
[5:27] Well done.

Ryan:
[5:28] They got us good on that one.

Jill:
[5:30] Tantino’s pizza is better. So he’s Tantino’s.

Michael:
[5:34] The line has been drawn in the sand.

Ryan:
[5:37] Tino’s pizza is better?

Jill:
[5:39] Yeah. To Tino’s.

Michael:
[5:42] Tino’s.

Ryan:
[5:43] Are they going to sponsor us? Because whoever sponsors us pizzas is better. I don’t care who it is. If it’s Domino’s, I’m going to say it’s the best pizza I’ve ever tasted.

Michael:
[5:50] Hey, I mean, I would never sell out. Just to be clear, for people who think we would sell out for that, he’s making a joke. Unless it’s a lot of money, then probably. And he goes in and says, not sure if you’re familiar, but you could eat the cardboard as well as the pizza and you probably wouldn’t notice the difference.

Ryan:
[6:07] Okay.

Michael:
[6:08] It wasn’t a promotion for Jackson.

Ryan:
[6:11] We found the answer to our own accusation right in the next sentence. That’s fantastic.

Michael:
[6:18] Oh my goodness. So I have a question for all of you as well as anyone else listening to the show, which is quite a lot of people. We’re live streaming this right now. I’m looking for a media streaming solution, hopefully open source that isn’t Apple or Google as an Android TV, et cetera. I tried using Cody on my micro PC, but the plugins for things like Netflix and prime video and even YouTube are all third party maintained. And I’ve had a terrible experience. There’s no, there’s no way my family could handle dealing with the, with all this stuff. Does anyone know of anything similar to lineage OS where you don’t need to sign in, have access to modern apps that you could use attached to a TV. Also, PS, thanks to Ryan and Wendy for the Lineage OS recommendations and the Fairphone review. I’m almost free of my Apple ecosystem and the TV aspect is one of the few remaining items I need to address. Love the shows. Keep up the great work. Happy holidays, Jason. So real quick to talk about the TV thing. I don’t have, I’m not the, I dabble in this sort of thing, but I did find a cool combination of being able to sideload Cody onto a prime stick, like an Amazon prime stick. And that’s kind of a cool way of having best of both. So you can get some stuff that’s not compatible with the prime and stuff that’s not compatible with Cody. So that’s, that’s what I do.

Ryan:
[7:44] Yeah. It’s, it’s a good suggestion there. I’ve done that. it’s not difficult you follow the instructions it kind of works on its own i don’t know if the new fire sticks someone have to confirm our ai chat if there’s any issue with doing it on the new fire sticks last time i did that was like four years ago i actually have an.

Michael:
[7:59] Old fire stick so maybe that’s why it still works.

Ryan:
[8:01] I don’t know if the new ones you can do that with still or not but someone will confirm and let us know you forgot their ps by the way they said yes based on, ryan’s uh raving review of his crocs which i don’t remember giving a raving review did i give a raving review i remember it.

Michael:
[8:16] You did give a raving review.

Ryan:
[8:17] Yes you did those.

Michael:
[8:19] Star wars crocs you love them so much.

Ryan:
[8:22] Yes okay the fact that you don’t remember.

Michael:
[8:24] That is kind of confusing but you do.

Ryan:
[8:27] Interesting uh they went out and purchased themselves a pair of winter crocs no vent holes in the front that makes them winterized by the way you just remove the yes you just do you winterize your car by just rolling up the windows like now there we go we’re winterized fully winterized uh and they go on to say got to say super

Ryan:
[8:46] comfy so well first congrats on one less stuffed crust pizza uh here’s a little fact for you uh texas where i’m at has the absolute worst pizza of any state i’ve ever lived in and uh when i moved to texas you know obviously it’s known for its barbecue but every once in a while you kind of get the craving for pizza and uh, Like every pizza joint in Texas tastes like cafeteria school pizza. It’s really bad. Nobody in Texas understands how to make a pizza at all, at least in the area that I’m in. Texans have no idea what a pizza is supposed to taste like. And I did some research and found out, you know, a lot of people say like a good pizza is based on the water. The water is what makes New York have some of the best pizza and things. And Texas, you know, they are ranked number 40 in air and water quality. So, I’m wondering if that has to do with why the pizza stinks here is because their water quality is such garbage that they can’t, you know, get a good crust or something.

Michael:
[9:49] They should import the water so that way they can, you know.

Ryan:
[9:52] I’ve heard of places doing that, like pizza joints importing the water from New York to wherever state they’re in to get that, you know, taste into that.

Michael:
[10:01] That would be interesting. I’m curious if that is what it is. And if anybody is a part of a pizza company and give us your recipe, that would be very interesting.

Ryan:
[10:10] If you’re in Texas and know of an actual good pizza joint, please let me know.

Michael:
[10:14] That’s true, too. Also, by the way, pizza, it’s interesting you mentioned this because if you’re in from a place that has good pizza, and especially if you’re in like a foodie city, and you go to somewhere else, Cause I’ve recently moved and I’m in a new place and I tried this pizza place that was just like, it’s down the street and that kind of thing. And I was like, okay, I’ll try it. Never heard of it before. And it’s supposedly like a chain and I’m not going to put the name out there because it was just awful. Like I couldn’t stand it. Like I took one bite and was like, what is, this is not pizza. This is like, this is, this is worse than frozen pizza. What is this anyway? And it made me laugh about the fact that like, it’s like going to a restaurant or like a pizza place and it says New York style and they have no idea what that means.

Ryan:
[11:02] They have no idea. It’s like a Chicago looking style pizza or something.

Jill:
[11:06] Yeah.

Ryan:
[11:06] Yeah. It’s terrible. By the way, pineapple on a pizza. Good thing. This is really important.

Michael:
[11:12] I’m from California.

Jill:
[11:13] It was invented here in California and Hawaii. So…

Ryan:
[11:17] So that that reduces points from it.

Jill:
[11:19] No, no, but it’s actually I do like it. I do like it. It’s not my favorite, but I do like it.

Ryan:
[11:26] All right, Michael.

Michael:
[11:27] And here’s it’s not my favorite either. And I don’t necessarily like it that much. But here’s the thing. It depends on how you put the pineapple on the pizza. If you put pineapple on a basic pizza and it doesn’t have the same kind of kick that you would want in a different thing. So let’s say, for example, you did a custom pizza and you had like the the Parmesan sauce or the Alfredo sauce. And then you instead of like regular marinara sauce. And then you had like in addition to the sweetness of the pineapple, you had a contrast of jalapenos. And then you put see, you can make it good. It depends on what you put on there. If you’re talking about like Hawaiian pizza, where it’s just bake a Canadian bacon slash ham and pineapple.

Ryan:
[12:10] Man, you’re like the Boredom Ramsey of pizza. But he’s right.

Michael:
[12:17] I’m not done. I’m not done. That part is actually quite nasty. But if you buy a Hawaiian pizza, don’t eat it. Put it in the fridge. The next morning, cold pizza in that version is fantastic.

Ryan:
[12:30] Yeah.

Michael:
[12:31] Because the pineapple is cold and it’s supposed to be.

Ryan:
[12:34] That makes sense. That makes sense.

Jill:
[12:36] You’re right, Michael. Well, because most of the places here in Cali that put pineapple on pizza, it is the white sauce, not the red sauces and with vegetables and other things that complement it. You don’t just stick it on marinara sauce and pepperonis.

Michael:
[12:54] I mean.

Ryan:
[12:55] Well, man, I did not know that was going to start such a heated conversation of controversy there.

Michael:
[13:01] Okay. First of all, you called us nerds talking about Star Trek earlier. You wouldn’t think it would be nerds about pizza too? How dare you?

Ryan:
[13:07] It’s amazing. Not in Texas. It’s not amazing, but other places it’s apparently I’m the.

Michael:
[13:12] I’m the nerd Ramsey of pizza. Apparently.

Jill:
[13:14] Yeah.

Ryan:
[13:15] Boredom, boredom Ramsey.

Michael:
[13:17] I’m not repeating that. I disagree entirely.

Ryan:
[13:19] Uh, with regards to the crocs, uh, I’m sorry, uh, that I failed the audience by making more people fans of crocs. However, winter crocs do sound amazing. Not just because they close up the vent holes, but I’m thinking the furry stuff inside, if they put that furry fuzz stuff inside crocs, and then you had those for winter.

Michael:
[13:37] Yeah. Actually, I would say that’s quite good. Crocs are not actually bad for like an everyday… Like if you’re going outside and doing yard work and stuff like that, crocs can be nice for that. And if you wanted like house shoes, but like that you could do both, that would be like the furry… uh insert inserts inside of the crocs would be a good combination of that so and there’s there’s potential there people.

Ryan:
[14:01] But most of the time but if you if you wear crocs to the gym michael oh my god i have never yeah do.

Michael:
[14:11] They wear the crocs to the gym and then change into real shoes or they.

Ryan:
[14:15] Just do workouts in they’re doing their workout and well i say workout because there’s a lot of people who go to the gym and then they sit on a piece of equipment and then text and scroll through instagrams the whole time and then an hour passes and they walk out and leave they may do like one half of one set or something doom.

Michael:
[14:31] Scroll on the bench.

Ryan:
[14:32] Yeah yeah basically and they’re like i was at the gym i really worked hard today um but the people who wear crocs to the gym like there’s nothing more of a slappable offense than that like it’s just it’s the ultimate you know do not wear croc even in sports mode it’s not okay like you’re on a treadmill and then their shoes fall off and they fly off the treadmill because they don’t really hold they’re not made for a treadmill like it’s really not made.

Michael:
[14:56] For running people just because.

Ryan:
[14:58] They call.

Michael:
[14:58] Them sports mode as a joke, doesn’t mean that they are for sports.

Ryan:
[15:04] Someone says the downfall of civilization. I agree.

Ryan:
[15:07] All right. To wear them in public. So to the question you actually had about streaming. So my family’s the same. My wife actually feels tortured when I introduce new technology all the time because it’s usually something that’s kind of difficult, more difficult than, say, your more standard things to utilize. And the streaming thing is no exception. where I’ve introduced a lot of things like different Cody boxes and mini PCs and Amazon fire sticks and stuff where it’s like, I just, especially when people come to visit and she’s like, my wife can figure it out. But then you have people coming to visit and they’re staying to watch the kids or whatever. And she’s trying to explain how the TV works. And I’ve got this real funky thing set up. Anyway, so it’s kind of gotten to the point where I just looked for a mainstream solution for the living room specifically that anybody could figure out. And I looked at what was the most private and secure mainstream device out there. And there’s not a lot of good options.

Michael:
[16:05] And of course you went with something Android based.

Ryan:
[16:08] Yeah. Well, one of them, one of the options is Android based, but you got to customize it. But the first one out of the box is Apple TV. Apple TV, actually, if you go onto all of the sites that do privacy and security ratings for these type of devices. Apple usually comes at top. I know a lot of people hate that, but it’s just a fact. They have a lot of controls and do not track and other things in place built into the device. So if you have to go with the mainstream one, that’s a very simple one. You can do out of the box. You can get those used, by the way, a couple of generations, one, two generations behind for super cheap. So that’s an option. But I know you said no Apple. So the next option is the NVIDIA Shield, which is beloved by a lot of people. It’s a very expensive streaming device.

Ryan:
[16:49] They’ve kept the price high. and that’s probably because they don’t sell your data at all with the thing um so they’re actually charging you what the hardware is worth but uh the nvidia shield is highly highly customizable and you can do a lot of great things with it also has a fantastic remote very easy for family members and everyone to figure out so i would recommend that one as well but then you mentioned lineage os and it got me thinking you know you could literally just set up a mini pc with lineage OS running on it and utilize that if you like Linux OS. So there’s a lot. I don’t see why you couldn’t do that, Jill. I didn’t research whether you can run, but even you could dock your phone into an HDMI and stream it to your TV if you wanted, if you like Linux OS that much. I don’t see why you couldn’t do that.

Jill:
[17:41] You can even pick up an old OUYA. I’ve done a Jill’s treasure hunt on the OUYA and you can pick up one and, and put Debbie in on it or Android on it or whatever you’d like.

Ryan:
[17:52] Yeah.

Jill:
[17:53] And that’s inexpensive too.

Ryan:
[17:55] I think it is a missed market for somebody to come in with a device like you mentioned. Kodi is good, but it is a little bit because of the third-party apps and things that sometimes aren’t supported with every update.

Jill:
[18:08] Yeah, and that’s a problem.

Ryan:
[18:10] Meaning they don’t get the same cadence. So if you’re wanting to watch Netflix, sometimes that works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Maybe most of the time it works. But when it doesn’t, it’s a major deal. You want to watch a show and you can’t because something – and that’s frustrating.

Ryan:
[18:20] So, you know, there you go. um michael this whole talk about uh crocs and things got me thinking we’re on our 400th episode we have generated memes on this show that have gone viral and several of them are um well they’re incredibly funny story behind them do you remember all the memes that we’ve uh had over the year i remember.

Michael:
[18:44] Most of them and i.

Ryan:
[18:45] Definitely remember.

Michael:
[18:46] A couple you don’t and i’m sure you remember a couple i don’t.

Ryan:
[18:49] Yeah well i know i.

Michael:
[18:52] Know for a fact there’s one i wish we would all forget because it’s just ridiculous and it’s gone for long it’s way too long.

Ryan:
[18:57] Okay, stool. The stool one is probably.

Jill:
[19:00] Yeah.

Ryan:
[19:01] Is that the one you hate the most? Oh, man, it’s so good.

Michael:
[19:03] That’s not the one. I don’t hate it. It’s just, there’s literally a, I remember what episode it was. It was literally over four years ago, and that is still a thing that happens. Like, people still talk about it.

Ryan:
[19:14] You made a stupid purchase, and people are still talking about it.

Michael:
[19:17] It wasn’t stupid. It’s not stupid if it’s $9, man.

Ryan:
[19:21] That’s the.

Michael:
[19:22] It was $9 with free shipping.

Ryan:
[19:24] So somebody sold you a chair without arms and a back for $9 and you thought it was a good deal. Like, that’s what I’m getting at. Like, it’s still memeable to this day because you still think it’s a good deal. All right.

Michael:
[19:35] I don’t think it’s a bad deal. It’s only $9, man. You can get, you can get, there’s, this is better than just like a, you know, a meal at McDonald’s.

Ryan:
[19:43] You know, I got a great deal on a motorcycle. It has no wheels or handlebars, but I got it for $9. all right uh there’s the weak thumbs you know that was a good meme that people really enjoyed you know that michael that’s not really a meme i mean michael does have weak thumbs if he holds it up the camera it is not remotely true it’s just a thumb it’s just a look at that thing it is like practically falling over on its own accord like it’s like floppy it’s ridiculous Aw, poor Michael. There’s the unhackable Jill, of course. Wendy, of course, has the rainbow vomit for RGB. I think that’s a big meme that we utilize. The Crocs. And here’s one I’m going to bring back that only the OGs will remember. Because Michael actually hated this when I would use this meme. He actually would off-air tell me to stop saying it.

Michael:
[20:40] No, I didn’t hate it, dude. You need to stop making up these nonsense things.

Ryan:
[20:45] Don’t make things up.

Michael:
[20:46] Just like the weak thumb is not true. Just like most of the stuff you say is not true. If it’s about me, it’s he made it up. 100% true. Yes, it’s true that you made it up. Exactly. The filthy dual booter thing is what we used to say often. And it was a joke about how, for those who don’t know what a filthy dual booter is, it’s someone who is booting Linux and also Windows. If you’re dual booting multiple Linux machines, that’s just dual booting.

Ryan:
[21:19] Yeah.

Michael:
[21:20] But if Windows is involved, that’s filthy dual booting. And I don’t know. I don’t remember where that came from and what I mean. It must have been Ryan randomly saying something silly. I don’t remember. But but I don’t remember exactly what episode it came from. But it was it was going on for like at least a year or so. And at one point we had people commenting, like asking us to stop saying it because it made them feel bad. so like it wasn’t because i hated it it’s just because it’s like oh okay you make a good point it’s we don’t actually believe it it’s more of a joke against each other it was a joke because.

Ryan:
[21:56] You were i was calling you a filthy dual booter and then.

Michael:
[21:59] Right because the joke was i also do not use windows so i’m i’m i’m not one that’s the but yeah what’s debatable, you’re bringing it you’re trying to bring it back it does not work it’s.

Ryan:
[22:15] Unbelievable so those are a few of the memes that uh nonsense that we’ve had.

Michael:
[22:21] That’s the few that we remember i.

Jill:
[22:23] Remember another one.

Michael:
[22:24] Noodle arms ryan’s yes oh.

Ryan:
[22:29] Man i tried to forget that one that one.

Michael:
[22:31] Yep noodle arms also i remember this one it was a long time ago uh so um our previous host noah was drinking a drink called a bubbly, and you kept telling him to that stop throwing his money in his face.

Jill:
[22:47] Yeah, yeah.

Ryan:
[22:48] Those things are like $2 a piece.

Michael:
[22:50] It’s like three bucks or something.

Ryan:
[22:52] You would crack me over on the show. I’m like you’re shoving your money in our face, dude.

Jill:
[22:56] Seriously. And when I started with you guys, it was especially Jill.

Ryan:
[23:02] Oh, of course. How could we forget that one?

Michael:
[23:05] That’s true.

Ryan:
[23:06] I don’t know if that’s a meme as much as it’s a fact.

Michael:
[23:09] I think it’s both. I think it morphed into both of them at the same time. And also, of course, we can’t forget the Pixel games with Zeb.

Ryan:
[23:17] Oh, my gosh.

Jill:
[23:18] Oh, yeah.

Ryan:
[23:20] Oh, yeah, absolutely. So we’ve had some really good moments. And my favorite thing is when we go to shows, when we go to different events and people shout this stuff out at us. And we know that people are listening and get involved in the fun. And that’s the important part. All of this stuff is just in good fun there. so, Michael, we have promised people that we are bringing back one of their favorite segments. But before that, we got something important to tell them about.

Michael:
[23:50] We have something very special to tell you about. And that is, we have a new sponsor for this episode, Destination Linux. And that is a security company called Sandfly Security. So, you know, you chose Linux for its stability, right? It’s stability and security. We all look at Linux as being that is the reason why. But as threats grow more sophisticated, detecting them in time without putting in your system at risk, it’s super important, probably more important than ever. And traditional endpoint agents can cause downtime and performance issues, leaving some gaps in terms of your security.

Ryan:
[24:29] Speaking of that, Michael, I recently was working on a friend’s Windows machine and they had one of those security suite softwares on there. And their issue was that their system was slowing down randomly to the point where it was unusable. And guess what I found caused it?

Michael:
[24:47] The security system.

Ryan:
[24:49] Software, yeah. So when they talk about making sure you don’t have downtime and they’re not slowing down your performance, that’s a big deal. Because a lot of these security suites go so deep and they do things that just absolutely interrupt your business.

Michael:
[25:04] Yeah, and it’s also, for those who don’t know, the agent system is where you have to put the software on each individual computer. So not only is it a downtime of the software not working or performance issues, it’s also because you have to, if there’s ever an update, you have to go and update all of those different agents and stuff like that. There’s tons of issues. But, you know, Ryan, there’s got to be a better way.

Ryan:
[25:27] Well, there is, Michael. That sounds good. We did good there.

Michael:
[25:30] We did good. We’re so good at this.

Ryan:
[25:31] It sounds like such a good infomercial right there.

Michael:
[25:33] Yeah. So meet Sandfly Security, the agentless Linux security platform. Sandfly not only does endpoint detection and response, but also performs SSH key tracking, password auditing and drift detection to find the widest range of threats. Whether your servers are in the cloud, on premises or even embedded devices, Sandfly protects them all without the need for risky agent installations. Ken Kleiner, senior security engineer at the University of Massachusetts, explains it best, saying that SandFly is the first product I’ve ever seen that accurately and quickly detects thousands of signs of compromise on the Linux platform. Its unique method automates tasks that would be impossible to perform manually. So get fast, non-invasive protection for your critical systems, no agents, no downtime, just smarter security that works. Visit destinationlinux.net/sandfly, that’s S-A-N-D-F-L-Y, to learn more.

Ryan:
[26:36] And you can actually test this out with a free license, which is amazing for up to 20 hosts. So if you are somebody in your position for your company that is in the position to choose the security software and things to look at, that free license option to test out with 20 hosts, this software looks magnificent. If you don’t know, one of the things that is a good thing and also a downfall for us is we vet the heck out of anybody who sponsors this show. We put Bitwarden on the map because Bitwarden was barely known before we brought them in as a sponsor.

Michael:
[27:11] We’re not people who brag or anything. We’re very humble people.

Ryan:
[27:14] It’s a fact.

Michael:
[27:15] But it is true.

Ryan:
[27:16] It’s a fact.

Michael:
[27:17] In fact, when we were discussing it, it turns out that they didn’t know how to do this kind of thing. And I sort of taught them how to do it. And then they went to other places. And we effectively made Bitwarden what it is. Is that too much?

Ryan:
[27:31] That may be too much, but they have a fantastic product. We just helped get the word out. But also, we didn’t help with these companies as much, but we brought you Linode. We brought you DigitalOcean. Sandfly is up there. These guys are incredible, the work that they’re doing there. And we do an incredible amount of vetting before we decide to talk about somebody there. So please support them. Go to destinationlinux.net/sandfly and check them out. And again, you can do the free license there to test it.

Ryan:
[27:59] Very cool stuff in the interface. looks absolutely beautiful. All right, Jill. People have been waiting for, I don’t know, what, 25, 30 episodes for another one of these to return. But it’s here.

Michael:
[28:11] It’s been more than that, hasn’t it?

Ryan:
[28:13] Probably. I mean, I was making a number up.

Jill:
[28:15] It’s been over a year, yeah.

Ryan:
[28:16] Don’t challenge me, Michael.

Michael:
[28:18] I’m sorry for challenging you. You’re being wrong about something that I don’t know the answer to either.

Ryan:
[28:23] We promised to bring this back and it’s here. Without further ado, I present to you Jill’s Treasure Hunt. for new listeners jill’s treasure hunt is where jill has literally over a bajillion computers like that’s a real count i think it was bajillion last time.

Michael:
[28:37] We counted it was 1.2.

Ryan:
[28:39] Bajillion and uh how many computers do you have jill somewhere around over 750 now over 750 computers and a lot of them are really critical pieces of tech and some of them are from movies and some Some of them you may have seen or used, you know, if you were in computers 40 years ago or more.

Michael:
[29:01] Historic stuff, new stuff.

Ryan:
[29:03] Incredible pieces. So Jill picks something out of her museum and, you know, shares the story and the history with us. If you’re new to the show, this is your first time listening.

Ryan:
[29:12] So Jill, Treasure Hunt, what did you pick out of your stash for Treasure Hunt this week?

Jill:
[29:18] Okay. So this time I picked out something a little different that our audience, if you’re old enough, would know about. It’s both software and hardware.

Ryan:
[29:31] Oh, interesting.

Jill:
[29:32] Okay. So I will start out by saying that, okay, yes, as I said earlier, this one’s a little different, but I think you’re going to like it. so one of my favorite films of all time that came out in the summer of 1982 is ah that was 88 ryan that was 88 yeah yeah summer of 1982 is et a karate kid terrestrial oh et okay et yeah it’s an it’s wonderful it’s an american science fiction film produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, and written by Melissa Matheson. E.T. is actually a wonderful and moving film that tells the story of Elliot, a boy who befriends an extraterrestrial dubbed E.T., who is left behind on Earth. Along with his friends and family, Elliot must find a way to help E.T. find his way home.

Ryan:
[30:30] Wow, spoilers.

Jill:
[30:32] Yes or as the famous line from the film states et phone home.

Ryan:
[30:40] And i was just about to watch this movie for the first time and now i don’t feel like i have to watch it jill spoiled the whole thing oh finally came up in my catalog it’s.

Michael:
[30:50] Like it’s like when people like say like i haven’t seen them like the matrix yet don’t spoil it like it’s been 20 years What do you do?

Jill:
[30:57] Yeah. But for the Christmas season of 1982, a game based on the film of the same name was created for the popular Atari 2600 home video game console.

Michael:
[31:12] It was beloved just as much as the movie. Right, Jill?

Jill:
[31:16] Yes. It was in some ways, but not others.

Ryan:
[31:23] It’s the game only Jill could love.

Jill:
[31:26] It was originally released in September of 1977, but sadly, the ET, the extraterrestrial video game for the Atari 2600, is often considered one of the worst video games of all time. Thus, that’s why Michael was laughing. Yep. And some people say the game was a direct cause of the 1983 video game crash. But others say it was a symptom of the problem that led to it. And it’s been the subject of controversy and urban legends ever since.

Ryan:
[32:04] Do you feel like we’re about to go through another video game crash? Because I feel like video games have gone downhill a lot from where they were. You hear the studios shutting down. You hear a lot of them having problems selling their games. Are we going through a crash now? Is this a repeat of 1983?

Michael:
[32:21] I feel like there’s not a crash. There’s more like a restructure. A restructure of the games. because we’ve gotten to the point where gotcha games are so often like are so common that it’s just become uh parasitic and people just stop wanting to play the games entirely because that’s what it is and i feel like there’s going to be a like a reset button hit on that.

Ryan:
[32:45] And you think that’s because of the the kind of the payment systems the loot crate.

Michael:
[32:50] The microtransactions on literally everything yeah those are so.

Ryan:
[32:53] Ruined gaming yeah yeah.

Michael:
[32:55] Those are.

Jill:
[32:55] So annoying and to your point i really think you know for us linux users we’re seeing a you know a revolution of gaming because gaming is now a first-class citizen on linux so that part hasn’t affected us too much yet we’re just happy to get the games that run on proton and linux we finally get the games and when we play them.

Ryan:
[33:16] We’re like well this is crap this.

Jill:
[33:17] Is what we’re waiting for.

Michael:
[33:18] There’s a lot of play the old ones that are good yeah there’s a lot of good games we can still play but yeah, these these days it’s becoming more and more ridiculous and also we have the situation of uh we hope that i hope that reset button happens at some point but because now we’re getting root kits in our skin our games in addition to you get.

Ryan:
[33:40] A video game and a root kit and then you have to pay them a bunch of money to keep playing the game for the content they promised they would release in the first part.

Michael:
[33:47] Of the game. Or they say it’s DLC, but it’s actually embedded in the game,

Michael:
[33:51] and they just kind of like, you gotta pay to unlock it. Come on.

Ryan:
[33:54] I feel like E.T. is no longer the worst game ever made, so…

Jill:
[33:58] I feel like it’s been vindicated just from that. Well, I’m going to show you something special. This is actually my original E.T., the extraterrestrial video game cartridge from Christmas of 1982. For real.

Ryan:
[34:13] You got that for Christmas.

Jill:
[34:14] Yes. Me and my brother both did. My mom and dad bought it as a Christmas present for me and my brother to play with our new Atari 2600. and I loved E.T. so much that I was collecting memorabilia from the film and I had an E.T. metal lunchbox.

Michael:
[34:34] Okay, first, I have to say, Jill is so inspiring to me but also makes me feel a little sad that I kept almost nothing from my childhood. And I wish I had some of that stuff. But now I also have to ask, do you still have the metal lunchbox?

Jill:
[34:51] I sure do. I sure do. Of course you do.

Ryan:
[34:54] Jill.

Jill:
[34:55] And actually, I used it proudly at school, even though I was made fun of for it, because I was in junior high at the time. But I didn’t care. I was a geek and a nerd. And I wanted to show off my geek love.

Ryan:
[35:08] Man, I wish I went to school with you, Jill. They would rue the damn thing on Jill if I was there.

Jill:
[35:15] And I even wore the T-shirt a lot of E.T. pointing to the sky with a red glowing finger next to Elliot. Phone home. And, yeah, so I still have lots of my E.T. memorabilia, including my E.T. lunchbox, a T-shirt, a necklace, and a vinyl record in my sci-fi collection. And I also have something else. This is actually a rare E.T. Atari 2600 Video Game Club poster and lobby card that was used in the theaters. Actually, when the movie was being promoted in theaters, they would often include this poster next to it to advertise the game.

Ryan:
[35:59] Oh, interesting. So this would have been around 1982 as well?

Jill:
[36:05] Yes, correct. And the lobby cards are usually smaller. They’re not big. They would put them like where you’d go and buy your tickets for the movie. They’d put them in the windows there. And they had big posters of this too. But this is just.

Ryan:
[36:21] You need your help.

Jill:
[36:21] Yeah.

Ryan:
[36:23] So cool.

Jill:
[36:25] My little one. And it’s quite a collector’s item actually. That’s why.

Michael:
[36:29] That is so awesome. And the fact that you have that too. I mean.

Jill:
[36:32] Yeah.

Michael:
[36:33] Where’s all my stuff? I’m just so disappointed in myself.

Jill:
[36:36] Oh.

Ryan:
[36:37] I saved nothing either, Michael. But my wife is the same way. She has her original NES. She has her original, and they’re all in great quality, and the cartridges are in great quality, and she keeps so much stuff from her childhood. I was like, I was like a barbarian. I just broke everything. I never saved anything.

Michael:
[36:57] Hold a second. Was?

Ryan:
[37:00] Yeah, true. Very true. Still am. I still have my Dreamcast. I wish I would have kept… better care of my stuff especially my he-man stuff don’t.

Michael:
[37:11] Laugh you should watch his unboxings on his videos maybe not the most recent ones but on like previous unboxings your your style of unboxing was just to rip everything and then throw.

Jill:
[37:20] It behind you i need to bring that back i.

Ryan:
[37:26] Like it jill that’s very very cool stuff.

Jill:
[37:29] That’s really neat and so when playing et for the first time dun dun dun this is where i’ll tell the truth oh you weren’t before okay got it oh i was but, there are very few things i dislike in this world and this was kind of one of them so i actually i remember being very uh frustrated by the game because i could not seem to get past the first first of three telephone pieces that needed to be found and collected you know, to progress to the next stage of the game. I did, however, like that you had to collect Reese’s Pieces, which are used to restore E.T.’s energy in the game.

Ryan:
[38:16] That’s realistic because they, oh, look, you have Reese’s Pieces. One of my favorite candies, man. Those are so good.

Jill:
[38:22] Me too.

Michael:
[38:23] In this particular instance, it’s pretty easy to get Reese’s Pieces.

Jill:
[38:26] Yeah. Yeah. Well, what’s interesting is the original.

Michael:
[38:30] Ryan, you can go to Walmart or something.

Jill:
[38:32] Oh, really? actually in in bags and uh they started putting in boxes is that from 1982 no no because if it was i was gonna make you taste.

Ryan:
[38:41] It live on stream.

Jill:
[38:42] Will it will it hold up yeah so actually reese’s pieces was one of my favorite candies um at the time even before its promotion and inclusion in the film and it being et’s favorite candy it had come out quite a few years before the film but it got a lot of good press on the film. And I thought it was really cool because in the game, E.T. would stretch his neck to transition to another map. And I thought, oh, that’s a really good use of him stretching his neck up and down. And I also love the music and sound effects for the game and the beautiful E.T. theme that plays when you start it for the first time. When the opening theme music starts, you think it is going to be a great game that you could show off to your friends. But instead, it was disappointing and boring to play, especially for me being a teenager at the time.

Ryan:
[39:39] Yeah, interesting. You know, that would be very disappointing. You’re so excited about E.T. You’ve got Christmas, which I didn’t have any of that as a kid, but I got to see my kids have Christmas and things. So you’re at Christmas. You’re very excited to get this present. You open it up. You’ve got the game you want. You plug it in, and you just keep dying like it’s Dark Souls. like it’s the first dark souls game of uh the gaming industry where you just keep dying over and over and over again yeah, and.

Michael:
[40:12] Well you also missed the part where you fall into the pit all the time.

Ryan:
[40:15] Oh you fall into the pit that’s right.

Michael:
[40:17] Oh yeah that was that was one of the most hated things about that game is that you would yeah you can’t tell what the pit is and it would just randomly happen and then once you fall into the pit it’s basically impossible to get out oh.

Jill:
[40:27] But there’s a I’m going to talk about the reason why that was an issue,

Jill:
[40:32] Michael. So very good that you brought it up. So the ET puzzle game was actually rushed in development to capitalize on the movie’s popularity. And the creator of the game, Atari game designer Howard Scott Warshaw, was only given five weeks to make it. Oh my gosh.

Ryan:
[40:51] Five weeks.

Michael:
[40:53] And also I’m pretty sure it was by himself too.

Jill:
[40:55] Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And Warshaw was excited to create it in such a short time and considered it a challenge and an honor that they chose him to do this in five weeks. So Warshaw, after all, you know, had made some of the most beloved and popular games for the Atari 2600 of the time, including Yara’s Revenge and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I used to play Raiders.

Ryan:
[41:18] He should have just re-skinned Raiders of the Lost Ark and put E.T. over Indiana Jones and called it a day. Yeah, absolutely. You got E.T. with a whip.

Jill:
[41:26] Yeah.

Ryan:
[41:27] That would be awesome. Yeah. If it would be five weeks, that would have been my solution. I would have been like, all right, I’m re-skitting the game I already made.

Michael:
[41:35] Raiders of the Lost E.T.

Jill:
[41:37] Yes. So initially when ET was first released, it actually did really well and sold over a million copies, like the copy that I have. But after a few months, retailers were seeing lots of people returning the game and slow sales and players being disappointed by it and disliking the game’s graphics, transitions, and the very repetitive gameplay. But the thing that really killed it, as the designer Warshaw has talked about, is that it had a fundamental fatal flaw in its design, which he failed to notice because of its tight production schedule. It had a bad bug where a player gets very disoriented. Sometimes when you make a character move and do something, you suddenly get moved to another location. and i know that happened to me as as a youngster and that was one of the reasons why i got frustrated so why didn’t they just patch it oh yeah no.

Michael:
[42:37] Internet because they didn’t have the.

Jill:
[42:38] Subscription yet then they patch it through aol.

Ryan:
[42:42] They didn’t have the subscription service.

Jill:
[42:43] Yeah yeah they would have to produce oh my gosh it might take them a few months just to produce new copies and put it out maybe even six months but you remember back.

Ryan:
[42:56] In the day you could go into eb games or electronics boutique you could get software, like video games for computers, you could pirate it right there and turn it because they had a return policy and people started doing it so often that eventually they stopped giving returns for software at all because you could just steal it and return it, which obviously wasn’t fair to the people writing the software back then. But I know a lot of people who, I know a lot of people who partook in that particular activity.

Michael:
[43:27] How often do you just see those people? Do you ever see them in the.

Ryan:
[43:30] Mirror see them anymore uh do not look at them anymore um so.

Michael:
[43:35] You don’t look at mirrors at all.

Ryan:
[43:36] They’re bad they’re bad people michael it’s bad people all right.

Jill:
[43:40] Moving on so soon after et’s release the video game crash unfortunately was in full swing and disappointing sales and mismanagement caused atari to do a restructure it wasn’t necessarily et’s fault it was just they were in the slump and atari went from 10 000 employees to 2 000 employees in only a few months and howard warshaw left the gaming industry it was game over that’s kind of sad that that was his last thing you know it really is it wasn’t his fault five weeks to release.

Ryan:
[44:18] A game is just impossible.

Jill:
[44:19] Like that’s not ridiculous it was ridiculous absolutely yeah and uh a legend claims, though, that Atari dumped millions of unsold copies of E.T. in a New Mexico landfill and covered them with cement. However, a 2014 excavation of the landfill found that only a portion of the games buried there were actually E.T. cartridges.

Ryan:
[44:44] I did not know that.

Michael:
[44:46] I thought that was a true story.

Ryan:
[44:47] That they buried them.

Michael:
[44:48] Why would you bury them?

Ryan:
[44:51] Taxes.

Michael:
[44:53] Oh, it’s losses.

Ryan:
[44:54] Yeah, write it all off as a loss. Yeah. Not to sell it or anything.

Michael:
[44:58] I see.

Ryan:
[44:59] That’s why companies get mad at dumpster divers who go and take stuff out of the dumpster. Because if they get caught doing that, then there’s some legalities or something. I’ve heard.

Michael:
[45:08] I don’t know.

Jill:
[45:09] Yeah.

Ryan:
[45:09] That basically they have to throw the brand new product away so they can count it as a loss, entire loss. But if they gave it away to people, then they could not count it as a complete loss. So you have to destroy it, which is stupid. It’s so dumb. Right?

Michael:
[45:23] And so that’s, that’s why restaurants throw away food instead of get donating it to homeless people then.

Ryan:
[45:28] Well, that and they’re afraid of getting sued if homeless people get sick off of the food was another thing I heard.

Michael:
[45:34] Yeah.

Ryan:
[45:34] But there are certain states that have passed laws to make it so that can’t happen, which is great because you should be able to give the food away that’s in excess. And there’s a lot of excess food.

Michael:
[45:42] And you should be able to give away your terrible game.

Ryan:
[45:45] Exactly.

Jill:
[45:45] Yeah.

Michael:
[45:47] They do it all the time now. It’s called Fortnite. Boom. Got it.

Jill:
[45:51] Well, there’s some good news for the future history of E.T. In December 2014, the Smithsonian Institute added an excavated cartridge of E.T. to their collection. And in 2015, the Henry Ford Museum and the Center for Computing History in Cambridge, England, also added ET excavated cartridges for permanent display in their museums and other artifacts from the desert. And in 2006, Dennis Debrow disassembled E.T., added comments to the generated source code, and it released it to the public. And in January 2013, programmer David Richardson released several unofficial fixes for the game.

Ryan:
[46:39] That’s cool.

Jill:
[46:40] Yes. Isn’t this great?

Michael:
[46:42] That’s awesome.

Jill:
[46:43] E.T. lives on. And since then, there have been even more game mode modding and bug fixes by several other developers that improves the game. In fact, I just ran into one in the last few months. And Howard Scott Warshaw actually said he was proud that the game is still being talked about years later. And to him, that is a sign of its complete success. Yeah, they’re talking about his baby. Everyone’s talking about it.

Michael:
[47:12] I mean, and also the fact that people put the effort into fixing it shows that people at some level like it for sure.

Ryan:
[47:19] Well, I think people kind of realize like the dude was given a very unfair… car. He got this amazing opportunity to work on this game, was only given five weeks to do it, and then it turned out disastrous. But now people can go in there because this is why it’s so important to have code out there in the open. You go out there and fix it, and now people can enjoy the game as it was probably initially intended. Because with the bug fixes in, it was probably a really fun game. I haven’t played it. I don’t know. But I bet you there was a lot of stuff in there that would have been really enjoyable had they had the actual amount of time to do it because like you said the games that warsaw had released earlier were fantastic yeah so this person knew how to create games they knew how to create fun they just weren’t getting the right time and now years later all these brilliant hackers and coders can go in there and mod it and make it what it should have been which is to me beautiful

Ryan:
[48:13] ending it’s wonderful and.

Jill:
[48:15] You know in conclusion actually E.T. was able to phone home after all.

Ryan:
[48:21] Oh, look at that. That’s so cute. My teeth are rotting out my mouth.

Jill:
[48:26] It’s so cute. I realized I had my original manual for the game.

Michael:
[48:31] Of course you did, Jill.

Ryan:
[48:33] You know, there’s museums out there excavating copies.

Michael:
[48:37] Exactly.

Ryan:
[48:38] Jill had a perfect one.

Michael:
[48:39] And this one has it. They excavated this one and they excavated this one. They also got one. And I’m thinking, Jill, you’ve had one the entire time.

Ryan:
[48:48] You could have called the Smithsonian and given it to him Jill or if they want if the whole thing is because it was buried it’s more valuable then you need to bury your Jill in the bus yard.

Michael:
[48:59] You can actually also claim a loss for it too.

Jill:
[49:02] Yeah.

Michael:
[49:04] Not sure. That’s not advice. Don’t do it.

Ryan:
[49:08] Well, Jill, that was an awesome treasure hunt. Something I completely didn’t expect a game to bring up, but a game that has amazing history and shows the importance of open sourcing code, I feel like, at the end. Because once the code got out there, people were able to participate and fix it. So very cool stuff. And we’ll have more treasure hunts for you. We’re not going to make you wait this long anymore for treasure hunt, we promise.

Michael:
[49:32] Yeah, we’re not going to make you wait a year.

Jill:
[49:34] Yeah.

Ryan:
[49:37] All right. So, Michael and Jill, there is something in the news that I’ve been wanting to cover on the show for a minute because it’s been going on.

Michael:
[49:46] Speaking of positive topics.

Ryan:
[49:48] This one’s not.

Michael:
[49:49] Okay.

Ryan:
[49:49] This one’s not positive. Well, it’s very interesting, though. There is a major sophisticated hack that has taken place over the last few weeks. and it is so gnarly that i brought back the word gnarly to describe it like that’s how bad this thing is it is very gnarly the details on this so here’s what i know about it’s very jive art all right that’s right chat can uh kind of fill in some of the gaps here if you know some more information on this i would love or more uh.

Michael:
[50:26] Silly reference words that we could use.

Ryan:
[50:28] Ai or ai chat yeah here it’s not tubular.

Michael:
[50:32] In any way.

Ryan:
[50:33] A uh hacking group uh that apparently is based in china and known for their sophisticated cyber espionage has targeted u.s telecoms and they’re known as salt typhoon and thus why the name for this hack is also being dubbed as salt to typhoon.

Ryan:
[50:55] Trying to think of what a salt typhoon would be like.

Michael:
[50:58] I feel like it’s someone who has so, they’re so salty as a person that they express it through typhoon.

Ryan:
[51:05] Hmm.

Jill:
[51:06] The wind’s spinning so fast and it has salt in it. So it, it rips your skin off to shreds. That’s Jill.

Ryan:
[51:15] Jill is so dark.

Michael:
[51:16] That was dark.

Ryan:
[51:17] You know?

Michael:
[51:18] The next thing, the next thing I thought of was silly. And I thought that Jill would be just to something like that.

Ryan:
[51:22] Yeah.

Michael:
[51:22] I was thinking like, what if it was like a typhoon that sprinkled salt like that? You know, that gift.

Ryan:
[51:26] Like the fancy chefs do.

Jill:
[51:29] Yes.

Ryan:
[51:31] Oh you ever see those videos of those like people that go to a fancy restaurant and the guy comes in and he’s like we’ll take the steak and do that and then he cuts it in front of him in some ridiculous manner that makes it look like he’s moving stuff really fast but you just paid 150 dollars for a dumb show of so you ever see that like hibachi.

Michael:
[51:49] Places and stuff but those are.

Ryan:
[51:50] Those are hibachi’s like that’s a decent i enjoy hibachi shows yeah because they’re.

Michael:
[51:54] Doing like tricks and stuff yeah.

Ryan:
[51:56] Yeah yeah these ones are like trying to be purposefully oh they’re trying.

Michael:
[52:00] To be fancy yeah.

Ryan:
[52:01] Fancy but it comes across as check out this height of salt.

Michael:
[52:04] That changed nothing depending on the height that i did.

Ryan:
[52:07] Yeah sometimes when i pour my coke i’ll go really high up to impress my kids as it’s pouring and then bring it back down oh yeah yeah that’s cool there’s actually i don’t.

Michael:
[52:17] Know if you know this you know that you know that tv show kitchen nightmares like.

Ryan:
[52:20] The of course oh Yeah.

Michael:
[52:22] So there was, there was a spinoff of called a bar rescue that is the same concept, but it’s for bars. And at one point this person was talking about, uh, they were teaching bartenders how to do a good pour. And they were saying that there’s a, there’s always going to be a time where someone’s like, Hey, could you give me a little bit more of this stuff? And they told them a trick of raise the bottle. Like it’s a lot more liquid and it’s the exact same amount of liquid you just raise it it makes them think it and they’re like oh you’re so nice and they’ll probably give a big tip for that and it’s just hilarious because it’s like it tricks kids and drunk people there.

Ryan:
[52:59] You go those are those are two very similar personalities kids.

Michael:
[53:04] Very simple like very similar.

Ryan:
[53:05] Um so the targets were major u.s telecom companies like at&t verizon lumen technologies primarily aimed at the wiretap systems intended for legal surveillance potentially Not potentially. We know they did compromise sensitive communications. So this is why this is so fascinating to me to listen to. So if you think about this, we have the government has been talking about the evils of encryption. has been talking about how encryption keeps them from being able to catch the bad guys. And they’ll utilize all kinds of extreme cases that of like children or terrorism or other things of why, you know, you should not be worried about your privacy. They’re only going after the worst people. And we need these back doors, right? We need these back doors so we can catch these people, even though it seems like somehow crime in those areas keep going up, but we’ve got all these back doors are supposed to stop them i don’t know but that’s what they tell us but this was exploiting that back door because it turns out michael that if i tell my neighborhood that i’ve installed a back door but it’s only for my family that sometimes robbers don’t listen to that and they may use the back door themselves like it’s crazy because i told them no this is just for my family you’re not allowed to use this but then wow you put an arbitrary rule.

Michael:
[54:29] That has no impact whatsoever and it.

Ryan:
[54:32] Didn’t stop them it’s weird crazy because the back door is only for the government to use nobody else is supposed to use our government and only for really really bad people and they spend time.

Michael:
[54:43] Trying to convince like the fact that their rhetoric was successful and convinced people to not care and be.

Ryan:
[54:49] Like oh yeah i.

Michael:
[54:49] Have nothing to hide.

Ryan:
[54:50] Of course you do.

Michael:
[54:51] Everyone has something to hide it’s because otherwise you would be walking down the street screaming all your business like a crazy person. But you’re not doing that unless you’re a crazy person. You might be doing that. But if you’re not doing that, then you clearly have something to hide. So.

Ryan:
[55:09] Oh, man. So what this did is it exploited vulnerabilities in network infrastructure, particularly routers from companies like Cisco, Cisco, They used things like custom malware. This was a multifaceted attack. So it wasn’t just one single thing or exploit that they launched. They used GhostSpider, which operates in memory to evade detection. They employed malware as a service for rapid deployment of the malicious tools they were using.

Michael:
[55:35] Of course, there’s a such thing as malware as a service.

Ryan:
[55:38] They encrypted their communications to hide their activities. And they also used memory resident operations to avoid leaving digital footprints in there. But here’s the thing that was really interesting. I saw one story that was stating that there wasn’t a lot of people monitoring for this. Because the concept was, essentially, these companies left this back door open for the government. And you kind of trust that, hey, if the government’s using it, they probably got the right subpoenas and things that they needed. were in order and nobody was really watching over the back door. It was like they locked the front door, but always left the back door open. So what I was seeing is that the reason why it wasn’t caught sooner wasn’t because the attack was so sophisticated that you couldn’t see it. It was because nobody was looking really.

Michael:
[56:30] So sad. I mean, the fact that they’re not looking at the same time, you’re thinking like, um, yeah, so we, we, you can trust the government because they’ve never uh illegally

Michael:
[56:41] surveilled the entire country and world that didn’t happen already oh wait.

Ryan:
[56:46] Um so what could they do when they got uh this backdoor access well it turns out they could view record or redirect communications under surveillance they could manipulate your network traffic and do the routing and monitoring of network traffic across the devices remotely execute commands on all the compromised systems steal sensitive information of course use root kits like video games do and then evade detection uh through stealth techniques and system manipulations so they could basically go delete their logs and digital footprints and things there move between different networks because they care about.

Michael:
[57:22] Their data unlike.

Ryan:
[57:23] And so they gained insights into u.s surveillance activities and u.s targets of these back doors that they had open so this was a big cash for the hackers to get into because now they have information on people who were being targeted with these backdoor forensics for real and they also were able to get into those systems see how they operate how they’re compromising how the backdoor even works and be able to get all that stuff and pull the information off that they wanted so,

Ryan:
[57:57] um microsoft employee is actually the person that detected this uh someone from microsoft god it’s a good job uh to that person if somebody has their name i’d love to give them a shout out because i love people who catch this stuff uh i think it’s brilliant oh yeah when it happens you can let us know.

Michael:
[58:13] And if if our uh live chat ai or our patron ai could help us out with that.

Ryan:
[58:17] Yeah that would be incredible um but very cool stuff there um so they basically saw some very, unique traffic going across this Microsoft employee that made them think something was going on.

Michael:
[58:34] Exactly like the guy who found XZ from Microsoft.

Jill:
[58:37] Yeah, exactly.

Ryan:
[58:38] These people who pay attention, right? They really are paying attention to the environment and what’s supposed to happen on a network. And this is also an example of why it’s so important to have and keep around very experienced people for your network. You can bring in the new person maybe for a little less money. And it’s always good to bring in new people to train up the next generation. But sometimes they think, oh, that person who’s been here for 20 years, they’re aged out. But I guarantee you those are the people who are finding the things because they know what the network traffic is supposed to look like. They’ve been around the network forever. They know the patterns that are going to show something like this.

Michael:
[59:13] And it’s also like someone who’s very skilled. They want to replace them with the cheaper labor.

Ryan:
[59:19] Of course.

Michael:
[59:20] And there’s so many stories of that blowing up in the face of the company. You would imagine people would learn by now that that does not work, but still happens all the time.

Ryan:
[59:32] So this is why putting back doors in systems as a whole is a really bad idea. You know, back in the day, if you were going to try to get, let’s say you found out there was somebody you suspected of running a mafia and you wanted to tap their phones, you would set up some really, you know, um, elaborate scheme to get them out of the house, or you would be watching them till they leave the house. Then you would send your crew in, you would install a bunch of cameras and little mics and things like that, and you would listen in. It took a lot of work. But now everybody wants the easy button. I just want to push a button and be able to listen to everybody’s stuff and pull all of their communications and their phone and everything else. And it leaves everybody exposed, not just to our own governments, but to external governments as well. It’s extraordinarily dangerous, and it’s embarrassing to the government. I think the FBI and everybody else that this happened. Like, shame on you. Embarrassing that it happened, and you got busted with leaving your tools.

Michael:
[1:00:29] Or into a system or a platform that everyone uses is obviously a violation of rights. It’s like it’s not even a question. Like you’re you’re tracking people who you have no reason to track. Right. Like that’s what the whole thing with the Snowden stuff was. But it’s actually kind of funny because the FBI did do something that was kind of genius and clever and that they they did have at one point. This was years ago because they could only do it for a certain amount of time, but they had an app that was designed for criminals to use for criminal activities. And the FBI got involved in it and was in the back end watching things happening and catching and getting evidence and all this other stuff. And that is arguably genius. That’s the modern style of doing a wiretap and that sort of stuff. This is just laziness, but like personified.

Jill:
[1:01:29] Yes.

Ryan:
[1:01:31] This is all these holes that are not only in the network equipment, they’re in the providers of the services. They’re just back doors everywhere that we’ve opened up, and it’s just left

Ryan:
[1:01:41] us all terribly exposed. So what is the FBI’s solution to this? This is genius, Michael. What could the FBI possibly suggest to resolve this?

Michael:
[1:01:52] I love the fact that what they’re saying is what they refused to acknowledge was the obvious answer before, is that just encrypt your messages.

Jill:
[1:02:06] Yes. It’s so easy.

Ryan:
[1:02:08] FBI is literally recommending now to use encryption. So all the people out there are like, I got nothing to hide. I got nothing to worry about. FBI is only looking for bad people. And there’s this saying out there that I saw the other week. I remember, I wish I could remember the saying and who said it was a famous saying that says, you show me a man, I’ll show you a crime they committed. Something to that effect. Meaning everybody, they can find a crime on.

Michael:
[1:02:33] I remember, I remember something like that. Show me a man, I’ll show you a liar. I think that’s what it was. Something like that. Or it was like just a similar, a similar thing. And it’s just, just because like everybody at some point in their life is going to do something that is either, you know, considered false or whatever, or you could accidentally commit a crime and not even know you did.

Ryan:
[1:02:53] I remember there was a law in Florida where you weren’t allowed to take your shower without having clothes on. So if you took a shower, that was actual law in the books. You ever see those stories about stupid laws that exist?

Michael:
[1:03:06] There was a law, I think it was Vermont or New Hampshire or something that, or maybe it was Rhode Island, that it was illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your back pocket of your pants.

Ryan:
[1:03:17] That’s ridiculous because that’s my favorite place to keep my ice cream cone.

Jill:
[1:03:20] Exactly.

Michael:
[1:03:20] You know, like, why? Like, why, though?

Ryan:
[1:03:24] What happened that that law got passed? Like, there’s so many laws that need to happen for privacy and other things. But how did that law make it? And like, yeah, that’s important.

Michael:
[1:03:35] That’s definitely, we’ve got to put a law on the books because if you put it in your back pocket, your front pocket’s okay, but not your back pocket. That’s just wrong.

Ryan:
[1:03:42] Back pocket makes it just wrong.

Jill:
[1:03:44] Totally.

Ryan:
[1:03:45] Interesting. So yeah, the FBI is now recommending people use encryption for messages and calls. We’ve been on that FBI. We’ve literally been on that one for a minute and y’all have been trying to stop it. So that’s really interesting that now welcome to the club, first of all.

Michael:
[1:04:01] Apparently the FBI has something to hide.

Ryan:
[1:04:03] Yeah.

Jill:
[1:04:04] Yeah. FBI, use signal in session.

Ryan:
[1:04:06] There you go.

Jill:
[1:04:08] Encrypted messages.

Ryan:
[1:04:09] We’ve been on that for a minute here in Linux. We told y’all those are like, oh, Linux, open source, niche, blah, blah, blah, tinfoil hat. We told you. Yeah. Told you. Everyone else is now just catching up. So, yeah. Use encryption for messages and calls, folks. I think we’ve been saying that for 395 episodes, probably. There might have been five where we didn’t mention it.

Michael:
[1:04:32] Enable 2FA. Even the episodes we weren’t involved in. That definitely happened.

Jill:
[1:04:39] 2FA. Make sure to enable it. Update your device regularly. And don’t use public Wi-Fi without using a VPN. Something that our audience is intelligent enough to know.

Michael:
[1:04:49] But also don’t just blindly trust any VPN.

Ryan:
[1:04:53] Yeah correct that too there’s that too we get a lot of vpns that want to sponsor our show and we have to tell a lot of them no uh so far we have not liked.

Michael:
[1:05:03] Most of the vpn options like there we get a lot of them like we’re the best vpn like uh how why not.

Ryan:
[1:05:10] Then you look them up and they’ve got all these cases where they keep logs and oh my gosh vpn world is a mess that there are some good ones out there for sure i have a video on it in fact you should go check it he.

Michael:
[1:05:21] Made a video and it’s it’s decent yeah it’s pretty good i give it a 3.2 it’s excellent that’s higher than your last video out of five out of five out of four i got 3.2 out of four.

Ryan:
[1:05:32] Oh that’s really good yes i gave your your latest video a 1.5 out of two out of two out of two, yeah yeah that’s good that’s good i’ll take it i’ll take it it’s a weird rating system i have it’s we have just weird.

Michael:
[1:05:47] Arbitrary systems that we just decide to apply to at no point and no reason.

Ryan:
[1:05:53] Oh man so the answer.

Michael:
[1:05:55] To everybody is use encryption.

Ryan:
[1:05:57] There you go we’re going to move on to a little happier news this is happy news I think but it’s up to Michael Michael has to approve this next story so Michael I want you to sit back, I was really hoping you’d just fall backwards onto the floor but you can’t sit back because you have a stool and there’s no back, and he has.

Jill:
[1:06:18] To be active sitting so you.

Ryan:
[1:06:20] Know Oh, look, it’s cool. Oh, man, that $9 stool. Wow. Okay. So sit back, relax, and listen to this before you make a judgment call, because Michael is our marketing strategy genius behind the show. A lot of the graphics, everything you see, the rebranding is Michael’s work. So he’s the one that I’m very interested in his take on this. Mozilla has done a huge rebrand, Michael.

Michael:
[1:06:51] I’ve heard.

Ryan:
[1:06:51] And it’s a massive brand refresh that they’ve gone under. For over a quarter century, Mozilla has been known for being a force, according to themselves, for free open internet. Now, they’ve not always met that commitment, I feel like.

Michael:
[1:07:07] According to themselves.

Ryan:
[1:07:09] Yeah, according to themselves, they’ve been the force. They’ve done a lot of great stuff. Do not get me wrong. Mozilla has done incredible things.

Michael:
[1:07:16] Firefox has been a browser that has been awesome for a long time.

Ryan:
[1:07:19] We would be worse off without them, by far.

Michael:
[1:07:21] Yeah.

Ryan:
[1:07:22] But lately, they’ve made some big missteps here and there. And it’s been kind of a continuation of that. However, now they’re hoping to rebrand themselves back to their foundation, which makes me excited. They have a new logo featuring a pixelated dinosaur to a mission focused message of reclaim the internet. This isn’t just about their new look. They’re saying it’s about setting the stage for future of digital, digital advocacy, which I like. Like this is kind of going back to the roots of why a lot of people like Mozilla is the fact that they are kind of known as the privacy and security browser that’s open source. And that’s where we want them to stay. Like that’s what I want them to focus on, their attention to be, and not other things that they’re doing that are kind of silly. So.

Michael:
[1:08:11] Not other things like wasting time and money on a new brand.

Ryan:
[1:08:14] You know, my question is in a time of like financial strain, the company’s going through market challenges, you know, Google is in a major situation right now where they are, they may have to split into different companies. Like they may get split up. I don’t know if that’s actually going to happen, but that’s what’s being recommended after a court case. And one of the things that Google’s in trouble for is paying for browser dominance, right? They’re paying people to utilize Google. Mozilla is one of the beneficiaries of that. And that represents like a massive chunk of their overall budget. So that is very likely.

Michael:
[1:08:52] Like 80% or something? Yeah.

Ryan:
[1:08:53] It was high. Very, very high. And if that goes away, then you’re losing all of this. And so you’ve got a company that’s had layoffs recently. You have a company that is looking at its future of financial situation is very bleak with most of its money coming from a source that’s likely to get cut off. And of course, the dominance of the monopoly that is Chrome, like whether you’re using any other browser, Brave and other stuff, they’re all Chrome based now. Firefox is one of the few ones left out there that actually has their own engine that’s not Chrome based. Um, Mozilla is very important to be successful. So I, Michael was very happy with the idea that they are going back to their roots from a philosophy standpoint, if they actually stick to it. And it’s not just like a marketing game. Um, they collaborated with John Jones, Knowles, Richie to revamp its brand, ensuring it reflects Mozilla’s broader impact beyond just Firefox, focusing on digital rights, innovation, and putting people before profits. So they go into all the different ways, the color palettes, the typefaces, the voice icons, the cultural impact of how these images are going to kind of bring people together and stuff. And what do you think, Michael? Do these images strike that chord?

Michael:
[1:10:16] I can stand up right now, right?

Ryan:
[1:10:17] Yeah. Oh, yeah. You’re allowed to stand back.

Jill:
[1:10:19] Okay.

Ryan:
[1:10:20] You don’t need to sit back. You need to stand forward now and tell us what do you know but in the mic you gotta get.

Michael:
[1:10:27] Oh my bad my bad yeah there you go the microphone didn’t go with me uh so it’s interesting because this topic is definitely something that i’m very um obviously i’m interested in the fact that um because of the marketing side the branding graphic designer side but also the open source and the big fan of firefox and mozilla in general like there’s there’s so many different things that this is something that i i’ve dug in very deep and i just gotta say it’s not great it’s um really yeah you.

Ryan:
[1:10:57] Don’t like it.

Michael:
[1:10:58] Not really when you look at this without knowing dinosaur did you ever see dinosaur no.

Ryan:
[1:11:04] I saw like a ping pong with a like a ping pong thing with.

Michael:
[1:11:09] A ping pong paddle sure i could see that yeah.

Ryan:
[1:11:11] Yeah and then and then a weird.

Michael:
[1:11:14] A lot of people said it looked like a flag okay.

Ryan:
[1:11:16] I could see a.

Michael:
[1:11:17] Flag i also So, and I asked, actually, recently on this past episode of Linux Saloon, I joined, and at one point, we made a conversation about this particular topic, and I asked them a question. There’s, you know, random spectators, like the people in the group, like, what do you think? What jumps out at you? And the flag jumped out, and then another one jumped out, which made me laugh because I thought of the same thing. They said, in the middle of the shape, looks like a bird. Yeah. And like the black part of it. And I laugh because to me, I saw that as a screaming duck. And.

Ryan:
[1:11:59] So DuckDuckGo should have used this logo basically.

Michael:
[1:12:02] Well, no, they shouldn’t have. Cause they know they knew theirs is fine. And, but so it’s funny is that the older version of Mozilla, like the, the one that they just had before this new one wasn’t great either because of the whole, they’re trying to be clever with the colon slash slash. I get it. But at the same time, still no. But the one before that was fine. Like, why do you need to change this all the time?

Ryan:
[1:12:26] We’re rebranding ourselves as something different.

Michael:
[1:12:29] Right.

Ryan:
[1:12:30] I want to do the same thing. I want to rebrand Destination Linux with a new logo that is just like, okay, hear me out. It’s a banana taped to a wall. And that’s our logo.

Michael:
[1:12:44] That’s art right there.

Jill:
[1:12:46] Yeah. i know what i’m talking about that 25.

Michael:
[1:12:50] Million dollar piece literally was a museum art piece or whatever that had someone just taped a banana to the wall uh some so silly so here’s the thing when i read these things it makes me look at like um i want to see mozilla do uh if if i was in charge of mozilla’s marketing how about this if i was in charge of mozilla’s marketing i would tell them to pivot in a completely different direction because what they’re doing doesn’t work and it just seems pretentious. For example, colors. The palette starts with black and white, like most colors have some level of… Adding a green palette that symbolizes Mozilla’s mission to… How does it symbolize anything to be green related to the internet?

Ryan:
[1:13:40] Green. Dos Geek. Privacy. If you steal my color…

Michael:
[1:13:44] They said, if they said Mozilla’s mission is to symbolize DOS geek, then it’d been okay. But right now, that’s not what they said. And the reason why, if they were just being upfront and being like, you know, it’s kind of becoming like authenticity is more important than, you know, seeming professional these days. Because the corporate speak is just so rampant that people just are sick of it. So, and this is also kind of the same thing in like the pretentious marketing speak. and it just trying to seem like you have some more complex thought you have something going on more than you do whereas in this case if you just said remember back in the day in the 80s or the 70s we had these really cool, like terminals that had black and green text and everybody loved them and we wanted to celebrate that that’s why our text our color of the new logo is that that’s all you had to say just give it an actual meaning now what symbolizes the mission to make the internet a better place. How? Why? What?

Ryan:
[1:14:48] Yeah.

Michael:
[1:14:48] Okay, anyway.

Ryan:
[1:14:49] Yeah.

Jill:
[1:14:50] Well, I personally- That could be our new slogan. How?

Ryan:
[1:14:53] Why? What?

Jill:
[1:14:54] I like the 8-bit look, the ASCII art kind of look myself.

Ryan:
[1:14:59] I do, too. Yeah.

Jill:
[1:15:01] But I know why they went for green on black, because of old school computers. Although, of course- That’s- No, no, no, Jill, Jill.

Michael:
[1:15:08] Jill. The mission was to make the internet a better place reminiscent of nature and nonprofits. That’s why they went green.

Jill:
[1:15:15] Yeah, that’s why they went green. green but i uh to your point michael i was thinking they should probably use red i don’t know because red has been one of their colors for years well then we could go into color theory as a graphic designer i would i would.

Ryan:
[1:15:29] Be happy to do that no but it’s a long conversation.

Jill:
[1:15:32] Yeah i i think on black it’s a little bit too stark i i yeah the the colors are are a little off i i do agree with that.

Ryan:
[1:15:42] Well i think the colors are beautiful because they stole my shade of green this is true ryan and uh for my channel so you’re welcome mozilla i’ll consider it an open source donation if you could give me the tax write-off for it it’s only about a million bucks to use my color a million bucks yeah so here’s the thing i i like their i i like the change i think they needed a change that fit the new mission here’s here’s the problem um i don’t really care about the logo and stuff honestly like to you michael that matters and it should because that’s where you know you you have expertise there but i don’t to me it’s like i like mozilla so whatever their logo is i’ll probably wear their merchandise or you know click the icon regardless although there’s a lot of theories of making it more clickable more likable to more people and i get all that but i’m just saying for me personally like i’m gonna yeah you don’t care what it would be either they.

Michael:
[1:16:34] Could go back to the old red dinosaur and be.

Ryan:
[1:16:38] Like yeah sure yeah i don’t think this is particularly terrible it’s not particularly great either I do like the green of course, but otherwise and I see it on some merchandise and it looks kind of cool on some merchandise they have like some name tags and stuff that they show on the link which was the way you said.

Michael:
[1:16:54] That is it looks kind of cool I guess.

Ryan:
[1:16:55] Kind of cool you know it’s all right but here’s what’s important to me is what they actually do with this so okay we get it you’re rebranding yourself after you don’t think the brand anything to.

Michael:
[1:17:05] Do with any of the things they want though.

Ryan:
[1:17:07] What they’re saying is they’re going to go back to the roots, right? And the rebranding is supposed to represent that. So when I think about a company that has done great things recently, the most recent, I think the biggest gain in privacy that’s been given out for free, by the way, is from DuckDuckGo. DuckDuckGo’s app tracking protection that’s built into their browser for mobile devices is one of the single most important applications that’s been released for privacy on the market today. Why? Because number one, it’s free. They don’t charge anything for it. Number two, it’s so easy to access and enable. You download DuckDuckGo browser on your phone, your tablet, whatever. You go into settings, click enable app tracking protection, and then it’s going to start blocking all of those apps and things. Why is Mozilla not doing this by default? This is what I want. Why is every other company coming up with all of these great concepts? Mozilla has things like, of course the sandboxing of tabs and things which is fantastic but they never advertise it so what i’m getting at by default.

Michael:
[1:18:13] You have to manually add the feature.

Ryan:
[1:18:14] Yeah what i’m getting at is like mozilla has the ability to become that browser that everybody wants it to be and to do the things that all these other companies are doing that are making them more popular, and making more of an impact and i hope my hope is that this rebranding is genuine and they actually go and do that. Otherwise I don’t see much hope for this company existing in the next five years. Like, not to be super stark I know that’s very stark, but if they don’t do something big, because they’re losing even the niche people who used to use it. Does that make sense? Like, it’s already niche and they’re losing all of them.

Michael:
[1:18:53] You’re losing those to Brave and Vivaldi and Brave and other places. And now Zen. Zen is a fork of Firefox that a lot of people like more.

Ryan:
[1:19:03] So they’ve got to do something big. I like that they rebranded. Now, actually execute and do something. What I would have loved to have seen is, hey, here’s our new marketing. And here’s our new privacy tool that we just released. Like something to go along with it to prove.

Michael:
[1:19:17] We have changed the brand. And here’s something you actually care about, too.

Ryan:
[1:19:21] There you go.

Jill:
[1:19:22] That’s the way to do it.

Michael:
[1:19:24] Yeah, that’s unfortunately not what they did. But also, just real quick, I think Mozilla should take all the ideas from all the companies that are doing something that is better. copy them or buy out those companies you still have some money and uh like proton for example proton is doing something that is very good they’re making their own suite to compete against google and mozilla should have done this 15 20 years ago we’ve.

Ryan:
[1:19:48] Been talking about it.

Michael:
[1:19:49] For a long time.

Ryan:
[1:19:51] That mozilla needed to do that.

Michael:
[1:19:52] Yeah it’s crazy like we we talked about we literally have an episode about how you can save mozilla and or how mozilla can save it for firefox or something like that and that’s one of the things we said was this and this was like easy five years ago and it’s just it’s just silly because you’re like clearly they spent some money on this because they did they went to the effort of money.

Ryan:
[1:20:15] They didn’t have.

Michael:
[1:20:16] Like money they didn’t have they contacted some kind of some artist who is such as is notable enough to put their name in the blog post they made they spent this much this time to come up with like the reasons of why they’re doing this way and what the, what the, the, the, the meaning of the brand is and all this other stuff. And two things pop into my head. First, you said, we’re, we’re going back to our, our rebranding is to signify. We’re going back to our roots and privacy. What were you doing then? Right before you, before you went back, you were, before you were in the root section and then you’re in the middle section and you’re going back to the root section. What were you doing?

Ryan:
[1:20:53] Now drop your mic. Cause that’s a drop the mic. Now just drop your mic, Michael and walk away.

Michael:
[1:20:59] I pay too much for this. I don’t want to rebrand it.

Ryan:
[1:21:02] I don’t want to rebrand it. That’s a good point. What have they been doing this whole time? They kind of got caught, right? Everyone’s been saying, you guys aren’t doing what you used to. You guys are not really being that company, that proponent of open source and that proponent of privacy.

Michael:
[1:21:18] It’s also like people who say, just to be honest with you right now, were you not before?

Ryan:
[1:21:23] Right, exactly. Yeah.

Michael:
[1:21:25] But it’s just like if you if this whole branding thing made me laugh, because when I first saw it, I laughed because I knew what they were trying to make. I knew your mascot was a dinosaur because I’ve been a Firefox user forever. So Mozilla has been using because it’s Mozilla, Zilla part, it’s been a dinosaur for ever. I knew what you were doing. I didn’t see it. You also said what it was. I still couldn’t see it because it doesn’t make sense. It’s not a good logo.

Ryan:
[1:22:00] It looks like a bird. Yeah.

Michael:
[1:22:01] It looks like a bird. It also looks like a flag. It doesn’t indicate anything of what you’re trying to say. The gibberish about your colors and the topography and the whatever. That’s not, I don’t know what you’re doing. but the funny part is is they made an animated like gif of it with more components that you can find you can sort of see the dinosaur yeah i love that that’s my favorite part their animated version looks great take that in there yeah the issue is that that’s not their logo yeah and they expect people to see this somehow from that and so so what you were saying earlier is that you don’t care about the brand you’re going to use it anyway and i i am going to use it anyway i’m going to make fun of the brand because it is bad but i still am going to use firefox because it is my favorite browser and they do have the best features that i think uh that applied the best to me but, it is disappointing when i see that they’re spending that much money or however much money who knows but they’re spending money on rebranding instead of focusing on making their browser better and instead of focusing on making better services to actually bring in revenue. And at the same time, I still don’t see, even knowing what you’re trying to get me to see, I don’t see it. Which all it to me is, is that’s a failure in branding. It doesn’t work.

Ryan:
[1:23:22] I will completely buy into every sentence, Mozilla, that you wrote about the color theory and everything. If you actually now release something in your browser in the next version that’s actually focused in a big deal on privacy and security. If you do that, I will eat the bull crap up with a big giant spoon, like a bowl of ice cream.

Michael:
[1:23:44] I will eat the bull crap up. I’ll just eat it.

Ryan:
[1:23:48] I’ll take it all down. So that’s my deal for you, Mozilla’s.

Michael:
[1:23:51] Prove me wrong.

Ryan:
[1:23:53] And then I’ll come back and read your color theory on this show and act like I believe it if you actually do that.

Michael:
[1:24:01] That would be fantastic. And I’ll make a similar deal. If you make good features in your browser, you bring some features in. They’re even talking about bringing features back that they used to have and for some reason got rid of, like, tab groups. And that’s cool. There’s a lot of potential here. If they do it, like Ryan, I will not say this is a good brand. Yeah. I cannot do it. I was going to make the joke, but my brain would not allow me to say it. So I just could not say it.

Ryan:
[1:24:34] We’ll dub it over. We’ll use AI to make Michael say it. That’s Michael’s deal.

Michael:
[1:24:37] I will help you make a better one. How about that?

Ryan:
[1:24:40] Oh, that’s a good one right there. I like that deal. That’s a really good deal. You should take Michael up on that Mozilla because he does some dope branding there. Like for instance, on the shirt, which he designed for the Tux Digital, that is a lion right there in the middle of the d uh if you don’t see it uh it’s because you’re not you don’t know color theory very well it’s a lion that’s roaring in a forest in outer space.

Michael:
[1:25:09] Obviously it’s a penguin um.

Ryan:
[1:25:11] But oh no kidding okay well maybe we weren’t as good as we thought no see the one on jill’s.

Michael:
[1:25:16] Shirt that’s a lion.

Ryan:
[1:25:17] Yes totally michael designed all of this stuff by the way, and I think does

Ryan:
[1:25:23] a fantastic job with it. All right. Jill, take us into gaming. How long is this show? An hour and 27 minutes. Gosh, you guys can’t shut up. My goodness. Crazy.

Michael:
[1:25:34] We can’t shut up?

Ryan:
[1:25:36] Shut up, Michael.

Jill:
[1:25:37] Yeah.

Michael:
[1:25:38] But here’s the thing. This is episode 400. We’re making a big episode because it’s a big deal. Yes.

Ryan:
[1:25:45] Okay. But Wendy has to edit this, so she’s probably like, it’s big enough. Go away now. Get off the air.

Michael:
[1:25:52] Sorry, Wendy.

Ryan:
[1:25:54] Sorry, Wendy. All right, Jill. What have we got in gaming?

Jill:
[1:25:57] So our game this week isn’t new, but it does have a new expansion. And Ryan had been playing it nonstop over the Thanksgiving break. It’s Diablo 4. This game is not Linux native, but is platinum rated on ProtonDB and Steam Deck verified. the game expansion is called vessel of hatred and the expansion describes itself why don’t they just call it ryan like this that’s rude michael, uncover the next chapter of diablo 4 in vessel of hatred continue continue your fight to thwart the diabolical plot of the primeval mephisto battle as the all-new spirit-born class empowered by mystical spirits expand your map to the new region of nahunta and travelers through its lush jungles recruit new mercenaries take on new enemies uh dungeons a new pve co-op challenge and more plus explore base game updates that introduce new power and continue to enhance the world of diablo 4 so ryan what did you think of this game.

Ryan:
[1:27:18] So i’m a big diablo fan like i love anytime you like hey ryan do you want to play a game where you kill a bunch of demons and stuff like count me in i’m so down for that uh slaughter evil demons all day long and you feel like what i love about diablo is the moment you start in the game you instantly feel powerful you know how some games you start out weak and you have to keep working working working then eventually you feel like you’re strong whereas diablo always feel like starts you off feeling like you’re really powerful and then you just get more and more powerful point where you have hundreds of enemies pouring at you and you just wipe them out with a few spells it’s always that everybody still.

Michael:
[1:27:53] Has that same exact feeling you still feel super powered when you go up against anyone. It doesn’t matter because everyone knows you play the side quests, get all the XP that you can, and then finally play the campaign.

Ryan:
[1:28:07] Yes, exactly. That’s exactly how I play it too. Although, it’s been a long time with my schedule with college, work, the podcast network, family, working out, all those things that I’ve been able to sit down and actually play a game for more than probably 15, 20 minutes. Like it’s been a few years when I’ve, before I, since I’ve been able to do that. So when I was actually able to spend a whole day gaming, it was so much fun. And the game I chose was Diablo because I wanted to feel like a game that I could play right away. That wasn’t going to take a ton of ramp up time and that I could really enjoy it. And I did, I had such a great time with the expansion. What’s interesting is the expansion did not go very well, like for them, it had a lot of negative reviews and things like.

YouTube:
[1:28:52] That and i think it’s because they charged it as a full price for it whereas i got yeah i noticed yeah diablo 4 and the expansion so i thought this is great and then i read reviews and everyone hated it which is hilarious to me uh which shows you sometimes it’s better just to play something and enjoy it and not read other people’s opinions on it yes absolutely that’s true a lot of things and i get why people would have been upset right paying $60 for Diablo 4 and then paying another $60 for an expansion that you didn’t feel like gave you a lot. But for $30 I was like, oh, this is a great deal.

YouTube:
[1:29:27] But also, during the same time, Path of Exile 2 came out. and path of exile is a it’s a very similar game like really almost like a clone of diablo in a lot of ways from the look standpoint of things um so it’s top down as well and path of exile one is amazing game and path of exile two is out if you pay 29 you get like four months ahead of time free access or when it comes out it actually releases it’ll be free but right now you can get four months of free access for 29 bucks so i paid that and i’ve been enjoying heck out of path of exile too as well uh when i have some time to play so hopefully during these holidays i’ll have a couple days off where i can actually play a game and stuff but i love that by the way i like that process of like you know early access is annoying because it usually means it’s not very good and it’s kind of broken you’re having a game that is ready to go and it’s a free game but if you want to get early access to it, you can pay for it. I think that is a reasonable model because the people who don’t want to pay, they can just wait. And if you can’t wait, then you pay. I think that’s a good thing. I thought it was really cool that they’re still doing the free version of it. They have a shop and things obviously where you can get cosmetics and stuff, but it doesn’t look like there’s play to win stuff. There certainly wasn’t in Path of Exile 1.

YouTube:
[1:30:45] And I don’t see any indication you’re doing that in Path of Exile 2, but you want to pay for make your character look different and stuff like that. You can pay for that stuff, which is totally fair for a completely free game, which is AAA level. Like it’s as good graphically as Diablo and allows a lot more people to experience your game. A lot of people don’t have money to spend $60, $70 on the new game. Yeah, and people who don’t have the money can just wait a couple months and then they still get the game. That’s a good policy. I like it. well you know i don’t have as much experience of diablo but i’ve probably played like 20 hours or so um the diablo series of games are just a great way to get new gamers started in action role playing games because they are easy to play and only require the use of the mouse yes i found that was so much fun and it was really fun to play with uh friends and multiplayer that’s what i enjoyed about it well here’s so my experience with diablo 4 is that i’ve never played diablo.

YouTube:
[1:31:42] Oh that’s sad that’s as sad as you’ve never seen and i’m not making this up michael’s never seen lord of the rings which is true but he lost his geek card three years ago he never got it back and now i’m finding out he doesn’t play diablo uh why are you even on this show do you even use linux like that’s the next big reveal okay all right well that’s good lots of lots and lots of linux check mark there but uh because i actually predate you on linux by quite a bit uh and but as far as like the geek cred i have plenty of geek cred but i don’t have like the mainstream geek cred apparently i have like an underground geek cred like oh you’re one of those you’re like uh what do they what do they call those people that are like uh into all the you know i feel like you’re going to say hipsters yes but the hipster of linux yeah there we go michael like that that’s so good look at you we’re gonna make a t-shirt hipster of linux and then if you support michael you can uh get it but if you if you consume the stuff that i like then you we you obviously have a stronger bond to the geekness than what ryan likes so like i mean stronger bond to the geek like it’s the forbes or something i love it all right now what we need for michael we need a vinyl record with the the data iso from one of our favorite linux distributions that would be.

YouTube:
[1:33:09] Very big the vinyl record yes i also i don’t remember that would be ripped through though, he is hipster super hipster michael well you okay also hipsters love vinyl records though ryan so exactly i have vinyl records and that’s just i have vinyl records but i’m not a coincidence sir i’m i’m just the original i mean i was collecting some you know oh you can’t deny it the fact that she has the original at game and like yeah.

YouTube:
[1:33:43] Yeah I concede I concede

YouTube:
[1:33:47] to jail people all right Michael take us into our software spotlight this week so I haven’t watched Lord of the Rings that’s true or play Diablo but what I have used is the spotlight we’re going to be talking about and that is gear lever so universal formats are great so they they solve a huge big problem of getting applications and building applications for Linux because if you don’t know building applications on Linux, it used to be a giant pain where you have to build a bunch of different packages of the same exact format, depending on what distro you’re using and depending on what version of the distro that’s being used. Now we have flat packs and snaps and app images. And I don’t really care what format an app developer uses as long as they make it possible so I can use it on Linux. I’m good to go. But with app images, I have a little bit of a love hate relationship with them. App images are great because you can just find an app image, download it, run it really cool, no need to integrate it into your system. But what if you want to? What if you want to update that image that app image? Well.

YouTube:
[1:34:54] You typically can’t it’s not built into the format now some of the app images you do will get like notifications saying hey we have a new new new app image is available you can go download it that’s not built into the format the whole program again you have to do the whole thing again yes but it also requires you to know that it’s there that there’s no that there’s an update and not every app image comes with the notifications because the app image format itself does not come with notifications and it’s not it’s not part of the spec or whatever and if you go download a new version since the format itself doesn’t offer the option to be notified the new versions you will get them but you have to manually get them and if you have them customized in the file name you have to manually rename them and all that sort of stuff now it is a it is a bit annoying but the you can technically get a bunch of different versions of the app images and run them all at the same time. That part’s cool. But if you just want updates, it’s kind of a big, it’s kind of a pain. So here is Gear Lever. Gear Lever is an application that allows you to basically manage your app images. There are some other tools here and there for projects for that. For example, there’s App Image Launcher, but I haven’t seen any development for about a year or so from that project. And there’s other ones that haven’t been updated in many years. Gear Lever is up to date, it’s being maintained right now, and it gives you the ability to manage your app images and, most importantly.

YouTube:
[1:36:23] Get updates on those app images. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s automatic updates and the fact that it’ll tell you to do it and you can just tell it to do the update. Like that, fantastic. So, I think if you’re wanting to use app images and you want to alleviate some of the annoyances of app images, not all of them, but some of them, you can check out GearLever.

YouTube:
[1:36:45] Yeah no i love it uh that’s a

YouTube:
[1:36:47] fantastic option right there i don’t know that i even have any app images anymore though everything’s available as a flat pack or in the distro like i don’t know i’m using anything that’s app image so there’s there’s a i still have a lot because like uh caden live releases on app yeah caden live does that so i like to test the new versions so there’s a lot of times i have the app images because i need to test the software so for the shows so here’s the thing I prefer flat pack and then snaps and then app image and well actually is flat pack snap okay flat pack well yeah flat pack snap then something like a distro box or some kind of container system then a native package and then app image the reason is because app images are great but they also have some problems that are bigger than just updating updating is a is a big problem it’s kind of annoying and if the only option is an app image i will use it totally fine i’ve seen that many places many applications but, I would prefer a Flatpak because of the update system and the security system. Yeah. Because app images do not have a security system of any kind. So there’s no containerization. There’s no confinement. There’s no nothing. It has full access to your home folder in every way instantly.

YouTube:
[1:38:08] So that part. We said what we really need is an on-the-spot sandboxer for app images for security. Okay. There actually is one. We do have that kind of data. It’s new. in terminal there’s called app man it’s a app image repository and um in fact i just covered it recently and it it allows you to sandbox and choose what directories that you want it to to use and it’s it’s wonderful is it using fire gel for the sandbox no, oh yeah that developer invented his own so it’s app man or am and uh i’ve that’s what i’ve been using uh for for for years and the newest update allows sandboxing now and it’s incredible i’ve been really

YouTube:
[1:38:56] enjoying it so people new to linux michael and jill they may hear us say sandboxing and say they sit in a sandbox and make little sandcastles what is sandboxing 100% yes, that yes, that is fun and absolutely recommend you do that. recommend what we mean when we say Sam. Oh, it’s not. Oh, that’s what I meant.

YouTube:
[1:39:20] Yeah. Keeping security on it and letting you know that applications normally, you know, the standard applications you install on Linux are are in it can be in it up to access like 100 folders. and with app images.

YouTube:
[1:39:38] If they’re sandbox, you can tell them just to look into certain folders. So say you don’t want the program looking in your standard home directory. You could change it to look in a directory off site.

YouTube:
[1:39:53] So when we say sandboxing, ultimately what we’re meaning is we isolate that program from everything else. That is the importance of sandboxing and it’s a very important feature. you’re isolating it to itself and also there are somewhat some types of things like flat packs have the ability to do like runtime connections so it’s not exclusively isolated so you can still get some other things like that but the cool thing about the sandboxing typically is that you have permissions to be able to give it more control and more access to things if you choose to but by default you don’t have to do that so if you only want an app image or you only want a flat pack to have access to the downloads folder, you can do that. Or you could give it your entire home home system or home folder. Now the problem is, is that the reason why universal formats are important and why sandboxing is important is because with app images, when you run them, you’re basically given it full access to the home folder. So it’s not as bad as traditional formats. Whereas like dev files and RPM files, when you install them, you are giving them full access to your entire system because you are installing them as root. When you do sudo apt install, that sudo is giving full access to that deb. So when you do it, you’re, you’re trusting whoever that is to a huge degree. And sandboxing is the idea that you don’t have to give that trust.

YouTube:
[1:41:14] I trust nobody except Jill. Jill’s hired by Trust Jill.

YouTube:
[1:41:20] That’s true. We’ll have it linked in the show notes. Jill hacked me live.

YouTube:
[1:41:23] So Jill’s unhackable, but apparently I’m not. Jill, speaking of which, take us into our tip of the week. Yeah. So it’s the holidays, which I’m excited about. And I love meeting with, you know, having celebrations with friends and family. It’s a holly jolly. Christmas. I know. Wow, Michael. So it’s the holidays. But the unfortunate thing is terrible people love to take advantage of the happier, like us, and more relaxed mindsets of the population. So our tip of the week this week is to be extra cautious of phone calls, text, and emails. What hackers know as a rule. You probably ordered something off Amazon. They’ll use that to try and fish. And you’re more likely to donate to a charity for the holidays, but it could be a scam. Do your homework. And you might download apps like loan apps to buy gifts for friends and loved ones. Yeah, don’t do that.

YouTube:
[1:42:30] But people do do this, right? Especially college students or people who are going financial times. They really don’t want to show up and not give gifts. And that’s the sad thing about holidays is we focus on gifts and people feel the need to do this. these loan apps are absolutely horrible just travesty and they they target as always the less fortunate right people who are struggling financially and things and make it worse they don’t help them they make it worse and it it should be illegal but it’s not and um but there’s also some of these loan apps that are not only scammy on interest rates and other things but they’re also malicious and how they get all your information they one i saw uh what it does is They targeted college students.

YouTube:
[1:43:14] And when you install it, it requires access to your contacts. And the reason they do that is because if you don’t pay, they’re going to start messaging your contacts that you’re not paying your loan. Yeah. Like I was like, I think that’s illegal in some states. But it’s just, it’s so from me. Yeah. Like, I don’t think you’re supposed to be allowed to do that. But a lot of these apps aren’t even US-based or, you know, so they get away with all kinds of stuff. They’re practically viruses. It’s incredible. Yeah, it’s horrible. And you know what, we even have someone in YouTube to chat called spread Nick, spread Nick. And they say my 82 year old mother got scammed by call called ID spoofing. She thought it was her bank. And yeah, that’s our next point is be extra vigilant checking in on elderly parents or friends who are often targets for scams, like the one spread Nick mentioned, and ask them about calls. emails, texts, and mention casually how there are so many scams going on right now and to keep them on their guard. I recommend another thing that this is something I’ve been doing for a long time is that every one of my family members know that if they aren’t sure if it’s good or not, they can just ask me and I’ll tell them or not.

YouTube:
[1:44:38] People who are older in age might not be able to tell anyway, But if they have a person to verify it, that also works. But here’s the thing that’s getting so out of control. Because there were so many people who got sold the idea from the government and corporations that your data doesn’t matter because you don’t do anything wrong. We’ve lost so much data out there and it’s no longer private. Now, what they do with that information is they can create hyper-realistic things. They know who you actually bank with. They know who your relatives are. They know the name of your relatives. They know where you’re going based on your location information. So they can do things like know that you’re in a target and call you from the bank and say, Hey, we noticed that you tried to do a transaction and it’s not going through. Can we get your social security number, blah, blah, blah, or get other information? Because they are so sophisticated in the amount of information that they have. They now sound more realistic than ever. Then you can layer on the AI, which I’ve seen cases in which people are claiming that they’re using AI to spoof the voices of family members in order to trick them. So it sounds like my wife’s calling me to, hey, give me your driver’s license number real quick. And it’s using her actual voice.

YouTube:
[1:45:58] But it’s actually just AI spoofing that. So because we’ve given away all of this information and we don’t care because we do nothing wrong, attitude has gotten so prevalent. This is the result is these attacks are not just for elderly. Sure, it can trick elderly, but it’s going to trick everybody now. In fact, Michael and I, we had a situation just recently where I got a text that was very specific about a service we use. And said that a payment went on through. use yeah and or a service that we use which is not it’s an arbitrary service it’s not a common service at all that most people would even have and it’s also during a time when we were actually supposed to pay it like it was within like two or three days of the billing time and so when i sent the screenshot of it to michael he intelligently called the company themselves and said is this you and they’re like we never text message not us but that’s the point we didn’t click it we didn’t fall for it but that is the level of sophistication of stuff they have and it’s insane um so.

YouTube:
[1:47:06] Be vigilant with your loved ones going on yeah you know do it do a tech checkup on yourself and your friends and your loved ones and make sure to scrutinize apps installed on their devices and the permissions they have yeah definitely go through those time and actually you know people talk about how you can do stuff for free and give them stuff you know there’s a thing that people might not think about it but you could just give them a security audit and help them with their stuff and that would be something that you could say like here’s a gift that’s gonna take me a very long time to do and i’m gonna do it because we’re family there

YouTube:
[1:47:42] you go absolutely there you go big thank you to each and every one of you we wouldn’t have done 400 episodes without you thank you for watching us, for listening to Destination Linux. However you do it, we love your faces. but if you want to support the show and help it keep going you can become a patron by going to tuxdigital.com/membership and you get a bunch of cool perks we have like access to the patron only post show that happens every week after the show access to the patron only sections of our discord server so much more unedited episodes if you can’t watch it live now patrons can watch every episode live we we’re we’ll we’ll talk about the potential liveness no michael maybe boiling that frog.

YouTube:
[1:48:27] I’m trying to get him people but uh if you if you’re a patron you can watch us live every single week by going to tuxdigital.com/membership and if you would like to get some awesome swag like we all have on right now you can go to TuxDigital the part is that we all do tuxdigital.com/store to pick up all the cool stuff now if you are wanting to get a store if you want if okay if you want some crocs no but if you want hats yes you’re almost like no no.

YouTube:
[1:49:03] Because we have a lot of cool stuff we have hats mugs sure do hoodies stickers so much more tuxdigital.com slash store not crocs though yes maybe

YouTube:
[1:49:12] make sure to check out all the amazing shows here on tuxdigital that’s right we have an entire network of shows to fill your whole week with geeky goodness head to tuxdigital.com to keep those linux penguins marching yes and do me a huge favor right now this is a huge favor for jill actually this is mostly for jill you know I know you won’t do it if I say it’s for me. So, Joe, you agree this would be a huge favor if they would go check out Sandfly right now. Go check out our new sponsor. Check out their website. Send them some love. They’re incredible. Please go check them out. We really, really appreciate their sponsorship. destinationlinux.net/sandfly. Yep. Everybody, have a great week. And remember that the journey itself is just as important as the destination. Thanks, everybody. Michael. See that? See that? You didn’t? After 400 episodes, I have it memorized. That’s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Dolph class.

YouTube:
[1:50:13] That’s 18 words in a row I memorized, Michael. That’s 18 words. You know, most people say they can only memorize like four numbers or something. I did 18 words right there. That was good. You did 18 words. I am proud of you, buddy. Thank you, Michael. Just well done. You get a 1.8 out of 2 for that. You get a gold star.