Texting for Drugs

As the year winds to a close, we reflect back on the horrors of hacking, the collusion against Goliath, the merits of a physical keyboard, and something about The Mars Volta. Programming note: The holidays are upon us, so the next official Vergecast will be coming to you from CES 2015 at the beginning of January. Have a wonderful New Year! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Nilay Patel?

  Hello, welcome to the Vergecast. This is not a story about a murder.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 0:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. But it's still a pretty good podcast.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 0:13Nilay Patel?

  I'm Eli Patel. I'm Dieter Bone.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  I'm Chris Plant.

• 0:16Nilay Patel?

  I'm Russell Brandon. Pipe check. Oh.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  I am Sam Sheffer.

• 0:22Nilay Patel?

  And I'm gonna bone you. What was that?

• 0:25Speaker 02

  Hello. Hi.

• 0:28Nilay Patel?

  You might know that Russell is with us. Russell has been, we should just get right into the news.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 0:33Nilay Patel?

  Russell's been writing story after story about what I think is the biggest...

• 0:39Speaker 02

  Dieter has just been staring at me for the last 15 seconds.

• 0:41Nilay Patel?

  I don't even understand. You can't handle 15 seconds of staring?

• 0:44Speaker 02

  Not from you.

• 0:45Nilay Patel?

  I can't. Look, guys, we got it. Like, I don't have the capacity to handle our, like, to handle, like, are we, we're gonna keep it... You don't want the stick? No, look, I'll tell you, I was, it was so bad today. Hijinks? Look, I, I've been, I've been trying to eat better. This is true. Mm-hmm. Yeah, by putting butter in your coffee. By putting butter in my coffee and not eating carbs. It's working. You know, it's like, I feel good about it in general. I feel healthier, more energy, weight's going down, all that's great. But today, like, straight up, man, just ate a burrito. Just was like, I can't. My body requires, pipe check burritos.

• 1:16Speaker 02

  They're great.

• 1:18Nilay Patel?

  That's all I'm saying. But that's like where I'm at. Yeah. Like, as a person right now. Like, I... It's okay to have a burrito.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  I ate a burrito and haven't listened to Scaly Dan all day. Big deal. Who doesn't do that every day?

• 1:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, right? I love weed.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  That's just my life.

• 1:31Nilay Patel?

  All right, let's get into the news. And tell, it's, it's just to be that one of those... So we wanted to talk about the big stories of the year, but I think that we should just, we should just jump into Sony. I think Sony is the biggest story of the year. It might be. In terms of things that happened in 2014, huh?

• 1:45Speaker 01

  I know. Well, no, I mean, sure, maybe in tech. I would say, like, if you're looking at the big story of the year, I would say there have been some things that have happened.

• 1:54Nilay Patel?

  Name it. What is it?

• 1:56Speaker 01

  I would say police shootings or Ebola probably are bigger stories.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  I would say ISIS is up there, too.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:01Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, yeah, right. But I think in terms of, in our space, one.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:06Nilay Patel?

  But in terms of just the... Massive repercussions that will reverberate about how companies run themselves, how the internet works, how we deal with terrorism, what's the, what's up with the First Amendment?

• 2:17Speaker 03

  What you write in your email from now on.

• 2:19Nilay Patel?

  What you write in your email, like the way we behave, I think will be affected by Sony much more, there'll be many more material effects from Sony across things like the average person does and feels in their life than ISIS, right? Like, that's true. It's a weird truth to know. Like ISIS is more important on a global scale. Ebola is a big deal, but in terms of how we behave, I think Sony will have like immediate material effects on everybody. So Russell, why don't you do just a little bit? You didn't explain her today. Why don't you just run through the basics?

• 2:49Speaker 03

  I did do an explainer. So Sony was hacked. They're, you know, in

• 2:54Nilay Patel?

  It was only like three weeks ago?

• 2:57Speaker 03

  November 24th, yeah, three weeks. It seems like years to me. We're getting it so hard. But yeah, so, you know, at first it sort of shut down their computer systems and put a big scary red skeleton on everyone's computer. And then, you know, we started getting more messages from the people behind it. They started leaking out more data. They started making specific demands about, you know, they started talking about the interview of the movie. And so a lot of data that's come out has been, you know, I was, we were sort of doing for the explainer. We were like, well, okay, what were actually the big things that came out? The big stuff was executive email accounts, which is how we, you know,

• 3:37Speaker 03

  the CEO of Sony Pictures is also a big investor in Snapchat and on the board. And really like a pretty big LA dealmaker, sort of above and beyond Sony Pictures.

• 3:47Nilay Patel?

  Right, yeah.

• 3:47Speaker 03

  I mean, I think like, I don't know who his corresponding number at like Paramount is, but he seems much more, I don't know if they're like introducing LA Reid to people.

• 3:55Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 3:55Speaker 03

  Anyway, so, you know, that was a lot of, gave us a lot of sort of inside insight into some of the stuff that Snapchat was doing. We saw a lot of like fights between Hollywood executives. And then we also saw some like legitimately sort of troubling MPAA things, which is their big Elias story on Friday. Basically, everything that the MPAA was trying to do with SOPA, they're still trying to do and sort of figure out a way to shoehorn it in under existing law. And so they're hiring lawyers to that and they're also hiring lawyers to, you know, actively try to discredit Google on this front, which we're having another story about that that will go up today. And stay tuned. Yeah.

• 4:37Nilay Patel?

  So I really want to get into the Goliath stuff.

• 4:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:40Nilay Patel?

  Should we do that? Do we want to keep looking at the big picture?

• 4:43Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, we've got.

• 4:44Nilay Patel?

  There's a hundred questions.

• 4:45Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, so then there's everything that happened last night.

• 4:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's like, I mean, like, there's so much to talk about.

• 4:51Speaker 03

  So it seemed for a while like what was just gonna happen was this data was gonna come out and then that was gonna be it.

• 4:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 4:59Speaker 03

  But that's not what happened because basically, so some combination of one of the data dumps came with what you would have to describe as a threat, saying, listen, cancel this movie, otherwise, you know, remember the fear of the September, uh, 11th of September. It also seems like there were other threats that were made specifically to Sony Pictures employees. So they got very spooked and we got this very weird, like, dance where, okay, so they said to theater owners, they kind of stopped promoting it. Like, they canceled the New York premiere, they canceled a lot of the Rogan appearances.

• 5:34Nilay Patel?

  And the context for this is like yesterday.

• 5:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:37Nilay Patel?

  FBI just came out and said it was North Korea.

• 5:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:39Nilay Patel?

  Right, like, that happened, that didn't happen before this stuff started happening.

• 5:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, that's what we're, yeah.

• 5:44Nilay Patel?

  But like, the big context is like, we are now definitive that it's North Korea.

• 5:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, although some people are still sort of carrying the flag, but I think it really has been like, every piece of information that has come out, and there's been a fairly steady flow, has made it sort of more definitive. We haven't really seen any evidence that has come out where someone says it's not. It's just like, this person decided to say they don't, they're not ready to make an announcement yet.

• 6:06Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 6:06Speaker 03

  Everything that has come out has moved us closer to that and like, now we're basically like, yeah, like, in, will the week end before, like, a US official goes on TV and like, says it?

• 6:17Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 6:17Speaker 03

  Um, so I mean, that's the thing. And also, I mean.

• 6:20Nilay Patel?

  Well, I'm saying, if it's like a group of teenagers who are scared of Sony, like, I think the canceling the movies and making the, you know, like,

• 6:26Speaker 03

  Right.

• 6:26Nilay Patel?

  Once, once you become definitive that it's North Korea, that all the threats to Sony employees, all the threats about showing the movie, they take on a different tenor.

• 6:34Speaker 03

  I don't know that that's actually.

• 6:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So let's like, just to finish the loop on the movie thing. So Sony told theaters, hey, if you decide not to show the movie, we're not gonna sue you and you're, we're not gonna hold you to the obligations at, like, theaters. Typically hold towards studios when they say they're gonna show a movie. And then, um, a couple of big chains said, yeah, we're not gonna do it. And then everybody said, yeah, we're not gonna do it. And then Sony's like, okay, we're canceling the movie.

• 6:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, but he ends up in this weird thing where it's not like people want to talk about the decision to not release this movie, which seems like a consequential decision and like something we're all gonna talk about right now. And it's kind of like, who actually made the decision? Like it probably was Sony, but it's one of those things where like, yeah, we could, you know, we could go on a date, maybe. If you want, I don't know, I'm not really that into it, but you can.

• 7:20Nilay Patel?

  Well, they can put it online though, right?

• 7:24Speaker 03

  But yeah, I mean, they could put it online. Well, there, I think there was a weird sort of insurance thing, like if the movie is canceled because of terrorism. I mean, there are insurance policies often like that. And I think something like this is the kind of thing that gets covered by that. But if you end up releasing it, then it's not valid.

• 7:41Nilay Patel?

  Right, so it'll leak.

• 7:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, so.

• 7:44Nilay Patel?

  Well, I don't know, Sony's all over it. We, uh, we gotta take down notice to it. We had a clip of the end of the interview, the scene.

• 7:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, cause Gawker broke it and.

• 7:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so it was like, it's out there. So we had it and then Sony like issued a takedown and we, they, we put it back up. Cause it's, now it's like super newsworthy, right? It's like the classic.

• 8:00Speaker 03

  Well, also, Gremmelman, the lawyer said, actually now anyone has a really good fair use case for posting anything. Because there's no, there's no like financial damage to Sony. It's not like they're not gonna sell it.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  But is there because of the insurance? Because what makes me think why they're being so strict now? Cause we didn't see as much strictness until specifically getting the film off of the website. That if there is an insurance claim, it's kind of like protecting your copyright. You have to be proving that you're making an effort also for the film not to be made available. So, I mean, I, I had not, I had not thought about the insurance claim. That triggers all, there's a lot there in terms of what that means.

• 8:38Nilay Patel?

  But like what's amazing to me, uh, and I think this, this is why I said when it, when it becomes definitively North Korea, it takes on a different tenor.

• 8:46Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 8:47Nilay Patel?

  Um, I don't, like, I think it's crazy that they're pulling this film. Uh, I think it's, I think the idea that they want to pull it and get the insurance and whatever, that's fine. There's a big argument to me that like, maybe no one will see it. But it's crazy to back down to a country that like. It's just, it's like, it's just a weird moment.

• 9:06Speaker 04

  Russell and I got in a huge fight about this yesterday and he's like, look, it's North Korea. They, they, they can't do any, they don't know what they're doing. They're not going to be able to do any harm. It's North Korea. Come on. And my counter was, well, to do harm in America, you just need to like have a, be a nut with a gun.

• 9:20Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 9:20Speaker 04

  And.

• 9:21Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, I think.

• 9:22Speaker 04

  Does North, does North Korea have nut with a gun capabilities?

• 9:25Speaker 01

  We've had nut with a gun happen. It happened with the Dark Knight.

• 9:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  And, and people kept showing the movie.

• 9:31Speaker 04

  Right. That's what I'm saying.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  And, and even then that, that was local. Like if I, it just seems absurd to believe that North Korea would do anything on American soil because the political ramifications are.

• 9:43Speaker 04

  Oh, we would.

• 9:44Nilay Patel?

  Disaster.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Disastrous.

• 9:45Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  But, but at the same time, I, I, I don't know. It, it seems, at first I kept thinking about it like that, right? I thought there were, there were kind of two options, right? Uh, one is the movie theaters don't want to screen this because the reality is they don't think people are going to come and see it.

• 10:02Speaker 04

  Also like it's not their problem and they, they probably have insurance of their own.

• 10:06Nilay Patel?

  It's almost certain.

• 10:07Speaker 04

  If they show it and then something happens, it'll be like, well, they warned you.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, the early reviews of this movie are, it's terrible.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Uh, no, no. Reviews are like, it's like a six to seven James Franco comedy. It's not, the reviews are not terrible. They're like, this is like a generic James Franco comedy.

• 10:22Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  It, it would have done.

• 10:24Nilay Patel?

  I've checked James Franco comedies.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  James Franco is kind of bust. I like Seth Rogen better.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Sure. Well, he likes one of them.

• 10:30Nilay Patel?

  Whoa, man.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Kind of bust.

• 10:32Nilay Patel?

  Hard take on Franco.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Kind of bust.

• 10:34Nilay Patel?

  Franco, Franco not playing with the teens. I don't know what that means.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  But anyway, now, now that I think more about it, what I'm wondering is, are, are the studios afraid that they'll be hacked next?

• 10:45Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  If they show it, and I hadn't considered that.

• 10:48Nilay Patel?

  The theaters.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. That's right.

• 10:49Nilay Patel?

  So that's what, like, that's.

• 10:50Speaker 04

  What is the, okay.

• 10:51Nilay Patel?

  But no, but that's what I'm saying.

• 10:52Speaker 04

  I was being cavalier. Theater has things to worry about being hacked, I guess.

• 10:55Nilay Patel?

  When I say that, that it's a, the biggest story of the year because it will have material impact on like how we live. That's the piece of it that I think is. Like, the crazy season is about to be upon us, right? Like, the don't, like, literally.

• 11:08Speaker 03

  This is the playbook.

• 11:09Nilay Patel?

  Right, no, but like, Farhad Manjoo in like, the New York Times, they was like, "Don't write any more emails." Like, that's his advice. Just don't do it, like, shut up. Like, if you don't want Angelina Jolie to read your emails, and I have emotions about them, like, don't write emails. Uh, which is a very funny take, right?

• 11:22Speaker 04

  Like, yeah, it's like, it's like, don't, don't take naked pictures of yourself, kinda take, right?

• 11:27Nilay Patel?

  We're now at a place where, endlessly fascinating to think about, where people are afraid that the tools they use, the technology they use to like, do their jobs and communicate and run their companies, is inherently vulnerable. Uh, and I don't know if that's like, 100% true. And I, like, I don't know how, like, the industry will react to it. Because it do, it usually takes something this stupidly bad happening for people to react. And I think what Verge readers, like, say to us, and what we think, is that the industry doesn't take privacy all that seriously. They don't take security all that seriously. There were no repercussions from the iCloud hack for Apple. Like, nothing bad happened to Apple. Right?

• 12:08Nilay Patel?

  And now you're seeing Sony, and like, not one person has said, "Yo, Microsoft." Like, how is it possible that you can just break into a server and retrieve the full Outlook email histories of all of these people? And then put them somewhere, like, why didn't you build something that prevented that? And like, that question just hasn't been asked, because we don't set those expectations. And now the expectations are, if you put something on a computer, it's intrinsically public in some way. And that's a weird set of expectations.

• 12:38Speaker 03

  I mean, I also think, like, if you want to, I was thinking about this with Twitter, of like, the idea that like, oh, Twitter's become such a bad place, that like, people might just leave. Like, i, if you want to run your business without email, there are lots of ways to do it. And like, we're now at a point where, you know, we're past the first wave of like, "Oh, these are such magical electronic tools." Like, we're now at the point where, if a tool is not working, if you're just like, "Hey, email isn't really great." Like, it's a huge security problem, it's a huge data retention problem, it's a huge, like, it's just never really gonna be private or secure, just because of. The basic nature of the protocol, like, okay, so stop using it. And like, there's like a social cost to like getting people to do that.

• 13:22Speaker 03

  But you can kind of get over that and there's tons of options of like how we're gonna do it now.

• 13:27Nilay Patel?

  But it's it's still.

• 13:27Speaker 04

  Are there?

• 13:28Nilay Patel?

  So it went this way.

• 13:30Speaker 03

  Like, yeah.

• 13:30Nilay Patel?

  I we use Slack, like our email volume generally has gone way down, right?

• 13:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:35Nilay Patel?

  Um, but even in our company, not everyone's in Slack. And even in our company, the best way to like, send a memo to someone is not in, it's like, it's in the one format and then one medium. And that's just inside Fox and The Verge.

• 13:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:47Nilay Patel?

  The second I want to talk to anybody else, like, where am I? I'm just landing on email, right? And like, that's a thing, like email, Dieter will be happy that I'm saying this, like. Email's an open standard, like you can build all over it, right? And that's important and everybody can talk to it. It's not, it's not email, it's not any particular tool. It's an entire culture of these products where, like, I'm terrified that our Slack will get hacked. Like, if you're running Slack, if you're Stuart Butterfield today, like, you are in your server room with like padlocks being like, will this work? And just like, I hope this will do it, right? Like, uh, if you run any server, if you run HipChat, if you run an IRC server or whatever, like, it doesn't matter. If you're running this place where people are talking, the value on making sure that that communication is private and secure

• 14:31Nilay Patel?

  has been fairly low over time. And I think that value is about to skyrocket and probably the pendulum is going to swing way too far.

• 14:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:38Speaker 03

  But also the, I mean, the incentives for any of these, like, this is why it was so low for so long. Like, it's very, the incentives for running a, a secure system are all sort of, they're all on a weird side, right? It's all on the negative side. It's preventing things from happening. At which point people assume everything's safe and then they sort of stop paying you because they're like, oh, well, if no one gets hacked anymore, I'm sure everything's fine. Like, and this is like a long.

• 15:03Nilay Patel?

  But if you're a magician, you published while you were standing, I didn't see you hit the button.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  But that was Chris, that's all, Chris, Chris hooked me up.

• 15:09Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 15:10Speaker 03

  There's a new Goliath piece ever.

• 15:12Nilay Patel?

  We should talk about Goliath in a minute.

• 15:13Speaker 03

  No, no, it's fine. Yeah, no, but the security thing's really hard because I mean, I think also like a lot of, you know, when you're covering security, it is this weird incentive that like, no one's a total scumbag about it, but like. They're all aware that when things like this happen, it's really good for everyone in the industry. Like, not that they're like hoping Sony gets really badly hacked, but they're like, "Listen, people actually across the board were not spending enough on security, and the only way, the only thing that's going to get people's attention is something really nasty like this happening." Right. And the question is whether, like, okay, so now it happened, so now they're like, "Okay, we need to take security seriously," but that's also not just, you can't just throw money at the problem, you also have to like, do business differently and change the way you approach things and like,

• 15:56Speaker 03

  how much are people really gonna be, how much ground are people really gonna be willing to give on that? Like, I think that's what we're gonna find out.

• 16:03Nilay Patel?

  If you run any other corporation in America, you're freaking out.

• 16:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, but how much pressure is gonna be brought to bear on the right people?

• 16:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:10Speaker 04

  Nobody's yelling at Microsoft for this, right?

• 16:12Speaker 01

  We're also ignoring the fact that this is not the first time Sony's been hacked, by any means.

• 16:16Nilay Patel?

  That's so funny!

• 16:17Speaker 01

  And it's in crazy, crazy hacks.

• 16:21Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  And, I mean, the obvious one being the PlayStation Network, but there have been, as they even reported, a hack that didn't even become public in February. Like, this wasn't the first time, and yet everyone that you hear coming out as consultants talking about this is like, "Sony's security was kind of a joke." It's like, what, what does that mean? How was it a joke? Because how, how could you not, after the first one, be like, "We are going to have the best security of any company on the planet, because we know what this does. We know better than anyone else."

• 16:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, right.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  And the fact that they don't is just, it's, it's mind blowing to me. I mean, it's what you said with, with Apple, like, except for it was internal. It's not like external where it's like, "Oh, we're users and we have to make do with it." This is a company that experienced the hit and then leaned in. They turned it on. Yeah, that feels good.

• 17:08Speaker 03

  Well, that's, I mean, in Apple's defense on the sort of celeb gate stuff, like, I think, for them and for most like functional consumer tech companies, the question has always been, "Do we make it secure or do we make it sort of easy to reset your password?" It's always been between like user experience and security. Um, and I mean, I think that, like, at least, okay, we're in control of where we're setting that dial. Whereas some people are just bad at it. Like, I mean, some company, like, if a company is not functional, they're not gonna be able to have really...

• 17:37Speaker 04

  But I mean, as a human, as a human being who has to go to work and use these tools, I have, is, is, I have no conception of the relative security of any of this stuff. So like Sony's security was a joke? Okay, how is ours compared to Sony? How does it, how, if you go work at some other big corporation, you go, you work for GE and like, whatever, like, we're gonna, we're gonna be in a place where like, somebody is going to profit off this by just like, reputation alone, is what's gonna have to happen, because we're not, we're not positioned to be able to understand what these securities are at.

• 18:08Nilay Patel?

  You're gonna do, if you're any company, you're gonna do one of two things. I think this is actually like, going to be an interesting move in the market. You're either gonna give it all to Google or Microsoft, you're gonna move it all of your, your backend into the cloud and say like, you take care of it, you're better at this, and we're gonna pay you to trust you. And I guarantee CS this year is gonna be full of like, garbage security vendor claims, right? And they're gonna prey on fear, and they're gonna say, you can trust us, like, you're, you're obviously, even Sony wasn't good at this. Yeah. Me, I'm your guy. And then the other flip side is, another huge set of companies is gonna say, we can't trust anybody, I gotta hire the best person and lock it on ourselves. And I think you're just gonna see that market split.

• 18:51Nilay Patel?

  I think for most smaller companies, like, actually paying Google will be a good idea. But then Google assumes an enormous amount of liability. It's like, do you wanna be in the business of defending against North Korea? I don't know the answer to that question.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  They have those DARPA dogs.

• 19:07Speaker 04

  Unleash the robot dogs! It'd be amazing if they bought the robot dog company, just to have them like, run around data centers.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  That'd make you feel a lot safer.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Don't worry about my robot ball.

• 19:22Nilay Patel?

  For distracting the robot steak?

• 19:24Speaker 03

  Yes. But I mean, this is why, like, this is such a persistent problem in security, that like, this is why everyone in security is so sort of bloodthirsty about things being open source, because then they can say, at least, okay, we looked at it, and like, 20 guys looked at it, and, you know, 10 of them said, well, this, this program was made, you know, these guys had no idea what they're doing. And if you can get the number down to only two of them said, oh, this guy has no idea what they're doing, then you're like, oh, okay, these guys kind of know what they're doing.

• 19:49Nilay Patel?

  Which is great, and then there's OpenSSL, right?

• 19:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, I mean, yeah.

• 19:53Nilay Patel?

  Not to be a fear monger, but like...

• 19:54Speaker 03

  Well, no, I mean, OpenSSL had a, but like, Heartbleed, even in this, even in Scope of like standards bugs we saw this year was not that big.

• 20:02Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  I mean, it was very big, but it, you know, they found it. They patched it like we had a couple of days of vulnerability.

• 20:09Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 20:10Speaker 03

  That was what happened. I mean, I think, but the issue is, this is why. So we have all these encrypted chat apps after Snowden and everyone. They're like, a lot of them are closed source. And the thing everyone says about it is, well, how do you know? Like, they're not going to tell you if it's a vulnerability. They have no real incentive to like, seek out vulnerabilities in their own system.

• 20:27Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 20:28Speaker 03

  And I don't see how you get around that with corporate security.

• 20:30Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 20:31Speaker 03

  Except like a really robust internal culture of like, calling people on being sloppy. But like, if that, if Sony just didn't have that, then I don't know how you turn it around.

• 20:41Nilay Patel?

  It's fairly clear that Sony didn't have that at the highest levels. Like, they're, like, their executives are writing, sorry, emails to each other in like, lowercase teen.

• 20:52Nilay Patel?

  Tone poems about feelings. Like, I don't know that they're calling anyone on being sloppy. As a culture, they're just like, I have so many emotes.

• 21:02Nilay Patel?

  Stop it. But you know what? The other piece of it that's interesting is, like, how much our own information is, like, weaponized. Right? Like, the way to get a movie pulled from, from theaters is to actually not threaten the life of like Sony CEO. Like, it's like, you know how to deal with that one.

• 21:20Speaker 04

  They did that. They might have done that.

• 21:23Nilay Patel?

  They guarantee you.

• 21:24Speaker 03

  But it didn't really pay attention.

• 21:25Nilay Patel?

  Well, how is he going to respond? Right? Like, he's going to hire bodyguards and like, get an art, like, it's like, we understand how to like, handle threats of violence. We're like, we got it. That's why I like, a guy shooting up a movie theater.

• 21:36Speaker 04

  No, no, America understands how to do that. But like, a corporation, Sony, like, that short circuits them in the way that like, not like, other terrorist attacks short circuit, like the citizenry, like, a corporation, once it becomes violent, it's like, nope, we're goodbye.

• 21:49Nilay Patel?

  Well, there's goodbye, but like, the threat, that's like, outside of the Sony thing, the threat here is, do what we want, or like, we'll give your email away.

• 21:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:59Nilay Patel?

  And that's bonkers. Like, that's like a whole new wave of crazy. That's like, that's why I keep saying, I think it's the biggest story of the year. Because that idea that suddenly everything, every communication you've ever sent, every letter that you've ever written, every. Snapchat you've ever snapped is somehow gonna come back to haunt you? Like that chain, like that will just change behavior. Like, that's crazy.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  What about the NSA and the entire, hi, and the snooping and the idea that anything you pass tech, like through a piece of technology is taken somewhere, you know, like, there's, there's all this, you know, focus around the hacking, but we forget that the NSA is already doing all of this on our own soil.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  Well, we're okay with, yeah, we're okay with that. It's just like when you go to the airport and you get the nude scan. And you're like, eh, somebody out in the middle of nowhere is, is seeing the nudes.

• 22:52Speaker 03

  I'm not okay with either of those.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  I don't go through those. I never have, actually.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  That's smart. It's good, especially.

• 22:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I paid, I paid for pre. I like, I sucked it up. I was like, put me in the fast lane.

• 23:02Speaker 03

  How dare you?

• 23:02Nilay Patel?

  And then I, and then I wrote a lengthy comparison to net neutrality.

• 23:07Speaker 03

  Gosh.

• 23:08Nilay Patel?

  At the box.com days, which was basically Neelai has a moat.

• 23:13Speaker 03

  The basic reason that that is less scary is that the NSA spends like $4 billion a year to make sure they don't get hacked. So like, all my emails exist somewhere, but it's a very secure place.

• 23:25Nilay Patel?

  We think, we hope.

• 23:26Speaker 03

  More, well, no, but I mean, actually there, this is like, sort of became my hobby horse of like, we're spending $4.7 billion on cyber defense and it's totally useless when something like the Sony attack happens, because it's only government infrastructure that that's supposed to protect. But like, in fact, that does mean that like, you know, military-grade government infrastructure actually is fairly well protected. And it's good for hypotheticals like this, because you really wouldn't want to lose, like, oh, we lost America's call records.

• 23:59Speaker 03

  Anonymous has those now.

• 24:00Nilay Patel?

  That'd be amazing.

• 24:01Speaker 02

  I just, I feel like.

• 24:02Nilay Patel?

  Maybe they could figure out what happened on Serial.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  I feel like people were more mad when these revelations came about with all the Edward Snowden documents.

• 24:12Nilay Patel?

  No, I mean, that's the balance, right? Like, this is why you don't want the NSA to like, look through your stuff. Right? Like, you don't want the government to be like, "What? I subscribe to a great Twitter feed that's like, a crime a day." And it's like, "I love wacky laws." You know, like, it's like a law to like, shoot a turkey in Kentucky if you're drunk on bourbon. Like, it's like, like, all this stuff, right? And if you live in an environment where there are, like, there can exist a Twitter feed called Crime a Day, and it's just weird laws that you might not, that it's insane to break and punish people for. Well, if you suddenly give the government access to everything everyone's doing, like, one day, the government scientists come up with the algorithm to match all the email they're sniffing with all of the laws in the book, and people just automatically are born and go to jail.

• 24:57Nilay Patel?

  Like, that's the future, like, of that. Like, if you connect those two things, like, you're in a bad place.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  Right. I think it's safe to say that every, almost most citizens in America, if everything came out, you know, all text messages, I mean, everyone texts for drugs. Like, that is just a thing that everyone does.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Sure, Sam.

• 25:14Speaker 02

  No, that is-

• 25:15Nilay Patel?

  Let me just rewind here.

• 25:16Speaker 02

  Please.

• 25:17Nilay Patel?

  Everyone texts for drugs.

• 25:18Speaker 02

  Yes. Yes.

• 25:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I'm on this.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  That is how you buy drugs. That is how you buy drugs.

• 25:25Nilay Patel?

  For example, I have never-

• 25:26Speaker 04

  I need some aspirin, so hang on, let me get my BlackBerry Classic.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  The point is, I think, I think it's a-

• 25:32Nilay Patel?

  Look, maybe I'm just an old man. I still telegram for drugs.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  It's, it's a really weird parallel between, you know, it, it, it means something else if we're being hacked and the data's taken, but when it, we're okay with it, you know, when it's our government taking it and doing whatever the hell they're gonna do with it.

• 25:47Nilay Patel?

  What?

• 25:48Speaker 01

  He's comparing the, the-

• 25:50Nilay Patel?

  Okay, I got it.

• 25:51Speaker 03

  Well, I think it's an interesting comparison, because in part, I mean, the, the idea is, you know, most people see, I, I think one of the really frustrating things that people say that, after the Snowden stuff, and you know, I'm, we're sort of carrying our privacy flag, and, and the thing people say is, "Oh, well, I don't have anything to hide." And it becomes this, like, infuriating.

• 26:09Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 26:09Speaker 03

  Just chorus-

• 26:10Nilay Patel?

  But so, here's the thing-

• 26:10Speaker 03

  Everyone says it on Twitter, but like, with this, you really realize, like, you know, yeah, Scott Rudin thought he didn't have anything- Hide either like everyone, you know, the idea that once this stuff, they're not just looking for crimes. They're not just looking for, you know, links between you and terrorism. They're just looking for sort of anything you've said that that is sort of embarrassing or like, or in some way like, you can be used to get at you. And the idea that, oh, okay, someone's just, there's just an exchange server out there and you don't really know a lot about how well it's secured. And it has all of your communications on it. I mean, that was, that was true a month ago, but I think, you know, a lot of people didn't really realize it until Sony happened.

• 26:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, it's true. I don't think Gmail's encrypting Gmail. Google's not encrypting Gmail in its cloud right now.

• 26:56Speaker 03

  No, I mean, not in its internal one. Otherwise, it's like, it's, it's, I mean, it's pretty solid SSL to and from.

• 27:03Speaker 04

  Once it's on the server, like all that data isn't being kept in an encrypted state, which is bonkers.

• 27:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, I mean, because they just scan it.

• 27:10Speaker 04

  Bonkers.

• 27:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally.

• 27:12Nilay Patel?

  Right. I mean, the, the thing to me that is comparing this, like what's happening to Sony with every time we publish a Sony story, we get, but publishing nude photos was not okay. Right. And like, it's actually, we've talked about that at length. It's pretty obvious why they're different to me. And but we can get into that in a second because that will transition us nicely to Goliath. But comparing, we're publishing or we're revealing Scott Ruden's email or Amy Pascal's email to we revealed a bunch of celebrity nudes to the NSA is looking at all of our data. It's, I think it's a, those are, that's a pretty tenuous set of connections, actually.

• 27:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:50Nilay Patel?

  Right. And but what makes it, what makes that connection easy is it's all the same. Like, it's just people using screens.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Well, the idea is it's hacked, but the same thing is so with the hack, right?

• 28:03Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Let's say it's not a hack. Let's say it's a source and there's a source and he has three things. He has the big scoop on the NSA. He has some celebrity nudes, actually four. He has this NSA, he has celebrity nudes. He has juicy emails that like, uh, what the dude from 21 Jump Street sent. And he has, uh, the Project Goliath story. Some of those things are going to serve the public. Some of them. Maybe in between, maybe like on a humor level and then some of them don't.

• 28:31Speaker 04

  Right.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  The nudes don't. The, the 22 Jump Street thing, great as a joke. If you want to make that debate, which is the debate that has been happening at

• 28:40Speaker 04

  Right.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  Every site like Glock are running it. Maybe that does serve the public in some gossipy way. But then there's something like Project Goliath, which I'm so proud that you wrote, to be honest. And that, that's what, that's where our angle was because definitively, yes, this is a thing that benefits the public to know. And that's, that's why they're so different. You're right. It's, it screens, the thing is, people hear the word hack or leak and, and it's, pull back on it and just think of it as source.

• 29:07Speaker 04

  Right.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  And then what, who is it serving? And that's what you're asking when you're reporting these things. Am I serving the public?

• 29:13Speaker 04

  But, so the thing about the serving, the, there's a super fine point on it. And we, and Emily wrote this in her piece, like, the, this particular hack is a state sponsored thing attacking a corporation, trying to stifle like

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Free speech.

• 29:28Speaker 04

  Free speech. So like, the providence of the data puts like a super, super sharp point on, on those decisions of whether or not this information serves the public.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. I mean, and that's, that's exactly what you're going to run up against. And it's the same thing again with the source. When you, when you have a set, a source, one, you vet the information to know if it's true, but you also vet the source. Like, that's something that people who don't deal with journalism every day might not know is that there are a lot of things that can come across your desk that are a source who's malicious, who is maybe, has other motives for why they want to get that information out there. And that's something that you have to take into consideration too. And how valuable is this information? How much does it need to be out there? And I, like, I, I agree. I think in terms of vetting this, it was, that was, this was the right story to run.

• 30:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:16Speaker 02

  Can I interrupt this really quickly? Like, have you seen what Google just published?

• 30:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm looking at it right now.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  What? The MPAA's attempt to revive SOPA through a state attorney general.

• 30:24Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, Wait, what?

• 30:26Speaker 02

  Uh, Google published a blog post on

• 30:29Speaker 04

  On Goliath.

• 30:30Speaker 02

  What Russell just wrote about.

• 30:31Speaker 04

  Uh, which is amazing. Uh, it's amazing because, and this is the transition, right? It's

• 30:37Nilay Patel?

  We also, we, we did the thing that every, every news organization is doing right now. Oh, we're quoted in here too. We, uh, uh, we got the document, we looked at the information that was leaked, right? And we looked through all of it, uh, and we made a series of decisions. And you should read Emily's piece, cause it's really good about how we made those decisions and why. And then we, we found this crazy ass thing where Hollywood really wants to block, like, break the internet. They're really interested in it. It's like, it consumes them, uh, that they don't control this distribution medium. Uh, and it's, that actually to me is, it's endlessly fascinating, uh, because not, not least because we also run a media organization.

• 31:18Nilay Patel?

  And the, right, like, the premise of our media organization and like The Verge and Vox Media is that we really, really understand the distribution medium of the internet. And like, we, like, it's in our DNA, it's in our bones. I, uh, I just interviewed Jonah Prady, the CEO of BuzzFeed, and that was that conversation, right? It's like, now we are, we're, we're a network media company. We go everywhere, we belong everywhere and like, figuring out how to make money is actually sort of like still secondary for BuzzFeed. Because they're more interested in learning about all the platforms it can go and all the places it can hit. Uh, and they, they're, they're aware and Vox Media is aware, a handful of other new media companies are like ultra aware of like the nature of the internet. Like, it, it doesn't surprise us.

• 32:00Nilay Patel?

  And it doesn't surprise us that we don't control the distribution, like, fully, right? Like, it's just out, it's a chaos. You look at Hollywood and they're like, why don't we control this anymore? Yeah. We gotta control this. And like, that's what this is. Like, it's endless, like, how do we lock this back down? How do we turn this back into us putting DVDs on trucks and the trucks going to Blockbuster?

• 32:21Speaker 01

  It's the trucks in particular that is the difference between all pre-internet media and internet media though, right? You can even say this with like newspapers, right? Like, but why can't I sell all the ads in that paper that then I put on a thing and then it shows up on your doorstep? I want that again. How can I make that happen?

• 32:36Nilay Patel?

  But with, with, with, with the MPA, it's even crazier than newspapers, cause a newspaper can show up on the street. It can show up in a store. And with movies, it was, it went to the theater. And we have, we either own the theater until they don't let us own the theater. And then we have a sweetheart deal with the people that do own the theater because they broke up our monopoly on the theater. It's, it, this is completely different.

• 33:00Speaker 04

  worldview for them. They've never had to deal with this up until like five, 10 years ago.

• 33:05Nilay Patel?

  Right. All right. Let's talk about Goliath. Cause Goliath.

• 33:07Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Well, so it's even a step like this is what was weird to me. So I think there's this sense, and I mean, not everyone, I think, well, we kind of had this conversation that like, you know, I remember SOPA. We all remember SOPA, but not necessarily everyone sort of remembers exactly what was at issue there. And I think a lot of it is, okay, a lot of this stuff, they tried to get through Congress and they couldn't, and they haven't given up on it, which is interesting and important. But also, this fight has really given them, it's put them in this mindset. And when I say them, I basically mean the MPA. It's not, I mean, the studios are sort of funding this effort, but the MPA is kind of the head of it. Where Google is the enemy. You know, it's not about, it's, the enemy isn't the Pirate Bay. The enemy isn't Napster.

• 33:52Speaker 03

  The enemy is the sort of coalition that rose up to oppose SOPA.

• 33:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 33:57Speaker 03

  And there's no making peace with that. They're like, well, this is, we're gonna keep fighting this until one of us dies. So we need to cast all of them, specifically Google, which like.

• 34:09Speaker 04

  No, they're just mad because they can't imagine a world where a giant super corporation would not be part of the cabal. They're just super confused and hurt.

• 34:18Nilay Patel?

  But be in our club.

• 34:19Speaker 04

  Deeply hurt. They feel bad. Google won't be in the club.

• 34:22Nilay Patel?

  Crazy. So A, they call Google Goliath, which is amazing. Hype check. Goliath is a code name.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  Very cool. You know why? Because there is a Mars Volta album.

• 34:33Nilay Patel?

  Oh, God, stop. Take that in my way.

• 34:38Speaker 02

  This word holds true to me because I'm a huge Mars Volta fan. I've seen them a dozen times. Their fourth album is called The Bad Living Goliath, and one of their songs is called Goliath. And this is the premise of the album. Apparently the band used a Ouija board that they bought in like some like, deep in Jerusalem place. And the band was cursed. And for like a whole year, Cedric, the lead singer, when he was on tour, he wrapped white tape around his microphone because they were just, you know, Goliath was like attacking them. And they broke the curse finally.

• 35:12Nilay Patel?

  So you're saying it's a cool.

• 35:14Speaker 02

  It's cool.

• 35:15Nilay Patel?

  You're saying Hollywood, but the MPA.

• 35:18Speaker 02

  It's a good code.

• 35:18Speaker 04

  The actual like story in like the Bible, the Old Testament doesn't do it for you?

• 35:24Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 35:26Speaker 04

  Yes, I'm

• 35:26Nilay Patel?

  I doubt Hollywood's attorneys were making either a Mars Volta reference or like a book.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  They're making Bible because they think they're David.

• 35:36Speaker 04

  That's where it comes from.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  They think they are the small guy.

• 35:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:39Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 35:39Speaker 04

  That's why it's so hilarious.

• 35:41Speaker 03

  But no, but I also, I thought a lot about what

• 35:44Nilay Patel?

  A Bible reference, what other references do they making, making like what else is there?

• 35:48Speaker 03

  Well, no, but also why talk about Goliath in a, with a code name in emails that you control?

• 35:57Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 35:57Speaker 03

  So like, and I wondered if, we were talking about surveillance and I wondered if they were thinking like, okay, maybe, you know, Paramount's on Google Apps now. So like, Google's not supposed to look at their thing.

• 36:08Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 36:09Speaker 03

  But like, who knows, we're up against this shadowy surveillance organization.

• 36:13Nilay Patel?

  Like we started looking at the emails and it took us like a minute to figure out.

• 36:19Nilay Patel?

  It was not a difficult thing to like parse out.

• 36:22Speaker 03

  I mean, but it, but it was, it was sort of, yeah, like, I wonder if they had anti-Google paranoia.

• 36:28Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 36:29Speaker 03

  Cause that's the only way I can interpret their decision to just not, I mean, it's, cause it's kind of weird. They're like, okay, we, we're, we're gonna talk about Goliath later.

• 36:38Speaker 04

  There's, there is the thing where it's not like actual like computer security, but it's just operational security and don't be an idiot security where someone could accidentally just forward a chain.

• 36:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, totally.

• 36:51Speaker 04

  So that

• 36:51Speaker 03

  No, it's smart of them.

• 36:53Speaker 04

  Do dumb things.

• 36:53Nilay Patel?

  No, so we should, let's get into what this is. So at the, at the top level.

• 36:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:58Nilay Patel?

  What we have uncovered in going through this stuff is that Hollywood desperately wants to be able to block sites off the internet. So if you're an average consumer and you want to go to the pirate bay, you can't.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  Right.

• 37:09Nilay Patel?

  That's what they want more than anything. Uh, and they are so consumed with the idea that some sites are so bad that the government or Google or somebody should make them go away. Prevents them from doing even smart things. Right? So there was an email from like a Sony Pictures Europe.

• 37:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:27Nilay Patel?

  Marketing group that was like, why don't we seed some movies, like previews for the movies on the torrent sites?

• 37:32Speaker 03

  It wasn't even movies, it was like TV shows.

• 37:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 37:34Speaker 03

  Like they could have gone to, you know, NBC and watched it for free and taped it on VHS. So it's like very cheap for them to put like of the first five minutes of Hannibal, which was the show and, and just say at the end, like, watch Hannibal like Wednesdays at nine.

• 37:48Nilay Patel?

  So we'll see, we'll do some promos on the torrent site and they got shot, like immediately shot down and the line was. Anything we do that legitimizes these sites prevents our larger effort to block them.

• 38:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:01Nilay Patel?

  So like, don't even, don't even think about them, because eventually we'll, we'll delete them from the internet. And like, just the idea that that is their goal, and they try, that's what SOPA was intended to do. And the outcry was, you're gonna break the internet.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  All of this stuff makes HBO seem so much smarter by the day. Like, in terms of just how, which is crazy to talk about, but HBO's reaction in terms of HBO Go, but also with Game of Thrones being the most

• 38:25Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 38:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, and they're just like, eh, whatever.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Well, they're, they're aggressive. They do send out emails, but at the same time, they're like, do you know how much money we make off Blu-rays? Do you know how much money we make off when we sell a t-shirt? You're a mess.

• 38:37Nilay Patel?

  I'm just, I'm dying, I'm melting.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Oh, my god.

• 38:40Nilay Patel?

  I'm melting.

• 38:40Speaker 04

  If you're listening to the, the, the podcast and not watching the video stream.

• 38:45Nilay Patel?

  I'm not doing a good job of drinking water.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  I have lost laptops that way.

• 38:49Speaker 04

  Not only did you miss the, I failed to drink water, you missed, like, our producer John secretly bringing him the glass of water, so nobody noticed.

• 38:57Nilay Patel?

  I, I love the holidays, guys.

• 38:59Speaker 04

  The holidays hate you.

• 39:01Nilay Patel?

  They really dislike you.

• 39:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you're just gonna get more drunk.

• 39:04Nilay Patel?

  So, let's talk about what Goliath, we, we, we've talked around it.

• 39:06Speaker 03

  So, I mean, that's, so they, they say, well, okay, we need to, if we're gonna succeed in this anti-piracy effort, we need to do something about Goliath.

• 39:15Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 39:16Speaker 03

  You know, last time in the SOPA fight, like, Goliath was really effective with this tactic, and we need to make sure that they're not effective, and so we're, they're basically sort of passing the hat around to the studios, saying, listen, everyone put in this much money for our yearly budget, and we'll start this legal, you know, action against Goliath, and we'll start investigating for further legal actions against Goliath, and sort of that whole, you know, it's, it was just this full coordinated effort.

• 39:40Nilay Patel?

  Right. And they were funneling it through, we should actually write it like a profile. This dude hood. They're funneling it through.

• 39:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:49Nilay Patel?

  He's a state attorney general of like Georgia, Alabama.

• 39:51Speaker 04

  So they're lobbying him. They're giving him, they're like writing out all the stuff for him. They're not directly handing him envelopes of cash.

• 39:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, which was, there was some, I think a lot of people read the first piece and weren't fully clear on that. But I mean, yeah, so they're like hiring a lawyer who charges a lot of money.

• 40:08Nilay Patel?

  Jenner and Block.

• 40:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, Jenner and Block, and to sort of compile legal documents which will then, which then gets sent to him.

• 40:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 40:15Speaker 03

  And then he, the thing that they found out is he's, it's not sort of bribery so much as laziness. The New York Times had a great infographic on Tuesday that was the anti-piracy letter he had sent to Google in November of 2013. So actually before any of the documents we were looking at. And it is 95% identical to a letter that was provided to him by the MPAA. And they sort of show you the different sections and it's just like, oh, he was, he literally just, they sent it to him and he forwarded it along.

• 40:45Speaker 04

  There's also a campaign finance funding campaign where they got a bunch of people to.

• 40:50Nilay Patel?

  And what's amazing about that, they like, the, the MPAA passed around the story about like state level corruption. And it was like, here are some instructions for what we can do.

• 40:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:59Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it's, what I think is fascinating is they think Google is the internet. Right? If they can just get Google to do what they want, or fight Google in some way, like they'll beat the internet. And I think that's crazy.

• 41:11Speaker 03

  Well, the, the thing that hasn't been said, and I mean, this is because we sort of have no information in this, but like, you know, in these same meetings and the same actions, like Microsoft obviously has a strong interest in it. And we know that they were talking to HUD. I mean, that's not like, you know, it's the same stuff that they put in the Scruggles ad. It's not necessarily anything under the table. But it's sort of unclear what that relationship has been like. Like, does the MPAA think that if everyone switches to Bing, then like, well, they'll talk to them about site blocking and like, they'll actually be willing to delist the Pirate Bay? Like, I don't know. I think it's sort of an open question.

• 41:46Nilay Patel?

  I, I think Microsoft will do anything to screw Google.

• 41:51Nilay Patel?

  They will and like, you know, like Microsoft, if you know, if you like spend time in DC, like Microsoft got really good at politics during their antitrust battle in the 90s. They're like baked into the system now. They've hired people who are like deep in the game, right? Like they have Mark Penn. Like Mark Penn was like Hillary Clinton's like campaign strategist. Like, yeah, they're deep in that game. And like, it's notable that like Microsoft and AT&T and on in DC are like tightly aligned and they are tightly aligned to like basically screw Google at every opportunity. And like, I just hear it like it like people say to me so casually, they're like surprised when I'm surprised. Cause everybody like it's just that's the lobbying climate. I will say this, and not to defend lobbyists and

• 42:34Nilay Patel?

  not to defend this stuff, but like this, like they provided free work to politicians. Like that is what lobbying is. Like that's the, that's the thing that you do. Like lobbying is not always like fancy dinners and like, just do what I say, buddy. It's like, we're gonna do the work for you. Right? It's, we're gonna write the law for you. We're gonna, we're gonna hire the army of lawyers to like find you a legal justification for this thing that we want. Right? Like, that's the fundamental thing that lobbyists do. It's it like, I think we think of lobbyists as like, I don't know, like shaking hands and like buying stakes. Yeah, there's clearly.

• 43:10Speaker 03

  Expend some credit cards.

• 43:10Nilay Patel?

  Right. There's like, there's clearly some element of that. But the real thing they do is they help lawmakers like get what do the lawmaking stuff.

• 43:20Speaker 03

  Well, and this is the less sketchy of the two things.

• 43:22Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 43:22Speaker 03

  Like what they were doing is actually like the stuff we shouldn't outlaw.

• 43:26Nilay Patel?

  Like, yeah, like when you talk about Google getting better at lobbying, like this is the game actually Google needs to get better at. It's not like buying influence. It's spending a billion dollars on generating endless legal documents about why the internet should work the way it does.

• 43:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:40Nilay Patel?

  And so like. This is sketchy because like it just sounds like Jim Hood is like in their bag so bad. Like they're literally writing emails to each other like first we'll get Hood to do it then everyone else will do it. And it's like, why do you think he's gonna do it? Like, oh, it's because he just does whatever you say. Abundantly clear that he literally just does whatever.

• 44:00Speaker 03

  It was like he, they had him, you know, they had, so there were these questions, well, okay, so, you know, we have you talking to this, you know, outside counsel for the NPA a lot. He's like, oh, yeah, Pirelli, I know him. Yeah, we've talked a bunch. I don't know who he works for. I don't know what firm it is or if it, I don't know, it never came up. And this is literally the quote he gave to the Huffington Post. That is just the least plausible possible thing you could say. I don't know.

• 44:26Nilay Patel?

  I just think it's funny, like, we talk about movies a ton on the show, like, right? We talk about entertainment, we cover movies, we love, like, the public loves movies, right? It's like very clear. And the movie industry is not suffering for that love, right? People are still spending money on movies or raking in a ton of money. The movies are different, like, you know, like, they're innovating in whatever way the movies can innovate in terms of like creating sequels. But it's like they hate their customers.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 44:54Nilay Patel?

  Then they always have.

• 44:55Speaker 02

  Old people.

• 44:57Nilay Patel?

  Hype check, hype check old people.

• 44:59Speaker 02

  They're, they're running these companies for 50 years. It's like, there's a reason why Facebook took over the world. There's a reason why.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  MGM in like 1930. The Lion Road.

• 45:14Speaker 02

  There are, there are.

• 45:15Nilay Patel?

  Who wants to hear these actors talking?

• 45:17Speaker 02

  There are plenty of smart people of all ages. I just think that these companies are run by dinosaurs.

• 45:26Speaker 03

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna be honest with you. I think you could say that many of the companies running Silicon Valley are run by idiotic children. Like, like, I mean, if you want to flip side it.

• 45:36Nilay Patel?

  But Sony Pictures is apparently like both old idiotic children.

• 45:40Speaker 03

  I, I, I think, I think you say film is not hurting. I think that is not true. I think like the industry is in a jam and it knows, the writing is.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  Not written on the wall, it's written all over them in scars. Like, the future is coming for them, fast.

• 45:57Speaker 03

  Box office is already down hard. I mean, I also think the other thing to defend the MPA a little. I mean, the quote we ended the original live piece on was, you know, the status quo for us is not good, and it's not going to get better anytime soon without us doing something. Which was their justification for, this is why we need to, you know, break the internet and everything. But I mean, it is hard to, on some level, disagree with that statement. I do think the tragic thing about it is, any, not to use like innovation as a buzzword, but there are a lot of technological changes that could happen to the movie industry that would help them out a lot. Things like day and date, things like video on demand, like, there are a lot of channels that could open up.

• 46:38Speaker 03

  But because there are so many cartels like the theater owners and just, the whole industry is so sort of clotted, and it's so hard to get anything, any sort of technological change through. It's really hard to, yeah.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  There, when you, when somebody illegally downloads a movie, right? The problem isn't that it impacts us going to the theater. The problem is there are at least three streams of revenue. There's the theater, there's the DVD Blu-ray release, now there's video on demand before that DVD Blu-ray release, and then TV, right? And if you can just download the movie, that's a single stream now. Suddenly, all of it's out of whack. Not only do they have to worry about the theater, you already own the movie. You don't have to watch it on TBS, you don't have to buy the DVD. That's, it is a great winnowing. And they could fix this, right? They could do day and date, and they could do those things.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  But they, they don't want to give up on that four, three, four stream system. And that's the problem, is it's a greed thing. And, and greed is maybe not a fair word, because they've had that for a while.

• 47:42Speaker 03

  Each of those four people, like, it's going to, it's a different dude who's getting the cut. So it's sort of like, there's four of us on this raft, and it's too heavy. We need to throw one of you off, like, what's gonna happen?

• 47:53Speaker 01

  And they can't figure out how to do it.

• 47:54Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, it's just very, it's a really politically difficult thing because it's such a distributed industry, you can't just like...

• 48:01Nilay Patel?

  The CEO of Hollywood is gonna get up and be like, okay, guys, we're focusing on this now. Like, no, they're gonna have to like scrap it out and it's gonna be pretty ugly.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  And to fund these crazy movies where there's no risk in them, but they're still risky.

• 48:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  Like, like Marvel sequels, they still already have to go to China to get Iron Man 3 funded.

• 48:19Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Like, that's how crazy this whole system is at this point, where it's like a guaran- the closest to a guaranteed hit, and they have to go to China and...

• 48:28Nilay Patel?

  I don't think they have to go.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  I think they're happy to go to make a lot more money, because they know this is the one, like, even though it's guaranteed.

• 48:34Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  They need to make sure we make even more money.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Is that a drum solo?

• 48:42Nilay Patel?

  Uh, yeah, I was just doing drums. Uh, God, I'm so broken. What happened there was like, I tried to start the engine and just nothing came out. There was like a puff of smoke out the tailpipe.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  We didn't have your Mevo or whatever to put your water.

• 48:54Nilay Patel?

  I'm dying. I'm dying, everybody. No, uh, their business, and actually Todd Vanderwerf did a really great piece on Vox about it. He's like, most of this is boring. Like, most of what's been revealed is boring.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:05Nilay Patel?

  And it reveals how boring the movie industry is, because their business is just leveraging and re-leveraging the content. Right? So, there's lots of charts and spreadsheets of when terrible movies are shown at 3 a.m. on channels nobody's ever heard of. But like, that's a deal that Sony makes with that channel in Alaska, uh, to get, we'll give you this movie for free, but all the ads you run against it, like, we wanna cut of that revenue. Uh, and that's just a game that all these, they play, and like, there's a level of sophistication there that is sophisticated on the old model. And so what you're talking about, like, they're all old people, they don't, they're dinosaurs, they don't get the new model. But, what they're not willing to admit is all of their sophistication about the old way doesn't apply to the new way.

• 49:48Nilay Patel?

  But they're so, like, if you run Sony Pictures, you have 5,000 employees who do nothing but interpret Neil- like Nielsen rating data for local channels in like Montana, right? Well, you're not just gonna throw them away.

• 50:02Speaker 04

  A lot of people from Montana.

• 50:03Nilay Patel?

  Well, yeah, Montana's a big market.

• 50:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:05Nilay Patel?

  Now, but like, you know what I mean? Like, they, there's, there's a whole team of people there who just interpret like, the old way of getting data. Yeah, yeah, no, I got you.

• 50:11Speaker 03

  And it's also deeply funny to me that we're talking about them as dinosaurs when, as we all just found out, the CEO of Sony Pictures is like, caught Snapchat super early and is making like millions of dollars off it, like.

• 50:23Nilay Patel?

  Right, no, that's true.

• 50:24Speaker 03

  I think it's worth pointing out that like, it's not that these people are like, don't get it, or like, they're too old to get it, it's that they're working in an impossible system.

• 50:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:33Nilay Patel?

  Right. No, I mean, like, this is what I keep, I keep hammering this, like, I think this is the biggest story of the year. Because it will, like-

• 50:42Speaker 02

  In terms of the repercussions that it'll have.

• 50:43Nilay Patel?

  In terms of just how it will, like, we have an insight into the movie business now, and into how much they hate the internet now, and into how they work, and how they think, and just like, the ridiculous ways that movies get made, and cause her eye approving the last scene of the interview, but, you know, like, take, make the goo in his brain, like, a different color, like, that's crazy.

• 51:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:04Nilay Patel?

  And what that reveals is, the old media is still kind of making decisions on like, gut instinct. And they're making easy bets, because their guts tell them that Marvel sequels will make money. They don't know.

• 51:13Speaker 04

  But do you, do you really think that, that this sort of exposure is going to get them to change, or is gonna in any way reduce their resolve to do the thing?

• 51:22Speaker 01

  It's gonna make them get on their cellphone next time that they have a conversation.

• 51:24Speaker 04

  Right.

• 51:25Speaker 02

  And now the FAA is gonna have that phone call, anyway.

• 51:27Speaker 04

  Like, what I've, what, what, what I've learned from this is just how deeply they hate the internet.

• 51:32Nilay Patel?

  Right, and so what I said, the repercussions is-

• 51:34Speaker 04

  And what's terrifying about that is, like, they hate the internet more than most internet users love it. And they might just have more persistence and more resolve than we do, and the next time they, you know, cause, this whole plan to like redo SOPA is way more insidious and way more likely to be effective, right? It's going to be.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh, I just had an inception moment.

• 51:56Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  Are you ready for this?

• 51:57Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  What if all these awful movements on the internet are actually-

• 52:04Speaker 01

  Sony. They're not, it turns out, the majority of people on Twitter are actually very nice. Everything is all sock puppets designed to make us hate the internet. Ahhh. See? Yeah, that makes sense.

• 52:18Speaker 03

  I think, like, I think it's easy to overstate the persistence of it. I mean, so one of the things that came up in Goliath is, so Stephen Fabrizio, who's the MPAA general counsel that is sort of behind the Goliath project, came on at the end of last year, having brought down ISO Hunt and been sort of a big anti-piracy warrior. And I think this, what we're seeing is kind of his take on what the MPAA's, like, how the MPAA should be fighting anti-piracy. And I mean, I think we don't know, we don't know sort of what the ultimate ruling on that is, but I also think it's not necessarily like a perfect representation of the studio's

• 53:00Speaker 03

  views, for one, and then also not necessarily the only way the MPAA could, you know, try to sustain the movie industry in the face of like, you know, all this, all this piracy, right? I think this is like a decision that these people have made and like, they can make another decision. So I don't want to make it too like fatalistic of like, this is necessarily the only like, the like, we've, we've peered into the evil heart of the film industry and this is all that will ever be incited or something. Because I think, I mean, yeah, like people choose to do things and like, they might be like, you know, they might right now be searching their souls, ready to, to let the internet back in.

• 53:39Nilay Patel?

  Really? You really think the, you really think the MPAA's executive general counsel is searching his soul for a way to better engage with the internet?

• 53:46Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 53:47Nilay Patel?

  I mean, Russell, I mean, have you been texting for drugs? Have you been texting for drugs again?

• 53:52Speaker 01

  Neil, I promise you, that is so true. It's like, doubles down.

• 53:57Nilay Patel?

  Hype check, texting for drugs.

• 54:00Speaker 02

  It's a thing that happens.

• 54:02Nilay Patel?

  That's totally noncommittal. Medium.

• 54:04Speaker 03

  It's so common that it's not even hype or not hype. It's just like, it should be like, is email hype?

• 54:11Speaker 02

  Hype check email, like?

• 54:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, hype check email.

• 54:13Speaker 02

  The NSA has it all.

• 54:15Nilay Patel?

  That's.

• 54:17Speaker 04

  You're an unhappy person.

• 54:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, what's going on? I'm like, why, why anger teen Sam Shepard?

• 54:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:22Nilay Patel?

  They're dying, they should die. Like, where did that come from?

• 54:24Speaker 03

  Time for the asteroid a hit.

• 54:27Speaker 04

  We all, we all like you, Sam. What's the, what's the matter?

• 54:30Speaker 02

  I'm good.

• 54:31Nilay Patel?

  Can we do, can we do a series called Anger Teen? Where we just like go to teens and ask them what they're angry about? Just like, see what happens? Yeah, Sam's got ideas. He's boiling over with ideas right now.

• 54:42Speaker 02

  No, all teens hate their parents. That's just like what it is. That's what it is. It is.

• 54:45Nilay Patel?

  Well, it's, it's parents just don't understand.

• 54:48Speaker 04

  Oh, no.

• 54:49Nilay Patel?

  I'm really sorry.

• 54:50Speaker 03

  Big game dinosaur.

• 54:51Speaker 04

  That's, that's the verge cast.

• 54:53Nilay Patel?

  No, let me say one more thing. We have not done the year in review at all. It happened.

• 54:58Speaker 02

  Already.

• 54:59Nilay Patel?

  Big phones are in. No, the thing I was gonna say, I was looking at our year in review list and two, three of the things are about the music industry, which arguably has gone through this cycle way worse than anybody else, way faster, right? And what's, watching the music industry pendulum swing back in response to streaming, and Apple buying Beats and Taylor Swift writing editorials about the death of streaming and album sales and all this stuff. They're, they're actually, they're ahead of this curve. In like weird ways, like they're better at understanding what needs to happen because they've been beaten so, like, they were so beaten by technology out the gate, but now it's Jimmy Iovine's pitch to Apple to why they should buy Beats was, there's a hole in your portfolio. We have to get better at streaming because it's the future and I'm the guy to do it for you.

• 55:45Nilay Patel?

  Because I understand the music industry. And Apple's like, yep, you're right. And they bought Beats. It's not like because of headphones. But then the flip side of it is the music industry is saying like, they're kind of like, I hate the internet. Right? Like, Taylor Swift is like, I wish people just bought my records the way they used to. And like, her context is, it's, the internet's so complicated and the distribution is so chaotic. And you have to make other kinds of bets. But consumers on the internet like kinda don't wanna buy records the way they used to. They wanna like use streaming services. They wanna get all their music on YouTube. They wanna do all this other stuff. They wanna use apps instead of like listening to your song. It's like they're like, the media is much more complicated and there's much more competition in the space. So like watching Hollywood go through this at the same time the record industry is

• 56:30Nilay Patel?

  doing it like in a different way at the same time and the pendulum swinging back for them. That fight between, I think the lasting repercussion is the media industry is gonna just totally segment into people who embrace the internet and an old guard that is becoming more and more passionate that the internet isn't where they wanna be. And that is ju- that's, you want like the big fight in 2015 between tech and media, like that's what it looks like. It looks like just rejecting the inherent distributed nature of the internet or fully embracing it. That's it. That's my, that's my year in review somehow.

• 57:01Speaker 02

  Predictions for 2015?

• 57:04Nilay Patel?

  I just, I just did one.

• 57:05Speaker 02

  Well, there's, there are more things that are gonna happen in 2015.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  Russell, do you have one?

• 57:09Speaker 03

  Domination.

• 57:12Nilay Patel?

  That's a really good one in general.

• 57:14Speaker 03

  That's like, that's from that Wu-Tang album, right? They're like, where, what's your guys' goal? He's like, domination. I always thought it would be badass.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  You did?

• 57:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, so now I've lived that dream.

• 57:25Speaker 02

  I think, uh, I don't know, I wanna make some predictions for, like, we're at the end of the year.

• 57:28Nilay Patel?

  That CES is coming. We'll go a little long because CES is coming.

• 57:31Speaker 02

  CES is coming. Um, I think smartwatches are gonna be a big deal with.

• 57:35Nilay Patel?

  Cause Apple's putting it's out as a watch.

• 57:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean unfortunately that is the case because you know the way things happen. Whenever Apple does something, it's like, oh my god, it's the right way. It's the thing.

• 57:44Nilay Patel?

  I predict that watch will, I predict the Apple Watch will, will land with such a thud that it sends, sets back that idea for quite some time.

• 57:53Speaker 02

  And then you're gonna come into the office with one on your wrist, but it's fine.

• 57:57Nilay Patel?

  I mean, yes. That is 100% true. There will come a day when I walk in the office wearing an Apple Watch. But that's because it is literally my career to be wearing that watch.

• 58:07Speaker 02

  Fair.

• 58:08Nilay Patel?

  Like I think I would like spend money to, to, I don't know that I, like, I. We were talking, we're going to CS, like we're, are we gonna see a bunch of Apple Watch accessories at CS? We're gonna see a bunch of apps?

• 58:20Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting.

• 58:21Nilay Patel?

  The other day, like I, John Gruber, like, wrote on Daring Fireball, like, if I was an app developer, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be racing to make an app for the Apple Watch. Like, I would still be in the wait and see phase. I think that's the case for that product and that platform.

• 58:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. I don't think that's true at all. I don't think that's true at all. Do you know how many teens are going to want that for Christmas, for a gift? Do you know how many teens-

• 58:46Nilay Patel?

  But you can't buy it for Christmas.

• 58:48Speaker 02

  I mean, next year, we're talking about 2015. Do you know how many kids get iPods for their birthdays and for graduation?

• 58:55Nilay Patel?

  Apple Watch has $400 into watch, it's not an iPod, it's not a phone, it doesn't offer that utility.

• 58:59Speaker 02

  Do you know how many rich parents exist? And do you know why Apple is a bajillion dollar company?

• 59:04Speaker 01

  But they're gonna get pillows or something.

• 59:05Nilay Patel?

  But you're, but yeah, but you're, you're making the argument that Apple's gonna sell a lot of Apple Watches because it's Apple. Right? You're making like, the argument that like, their marketing ability will like, sell a crappy product.

• 59:16Speaker 02

  We'll see.

• 59:16Nilay Patel?

  And I don't, I don't actually think that's true of Apple. I think they have a wonderful marketing ability, but I think they also make fairly good products. And I think that, it's the combination of the thing that's like terrifying. Like, Microsoft's making really good Surface commercials lately.

• 59:28Speaker 02

  And no one's buying the Surface.

• 59:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they're not slinging any more Surface.

• 59:32Speaker 02

  The holiday, the holiday commercial-

• 59:33Speaker 01

  I love the one where it's like, this is a great commercial for the MacBook Air.

• 59:39Speaker 02

  Wait, is that the one where they do that dumb rhyme, where they're like, drawing on the-

• 59:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they're like, look, this one has a kickstand. I'm like, yeah, the MacBook Air doesn't need one.

• 59:49Speaker 02

  Are we going to see a trend away from gigantic smartphones in 2015?

• 59:53Nilay Patel?

  No, they're just gonna get bigger.

• 59:54Speaker 02

  So, so, we will never get like, 4.3?

• 59:57Nilay Patel?

  No, no. What, we're never gonna get garbage toys again?

• 1:00:00Speaker 02

  No, let's talk garbage toys. When you're, when you're a gigantic man, sure, but like-

• 1:00:05Nilay Patel?

  Thank you, Sam.

• 1:00:06Speaker 02

  I mean, you have big hands, and you, this is the first line of your hair.

• 1:00:09Nilay Patel?

  I'm hungover, I already feel a little bit bloated, and now you're calling me gigantic. I got feels over here, man.

• 1:00:13Speaker 02

  Look.

• 1:00:14Nilay Patel?

  Respect my self-esteem.

• 1:00:16Speaker 02

  This is large. Too large.

• 1:00:18Nilay Patel?

  What's your, what, Chris?

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  You bought it, you've got the smaller one.

• 1:00:22Nilay Patel?

  We should actually do a tiny little bit of CS review.

• 1:00:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:25Nilay Patel?

  What are your CS predictions?

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  Did I barf? I don't know.

• 1:00:32Speaker 03

  That seems like a pun, of course you're gonna barf.

• 1:00:35Nilay Patel?

  Definitely happened.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 1:00:36Nilay Patel?

  Russell like, like, like kinda begged me not to go.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I'm.

• 1:00:40Nilay Patel?

  I received a very polite message.

• 1:00:42Speaker 03

  I picked you last year, too. This is the first year it worked.

• 1:00:45Speaker 02

  I'm just gonna say it. For you guys listening, The Verge is going to be at CES. It is from January 6th through the 9th, and we are going to go bananas with coverage, so stay tuned. Our site will, you know, when we do events, like, our site turns into like iVerge and like GoogVerge, whatever it is doing.

• 1:01:01Nilay Patel?

  Who says GoogVerge?

• 1:01:03Speaker 02

  I just.

• 1:01:03Nilay Patel?

  I checked GoogVerge.

• 1:01:04Speaker 02

  It busts. But the point is, the point is, I am, I am plugging our appearance at CES.

• 1:01:10Nilay Patel?

  Thank you.

• 1:01:10Speaker 02

  Cause we're going to be there and we're not gonna, the next Verge cast we do is gonna be at CES also, so there's not one.

• 1:01:15Nilay Patel?

  And, and I will say, we're doing.

• 1:01:17Speaker 03

  Three weeks, I think.

• 1:01:18Nilay Patel?

  Uh, three weeks.

• 1:01:19Speaker 03

  We're going three weeks off the air.

• 1:01:20Speaker 02

  Russell, your predictions for the repercussions of the Sony hack going into 2015? Because they canceled a national motion picture.

• 1:01:27Speaker 03

  I mean, I think we're gonna see a lot more security, uh, fingerprint readers, it's also my CES prediction, like, I do think we're, we'll see that. I think we'll see a lot more, um, I think it'll become a lot more common for people to jump on, like, secure channels, right? Like WhatsApp, like, is, is rolling out end to end and like.

• 1:01:47Speaker 02

  But when you say people, like.

• 1:01:49Speaker 03

  I mean, Scott Rudin will say, like, "Jump on WhatsApp, cause I'm gonna scream in your face." And then this message will disappear, like, 10 minutes later. Like, I think we'll get a lot more comfortable with media that disappears. I think data retention laws are gonna.

• 1:02:03Nilay Patel?

  Maybe, maybe we'll.

• 1:02:04Speaker 03

  Turn into data removal laws.

• 1:02:05Nilay Patel?

  Call each other?

• 1:02:07Speaker 03

  No, no, that's not gonna happen. I'm never speaking on the phone again for the rest of my life.

• 1:02:13Speaker 03

  Sorry, guys.

• 1:02:13Nilay Patel?

  Dieter, that was like a really sad segue into the fact that you're holding a BlackBerry classic.

• 1:02:18Speaker 04

  I don't wanna talk, no, no, no, no, no. I don't wanna talk about the, the BlackBerry classic.

• 1:02:22Speaker 02

  Well, Dieter has a BlackBerry classic in his hand and he loves it so much.

• 1:02:26Nilay Patel?

  I would say a very polarizing device in our staff.

• 1:02:28Speaker 02

  It, um. It feels good. It's like a.

• 1:02:31Speaker 04

  Micah Singleton?

• 1:02:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:33Speaker 04

  Just bought one.

• 1:02:34Speaker 02

  I'm pretty sure he traded his iPad for one.

• 1:02:36Speaker 03

  I really want, I really want a physical keyboard.

• 1:02:38Speaker 04

  So.

• 1:02:39Speaker 03

  Me too.

• 1:02:40Speaker 04

  CES.

• 1:02:41Speaker 02

  For those that don't know, Russell, what kind of phone do you have?

• 1:02:43Speaker 03

  I have, this will be good for those on the live stream. A Droid 4.

• 1:02:48Speaker 04

  What?

• 1:02:48Speaker 03

  I'm about, it's about to die because it, it literally like, it'll, it's only, it's only, uh, like on for two hours at a time.

• 1:02:57Speaker 04

  Why is it so hot?

• 1:02:59Speaker 03

  Well, it's dying. It's, it's overheating.

• 1:03:02Speaker 04

  It's about to explode into flames.

• 1:03:05Speaker 03

  It's like four years old.

• 1:03:06Nilay Patel?

  Oh my God, this thing was.

• 1:03:08Speaker 02

  And Russell, you and Russell? You type like with a hardware keyboard?

• 1:03:12Speaker 03

  Well, no, and I'll like, if I go to like an event and I don't want to take out my laptop, I'll just, I can just take notes on it and I can do it much faster with a physical keyboard because I can tell when a keystroke is registered.

• 1:03:22Speaker 04

  You and Sean Holster.

• 1:03:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. No, I mean, it's totally, uh.

• 1:03:25Speaker 04

  Maybe, maybe.

• 1:03:26Nilay Patel?

  What do you, what do you do?

• 1:03:26Speaker 04

  We'll give you the BlackBerry Passport.

• 1:03:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally. I'll try it out.

• 1:03:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:32Nilay Patel?

  Now we're just completely off the rails. We're, no, it's, yeah, great. Physical keyboards are back.

• 1:03:38Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  Is that, is that one of the predictions for next year?

• 1:03:40Speaker 02

  I wish.

• 1:03:42Nilay Patel?

  All of you are insane. Uh, okay. Is that our show? Do we have anything else? Oh, I didn't actually say the CES thing I want to say, which yes, Sam is correct. We are going to CES. Uh, we're going to do, we're have the CES Newswire, the Sons of News coming out. We have a hub page, like lots of video podcasts.

• 1:04:00Speaker 04

  Amazing live logs.

• 1:04:01Nilay Patel?

  Joanna Stern is asked to be on the podcast at CES. We'll have her on the show.

• 1:04:04Speaker 03

  Disruptive influence.

• 1:04:06Nilay Patel?

  Well, yeah, we'll be disruptively thinkfluencing all over the place. And we, we're taking a big team of, I mean, just tons of stuff coming from the show and we're going to, uh, Sam will be Snapchatting all over the place.

• 1:04:17Speaker 02

  The Real Verge, add it.

• 1:04:19Nilay Patel?

  Uh, CES, I would say has, it has become less and less important with time, uh, but it is still like the one time of the year when literally the entire tech and media industries gather in Vegas and like talk to each other.

• 1:04:33Speaker 02

  And get sloppy.

• 1:04:34Nilay Patel?

  And they, and then, and then that happens.

• 1:04:37Speaker 02

  This will be my sixth one in a row. Crazy.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  The sixth time you got sloppy.

• 1:04:42Speaker 02

  Crazy.

• 1:04:43Speaker 04

  We started taking Sam when he was just a wee babe.

• 1:04:47Speaker 02

  Was nineteen years old.

• 1:04:49Speaker 03

  Transport him across state lines.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  I have an iTunes review request.

• 1:04:55Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:04:56Speaker 01

  This is my thing. So I'm going to CES for the first time. Some things about me that you should know before this. I dehydrate very easily. I don't like Las Vegas.

• 1:05:06Speaker 04

  Buy a humidifier and have it shipped to the hotel.

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  Okay, I'll do that. I'm also gonna bring a white noise machine. And I also don't know what I'm doing.

• 1:05:14Speaker 04

  If it's a crappy enough humidifier, you don't need both, because it'll be loud.

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  Oh, that's, that's true. So for iTunes this week, leave a five out of five score. I'm just gonna be honest. I think, I think after this miracle episode, you can show some sympathy.

• 1:05:30Speaker 04

  One star for each person that was on The Vergecast today.

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  And then let us know what I should do with my time. At CES, and I will do my best to find a way to do those things, assuming they are legal.

• 1:05:46Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:05:46Speaker 04

  It's Vegas. They're all legal.

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  Can't smoke marijuana.

• 1:05:49Speaker 04

  I'm doing the outro.

• 1:05:50Speaker 02

  I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do the social, the social.

• 1:05:53Speaker 04

  I'm doing it. I'm doing it.

• 1:05:54Speaker 01

  Do it.

• 1:05:54Speaker 04

  I'm claiming it. That, ladies and gentlemen, was The Vergecast. Thank you so much for listening. Please subscribe to us on iTunes while you're there, leaving a review. You should follow us on Twitter, we're at Verge. You should follow us on Snapchat, we're at TheRealVerge. And that's important because we're gonna be doing snaps live from CES. It's gonna be crazy.

• 1:06:11Speaker 02

  And I open every single snap.

• 1:06:14Speaker 04

  We are on Instagram.

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  At Verge.

• 1:06:17Speaker 04

  At Verge. You can find us pretty easily there. We're elsewhere as well. We're on Facebook, of course. You should follow us there.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  Follow us on Snapchat. That's the best one.

• 1:06:24Speaker 04

  Snapchat's the most fun.

• 1:06:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, we have like, you know, I would say we're innovating in the Snapchat think influencing game.

• 1:06:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:30Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:06:31Speaker 04

  We're gonna create across, across a range of think influencing topics.

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  Sam came up for the show for me. Can't say what it is.

• 1:06:36Speaker 04

  Oh my god. If you wanna follow us on Twitter, that is SamSheffer. I am back on NeilAsReckless.

• 1:06:42Speaker 01

  Plant.

• 1:06:42Speaker 04

  Plant. Just P-L-A-N-T-E. And you're RussellRandom? That's right. RussellBeRandom. Thanks for watching, listening.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  Bye.

• 1:06:50Speaker 02

  Oh my god.