Episodes
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We live in strange and challenging times. When it comes to world events, one can find themselves, in a word, conflicted. Thats definitely the case for Chunga when it comes to todays topic.
Recently, the U.S. Government voted to continue the practice of warrantless surveillance of its own citizens. Interpol is also joining a growing chorus of law enforcers that want big tech to ditch its use of end to end encryption. What do you think about that? Do you think tech companies should give government agencies a "master key" to their encryption sofware, or end the practice all together? Are you on the otherside of the discussion? Is the government outrageously overstepping their bounds and violating the rights of its citizens?
Chunga is conflicted about this. Tom on the other hand isn't. As a former member of the U.S. intelligence community, he has a very thougtful and clear opinion about all of this! What does he think? Listen NOW to find out!
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Tom and Chunga are tired, TIRED of talking about AI! They need a dang break from talking about AI!! Are they going to get a break in this episode of The Hacks? Nope... Well, ok, kind of.
At the start of the year, Tom predicted one of the biggest stories of 2024 will be the failure and ultimate collapse of a whole bunch of AI focused companies and products. The most recent organization to proove Tom right, is Stability AI.
What did they do wrong? How could they botch things so badly? Will other companies make the bad mistakes? Tom says "Oh! Most definitely!" Listen now, to learn what those mistakes are and who may be making them next!
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Do you remember a few episodes ago, when Chunga said "The tech industry is terrible at this! We're the worst I've ever seen, in any industry, when it comes to taking 20-steps to do something, when it can be done in two!" This episode of The Hacks, is a perfect case study of what Chunga's talking about.
Recently, Terraform changed it's license. Shortly after, a group of open source community members forked Terraform and renamed it "Open Tofu". Last week, it looks like someone within the Open Tofu eco-system has caused an awful lot of trouble. Why? Well, there is a solid accusation that Open Tofu has stolen some new features of a recent release of Terraform. To make things even more contentious and embarassing, they didn't just steal the complete feature set, they also stole the line by line code of the Terraform copywrite itself. Tom is shocked, asking the question "How could someone be this freakin stupid?!?"
How does something like this happen? More importantly, whats going to happen next? Tom knows exactly why this kind of thing happens, and he has several different examples of what's going to happen next! Listen NOW
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Tom and Chunga have a good one for you today!
Late last week, news broke that an extremely dangerous backdoor CVE, built within the XZ compression library had compromised Linux Debian Unstable and Fedora 40-41. Fortunately, was discovered before it could hit an enterprise platform!
Tom says this particular CVE was especially dangerous and hard to detect because it was built deep into the XZ compression library. As dangerous as it was, it was also brilliant backdoor hack because nobody ever pays any attention to the compression library! Plus, the hacker took an extremely long time to execute his or her plan. It was so smart in fact, that Tom says we're all very lucky it was ever discovered.
Chunga has a theory that this is only the beginning when it comes to what this individual is actually planning. He's of the opinion that this person has several of these CVE's built into multiple open source software platforms. Does Tom agree with this theory? Listen NOW to find out!
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Tom tells people a lot... a lot. When you choose to pick up or "adopt" open source software, you take on a certain level of liability. If you choose to deploy open source software into your infrastructure you run the risk of that software going away!
We've seen this happen several times within the past year. Now things are changing at Redis.
Last week, Redis announced it's changing to a dual source license. What does this mean? Well... it basically means it's no longer free for most users. In this episode of The Hacks, explain why they think Redis chose to make this decision, and why Tom says we're going to see more and more of this type of thing within the world of open source. Listen NOW!
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Chunga noticed somehting recently, and he's wondering if it's symptomatic of a larger problem. A few weeks ago, a video game emulator company called "Yuzu" was sued by Nintendo. Yuzu folded and disappeared almost immediately. Since then, several other emulator makers have done the same thing. Many of them have scattered to the four winds! Unfortunately, Chunga is seeing more and more of this type of thing when it applys to other open source companies as well.
Tom says Chunga's observation is spot on, and it's a huge problem, a scary problem that will have far reaching impact in the world of open source. In fact, Tom is particularly worried about same thing, but from an infrastructure perspective. Infrastructure? Why? It seems to Chunga that infrastructure is on the rebound with more and more companies choosing to move away from the cloud.
Tom is deeply interested in something called DBOS, or Data Base Operating System. He says its brand new, and REALLY weird. It doesn't use the Linux kernel, and... it's in the cloud. Is this a revolutionary game changer? Tom doesn't know for sure, but he thinks it has the potential due to the fact that open source has always struggled to solve the "Last Mile" problem. Also, smaller open source operations are disappearing at a record rate, while the larger open source organizations are choosing to go "Proprietary".
Then... Tom drops a bombshell on Chunga with a huge rumor thats looking more and more real by the day! What is it? Listen NOW to find out!!
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Score another one for Tom Hatch! He and Chunga have been trying to get to this episode for weeks!
As all of you know, Nvidia is king. At the first of the year, Tom said that if AMD and Intel wanted to have any hope being competetive and gaining ground against Nvidia's AI strangle hold, they'd have to do something "Unthinkable", and team up. Good call Tom!
One of the main reasons Nvidia has been so dominant isn't because their chips are so fast (which they are), it's because the majority of their open source framework is built on top of CUDA. AMD and Intel have invested heavily in trying to come up with an answer to CUDA because their own open source offerings, HIP and ROCm, don't have an open source CUDA compatibility layer. They've both tried for years on their own, to develop one, with each company investing milliions and millions of dollars, only to come up short, and give up. Well, it sounds like both AMD and Intel have been listening to Tom, and their problems may be solved. Listen now to see what they've done!
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Tom is THRILLED!!! KDE 6 is out! (crickets). Sorry Tom, nobody cares.
Is that what Tom and Chunga are talking about today? KDE 6? Uh... No. Chunga doesn't really care either.
Instead, they're talking about something everyone loves, video games! More specifically, video game emulators. Tom & Chunga are both big fans of emulators & have owned them for years. However, they both have a rule, they don't have a video game on an emulator unless they've already purchased it at some point. Historically, game emulators have somehow managed to recieve a substantial amount of legal protection, but a new lawsuit may change all of that.
Nintendo has just filed suit against a popular video game emulator called Yuzu. Do you own one? According to Chunga, unlike other emulator companies, Yuzu is in serious trouble. Tom doesn't disagree. Why? How is it that Yuzu can be in serious legal trouble, while others have been able to not only survive law suits, but set legal precedence as well?
Listen NOW to find out!
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Nividia is big. It's been really big for a long time. Last week it got even bigger!
Nividia had their earnings call late last week and caused quite a stir, in a good way, on Wall Street and it made their stock rise 16% in one day. While Nividia is the big dog, they're definitely not alone. There are more than just a handful of big tech companies that are no longer "big", they're gigantic!
There are some in the media and tech experts are saying that these companies like Nividia, Broadcom, and AMD have become too big. So big that their stocks could cause problems with an individuals investment portfolio or greatly affect the overall economy. Some are even using a phrase that we all heard repeatedly during the housing crisis of 2008, "Too big to fail". Do you agree with that statement?
Tom has some very strong opinions about some of the things being said about these big tech companies. Does he think their stock prices are too inflated? Does he think they're too big to fail, or are things only going to get bigger and better? Listen now to find out!
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Its embarassing. Did you see the recent story about how hackers turned 3 million toothbrushes into a botnet in order to steal a bunch of money from people in Europe?
Lots and lots of people including Tom and Chunga saw this story and thought it was amazing! Unfortunately, there was a problem... It wasn't real. The story was completely fake. As an industry, smart, learned people, we all bought it. Why? How does something like this happen? This isn't the first time either.
Tom says its completely understandable. Ferris Bueller said it the best, "This world moves pretty fast." The pressure to produce and get product and information into the marketplace is incredible. We have an unquenchable thrist to be new, shiny and above all things--first. Chunga says this type of environment has caused a dangerous lack of critical thinking. Not only by innovators and content creators but by customers and consumers as well. Whats more, this is a problem that goes way beyond the tech space.
In this episode of The Hacks, Tom & Chunga have some opinions that may be considered by some to be controversial. Regardless, Tom says it's long past time for each of us to start thinking as individuals, and stop buying into group ideologies because their popular or simply created by a like minded group of "experts". Do they think we as both an industry and society ever start pushing back and questioning "the best way"? Listen NOW to find out!
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Recently, Chunga was talking with a guy in his teens who was really struggling, and having a hard time with some life and career choices. To many, it appeared that he had simply given up on his interests and goals. During his discussion, Chunga learned that this young man had a strong interest in cybersecurity and "counter-hacking". Sadly, he was of the opinion that it wasn't possible to make his interests a legitimate career choice without first going underground and becoming one of the bad guys, first. This was obvoiusly causing some problems for both him and his parents!
Tom has heard this perception and logic many times before. It was then, and is now, very concerning to him. He says the world is desperate for talented people like this kid, and we, as an industry aren't doing enough to show interested individuals that there are lots of ways to become an expert in cybersecurity, without getting anywhere the "darkside".
In this episode of The Hacks, Tom and Chunga talk about how to start from ground zero. They discuss the various ways that interested people of all ages can get the right education and certifications. They also chat about why the tech industry, including Government and corporate spaces are desperate to find qualified counter-hackers and cybersecurity experts!
You want to make a ton of money, in an exciting field, with incredible job security? The Hacks are going to tell you how to get started! Listen NOW
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Chunga is thinking there is going to be a prominent theme for the 2024 season of The Hacks. Last week, the FBI and additional government agencies, announced an imminent attack on United States infrastructure and corporate entities. The group responsible is a Chinese nation state hacker group called "Volt Typhoon".
The FBI has been very public about the extreme urgency related to these incoming attacks, and Chunga has a bunch of questions as to why. For example, why is China being so aggressive, right now, and why is the Federal Government being so vocal and public about it? Is the Chinese Government more desperate, and perhaps less stable than we think they are? Tom says "ABSOLUTELY"! He'll give us an explination why they have chosen to ramp up their nation state cyberattacks at this moment, and help us understand what Volt Typhoon actually is! Is the Federal Government legitimately worried about this group or are they using the American public to play cat and mouse with China? Listen now to find out!!
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Have you been following the news story about the airplane that lost one of its doors shortly after take off?
Tom has been fascinated with this story. Chunga has been following it closely, as well. He's honestly shocked that in todays world, something thats as important to a passenger jet as an air tight door, can fall through the cracks and create a potential tragedy. Luckily, nobody has hurt, let alone killed.
Think about it for a minute. All of those check and balances, all of the goverment regulation, all of the human oversight and still... Tom looks at this scenario much differently and is frankly suprised that in our world, disasters like this don't happen more! Especially in our tech industry. In this episode of The Hacks, Tom and Chunga talk about how to prepare for when-not if-but when something falls through the cracks and what to do when it happens. They also talk about the tech industry's acceptance of catasrophic mistakes and how they can be evey bit has tragic as this recent story with the airplane. Listen NOW!
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Typically, when Tom accurately predicts the outcome of a large event or the large event itself, Chunga will tactfully remind everyone that Tom had previously said something was going to happen. This time however, he feels that Tom really does need to celebrate and take a victory lap, which he would indeed do, if the circumstances weren't so dire.
About a year ago, as conflicts around the world were starting to intensify, Tom said there would also be a "ridiculous uptick in corporate, and financial institution cyberattacks". These attacks would nation states and Russia, in particular.
Did you hear the news last week about J.P. Morgan & Chase? They've revealed that they're currently dealing with billions of cyberattacks, every day--every, single, day. In this episode of The Hacks, Tom and Chunga talk about why and how these attacks on financial institutions in particular are happening, how thousands of top-teir SecOps professionals are defending against them, and what our world will look like if they fail. Are we, as an industry, doing enough to keep defending against attacks of this volume? Listen now to find out?
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Tom Hatch has long thought that as creators and members of the open source world, the current dogmatic views that are shared by so many, need to change.
In this episode of The Hacks, Tom and Chunga talk about all of the foundational "stuff" that Tom says isn't working. He says the open source model that we've been using for so long has already started to collapse and will eventually fail. Tom isn't alone in this way of thinking. There are many other thought leaders and open source creators that are saying the same exact thing! Who else is saying this? By this time next year, how different are things going to be? Listen now to find out!!
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Happy New Year! Tom and Chunga are back from their extended holiday break!
During their time off, Tom went on on a cruise! He also took a trip to Las Vegas to hang out his old buddy Chunga. They had a great time relaxing and doing things that had nothing to do with work. Althought they tried their best, they eventually did end up talking about the world of tech and what people will be focusing on in the new year.
Tom has previously said on The Hacks that he thinks 2024 is going to be a "nuts and bolts" year, where people and the tech industry is going to focus heavily on the essentials and simplicity. With that said, he thinks this focus will lead to 2024 being a transformative year. It will be a year that will get credit for creating a foundation for the future of tech, for the next 12 to 15 years! Why does Tom think 2024 is going to such a milestone for the tech industry? Why does he think its going to set the table for nearly two decades of transformation? Listen now to find out!
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HAPPY HOLIDAYS from The Hacks!
Tom and Chunga are getting ready for their year end holiday break! Wow, what an incredible and chaotic year its has been for both of them.
As the year comes to a close, The Hacks has historically chosen to spend their last episode reviewing the biggest events of the past 12-months, etc. This year however, Tom has asked to change things up a bit and focus on something super nerdy. He wants to have fun getting into the weeds of a process hes known about but hasn't bothered doing for decades. It's called "Compiler Optimization". Chunga has no idea what that is, but ok! He's all in to talk about it!
As most of you know, Tom loves Arch Linux. It's been his preferred for as long as he can remember. Recently, he learned about a new system that recompiles all of the Arch Linux packages, and optimizes them to current and/or different benchmarks, so that everything runs faster and simply put, better on x86, 64-bit, CPU's.
How does it work and is it something that you should try? Listnen NOW and decide for yourself!
Tom and Chunga would like to thank each and every one of you for listening to The Hacks! They hope you have a wonderful holiday season and wish you all a Happy New Year! See you in 2024!!
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Here on The Hacks, Tom Hatch has had a near perfect record when predicting what the coming year is going to look like.
In the past, he's delivered all kinds of predictions that were often times completely different than what many of the industry experts were forcasting for that particular year! Much to Chungas dismay, Tom accurately predicted that the past two years were going to be extremely volatile and challenging. He also correctly predicted record layoffs all accross the tech industry.
So... What does he think is going to happen in 2024? Will the coming year be as crazy as the previous two? Will the mass layoffs and volatility continue for another 12-months? Or, is 2024 going to give us all some much needed relief? Listen NOW to find out?!
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2023 has been a wild ride! That statement has been especially true for Tom Hatch and Chunga. Afterall, they were each part of one of the largest tech acquisitions in history! Yep, they're both overwhelmed and exhausted.
To say 2023 had a lot of drama and surprises would be a colossal understatement, so the timing our annual "Toms Biggest Surprises" episode is perfect! Toms biggest surprises for this year may feel a little bit different that they have in years past. That could be because he accurately predicted many of this years larger events, including the increase in political conflict around the world. Tom was surprised not by the events and outcomes themselves, he was instead surprised by the decisions and actions that precipitated and ultimately lead to the events he predicted at the end of last year. So, where did he screw up and where did he get it right? Listen now to find out!
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The holidays are here!! Tom and Chunga couldn't be more excited and they're proud to present The Hacks 2023 Holiday Gift Guide!
Are you looking for techie gadgets and gifts for family members, co-workers, bosses, or maybe your own employees? If so, this episode is perfect for you! Tom and Chunga have some of their favorite tech based items that are virutally guranteed to brings smiles to even the hardest person to buy for on your list! They have goodies in almost every price range and they personally own and use everything that they've put in this years list!
Get a solid jumpstart on this years holiday shopping with The Hacks! Listen NOW!
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