Tech News Weekly 400 Transcript

Mikah Sargent [00:00:00]:
Coming up on Tech News Weekly, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy of the Verge is here and we talk about the Bloomberg report from Mark Gurman about Apple's expansion into AI robots. Then I talk about the new Pebble Time 2 design reveal before Harrison Sand, a senior security consultant from Mnemonic, talks about how he and the Mnemonic team tracked down the person behind those global SMS scams. And round things out with an update from Apple on blood oxygen sensing via the iPhone instead of the Apple watch. Tune in to this week's episode of Tech News Weekly. This is Tech News Weekly. Episode 400 with Jennifer Pattison Tuohy and me, Mikah Sargent.

Mikah Sargent [00:00:59]:
Recorded Thursday, August 14, 2025 How Security Experts hacked the hackers. Hello and welcome to Tech News Weekly, the show where every week we talk to and about the people making and breaking that tech news. I am your host, Mikah Sargent, and I am joined this week by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy of the Verge and the Verge cast. Hello, Jen.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:01:24]:
Hi, Mikah. Happy to be here as always. Nice that there's not such a big gap this time.

Mikah Sargent [00:01:29]:
Yeah, exactly. Instead of going, I feel like it's been forever since I've seen you, I go, oh, it's nice to see you again. So for people who are tuning in for the first time or who need a little reminder, this of course is the part of the show where we share our stories of the week. These are stories that we find interesting or in some cases kind of late breaking, as is the case here. And I'm really excited to hear your excitement or lack thereof. You know, you tell me about this, the story that you've chosen.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:02:02]:
Yeah, so it's funny, I was just saying to Mikah, happy to come on, but I don't really have much to talk about. And then boom. Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, as he's wont to do, just spilled all this exciting Apple home robot series stuff. And I was like, oh look, I want to talk about this. This is exciting for me. This is, you know, very much in my, in my space. But basically, just to sort of summarize, it's a very, very long article. Lots and lots of things to dive into.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:02:35]:
But I think probably there's three things that I'm most excited about. The first is a lot more juicy detail on the new tabletop robot that Apple has been rumored to have been working on for a while. It's now got a potential date, which is exciting. 2027, I think. So it's not soon but it's going to what really struck me about this so the way he describes it says that the new tabletop robot resembles an iPad mounted on a movable limb that can swivel and repossession itself to follow users in a room like a human head. It can turn toward a person who is speaking or summoning it and even seek to draw the attention of someone not facing it. So like this is going to be sounds like a very sort of interactive device. They're saying it's going to be the A key function will be FaceTime calls video conferencing.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:03:32]:
Like the display will shift and that's something we've already seen with like echo show devices. They have a shifting display then it but it's the kind of interesting part here is that it's going to have a personality. They're going they say it's the quote is the tabletop robot will serve as a virtual companion. It could even interrupt conversations between friends about dinner plans and suggest nearby restaurants and or relevant recipes.

Mikah Sargent [00:04:00]:
Really doesn't sound like interrupted. That sounds like a great idea. I love that.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:04:05]:
That's the kind of like this is a personality in your home, not just a tool which is something I have very mixed feelings about. But they're also going to have it be that there was a comment in there that it may look a little bit like a sort of animated clippy. They were going to the one of the things they were talking about using was the finder icon as like a little face. So the I mean I love the idea Apple using a clippy style. This just feels like a complete circle here. A clippy style robot. But all of this obviously is rumor. None of it's been fully confirmed but.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:04:44]:
And that is very much in the future. But they are. There was more reporting here about the actual smart display that we've heard more about recently, coming next spring, getting a much more sort of definitive timeline. And all of this is going to be powered by this new LLM series. And one of the key kind of nuggets in this story was that Apple as as Amazon had to do is sort of stripping away the old Siri and building a whole new Siri. And this sort of has been the theme we've started to see with the transition from the command and control voice assistant to the LLM powered generative AI voice assistant. And that kind of goes towards this idea of having a more human like companion robot in your home. Which you know again I have thoughts on.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:05:35]:
But just before we get to Any of thoughts? The other thing that came out of this is more information about potential Apple smart home products outside of smart displays, more details about cameras and potential video doorbell, which was exciting and also sort of a hint that maybe Apple may be developing a home security system. Gurman writes at the the security system which could include the cameras. You know, when people say a security system, they don't necessarily mean like a keypad and contact sensors on the door, but the security system will be able to automate household functions. So it would actually also act like sensors. So you'd be using the camera and infrared sensors, he says, to sort of help determine who's in the house and what's happening. He did say that this, these cameras will be battery powered, which I thought was very interesting because that's not normally something you would use inside a home. Saying that they could last from several months to a year on a single charge, which I'm like, nope, there are no battery powered cameras that do that. So I'd be very interested to see if they manage that.

Mikah Sargent [00:06:41]:
If it does, it doesn't. If the camera doesn't turn on, then it'll last year.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:06:45]:
Absolutely not helpful. And then it'll also have facial recognition. So again they'd be able to kind of respond to who's in the home. And also as a security system, if someone who shouldn't be in the home is in the home. So yeah, a lot of sort of really interesting things. There was also a lot of detail about new software, Home OS type. Well, not home os. It was actually a new operating system that's going to come to this.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:07:09]:
These robot smart displays called Charismatic and that it would actually adapt based on who is looking at it. Which means it will be potentially one of the first Apple products that's multi user.

Mikah Sargent [00:07:25]:
Truly multi user.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:07:26]:
Truly multi user. I mean obviously homepods have that a little bit, but yeah, that's. Yeah. So that's sort of a really brief summary. You highly recommend people reading the whole thing if you have the Bloomberg subscription or can find your way around the paywall, because there's a lot of, a lot of juicy details and it was very exciting. What grabbed you, Maika?

Mikah Sargent [00:07:46]:
Well, the one thing that you talk about there is the change right in interaction based on the user. And it made me kind of think about how my significant other. I'm not sure what your experience is, but mine is particularly allergic to when technology is trying to be clever and it's sort of like, don't, don't do that. Just do what I need. You to do. Whereas I find some of that quirkiness kind of adorable. A great example of this is just the other day I was in the kitchen, I think, cooking, I don't remember, it doesn't really matter. But I said to the Homepod mini that was in the kitchen, turn the volume to 100, because if you've had a Homepod mini, you know, they're not very loud.

Mikah Sargent [00:08:41]:
And so I said, you know, turn the volume to 100. And it responded, it said, are you sure that's pretty loud. And I said, yes. And I had a little chuckle at that, as you just did. But when I explained that to my significant other, he was sort of put off by the idea that it would, you know, ask that instead of just doing what I asked it to do. So I had this thought of when I walk up to this thing, it's, you know, moving its head back and forth. It's sort of, you know, nodding along or whatever and following me. And then if you were to walk in the room, the thing would just go into this mode of just only doing what it's told to do.

Mikah Sargent [00:09:20]:
Whatever you say. Zeh, yeah, whatever. Exactly. Whatever you say. And how different that that could be because, yeah, I think that kind of thing can be delightful and I enjoy that aspect of it. But I do wonder. The one thing that kind of made me go. I made all of those noises was the idea that it would cut in to a conversation.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:09:45]:
That was the first thing I picked up. I'm like, interrupt. I don't want a device to interrupt me. I want, when I say, what do you think maybe s or a. If I bring you in suggestions, but don't interrupt me. I mean, to be fair, that did look like that was kind of the context that. That the reporter added rather than like a direct quote from someone. But yeah, that just, it just stuck me.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:10:09]:
Because when you have any kind of a technology device in your home that interrupts you like a Amazon's a does that a lot by mistake because it thinks it hears its wake word. And it's so frustrating. It's like, shush.

Mikah Sargent [00:10:23]:
Yeah, yeah, you be quiet. I'm not talking to you. But that I think, is the problem with that too, that I have seen is people are already convinced, as we've talked about before, that their devices are constantly listening to them. So the idea that one would interrupt to say, oh, they are listening. Yeah, they are listening. Oh, I hear that right now you're talking about going to a restaurant. So let me. But then I think maybe the people who have that distaste or dislike would not have this in their home in the first place.

Mikah Sargent [00:11:02]:
I mean, who does it? Who then does it? Who is it for then? If anecdotally speaking, but largely speaking, in the anecdotal situations, people who I see who are not us, these tech enthusiasts don't seem to like that. So it does make me wonder, is it just a matter of the right company doing it? Which I think is what some would argue, particularly Apple enthusiasts would argue this is Amazon vs Amazon, or is it that this would be a product for people who are super into this in the first place? I don't know, you know, the, the, I don't know the, the customer base of the HomePod mini, for example. I know I would imagine that a lot more people have Apple TVs than have HomePod minis, but I could be wrong about that. And so it makes me and the HomePod. I'm using the HomePod mini as an example because it is sort of what Apple offers as a smart home, quote unquote product, even though it's not really. But it does have the little humidity and temperature sensor built and it does serve as, you know, the device for helping communicate with your other smart home stuff.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:12:27]:
Yeah, interesting. I think it's going to be really down to what that functionality it can offer is like, I don't think interrupting me to tell me I might want to go to this restaurant is good function, but if it's going to interrupt me to say, oh, you know, you left your garage door open, would you like me to shut it? You know, or if it can have context from around the rest of the home and be able to do helpful, useful things, be able to help manage your home. I mean, we've talked about the idea of these robots being kind of the brain of your home. It's a rope robot is a loose term because this is city. This isn't like a Rosie that's going to roam around your home. It's just sort of sitting on a tabletop. It's just the next step up from a smart speaker having more personality and some mobility. I mean, in fact, we've already, I think we talked about this a few episodes ago.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:13:19]:
They have. Apple had released a sort of a white paper about tabletop robot that looks like the Pixar lamp.

Mikah Sargent [00:13:26]:
Yes.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:13:27]:
And I think that obviously seems to be what they've connected to here. I think there is a fine line between personality, charm and endearing and annoyance. And that is going to have to be that fine line is really ruled by functionality. If you're doing something useful and productive for me, I'm going to put up with that a little more. Even if I'm like your spouse and don't like it. Mine is the same. Like we're testing Alexa at the moment and whenever you ask it, things that you used to ask it to do, it now adds a little kicky line at the end all the time. And everyone in my house is like, woo.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:14:08]:
Yeah, it's like when I ask what the weather is, it'll tell me and then it'll say, sounds like it's going to be a good one today.

Mikah Sargent [00:14:16]:
Oh boy. Yeah, we've gotten used to the other way of it doing things too. And so sometimes I think it might be just a matter of adapting to a change. And you'll need to be able to.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:14:32]:
Dial up and down the personality, I think, based on what you like.

Mikah Sargent [00:14:36]:
Yeah, yeah, I think that works. There's a weather app, Carrot weather. And it has different personality modes that you can choose for it. And, and I think that, yeah, that's been. Or that was something that I always found delightful about it where you could say, I really just want to know the weather. Don't do any clever messages or anything like that. Or I want you to say some wild stuff when you're talking about the weather. And that's good too.

Mikah Sargent [00:15:04]:
But it's your choice and maybe that's the aspect of it that's important is the person gets to make a choice on how they have theirs set up.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:15:14]:
Yeah, yeah. And you know, choice if they want a kind of AI robot companion in their home or if they just want something that's going to set a timer and play music. Because I think you still, you know, the utility is the important part. I mean, there's a lot of interesting work being done, I think on that companion side and I think we'll see a lot of that coming in the future, but I feel like there isn't the demand for it yet. So I think, think once it's, once it's out there, the reaction will be interesting to sort of see whether people really enjoy this and whether it brings more to their life, especially people that live alone. I can, you know, I know people that use Amazon's a as a companion already because it is, you know, the loneliness is a real thing.

Mikah Sargent [00:16:00]:
Yes.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:16:00]:
But whether artificial intelligence is the solution to that, that sort of gets into a real psychological. What's the, what's the word for society?

Mikah Sargent [00:16:12]:
Oh, goodness. Which one?

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:16:16]:
You know what I'm trying to say.

Mikah Sargent [00:16:18]:
I do, I do, I do.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:16:20]:
So yeah, something societal question for sure.

Mikah Sargent [00:16:25]:
All right, let us take a quick break. A reminder again to definitely go and check out that Bloomberg article as it has loads more detail and interesting aspects. It's one of Gurman's longer pieces and is filled with lots of good stuff. But we'll take a quick break and come back.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:16:48]:
Sociology. That's what I was trying to say.

Mikah Sargent [00:16:50]:
Ah, sociology. There we go.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:16:52]:
Sorry. He came to me eventually we got around to it.

Mikah Sargent [00:16:57]:
Your a said I heard you were talking and I think the word you're looking for.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:17:01]:
Here's the word you need. Okay, I can deal with that. Thank you. You're helpful. No, it's not.

Mikah Sargent [00:17:06]:
All right, we'll take a quick, quick break and come back with my story of the week. I want to tell you about ZocDoc bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly. So remember that doctor's appointment you were supposed to make a while ago? That one you meant to book and completely forgot about until now? Perhaps it's that dentist appointment for your biannual cleaning? That overdue annual checkup that instead of being annual, has been three years in the making? Or the dermatologist visit for that morning you keep meaning to get looked at? Or the rash you diagnosed with Google but still haven't had checked out. Why not go and book it today with ZocDoc? It makes it easy to find the right doctor right now. And it's all online for those of you who hate calling. You might even be able to book an appointment before the end of this ad. Read ZocDoc is a free app and website where you can search and compare high quality in network doctors and click to access Instantly Book an appointment with ZocDoc. You can book in network appointments with more than 100,000 doctors across every specialty from mental health to dental health, primary care to urgent care, and more.

Mikah Sargent [00:18:19]:
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Mikah Sargent [00:19:12]:
More often than not you can even get same day appointments. So stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to zocdoc.com/tnw to find and instantly book a top rated doctor today. That's z-o-c-d-o-c.com/tnw. zocdoc.com/tnw thank you Zocdoc for sponsoring this week's episode of Tech News Weekly. All right, back from the break, joined this week by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy. And it's time to talk about a smartwatch. The pebble smartwatch, which is making a comeback and its creator Eric Migicovsky has just revealed the final design for the Pebble Time 2. After successfully recovering the pebble trademark, company Core Devices is bringing back the beloved smartwatch brand with RGB LED backlight more significant upgrades including a stainless steel construction and an impressive 30 day battery life estimate. The watch, which is available for Pre order at $225, represents a refined evolution of the original Pebble Time design, this time with modern features like like heart rate monitoring, dual microphones, while maintaining that delightful E paper display that made pebble famous.

Mikah Sargent [00:20:38]:
So let's talk about the kind of resurrection story. Eric Migicovsky, who we've had on the show before, is the original creator of pebble. And remember back then, a Kickstarter project announced plans to return to the smartwatch market in March of 2024 through core devices. Now, as we talked about on the show, the watches were originally branded as Core2 Duo and Core Time 2 because of the fact that they didn't have the ability to call them pebble due to the trademark issue. But Migicovsky has since successfully regained that pebble trademark and therefore the watches will change from being called the Core 2 Duo to the Pebble 2 Duo and the Core Time 2 to the Pebble Time 2. So what's changed? Well, the final design offers, you know, it's, that's, I think, quite a bit of a change from what we originally saw in those preliminary versions that Migicovsky showed in March. They've been able to tweak and improve the industrial design quite a bit since then, says Migicovsky. I think it's turned out fantastically well, even has a working engineering sample that he's been wearing.

Mikah Sargent [00:21:49]:
Of course, the final quality and finish is not there yet because the company is asking for feedback. But what can we Expect from this new hardware multicolor RGB LED backlight so that you get better visibility. And with that E Ink display, that RGB LED backlight is helpful. A second microphone so that can be used for environmental noise cancellation when you're talking into it. Compass sensor for navigation features. Screw mounted back cover for durability but also fixability. Stainless steel construction for the front and the back. And stainless steel buttons that are similar to that Pebble Time steel of yesteryear.

Mikah Sargent [00:22:32]:
The display is a 1.5-inch 64 color E paper display. It's got touchscreen functionality and hardened glass lens. Interestingly, I think for this product a 30 day estimated battery life which in the smartwatch market is pretty wild. Yeah, where are you going to find that? And a quick release 22 millimeter watch strap as well. One last thing I'll say before we kind of chat about this a little bit. It's currently available for Pre order at $225. According to Migicovsky, the company plans to release the watch in four colorways. Those four colorways haven't been finalized as they are looking to hear from everyone about the colors.

Mikah Sargent [00:23:22]:
So we'll see how that goes. But yeah, I imagine it's a little difficult to break into the smartwatch market at this time. But I think pebble is uniquely positioned in the sense that it has quite the enthusiastic fan base and that 30 day battery life could really speak to some people. What do you think?

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:23:47]:
Well, it's the original smartwatch. I remember always wanting a Pebble. I didn't get one but when they first came out and you know, they definitely have that name recognition which goes a long way in this space I think. I mean my husband has a, one of the Garmins and that does get pretty good battery life. I think it's the forerunner, I think that he has and he gets it at least a month, I think on it.

Mikah Sargent [00:24:16]:
Oh wow. Okay.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:24:17]:
Well, I may be wrong. I know it's a lot better than Apple watch because he did, he was like, I cannot do like, I just don't, you know, the fact that I have to charge it every day. No. So he went, he went with this. Oh no. 10 days, sorry. So over a week. That was it.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:24:33]:
It was like he needed it to be over a week. So he will, he can just take it off on the weekend and he doesn't really need it on the weekend. But 30 months, 30 months, 30 days is like you almost. Well, in a way it would be hard to kind of get into the routine.

Mikah Sargent [00:24:45]:
Yes, that's what I was thinking, but.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:24:47]:
Still, I love the idea. Fear of not. I mean, I don't want to charge everything in my life, but unfortunately, that is kind of our future. I think so. And it just looks great. Like, the Garmin that my husband has looks good on him. But all the garments are really chunky. I think there's one that's a little streamlined, but they're just a bit chunky for me.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:25:09]:
I like the. I really like the look of these. I think they're. They're much sleeker. There's still a bit more on the sort of unisex masculine side, I would say, rather than necessarily feminine. But I guess you could sort of swap that out with maybe some band options, which is what the Apple Watch does nicely. Like, I don't have it on now, but I have the Milanese loop, which I just love on my Apple Watch. So it's interesting that they're asking for sort of ideas for the design and the colors, because I'm like, I know it's weird how fashion has kind of shifted from.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:25:41]:
From what people. You know, people kind of being told what's cool.

Mikah Sargent [00:25:45]:
Right.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:25:46]:
To more of a kind of, you know, that excellent scene in the Devil Wears Prada. I'm so excited for the second. Second movie, because that's coming out soon. But the Excellency in the Devil Wear Prada, where she talks about how color has been kind of, you know, comes.

Mikah Sargent [00:26:00]:
Up, comes down, trickles down. Yeah.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:26:02]:
From the runways. But I like this more sort of democratic way of choosing how diverse devices look. But it's please everyone, that's the problem. So I don't know. It'll be interesting to see what they end up with from that.

Mikah Sargent [00:26:15]:
Design by committee is, of course, a sort of a joke in and of itself. I. I do think that it's part of the. What the ethos of this company in particular, given that it was a Kickstarter project in the first place, which is as. As much of a grassroots sort of supporter system as could be to now where when we had Eric on the show, he talked about the main reason that he wanted to do this was because he has been wearing his original or wearing the original design for years at this point. And he basically just had sort of. Not actually, but a safe with several of them in there, and as they kind of died or whatever happened.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:27:03]:
And he would get a new one.

Mikah Sargent [00:27:04]:
Yeah. And he. He's like, well, I've been running out, and I really want to bring it back. And so when Google open sourced the or you know, made that, that, that system available again. I said oh you know, now's my chance. But hearing then the excitement from the community to bring it back in this way I think is really cool. I have my pebble still and every once in a while I'll go on because ifixit his been great in providing, in offering for sale replacement batteries for the pebble and so being able to keep it going that way. Yeah, the original smartwatch I remember just being so enamored of it and getting it and having it on my wrist for as I said, days and that was a difference to now where I mean I've got my nightstand has a place for my Apple watch, a place for my phone, a place for my AirPods.

Mikah Sargent [00:27:59]:
So it's not like I forgot for me to do that.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:28:01]:
I keep forgetting to put mine back on in the morning. That's why I don't have it on now. And it's that interesting watch that I don't have to work and I know where it is but it, I took it off in the evening when I was watching TV and I put it on the counter rather than on my bed side table where I have the charger and it's like that there's just too many things to charge in my life. That's very true.

Mikah Sargent [00:28:19]:
But yeah, I'm looking around at all the different things I've got plugged in right now. But yeah, I think that that multi day battery life is very handy as an aura ring wearer though I do agree with that idea of while it's it's good it also is a difference in behavior. And so I find myself looking down on my ring not seeing any green lights and realizing oh right, two days ago I got that notification telling me I needed to charge it and I just sometimes forget because, because it's not a thing that I'm regularly doing. Whereas for me at this point I do feel, I feel it if I'm not wearing my Apple watch because every night I take it off, I put it on the charger every morning. It is part of me literally like standing out, standing up out of bed is I put my watch on, I grab my phone so it's just built in. Whereas something that's a month is a little less. Yeah, I don't know that I would be as, as good about it but I can't, you know, I can't say for sure. Regardless, really exciting stuff.

Mikah Sargent [00:29:27]:
They're working on it. Of course there's the pre order that's going on right now and you know we've got time until it is fully available but you can still get in on the pre order $225 price point. So if that is of interest to you, you can head over to the site. We'll of course include a link in the show notes to check it out. But repebble.com r e pebble.com which has all of the information about it.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:30:02]:
If, if he's listening. Rose Gold. Let's have a rose gold one please.

Mikah Sargent [00:30:06]:
Rose gold would be good. Be very good.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:30:09]:
I want, I want some Goldie in there or even just gold.

Mikah Sargent [00:30:12]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, just about. Rose gold. Very good. Jennifer Pattison Tui I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. If people would like to check out the work you're doing and listen to the work you're doing, where should they go to do so?

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:30:25]:
Yeah, everything's@theverge.com, and as Mikah mentioned at the top of the show, I mentioned a while back, I was guest hosting a couple Vergecast podcast episodes this month. So those going live, one went live on Tuesday and the next one is next Tuesday. So you can head to the link there and download the episode or go to your podcast player of choice or YouTube to see a video. Hope I'd love any feedback. It was a lot of fun. I don't know how you do this all the time, Mikah, but yeah, it was. It's great fun and I love being on here too. So hopefully actually I will be on Twitter this weekend too, so.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:31:06]:
Oh, wonderful guys. Get double dose of Jen.

Mikah Sargent [00:31:11]:
Well Jen, thank you so much, we appreciate it and we'll see you on Sunday.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy [00:31:16]:
All right, thanks. Bye bye.

Mikah Sargent [00:31:19]:
All righty, we're going to take a quick break before we come back. If you've ever received one of those messages telling you that you need to pay your toll, well your hero is on the phone very soon.

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Mikah Sargent [00:33:15]:
All right, we are back from the break and as I said, there goes my hero. If you have received one of those SMS messages or like me, you, you received from a family member a screenshot saying, is this real or is this a scam? Should I give them my money? I didn't think I had tolls. Well, someone is here to tell us all about what in the world is going on and tell us how, you know, they worked to defeat and we hope this issue. Harrison sand, thank you for being here.

Harrison Sand [00:33:56]:
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. Really, really glad to get to talk about it.

Mikah Sargent [00:34:01]:
Yeah, absolutely. So I would love it if we could kick off by having you kind of walk us through what made this particular phishing campaign stand out from the typical smishing. By the way, that was a new term for me, smishing attacks that you encounter and what technical approach you took to start investigating. What we'll learn is the magic cat platform, of course.

Harrison Sand [00:34:24]:
So, I mean, to start off, most of our research took place, I would say about a year and a half ago, year ago. And seemingly everybody on the planet was getting these text messages, right? Like either, you know, you have to, you have to pay a toll, like easy pass or something, or you have a package stuck at the post office. So I'm based out of Norway. We were getting those text messages in Norwegian. You know, you look online, you know, have relatives in the US everyone's getting Text messages in every country. And my colleague Arland and myself, we were sitting there and we're like, not too much. We were googling around like these people have to be making money. Like it has to cost something to be sending out a text message to the whole planet.

Harrison Sand [00:35:05]:
So like they have to be making money. There's no information about these people. Who are they? So we kind of took the advice that most people give not to do and we clicked on the link and started poking around to see what was going on on.

Mikah Sargent [00:35:16]:
So you clicked it, you followed the path, the one that many of us attempt to avoid and started digging into. What you came to discover was kind of this platform, the software to discover that there were protections in place, right. Several anti forensics features designed to hide the operation from people like you, from security researchers. Can you tell us about that experience and some of the protective measures that were in place that you had to workarounds to actually access the phishing platform?

Harrison Sand [00:35:54]:
For sure. So normally my colleague and I, we work, among other things, we do penetration testing. And when you look at web applications like this was, you know, this is just a website basically and use a piece of software called man in the Middle Proxy, right? So it kind of sits in between the browser, either your phone or Chrome or whatever, and the backend server. And you kind of watch that data going back and forth. And when we tried to, you know, that's the first step you normally take. When we tried to load it up on our, on our computer to see that, that traffic going back and forth, it didn't like, basically the website said, sorry, you know, we're not running, nothing's going on. And what we realized was that, you know, they're starting to put some protections in place. And we were trying to think, you know, why is this the case? You know, what, what are they doing?

Mikah Sargent [00:36:45]:
It wasn't.

Harrison Sand [00:36:46]:
There were a few, without getting too, too technical, you know, they were, they were checking a few things that a phone would send differently than your desktop computer. And they were also checking what we believe was the IP address that you were coming from. You know, are you coming from a cell phone network? Are you coming from, coming from a, you know, a WI FI network? Because, you know, you're sending text messages. A lot of your victims are probably going to be on cell phones. But we also think it was, it was for researchers to, you know, slow us down. But also imagine, you know, you submit, you know, you take a screenshot and you submit it to whoever, you know, you start trying to report this As a phishing link, it's just going to be that one extra step to slow down the process. You know, if the person on the other end getting that report just clicks on the link and nothing shows up. Up, you know, are they, are they really going to spend the time to like, dig down and say, like, oh, yeah, this is a phishing link? Or are they just going to, you know, pass it off and say, like, okay, yeah, maybe it was a false positive, I don't know.

Mikah Sargent [00:37:36]:
Right, yeah. So that, that makes sense. I imagine that part of the aspect of this, this system is you send out a bajillion messages because some of them are going to come back and are going to be profitable as opposed to kind of more targeted. Right, targeted.

Harrison Sand [00:37:58]:
Just send everything out and hope you.

Mikah Sargent [00:38:00]:
Get a few back.

Harrison Sand [00:38:00]:
Exactly.

Mikah Sargent [00:38:01]:
Now, you did end up gaining access, is my understanding, to a telegram group that revealed an entire ecosystem around this being an actual phishing as a service operation. Racks. Tell us about that. What surprised you most about the scale and sophistication of what these operations operators are running?

Harrison Sand [00:38:25]:
I mean, I would say initially what surprised me just that the group was open and out there for anybody to find. If you just knew at the time when we looked, if you just knew where to look, it was just there. And we just joined this telegram group after you knew the name of this phishing platform, you could just search for it, go in, and it was very open, it was very professionalized. There were people showing off their fancy cars that they bought going out and partying.

Mikah Sargent [00:38:54]:
Wow.

Harrison Sand [00:38:54]:
It was, you know, racks of phone. They were, you know, like you mentioned, just like, because you need, you need quite a bit of infrastructure to send out a message to everybody out on the planet. And, you know, so you just have like hundreds and hundreds of phones on racks running automated software, just sending text messages to, to everybody that the, the.

Mikah Sargent [00:39:14]:
Fact that they're showing their, their vehicles and just like, look what I was able to do, that is something else.

Harrison Sand [00:39:22]:
It's like advertising in a way. Right? So if you, hey, look at all this stuff I got. You should. There's a few different platforms and they're kind of competing for different scammers, I guess, to use their platform. And if you say, hey, I got this cool stuff, maybe you'll be more likely to use them.

Mikah Sargent [00:39:38]:
Holy cow. I will not name specific companies because I don't want them to come after me, but I can think of a few, few cosmetics companies that have pink cars that their people can get, if they get high enough up into the system. And now I'm thinking about sort of the comparisons between the two. You're showing off what you're able to get and that draws more people in for sure. Oh, I want that fleece. So you did manage to join a sort of admin room where you were able. Can you tell us about this sort of real time data stream and then tell us about that moment of getting into this room and seeing this stuff flow in and the scope of how many people were being actively phished?

Harrison Sand [00:40:30]:
Absolutely. So simplifying a bit things, but more or less basically you have a few servers that are kind of running by the admins of this group and then all the scammers kind of have their own phishing servers. So you have let's say hundreds, maybe a thousand individual scamming servers. A few master servers, you could say. And then what we found out when we started looking at that data going back and forth using this man in the middle proxy I mentioned earlier, you could see that the. As you typed in data as if you were a victim, it was kind of getting sent to this chat room and all of the data you were sending was getting sent to this admin chat room. And it was basically kind of sitting right in front of us and we're like, well, what happens if we just join the admin chat room? So we're not just sending messages to there, but what if we just join it to see what's going on? And this was just on one server of probably hundreds or a thousand, and there was just a stream of victim data coming down. Real time.

Harrison Sand [00:41:35]:
Right. So like every time, you know, character for character, as you're typing in, you know, your credit card number or your address, you know, you just see it flying by this, in this admin chat room and that was shocking to see that. Like, you know, I could see real time, hundreds of people getting scammed and just knowing that like this is just one out of hundreds. Right. So there's probably just. The scale of this was just massive that.

Mikah Sargent [00:41:59]:
Wow. And the platform as you talk about appears to be kind of run like enterprise software. Licensing, updates, even customer support. What was that like? Who's buying these phishing kits? Of course. And was that a surprise to you that it's run like enterprise software? Or is that kind of what's to be expected at this point?

Harrison Sand [00:42:29]:
I mean, the software was run, honestly better than some enterprise software I've used.

Mikah Sargent [00:42:33]:
Wow.

Harrison Sand [00:42:34]:
It was. I know that this isn't the only piece of software that's come to this level of sophistication in terms of support and updates and so on. But it was very well maintained, very easy to use the people. So you have a few key players in this telegram group and you could kind of reach out to them and they would facilitate getting a license. So you'd send some cryptocurrency, you'd buy a license for a week or a month at a time. You get a license key and. Yeah. And then you download the software.

Harrison Sand [00:43:09]:
It was just a one line installation. Way easier than probably setting up tons of software out there. A lot of the people we saw in the group you mentioned, what types of people? I mean it was hundreds, so I can't say, but I speak for all. But it seemed like a lot of opportunists, right? So like 20, 20 to 30 year olds just like, hey, you know, I'm online, like I'll make a quick buck. If I'm on the other side of the world, maybe I'll probably never get caught. So it's just.

Mikah Sargent [00:43:38]:
God.

Harrison Sand [00:43:39]:
My impression is it's mainly opportunists.

Mikah Sargent [00:43:43]:
For me it just blows my mind because I think about. It seems different from, from the classic pirating of some. I'm thinking of like you want to install Microsoft Office on your machine and back in the day there were a few places to get the software keys. Right. But this is in theory, in this way it's like you have to rely on what was it, the thieves code, like the honor among thieves situation where everybody is a bad actor here and you potentially could be faced with what if that company that you're getting this from decides to turn the tables on you and has your. It just. Anyway, the idea of even going to this platform and getting a license key and going through that process, the level of, in my mind not thinking things through that has to be involved with that is, Is wild.

Harrison Sand [00:44:50]:
Yeah. The risk assessment, not, not necessarily a risk I would take. Right. You're giving all this information to a guy who's also a criminal. Like. Yeah, exactly like. Yeah, yeah.

Mikah Sargent [00:44:59]:
Now this is where I think it's starting to become cinematic is you. Monic Mnemonic started to track down the identity of the person behind this platform. Can you tell us about what that process involved to be able to uncover a real person's identity of whom you believe was responsible for the creation of Magic Cat?

Harrison Sand [00:45:33]:
Sure. So as part of our investigation we were digging as deep as we could into this centralized infrastructure to see any kind of clues as to who these people were. Eventually we came across an IP address and we believed that this IP address was probably associated with one of these developers. We looked again, simplifying a bit, but basically we looked to see what has this IP address been used for previously? And we found that about a year prior to our research, the IP was used. It was linked to a GitHub account. And this GitHub account seemed. It was. Didn't really seem super related to Magicat.

Harrison Sand [00:46:27]:
It was out in the open, some benign, innocent repositories in there. But eventually we found an email and we kept just going down the rabbit hole and eventually we were like, this kind of feels like it might be the guy. We sent him an email just asking about one of the repositories that were open in the public and was like, hey, we got a question about one of your repos. Maybe you could help us debug something. And we had a link in there, and the link recorded the IP address when he clicked it. And that actually pointed back to the same IP that we knew was getting used to log in to the backend infrastructure. So we're like, okay, this is probably the guy. And then we kind of just did a bunch of OSINT on that email and.

Harrison Sand [00:47:06]:
And we worked with the Norwegian state media and they were able to kind of work with their sources and eventually get the identity and a photo of the guy.

Mikah Sargent [00:47:14]:
Wow. So you used. Is it often that you end up using some of the same techniques that these phishing scams use themselves to sort of track down and get at these people? The idea that someone who's so involved with this would click, in theory, unprotected on a URL, knowing sort of what's possible in terms of that just kind of. That also blows my mind. Do you find that it ends up being a situation where somebody's feeling invulnerable or is it just. It just takes one slip up? Can you speak to that a little bit? Like, how would you not be going through every protection possible to not let something like that happen?

Harrison Sand [00:48:09]:
Yeah, so there's definitely a bit of irony here, right? But I think, because, I mean, we did sit and think about this a lot, but it's like, I mean, imagine you've been running this infrastructure for a long time. You know, all you have to do is slip up once and remember we sent that email we didn't send because he has two identities. He has his telegram identity where he's the developer behind the software and he's doing all his illegal stuff, right? And then he has this, presumably this open identity where he's not doing anything illegal. So, like, you send a link to that. Right. So if you send that link to his open good guy role and then maybe you're a bit more, you know, your guard's not as up.

Mikah Sargent [00:48:53]:
You know, it's almost a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde situation where. Yeah, I guess, yeah. If you've got these two Personas that you're playing and this comes through the legitimate means, you're sort of in that mindset that makes sense. Very, very cool stuff. Of course, for everyone listening out there, you gotta go read the full piece because there's so much juicy detail. And as I said, I wanted to turn it into a movie right then and there.

Mikah Sargent [00:49:22]:
Look, we know that this operation, as you saw, has likely hundreds of thousands of victims globally. I was just reading about how Magic Cat might be out the door. But then there's a new thing that's popped up in its place, continues to evolve. Do you have any thoughts on what needs to happen from financial institutions, telecom companies, law enforcement to combat these actual phishing as service operations?

Harrison Sand [00:49:52]:
Sure. I mean, the numbers. Yeah. So just to real quick, to point on the numbers. So I'm definitely, I mean, when we did our research, hundreds of thousands of victims, that's just what we were only able to see. A small portion, I would imagine it's, it's millions out there. But to speak on your second point, like, I think in a way, this is my personal opinion, but I think in a way the reason this type of fraud has been able to proliferate is that, you know, you have. So the responsibility is kind of spread between so many different areas.

Harrison Sand [00:50:25]:
You know, you have, like, so what they're doing is, you know, you have, you receive a text message or an imessage. Okay, then that's your, you know, your phone company or maybe, you know, Apple, if it's an imessage, for example, so a bit of responsibility there for filtering out the messages. Then you have, you know, banks, you know, what are they doing for fraud detection. And if you read the piece that goes a bit deeper, you'll see that a lot of the ways that they're able to monetize these cards is by onboarding them into a mobile wallet like Apple Pay or Google Pay. That's another thing is maybe there's some kind of fraud metric saying that, like, hey, I have 100 Apple Pay cards on my iPhone. Maybe this iPhone is a bit suspicious. Could Apple pass that information onto the banks and use that as some kind of metric? So, and then of course, law enforcement, you Know, I'm not going to. It's.

Harrison Sand [00:51:15]:
I think it's a bit of. It's a bit of everybody, so it's. Yeah, there's a lot we could do as a society, I think.

Mikah Sargent [00:51:21]:
Then I think the final question I'll ask you, what advice do you have for us, the people who are out there who get, you know, these messages? What would we add to our toolkit of protecting ourselves from these phishing schemes? And maybe more importantly, the people listening to this probably can avoid a lot of it. What do we tell our family members who come to us for the tech questions about how to avoid this?

Harrison Sand [00:51:57]:
Yeah, so I know I'm not the first person to say this by any means. Whenever you get a text message, just if it has a link in it, nine times out of 10, you don't need to click it. If it's from your bank, for example, if you're unsure, go to the website directly, open up your laptop, type in the URL, call your bank with the phone number, not the phone number in the text message, but the phone number, you know, to be the phone number for your bank. Right. But I think actually what we can do individually is actually quite small. I think the actual solution to this lies on big tech and phone companies and law enforcement. It's hard for us individuals to make a huge change.

Mikah Sargent [00:52:44]:
Absolutely. Yeah, I agree. Well, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us to tell us all about this. And to you and the researchers who worked on this specifically, this is something that, as I mentioned at the start of the interview, messages, screenshots that I get regularly from family members asking me, should I. Do you think this is. What is it? It's a horrible, horrible thing that takes advantage of a lot of people. And so the fact that there are people out there like you who are actively tracking this down and, and putting as much of a stop to it as possible is fantastic. We know that folks can head to the link we'll have in the show notes to check out this work.

Mikah Sargent [00:53:29]:
Is there anywhere else you would suggest people go to keep up to date with the work that you're doing as a security researcher?

Harrison Sand [00:53:38]:
I would say the link. I'm sure you could find it based on the links you guys are going to put down there. I have Mnemonic, we have a blog. I'm sure if there's any updates, we're going to put it out there.

Harrison Sand [00:53:50]:
LinkedIn, the Norwegian state media, they have a few articles that have been in English, if not Google Translate, Does a really good job. I'd recommend you could check them out and there's also links if you. Yeah, not too hard to find.

Mikah Sargent [00:54:04]:
Wonderful. Thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.

Harrison Sand [00:54:07]:
Thank you.

Mikah Sargent [00:54:08]:
All righty folks, we have one more story, sort of truly another late breaking story here. But before we get there, I want to remind you you about Club TWiT. twit.tv/clubtwit. When you head to twit.tv/clubtwit and join our club, $10 a month, $120 a year, you gain access to some pretty awesome stuff. First and foremost, the main attraction, ad free versions of all of our shows. It's just the contents and none of the ads and you get your own personalized feeds. It's kind of cool when you subscribe to these, these personalized feeds, it actually has your name right there in the title of the feed. That will be an ad free version of again, every single one of our shows. You also gain access to our Twit feeds that include behind the scenes, before the show, after the show.

Mikah Sargent [00:55:02]:
We also have a feed for our news events now that we're doing those in the club and access and we've got the Made by Google event coming up very soon. So. So watching that in the club and gaining access to that afterward will be there. And then our club Twit only shows like Mikah's Crafting Corner, upcoming show that I will be doing where I'm running an adventure, a D and D adventure. So if you like D and D or other tabletop role playing games, now's the time to join the club. To get to check that out. I had a poll out and it's overwhelmingly decided and so I will be working on that soon and I'll have more information about that soon and a couple other things that I'm working on. All of that are all of that is available in the club and access lastly to the club Twit Discord.

Mikah Sargent [00:55:55]:
A fun place to go to chat with your fellow Club Twit members and also those of us here at Twit. So if you would like to be part of the club, we'd love, love, love to have you. You know, it's also nice to get that warm fuzzy feeling knowing that you are helping make what we do here possible. Plus, did I mention you start with a two week free trial? Yeah. So go ahead, join the club, check it out. I think you'll end up staying. You're going to love it and we thank you for your support. Alrighty folks, let's head back to the show with our final story.

Mikah Sargent [00:56:25]:
Apple again late breaking is bringing blood oxygen monitoring back to newer Apple Watch models in the US through a clever workaround that sidesteps an ongoing patent dispute with medical device maker Masimo. Starting today, as we record this show on Thursday, August 14, the company is rolling out iOS 18 and WatchOS 7-1-11. These updates will enable a redesigned version of the feature for Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10 and Ultra 2, two units sold after the import ban took effect. The twist? Instead of calculating blood oxygen levels directly on the watch, the data will now be processed on the paired iPhone, allowing Apple to circumvent the itc, the International Trade Commission's import restrictions, while still delivering health monitoring capabilities to users. I have to tell you I'm really excited about this because just the other day I wanted to use the blood oxygen sensor on my Apple Watch and I remembered, oh right, I've got the Ultra 2. So not bashable. How does the new system work? Well, the blood oxygen feature represents kind of a big change in terms of how it's set up for the purpose of being able to go around this band rather than performing the measurements and calculations on the Apple Watch itself. What happens is sensor data from the blood oxygen app on the watch gets transmitted over to the iPhone.

Mikah Sargent [00:57:59]:
So with that it does mean that you're not going to be able to view the readings directly on your wrist. You will have to go into the health app on the iPhone and in the respiratory section that is where your readings will be. It does only affect specific models because if it was before the ban then it doesn't apply. So Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10 Ultra 2 units sold in the US after January 17th of 2024. That's when the ban took. And you can identify if you have an effective model by checking if your serial number ends with LW A or again just go by the model number and you most likely fall within that. So what was the whole issue here? Well, Masimo and Apple sort of entered into this multi year dispute. It dates back to 2020 when Masimo, which does make medical grade pulse oximeters, accused Apple of stealing trade secrets.

Mikah Sargent [00:59:05]:
The company filed a separate case with the ITC in 2021. So that was after the 2020 conflict alleging patent infringement which led to an import ban in December of 2023. We talked about that on the show as well. Apple did not take this lying down. In fact, it worked regularly to counter Sue Masimo claiming that these smartwatches are claiming that Masimo's smartwatches are Apple Watch clones. And then Apple filed a massive 916 page appeal of the ITC ban, which remains ongoing. Now here's the interesting aspect. It's all about timing because Masimo's patent patents are actually set to expire in 2028, so it's somewhat likely that this workaround will only be needed for another three years before those patents expire.

Mikah Sargent [01:00:05]:
Of course, if you're a new purchaser, if you're buying an Apple Watch Series 910 or Ultra 2 in the US right now, you will get this redesign feature after updating. If you're an existing owner like myself and you got your watch before January 17th, then it's still going to work the same way that it worked before, meaning that it will read right there on your wrist, not after the fact on the iPhone international users. It doesn't apply to you because this is just a US Issue. The update was enabled by what Apple describes as, quote, a recent U.S. customs ruling. So it seems that the company did successfully argue that this iPhone based processing method doesn't violate the import ban, so seems to have taken it to the authorities and said check it out. Look what we can do here Is this okay? Can we get the thumbs up? Well, it seems that they did. Now this of course is not the one health tracking feature that the Apple Watch has.

Mikah Sargent [01:01:06]:
It has a bunch of different health monitoring capabilities, irregular rhythm for your heart, notifications about that, that ECG functionality, sleep apnea notifications, fall detection, sleep tracking in general, wrist temperature sensing, and the new Vitals app which includes lots of different information. So only the blood oxygen sensor and system was impacted. But it seems like what Apple didn't want was for the Apple Watch to be seen as this device that can do all of these things, but it doesn't do blood oxygen. So now there's this workaround. What is fascinating is of course the question of whether or not this workaround will set precedent for future disputes. If the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law or in the case, this case, the the letter of the ban versus the spirit of the ban will come into play more in in the future. That is of course one of those we'll have to wait and see. I think the fact that I will have blood oxygen sensing again on the watch is, well, not on the watch via the iPhone is cool.

Mikah Sargent [01:02:30]:
And I'm happy to have that back because for me as an Apple Watch user, that's more important to me than this legal dispute between two companies. But of course from the perspective of Massimo. I'm sure this is a frustration. And from the perspective of anyone who is heavily invested in the idea that one can create a thing, get a patent for said thing, and and have it protected to a certain extent, of course, is also at risk here in a way. But it also comes down to the fact that Apple has figured out a way to not do the very specific thing that the patent set forth and therefore is able to go forth with this new methodology. One aspect of this that sticks out to me though, is the idea that the measurement and calculation is happening on the iPhone according to sort of the language that is included, when surely it requires the sensors that are on the Apple Watch itself. So part of this feels like a clever use of language because is it a matter of. Of the phone sort of pairing in the moment with the Apple Watch or connecting in the moment with the Apple Watch and having that raw data streamed over.

Mikah Sargent [01:04:00]:
And so because that raw data is streamed over, then technically that means that the iPhone is performing the measurement versus before where it would use the led, the lights that are built in, and the sensors themselves. Because it's not as if you're taking the iPhone and putting it on your wrist and using the sensors that are there to do the blood oxygen calculation. It is going to require the sensor suite on the back of the Apple Watch to actually pull that data. So it all feels like a little bit of language change there just to very narrowly define the scope and therefore get past this ban. So I will be checking this out as soon as I can to see how it's working and we'll see how Massimo responds, if it can, to kind of combat what has come forth. In any case, this is the end of this episode of Tech News Weekly. I want to thank you all for tuning in today. Of course you can head to twit.tv/tnw if you are not currently subscribed to the show, that's where you go to subscribe to the show in audio and video formats.

Mikah Sargent [01:05:13]:
Again, I talked about Club Twit during the show, but head to twit.tv to check it out. If you'd like to follow me online, I'm @mikhasargent on many a social media network where you can head to Chihuahua Coffee that's C h I H u A H u a Coffee where I've got links to the places I'm most active online. Be sure to check out my shows that publish later today. Hands on Apple and Hands Nope. Hands on Apple and iOS today. Hands on Tech publishes every Sunday. Thanks for being here this week. Thanks for tuning in and I will catch you again next week for another episode of Tech News Weekly. Bye bye!

Leo Laporte [01:05:48]:
From Silicon Valley boardrooms to tomorrow's AI breakthroughs, if you need to keep up to date with tech, you need twit.tv. At TWiT, we are tech experts who understand what's happening and can keep you in the loop. And we do it in a thoughtful, informed and fun way. Start your Sundays with this Week in Tech Around Town table of tech journalists and people in the know with a rundown of the week's most important tech news. But that's not all. All week long you can stay ahead of Security Threats with Steve Gibson and Security Now. Keep up on all things Apple with MacBreak Weekly. Listen to the most informed Microsoft experts in the world with Paul Thurrott and Richard Campbell on Windows Weekly.

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