Encryption in the hype matrix

This week on Vergecast, Nilay returns, bringing in business editor Ben Popper to unfold his feature on public schools’ initiative to bring Chromebooks into classrooms. Reporter Russell Brandom joins to discuss the timely debate on encryption in light of this week’s Apple news. Racked style editor Nicola Fumo reclaims the hype desk to introduce the "Fumo hype matrix." 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.

• 0:04Nilay Patel?

  Hello and welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of The Verge.com, which now is indeed a fleet of podcasts. We have so many of them, it's getting like honestly out of hand. But, this is The Vergecast, the oldest, the finest, what? It's just this one. I know, I know what I'm doing with my hands. I'm making the fine- I liked it, the oldest, the finest- Yeah, the oldest, the finest, the most aged- Better with age. Yeah, exactly. The most vintage of our, of our shows. I, in case you're wondering, and I'm Neelai Patel, I'm the editor in chief of The Verge. To my right, sadly not Dieter Bone, who remains on his honeymoon, but, and when he comes back, we will talk all about

• 0:44Nilay Patel?

  the drone, because of the whole thing. But, to my right is Russell Brandom, ace security reporter.

• 0:51Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 0:52Nilay Patel?

  To my left, Ben Popper, ace, well today you're like an ace Chromebook reporter, but ace business reporter.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  I know a lot about drones, we could definitely talk-

• 1:00Nilay Patel?

  Oh, we should get into some drones. Oh yeah, Ben's also a drone, yeah, oh my god, the, the range of experience surrounding me is incredible. And then, over there, in a new desk today for some reason, our girl Fumo.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Hello, it's me Nicola.

• 1:13Nilay Patel?

  How's it going?

• 1:14Speaker 02

  It's going alright.

• 1:15Nilay Patel?

  You're wearing, everyone's commented on this like, I think you look like a 1940's aviator. Like you're about- Aviator. Yeah, like you're about to aviate.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  Oh, okay, I see that. For those in the car-

• 1:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, the most important people, Nicola.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  Yes, as it's been drilled in my head. It's a long sleeve white blouse with a turtleneck, but also a V cutout.

• 1:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  And everyone keeps saying it's Kardashian-esque, and I'm not that mad at it, to be honest.

• 1:41Nilay Patel?

  No, I think it's great. I just think-

• 1:44Speaker 02

  It was fashion week and I spent a lot of time in the same room as various Kardashians this week.

• 1:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, how was it? Tell me what that's like.

• 1:50Speaker 02

  I mean, it's funny, because I keep telling people it's like drugs, where you, it's like really exciting, the first time it's a high, and then the more times, it's just like, I don't know, there they are, here I am, I don't really want to reach for the photo, I don't care.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  You need more Kardashians in the room every time to get that-

• 2:07Nilay Patel?

  What's that? Yeah, to get back to the same place. Yeah, exactly, you need the whole fam. What's that first high like, though, really?

• 2:13Speaker 02

  I'm trying to think the first time I was-

• 2:14Nilay Patel?

  When the needle hits your veins.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  The first time I was in the room- It might have been an easy season one Kanye's first fashion show a year ago. And that was pretty exciting because it was I was like three rows away from them and I was like, oh my God, they're all right there like North is there Chloe.

• 2:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, the whole situation.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  The whole situation. And now it's just like, I don't know.

• 2:33Nilay Patel?

  There they are again.

• 2:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:34Nilay Patel?

  I don't want to.

• 2:34Speaker 02

  They seem it's sad like they all got the bodyguards and they don't have any freedom and I, I don't know. They're literally like caged animals.

• 2:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  I want to, I want to quickly just ask, do you think that Kanye West is $50 million in debt? And why is he specifically $53 million in debt? Why is he asking tech billionaires for the money?

• 2:57Speaker 03

  Not, not for the first time. He did Schmidt like.

• 3:00Nilay Patel?

  Oh, really?

• 3:00Speaker 03

  Ages ago. He was like Eric Schmidt, give to Donda.

• 3:03Nilay Patel?

  Eric Schmidt should have invested.

• 3:05Speaker 03

  I mean, Zuck should pay him. Like, we should all donate to Kanye.

• 3:08Nilay Patel?

  No, like Zucker, here's the thing. Here's my theory. Zuckerberg should not do it because he's busy. Right? Like Zuckerberg has things to do. He's got a country to run. He's got an India to colonize. Like, you know, he's got like a whole, he's, I've got a wife to murder. Yeah, it's like the whole thing.

• 3:22Nilay Patel?

  If I kill her to frame for it, it's a Princess Bride reference.

• 3:25Speaker 03

  Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:27Nilay Patel?

  No, he's like busy, right?

• 3:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:29Nilay Patel?

  And who, it was like Larry Page was the other one.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, more Google.

• 3:32Speaker 03

  No, Schmidt. Yeah, Schmidt.

• 3:33Nilay Patel?

  No, but Schmidt was like way before.

• 3:35Speaker 03

  Oh, oh, yeah. Larry Page was like the other. Yeah.

• 3:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it was like this time it was like Zuckerberg and Paige.

• 3:39Speaker 03

  Schmidt's dropped off his radar. He's like not sure Schmidt has enough to give him.

• 3:42Nilay Patel?

  All to do. Right? Like Eric Schmidt's job was like, well, I've got these crazy kids who are gonna make me rich. I better just keep them in line.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:49Nilay Patel?

  And follow models on Instagram.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  And the Donda org chart includes a lot of X things, like hovercraft, stuff like that, you know?

• 3:55Nilay Patel?

  Like Eric Schmidt should be like, you know what? You're my next Larry Page. I will be Kanye West's adult supervision.

• 4:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:02Nilay Patel?

  That'd be great, actually, if, if, if after Facebook and Google, Eric Schmidt and Sheryl Sandberg started adult supervision for various rock stars.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Oh, man. CEO and COO of Donda.

• 4:14Nilay Patel?

  We just did we publish the Donda Org chart? Did you see the Donda?

• 4:17Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, yes.

• 4:18Nilay Patel?

  The Donda Org chart. So if you haven't seen it, if you're listening, Kanye West made like, I don't know if you can't call it or it's like a list of boxes with like insane.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  It's like any industry. It's like healthcare, like technology, fashion. And then inside of it, he has different like job titles and there it's little black boxes with white text. And they're all just like sitting next to each other. And he says he made it four years ago and he was like, you all laughed at me then. And he like read.

• 4:46Nilay Patel?

  So one of the I'm just gonna start reading at random from the Donda Org chart, which by the way is spelled communications company.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  Oh, you said the typos is how you know it's me.

• 4:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Categories of influence organizational chart. Um, I'm just gonna read, there's so many boxes here. There's just one labeled internet. And here are the things under the internet box. One page destination, social media, e-commerce, web music store, web books. And then my favorite luxury cloud service, which.

• 5:18Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 5:19Nilay Patel?

  And then just.

• 5:20Speaker 03

  Well, no, like this is we're gonna lose Micah. He's gonna be the luxury cloud service, the head of luxury cloud service at Donda.

• 5:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And then right below that it says mobile phones. And then right next to mobile phones in slightly smaller type, it just says Microsoft.

• 5:35Nilay Patel?

  It's just so confusing.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  So good.

• 5:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Oh, there's also a luxury search engine, which.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 5:41Nilay Patel?

  Obviously.

• 5:42Speaker 03

  It is true. Sometimes Google feels a little bit just for the plebes.

• 5:46Nilay Patel?

  This is your moment. Okay. So Nicola pitched me. She's like, we gotta take the hype check to the next level.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  No, no, no, let me explain.

• 5:53Nilay Patel?

  No, well, I'm trying to get you out.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 5:55Nilay Patel?

  Whatever. Fine, do your thing.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 5:57Nilay Patel?

  I don't like you.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Untrue.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  He was trying to set you up.

• 6:00Nilay Patel?

  I was setting you up on a high.

• 6:02Speaker 02

  So I I inherited this hype desk and also a thing called hype check from Sam Sheffer, who owns the phrase, I think. And it never really felt like me. So in my week off, I decided to come up with a thing that felt more like me that I could comment on. So I have this chart that I made. Um, if you're in the car.

• 6:19Nilay Patel?

  Yep.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  On the X axis, on the left is drab and on the right is elegant. And on the Y axis at the top is ostentatious and at the bottom is practical.

• 6:28Speaker 03

  So it's a matrix.

• 6:29Nilay Patel?

  It's a matrix.

• 6:29Speaker 03

  It's a hype matrix.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  Yes, it's Nicola Fumo's hype matrix.

• 6:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  If you guys want to.

• 6:34Nilay Patel?

  We're really ratcheting it up.

• 6:35Speaker 03

  The original hype check wasn't even a single dimension. It was like, it was like either on or off.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I didn't, it never really worked. It just wasn't me.

• 6:43Nilay Patel?

  It was always a free form, but now we've got some rigor. We have a rubric.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  So if you were designing a luxury search engine.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  A luxury search engine is.

• 6:52Nilay Patel?

  Tell me where's Google on the hype matrix.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  Whoa.

• 6:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  A practical little drab.

• 7:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  Highly practical, a little drab.

• 7:03Speaker 03

  Although like the other alphabet stuff, it gets kind of ostentatious when they're like.

• 7:07Nilay Patel?

  When they're like swooping.

• 7:08Speaker 03

  And they're like building a pill that keeps you from dying.

• 7:11Nilay Patel?

  That's true.

• 7:11Speaker 03

  It gets a little.

• 7:12Nilay Patel?

  Where's a pill that keeps you from dying? Where does that come from?

• 7:15Speaker 02

  Ostentatious drab, like not dying isn't elegant.

• 7:18Speaker 03

  I mean, it would be practical if it worked and we just all took these pills.

• 7:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:22Speaker 03

  For a while, it's gonna be maybe.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  Just like if anyone's confused, I have a couple of plot points for people to kind of like get familiar. Like an iPhone is practical elegant. Almost every computer mouse is drab practical.

• 7:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  Um.

• 7:35Nilay Patel?

  Oh, we gotta show you some, we can.

• 7:38Speaker 02

  Okay, there are some.

• 7:38Nilay Patel?

  Can everyone send Nicola, Nicola underscore Fumo on Twitter, send her a picture of your favorite gaming mouse?

• 7:46Speaker 02

  I didn't, I don't even know what a gaming mouse is. I don't really want to know. I don't really want to know. But the thing that I can't solve is what technology item or service is ostentatious and also elegant? Because what I have plotted right there is the magnum of Moet on my desk. That's ostentatious and also elegant.

• 8:03Nilay Patel?

  Isn't it like the, the, the, how expensive is the most expensive Apple Watch? Like the gold Apple Watch?

• 8:11Nilay Patel?

  Is that not elegant?

• 8:12Speaker 02

  Oh, I guess that's ostentatious elegant. Yeah.

• 8:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that one.

• 8:15Speaker 02

  Julia, our Rex Futures Editor, suggested self-driving cars might be ostentatious and elegant, but I don't really know what they look like.

• 8:22Speaker 03

  I think like what's the, yeah, like the really, yeah, the big Teslas.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  Or she said anything to do with fancy space.

• 8:29Nilay Patel?

  Fancy space.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  Like Virgin space.

• 8:31Nilay Patel?

  We're not.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  Virgin Galactic.

• 8:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's that shit still like, okay, here's the thing about Virgin Galactic. I'm just gonna put this out there. Richard Branson, personal hero of mine. I would one day like to grow up to be a legendary silver fox, just a fact of my life. Um, Virgin Galactic is such a fucking lie. Like, it's like old Russian engines bought on the gray market.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  Ever. It's the most flex ever.

• 8:53Nilay Patel?

  He's like, what, what if we just, I don't, is it like a boat in space? Just buy the Russian shit. And like the things crash, right? Didn't one crash?

• 9:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, they've had explosions on the like launch pad.

• 9:05Nilay Patel?

  And by the way, I'm throwing down like, I would say 15% of the shade that like Lauren Grush and Sean O'Kane.

• 9:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, also, I think for a while it was like the only thing. Like it was the only rich guy who was gonna send you to Mars.

• 9:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 9:20Speaker 03

  And now there's, I mean, there's Musk.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Bezos takes it pretty seriously.

• 9:23Speaker 03

  Bezos and like the weird reality show one.

• 9:27Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 9:27Speaker 03

  That like people are suspicious about, but even that seems maybe more plausible than.

• 9:31Nilay Patel?

  No, Virgin Galactic, I would say in the ranking, like the bottom of the barrel is the reality show that wants you to die in Mars. Right? Like.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  The one way trip to Mars.

• 9:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that.

• 9:39Speaker 03

  Well, they're all sort of one way.

• 9:41Nilay Patel?

  Is that Mars one?

• 9:42Speaker 03

  Musk isn't necessarily gonna bring you back.

• 9:44Nilay Patel?

  No, but I would say like, and then right above that, you have the guy who got rich running a record store.

• 9:51Nilay Patel?

  And then somewhere way at the top, it's like two of the most successful tech entrepreneurs in the world. But like record store guy, yeah, he's the one buying like the used Russian engines and be like, this is safe. Yeah, we should talk, maybe we should talk about news. Can we talk about news?

• 10:06Speaker 03

  There's so much news this week.

• 10:07Nilay Patel?

  I could just keep reading the Don to Org chart at you. Like.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  My ideal Virg cast, but.

• 10:12Nilay Patel?

  It's pretty good. Under lifestyle, the words container company. It's just, those are just there.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  Did you guys see the Colbert thing? He read the Don to Org chart and then also importantly, he at Kanye at on Twitter, he's also gonna fix wolves. That's one of the things that he's going to improve on, along with.

• 10:27Speaker 03

  He really has a song about how much he doesn't like wolves.

• 10:29Nilay Patel?

  Um, uh. If I were to tell you that the words, the word hovercraft was listed on this chart twice, what two categories do you think hovercraft would be listed?

• 10:39Speaker 02

  Transportation.

• 10:40Nilay Patel?

  Nope, wrong. Already wrong.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  Apparel.

• 10:43Nilay Patel?

  Nope.

• 10:45Speaker 03

  Lifestyle.

• 10:46Nilay Patel?

  Nope.

• 10:47Speaker 03

  I don't know what the categories are.

• 10:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it doesn't matter. I will tell you that in one of the categories hovercraft is listed just above the word seven screen movie experience.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  That's something that he's already built. That's happened out in the desert.

• 10:58Nilay Patel?

  So hovercraft, by the way, listed above, listed in the category of home and also the category of trademarks and patents.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  Get them. Gotta get them.

• 11:06Nilay Patel?

  Very confusing. Alright, we should, here's what I like to do on the show right now. I'd like to go from this lighthearted romp.

• 11:15Speaker 03

  All the way down.

• 11:16Nilay Patel?

  All the way down. Bring it down. If you're in your car right now, roll up your windows. Wait, that doesn't make it darker in a car.

• 11:24Nilay Patel?

  If you're in a car right now, just get ready.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:27Nilay Patel?

  Just, yeah. Did you say pinch your nose?

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Pinch your windows.

• 11:30Nilay Patel?

  Pinch your windows.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Buckle your seatbelts.

• 11:32Nilay Patel?

  Buckle your seatbelts, slow down, get in the right lane, because we're going to talk about iPhone encryption.

• 11:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:39Nilay Patel?

  Which is why Russell is here.

• 11:40Speaker 03

  And how America is a fascist state.

• 11:42Nilay Patel?

  Is it?

• 11:43Speaker 03

  I mean, I go back.

• 11:44Nilay Patel?

  So here's what I'm gonna do on this show. I'm gonna play the hater. Because I, I believe deep in my heart that Apple should not break this phone.

• 11:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:53Nilay Patel?

  That's my firm belief.

• 11:54Speaker 03

  You say it upfront, but...

• 11:55Nilay Patel?

  I do not believe Apple should break this phone.

• 11:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:58Nilay Patel?

  I, however, am very aware of all of the argu... I was on CNBC yesterday and like, every person on the CNBC panel was like, "It's a matter of life and death." And I was like...

• 12:09Speaker 03

  Even though like, literally the dude's dead.

• 12:13Nilay Patel?

  And like, it's like sad, it's like already, okay, but I'm just saying, for the purpose of this conversation.

• 12:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:18Nilay Patel?

  I'm gonna play the hater.

• 12:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:21Nilay Patel?

  So why shouldn't Apple break this phone open? Because it seems to me, like, it's fairly reasonable to say they should break this. So, actually, do the, do the quick overview of the story.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  The thing that happened.

• 12:30Nilay Patel?

  Do the, do the 10 second.

• 12:30Speaker 03

  So, for a long time, okay, so basically it starts with... iOS eight, at which point, Apple says, "We can't serve requests for unlocking phones anymore because now all of the phone is going to be encrypted to your passcode. And so there's no data that we can pull off. And so, don't bother serving us with warrants anymore because we can't serve, we can't fill them." And this is in their law enforcement guidelines, which I've been reading very closely this past week. And so, the FBI like wasn't thrilled about this. I think most of large portions of the government kind of weren't thrilled about it. And they kept getting angrier and angrier. And it was clear they sort of were

• 13:14Speaker 03

  looking for a place to kind of make their stand. And now, oh, gosh, it was Tuesday night?

• 13:21Nilay Patel?

  Big late breaking.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was in the evening, I think like 9:00 PM, 10:00 PM Eastern Time. The court order came down from the Central District of California, saying, "The phone of Sied Faruk, one of the attackers, alleged attackers, I suppose he hasn't been convicted yet, in the San Bernardino attack, they have been looking to get into his phone. And it's one of those phones that Apple can't decrypt." And so, they, yeah, they said, "Here is a very, they gave very specific instructions." Because for a while, the line was Apple was saying, "Listen, we can't do it." And they said, "Okay, do exactly these things. We want a disk image that's stored in RAM and rewrites the firmware so that there isn't

• 14:05Speaker 03

  this delay and there isn't, you know, disk erasure function if you guess too many times."

• 14:12Nilay Patel?

  Because it's his work phone.

• 14:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:14Nilay Patel?

  So like, and it's provision, he worked for the government. So the government, like the state of California, right? The government provisioned him this phone. And if they are, I think I saw Tom Warren tweeting about this this morning.

• 14:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:25Nilay Patel?

  But if they're even a remotely good IT shop, they like provision the phone. So if you enter the passcode too many, wrong too many times.

• 14:32Speaker 03

  Well, no, I mean, but this is also like.

• 14:33Nilay Patel?

  It's built in, but like the chances of that.

• 14:35Speaker 03

  Some people don't, yeah, yeah, totally.

• 14:36Nilay Patel?

  Because it's like a little bit buried. Like the regular consumer doesn't have that, right? And it's not like one of those default when you set up an iPhone.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally. Well, because also for most people, like. You know, if I'm setting up my dad's iPhone, I wouldn't tell him to turn that on.

• 14:52Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 14:52Speaker 03

  Cause like, you'll just forget your passcode and accidentally erase your phone. That's a real threat, like.

• 14:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Anyway, so, but so it's, you gotta put it into 5C.

• 15:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:03Nilay Patel?

  And you can put the 5C in the firmware upgrade mode, the DFU mode.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:07Nilay Patel?

  And what the court is saying, Apple, put it in this firmware update mode. And you can load a custom firmware onto the phone that doesn't affect the data. That will cancel out the time delay on passcode entry and will prevent it from erasing.

• 15:21Speaker 03

  Yeah. And, and all of this is, is built into iOS, like all of these protections. So basically what they're doing is writing a new version of iOS and then sort of, you know, signing it so that the phone will accept it as Apple, which is gonna be legally interesting. Um, and then, you know, forcing it onto the phone, the phone is suddenly running. People call it FBI iOS.

• 15:42Nilay Patel?

  Ooh, that's pretty good.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  Pretty good, yeah. Um, and so now it's running FBI iOS and it still works like a phone, except you can sort of tap out as many different passcode combinations as you want. And they said, just give us the phone back, give the phone back to us like that and then we'll do whatever we're gonna do. Don't worry about it.

• 15:59Nilay Patel?

  So i- i- if you can flash it with this new image and that, you know, would let you put a new operating system on, and then you could make the change to the backdoor and brute force it, right? Put it in the passcode as many times as possible. Why is it only Apple capable of doing that? Like, if I got my hands on your phone and I was a technical genius, could I flash it?

• 16:15Speaker 03

  Here are these two things. Okay, so one is, you can't, it won't accept the up- okay, so if you're normally getting an iOS update on your phone, you have to accept it, which includes the passcode. You can put it in through this DFU mode, but it will only accept it if it's signed by Apple's key. Right? So that's really the central thing. And the other protection that exists that, uh, I think strengthens Neelai's sort of case, uh, that they should do this, is they said, okay, before you sign it, make it so that it only works on this one phone. So it's gonna go in, it's gonna check that it has the ID number that they know this guy's phone has. And if it does, then it'll do all the stuff.

• 16:59Speaker 03

  So wait, and so here's the thing, they can't, if I then get this and I wanna use this to unlock Neelai's phone. I could try to reverse engineer it so that suddenly, you know, either I just delete the line where it says, check this thing, but then when I want to compile it again, I have to sign it with Apple's key, which I don't have.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  So just, just to back up, because I haven't found this as close as you guys have. Right. So the situation already exists where they're saying we can't do it, but they do have a special Apple key that would allow them to do it if they so decided to go down that road.

• 17:31Speaker 03

  Well, no, so they would have, they have to build all this. They have to build the FBI iOS and it's, it is, so yeah, it's going to be tricky. And also like, as anyone who's tried to jailbreak a phone knows, when you try rewriting these things, a lot of the time you just break your phone. And so I think the question of doing something like this that doesn't break the phone and doesn't accidentally erase it and doesn't sort of do all those things is going to be a significant technological challenge. But I mean, the largest, I mean, the second largest technology company in the world.

• 18:06Nilay Patel?

  No, no, they're largest again.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Most valuable back and forth.

• 18:09Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 18:09Nilay Patel?

  I think they're back and forth.

• 18:10Speaker 03

  Was it this that put them over the top?

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Do you think that they should do it because, like if the court had said no, then obviously, like if it was just the FBI and not the court, would you still say Apple should do it? Or are you saying yes, because the court said it? And in the case where the court makes that decision, then Apple should go ahead and take the step of, you know, following.

• 18:27Nilay Patel?

  So once again, I'd like to reiterate that I, I personally, in my heart, do not believe.

• 18:30Speaker 03

  This somewhat weakens your case that you have to constantly disclaim it.

• 18:34Nilay Patel?

  Because, because I know someone's going to like tune in halfway through.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, totally.

• 18:38Nilay Patel?

  Okay, I see it coming. But I think my case for why they should do it is one, they have absolutely bad facts in their favor, right? Like it's a terrorist, like on top of it, like an ISIS terrorist, they can do it.

• 18:55Speaker 03

  Eh, ISIS, ISIS affiliate.

• 18:57Nilay Patel?

  I don't care. Whatever. The facts are bad. Like it just doesn't matter. Like the headlines are bad for them. They can do it on this particular model of phone and they probably can't do it on any other model of, on any newer model of phone. And if they're smart, the iPhone seven and the seven S and the eight will be even harder than the five S, right? So it's like, yeah, you know what? You should break the five C, like give them the five C and then be like, you know what? We basically rope it up to you and we broke this one crap phone. But we can't break the five S because it has touch ID and a secure enclave. We can't break the six or the six S and the seven is even more secure. And the eight actually doesn't even have a screen and contains no data.

• 19:39Nilay Patel?

  But basically, like they're in a position where they can give up this one.

• 19:44Speaker 03

  Give up the dead terrorist.

• 19:45Nilay Patel?

  Give up this one dead terrorist and say, our future products will be, are already currently engineered such that we can't do this. And you should explain the secure.

• 19:54Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, so the secure, okay, okay. So we're gonna follow vegetables with more vegetables, but.

• 20:00Nilay Patel?

  But then, then we leak cake.

• 20:02Speaker 03

  So once they put in the fingerprint reader, they put in a chip, the A7 chip, which is when it came out, people were excited because it made things faster and better. It's a better chip, but it also has this secure enclave.

• 20:15Nilay Patel?

  Which is basically another computer, as far as I understand.

• 20:17Speaker 03

  I mean, kind of. The funny thing is, this was already, like, this is generically known in security as the secure element. And it's just like, things have secure elements. And of course, when Apple does it, they may put a proper name and they're like, it's the secure enclave.

• 20:30Nilay Patel?

  That's more ostentatious.

• 20:31Speaker 03

  And it's like a French root.

• 20:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, where does secure enclave, where does that go on the hype matrix?

• 20:38Nilay Patel?

  Your phone has a separate secure computer inside of it.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  Sounds practical elegant.

• 20:44Nilay Patel?

  There you go. I like it.

• 20:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:47Nilay Patel?

  Anyhow.

• 20:48Speaker 03

  Listen, we all like to go to our own secure enclave when things are feeling rough.

• 20:53Nilay Patel?

  That's what I call a bathroom.

• 20:56Speaker 03

  But so, and here's where it gets interesting for like the Apple people is the 5C. Okay, the reason, okay, so for instance, secure elements generally, like Samsung phones have a secure element.

• 21:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 21:11Speaker 03

  It's not a secure enclave, but it's basically the same thing. And this is why like there's actually the fingerprint reader is pretty hard to hack, right? And so the point of this is to make a very strong bond between the fingerprint reader and it's sort of a hardware root of the entire security system.

• 21:26Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 21:26Speaker 03

  So they're constantly checking the secure element and this is where the passcode goes and then it's mixed up with a bunch of other things. And then when it comes out, it's much, much stronger and really hard to crack. So this is why generally if you're trying to run a program that does this, it has to use the processing of the secure element and there are all these, it gets really complicated. But it's hard.

• 21:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 21:47Speaker 03

  And what the FBI is proposing for the 5C, again, because they're so specific about it, they're like, it exists in RAM and then it's going to rewrite software, which will then, you know, the software of iOS, which we think of as the firmware of the phone. It's sort of a little bit, anyway, it gets squishy. But the point is you can't do that same thing on an iPhone 5S.

• 22:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 22:12Speaker 03

  Because it has the fingerprint reader, it has a secure element.

• 22:14Nilay Patel?

  So why not break this one phone?

• 22:16Speaker 03

  Well, here's the thing.

• 22:17Nilay Patel?

  If you can't do it.

• 22:18Speaker 03

  Well, now, now maybe.

• 22:20Nilay Patel?

  Do it with the newer phones. Why not break the phone that you can't?

• 22:22Speaker 03

  So here's the tricky thing. So it's clearly harder if the phone has a secure element because what, basically what you have to do is, you know, you're rewriting the firmware on the phone, you have to rewrite the firmware on the chip, which it's designed to make it so that you can't do that. That is a fact about the chip, but there's always some way, like in security, you never say anything is impossible. And then the FBI, they've probably thought about this. I mean, I don't think, we fundamentally just don't know if it can be done, but that's not to say it can't be done. And then pretty soon they're over at Apple saying, listen, you know, you guys dragged your heels on this other thing and it turned out you could do it.

• 23:04Speaker 03

  And now, hey, we've got another dead terrorist, another phone, and it's a slightly more expensive phone. And I don't know, make it work or we're gonna put some weird export regulations on you and you won't be able to sell phones in China anymore, right?

• 23:16Nilay Patel?

  Right. Well, I mean, I think that's a thing. So this is, I made no headway on CNBC.

• 23:23Nilay Patel?

  Um, I was like, Apple has a billion customers. They have a billion active devices. iMessage sends 200, like, this is a disaster if this, if they weaken their software.

• 23:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:35Nilay Patel?

  And then it cracks and everybody can do this.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  So here's, here's the other weird thing, right? So everyone's sort of worried about the precedent and like what comes next. And so one of the next orders could be like, okay, break to secure on Clayton phone, right? Cause it doesn't seem really, you wouldn't feel that safe if you were Tim Cook and be like, okay, but like just this one. But then the other thing that could happen is they say, listen, we keep coming back to you every week to like, crack someone's phone. You know, we've got a lot of these DEA's arresting all these people. Like we've got a whole government that's arresting people and trying to look in their phones. And clearly we have the right to do this. So maybe just make one without the specific phone tag. And we can just apply it ourselves and we won't have to keep coming back to you. At which point that piece of software becomes incredibly dangerous.

• 24:21Speaker 03

  Like if it ever got out, because there are also a huge, there's a huge world full of like, people who steal iPhones and they're really interested in ways to unlock phones. And so if something like this that had a little bit less of a protection ever got out, that would be really bad. And maybe the protections stay in place, but someone finds a zero day, or someone finds like some clever hack that wouldn't otherwise have been a big deal. But then you already have this and then pretty soon, you know, you're buying like locked phones for 50 bucks. And unlocking them in like a warehouse in Bushwick somewhere and selling them for 500.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  What if like you made it to that?

• 25:01Nilay Patel?

  The track fund story.

• 25:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Once you get, you know, once you say, okay, here's the backdoor, whatever it is, or here's the exception to the rule, whatever it is, there's a slippery slope. It might get out or somebody might figure out a better method. But I mean, could you say like, here's the way it could be done, but it requires an enormous, you know, an enormous investment of time or money or computation.

• 25:19Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, I mean, the FBI is willing to pay them.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  So it's only the FBI or somebody else would find it worthwhile, right? It like, wouldn't be worthwhile if you're just stealing iPhones, because it requires.

• 25:27Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, you wouldn't be able to like, like. You know, you'd have to hire someone really good who would want to do something legal.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:34Speaker 03

  I mean, one, one assumes. Who knows? Maybe it's already out there, but, um, but yeah, so once it's built, then it's just kind of this, this gun on the table, right? Like it can, this, it's just like the Watchmen. I don't know. Once you build the nuke, then people have nukes.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I just think they should break the phone.

• 25:54Speaker 03

  Wait. Except you don't think that.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  I don't, I mean, I, I think the encryption debate, and you've been covering it. It's like back. It's back in this weird way where it was like around in the nineties and it was around in the early two thousands. And the tech geeks have always won. I mean, they've basically always won.

• 26:12Speaker 03

  Here's the other weird thing is right now, all of the pressure in this has basically come from the FBI, DAs and like some judges, right? The judge who signed the order incidentally used to be a DA.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:29Speaker 03

  I mean, not that that's a scandal in any way, but it's like, yeah, like, and, and, and we saw like some weird bills in the New York and California legislature that were like explicitly lobbied for by DAs. And like the, the desire for something like this within law enforcement is very, very strong. But once you get outside of law enforcement, and this is also like as this case moves to appeals and maybe gets appealed all the way to the Supreme Court and we get kind of further from the grunt level. Like I am putting people in handcuffs every day and need to like make a case to put this guy in jail because he obviously did it. Like, once you get farther from that, I wonder how strong the appetite for it continues to be.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  There was a great like, uh, comment thread that I was reading through that was basically saying in the 1990s, when we would have these meetings with the military and the people who were thinking about cybersecurity, they basically said to the private sector, you need to do a better job of figuring this stuff out. So we don't fall behind our enemies.

• 27:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:25Speaker 01

  And now we did a really good job and law enforcement is saying you did too good of a job. You have to like turn this around and like, yeah, just give us a way in.

• 27:32Speaker 03

  Well, and I mean, the security problems in the federal government, like just within like not getting hacked by China are like pretty severe.

• 27:41Speaker 03

  I feel like probably you could come up with a situation that made everyone unhappy where like, in fact, citizens have zero rights and also the federal government has really good and secure tools. Like, that world's probably possible. So I never want to like prosecute that case too aggressively.

• 28:00Nilay Patel?

  I just, I mean, I just think, first of all, I think Apple's gonna lose. Like, to be really clear, this is the thing.

• 28:06Speaker 03

  Well, they're gonna lose. They're gonna lose in.

• 28:09Nilay Patel?

  This case.

• 28:09Speaker 03

  In this, no, but like, like, on appeal or something.

• 28:14Nilay Patel?

  Well, I mean, they've already lost, right? The judge told them to do it. They're gonna appeal and they're gonna lose again. Like, they're just gonna keep, I don't, I just don't see the United States justice system coming down in favor of, don't crack this phone. And I also think, I don't see the United States public saying, oh, you should definitely keep the phone protected. I think a lot of people, like, there's another million cases where you want Apple to be able to unlock a phone for you. Like, if a loved one dies and you don't know their passcode, like, I think a lot of people have the reasonable expectation that Apple should be able to unlock that phone.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  That's why you put that in your will, so that they know.

• 28:48Nilay Patel?

  Right. Now, there's a whole, there's a whole set of services that lawyers provide, like estate lawyers. There's a whole thing where it's like, you give me a USB key with all of your passwords and some instructions and then you die and like, I plug it in, I delete your Ashley Madison account. Like, this is a thing that people do now.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  You know what the greatest USB key of all time is?

• 29:04Nilay Patel?

  The one that has my Ashley Madison account on it.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  That is worth a lot to me, as someone who works for you, that, what was the article? It was in Wired, the one where they were like, oh, this is the guy who invented Bitcoin. This guy is really Satoshi or whatever, whatever.

• 29:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  But there is like a, you know, small USB thumb drive that that guy wore around his neck, which probably has a billion dollars worth of Bitcoin on it. Probably. That he just carried around with him all the time and took with him to the grave.

• 29:25Speaker 03

  Wait, which Satoshi was this?

• 29:26Speaker 01

  The most recent Australian one. And then there was like an American guy who he worked with?

• 29:30Speaker 03

  I feel like I wouldn't. You can snatch necklaces, right? Chain snatching is like a thing.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  That's why, he never took it off any wart and that's why.

• 29:38Nilay Patel?

  Do you know that Russell, I don't know if you guys have seen this.

• 29:41Speaker 03

  Chain snatching.

• 29:42Nilay Patel?

  But there's like a, we, we've just quietly started a video series with Russell where he reenacts crimes.

• 29:48Speaker 03

  No.

• 29:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So like the first video is up, it's called like the.

• 29:51Speaker 03

  Neelai has to say that I'm reenacting them for legal reasons, but I'm committing crimes.

• 29:57Nilay Patel?

  It's the, the evil maid attack.

• 29:59Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 29:59Nilay Patel?

  We like shot a video where like.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  I was the victim.

• 30:01Nilay Patel?

  Ben was the victim. And it's like, this is how an evil maid would like rob your computer.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  What does this have to do with The Verge? It sounds like a hobby.

• 30:10Nilay Patel?

  It's Russell doing computer crimes? Computer crimes are super vergy.

• 30:13Speaker 02

  Computer crimes?

• 30:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:14Speaker 02

  I was thinking chain snatching on the subway.

• 30:16Speaker 03

  They're still, computer crimes are still cool though.

• 30:18Nilay Patel?

  Episode is like, it's like how to get rid of a body.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. In that same comment thread about, you know, the one that was like, well, the military told us to make encryption so strong. And now, long for console in our case, they had this awesome like Ocean's Eleven type thing about how you would get past the secure element. And like, when they make it, they blow the fuses at the factory, but you could re-solder those and flash them. And it's just like, I'm thinking like Ocean's Eleven, you know, like go into the phone and you're like trying to do all this crazy hardware stuff.

• 30:42Nilay Patel?

  Every time they, they talk about breaking this phone, I imagine a large room with a huge machine in the center with like a glass window with a lightning cable coming out of it. And that's the one machine that can crack a phone. And it's like.

• 30:53Speaker 03

  That's what they want though. That's what's so weird.

• 30:55Nilay Patel?

  Right. That's like, that is actually what they're talking about. And like, there's like a team of like Russian hackers and Chinese hackers are like breaking in through the vents and crawling through the ducts. And they're trying to get in the room and like plug in the one phone.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  It's actually like Johnny Ive's DNA. You have to take like a cheek sample and then decode that.

• 31:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  That's Apple's key.

• 31:11Nilay Patel?

  The code word is aluminium. Here's a walk up to the thing and say aluminium. The glass door opens, steam begins rising.

• 31:19Speaker 03

  This is, what I worry is that like, there are a lot of movies where security gets broken. Like they break in and they don't, they like get away with the thing.

• 31:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 31:28Speaker 03

  In Mission Impossible and like, everyone loves a good heist. There's none of them where they're like, nope, we couldn't do it. We couldn't get into that vault.

• 31:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 31:38Speaker 03

  It was just, you know, that guy was responsible and he did, he thought of the important things and yeah, he followed best practices. So, yeah, there's nothing we can do. We have to.

• 31:48Nilay Patel?

  Sorry boss, it was a two factor.

• 31:50Speaker 03

  Leave our lives of crime. Yeah.

• 31:52Nilay Patel?

  Uh, Nicola, do you think they should break the phone?

• 31:54Speaker 02

  Oh man.

• 31:55Nilay Patel?

  Gut instinct. Do you think they should break the phone? It doesn't matter what you say. Just say what's in your heart.

• 32:04Speaker 02

  I really don't, I don't want to go on, I don't want to.

• 32:06Nilay Patel?

  You think they should break the phone?

• 32:07Speaker 03

  Most people think they should break the phone.

• 32:10Nilay Patel?

  Becky's aunts were emailing her yesterday, like, do they think, does Neil I think they should break the phone? Because we.

• 32:15Speaker 03

  I would say generally, verge employees' parents, like, like the older generation, I've heard a number of stories where people are like, yeah, hmm.

• 32:23Nilay Patel?

  Just break the phone.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  One third of the time you say Becky, I think of office Becky.

• 32:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, Becky's aunts, our office managers, extended families, routinely emailing me about encryption.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  That's why I was like, uh.

• 32:37Speaker 03

  But, okay, let me just point out, before we leave this entirely, just my counterpoint.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Down the wrong pipe?

• 32:46Nilay Patel?

  No, I thought about office Becky's aunts.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  Eli's choking on white wine right now.

• 32:54Nilay Patel?

  It was really funny for one second. Because they're also from Wisconsin.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you could know each other. Me too, you know, we could all be in the mix.

• 33:02Nilay Patel?

  That was really bad.

• 33:03Speaker 03

  But, okay, so the counterpoint, and this is a point that, like, it's very difficult to say absolutely for sure.

• 33:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  But it's pretty clear, there is nothing on the phone. Like, they're not gonna find anything.

• 33:18Nilay Patel?

  Oh, he burned all the other phones.

• 33:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, so he burned these other phones. This was his work phone, which, like, is legally convenient, but it also means, like, if he needs to make contact with, like, the ISIS, like, puppet master who doesn't exist, he's probably not gonna call from the work phone. He had opportunities to burn it when he burned the other phones. It was backing up to iCloud until, like, a couple of weeks before the event. So, like, all the stuff that was backed up on iCloud, they have, because it's on the servers and they just give them a warrant and then Apple hands it over. So, like... There's really nothing on the phone.

• 33:54Nilay Patel?

  Oh, you should write that story.

• 33:57Speaker 03

  But I don't, I mean, I can't prove that. I don't know, maybe then they find out.

• 34:00Nilay Patel?

  But Apple routinely hands things over from iCloud because of the third-party doctrine.

• 34:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally. No, all of our stuff is, this was part of my, this was one of the five big lies of the encryption debate.

• 34:10Nilay Patel?

  You should write this story. I'm gonna tell the audience of the story. None of you out there write this story, because Russell's gonna write it first. The third-party doctrine is...

• 34:17Speaker 03

  Oh my god, he's getting into legal proceedings.

• 34:19Nilay Patel?

  I'm gonna do it. The third-party doctrine is this weird exception to the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure.

• 34:25Speaker 03

  Smith v. Maryland, dude.

• 34:27Nilay Patel?

  Where if a third-party, if you send your data to a third-party, you no longer have any reasonable expectation of privacy in that data. The government can come and search it. So all of your iCloud is stored in a third-party. Obviously, it's Apple. So the government can just, they don't even have to talk to you, they just issue a warrant to Apple. And the law says you have no reasonable expectation of privacy in what you sent to iCloud. So Apple can just hand it over. It's the same with Google, it's the same with Dropbox, same with Microsoft, like just down the line. Anything that you transmit to a third-party is no longer within the scope of your Fourth Amendment protections.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  So whatever they want on this phone is only something that's stored locally on the phone. Nothing, the cloud is already wide open.

• 35:04Nilay Patel?

  I don't think they want anything on this phone, this is Russell's point. They just want, they just have a terrorist with an iPhone that Apple can definitely break. And they want to prove that the law gives them the power to break the phone.

• 35:16Speaker 03

  But yeah, so this whole argument from the beginning is just like stuff that's on your iPhone and nowhere else, right? Which, again, if you want to know who he called, who he texted, talk to Verizon.

• 35:27Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 35:28Speaker 03

  Like...

• 35:29Speaker 01

  This would only be notes that he kept for himself.

• 35:31Nilay Patel?

  The only thing they can't get is his iMessages, because those are encrypted end-to-end. So presumably, if he's like ISIS forever in his iMessage.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, seems like a dumb terrorist move to be like i-messaging about plans.

• 35:46Speaker 02

  Let me just shoot off some iMessages about the big plans.

• 35:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, hang on, Theresa. I'll send you that spreadsheet in a minute. I gotta send these ISIS text messages. I don't know, that's, I just, if you worked in the government office in sort of San Bernardino, wouldn't you expect everyone around you is like, "Let me get the spreadsheets." No, that's just, I've never had a real job. Let's be clear. All right, is there anything else to say about this? You think he should break, they should break the phone?

• 36:11Speaker 02

  I mean, I feel like I don't know if I have enough information to really say that.

• 36:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 36:16Speaker 02

  But, so I wouldn't, I wouldn't put my...

• 36:18Nilay Patel?

  I think most people believe in their hearts. Not in this case that Apple should break the phone, that if they forget their passcode, or somebody passes away and they get that phone, that they should be able to walk in an Apple Store and prove that there's significant other, whatever bad thing happened. I forgot, it's my phone, I can prove it, here's a receipt, and Apple should unlock that phone for them.

• 36:42Speaker 03

  Here's the other question that's kind of interesting, and I think like we have very skewed views of this. But, like, in all seriousness, do people in general who don't read tech blogs like Apple?

• 36:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:59Speaker 03

  Like, that's, well, and like, how much? Like, is it like a eight or a nine or like, wha- 'cause, 'cause that's the question. People don't like the FBI, historically.

• 37:10Nilay Patel?

  No, they do. I think regular people are like, "Yeah, they're the cool ones." People hate cops. They don't-

• 37:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:15Nilay Patel?

  They, they, I think like the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, they're like, "Ooh."

• 37:19Speaker 03

  Uh, maybe that's right.

• 37:20Nilay Patel?

  Those are the guys with the cooler cars.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  But like, I do think, I mean, now, this isn't gonna be-

• 37:24Nilay Patel?

  They drive, they drive all-black Crown Victorias.

• 37:27Speaker 03

  And they have sunglasses, it's great. Um, I mean, I don't know. The thing is, it'll be decided by a judge who will probably not have, like, have somewhat different opinions in this, but I think there is-

• 37:39Speaker 03

  I can imagine a world in which people are like tired of terrorism being exploited for political gain, which has kind of like, we're sort of at the point where you can acknowledge that that's happened.

• 37:51Nilay Patel?

  Have you been watching this election? I don't know what you're talking about.

• 37:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I mean, eh, you know, but Donald Trump's out there, you know, talking about.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  I think that Becky's aunts or Becky's aunts, either set of Becky's aunts are unlikely to make their smartphone purchasing decisions based on this case, no matter which way it goes.

• 38:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  I mean, like, we have people who are very principled about it because it's a terrorist. But I don't think like six months from now, they're like, I'm getting an Android. Like, screw Apple.

• 38:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  They didn't do what I thought they should do.

• 38:16Nilay Patel?

  People listening to this show, though.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Will.

• 38:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no matter what we say. It doesn't matter.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  Right. They have strong opinions.

• 38:22Nilay Patel?

  You know, it's sad because Windows phone is the most secure. But offering system of all.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Because nobody uses.

• 38:30Nilay Patel?

  It's never been cracked because no one cared. All right, let's move on to the next.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Speaking of Windows.

• 38:34Nilay Patel?

  Speaking of Windows.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  I did a story this week.

• 38:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I did.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  It was all about Chromebooks, which you recently purchased for your family.

• 38:42Nilay Patel?

  I'm deep in the Chromebook game. I'm like, I'm a believer. And it's funny, I have a lot of, but you keep going. I have a lot of thoughts.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  So it was just about how lots and lots of schools have lots of hardware that has basically turned into cruft. They stopped using it. You have to imagine these Windows laptops that get passed around to school where 20 different people use it and within six months, it's so full of viruses and adware that like it takes 15 minutes to boot up. So they would like abandon these. And then somebody came in and said, look, you could just convert that into a Chromebook, not technically one, because that's a trademark, but a machine that runs Chrome. And all of a sudden it boots up in a minute or 30 seconds and it's easy to pass around, like anybody can log into it and suddenly like they're in, it's their account. So it was a little bit about this startup in New York, Neverware, that lets schools convert them. And then it was also largely about the fact that like in 2012, I think Google had less than 1% of the market.

• 39:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  In terms of new devices sold. And now they outsell Microsoft and Apple together. They outsell every other, 51% of all new devices bought in education are Chromebooks.

• 39:41Nilay Patel?

  That's crazy.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  It's crazy. So yeah, just, you know, the cloud computing revolution at work. And the question I think that remains is like. How much stuff is there really left that like requires a computer that isn't just a netbook? Like, are we gonna get to a point where 75% of devices, 90% of devices bought? And as, as a company, we're kind of already at that point, right?

• 40:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  At least me as a reporter, not our video editors, but I could come in every day and work on a Chromebook and it-

• 40:05Speaker 02

  I left my laptop at home one day and Dieter gave me a Chromebook and I did my whole job.

• 40:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 40:10Speaker 02

  I did my whole job.

• 40:12Nilay Patel?

  I'm gonna, I have an old MacBook.

• 40:15Nilay Patel?

  But part of your job is like going out in the world and like doing things.

• 40:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, but also I am like not, there are people on my team who save things to their real computer and I'm like, "Why do you save things to your computer? We have Google Docs."

• 40:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So the question-

• 40:28Speaker 02

  And Dropbox.

• 40:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  And like all this stuff, why are we, why are you sending me a file? Why isn't it in Dropbox?

• 40:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 40:35Speaker 02

  There are hurdles.

• 40:36Nilay Patel?

  There are real hurdles.

• 40:36Speaker 02

  It's not the verge.

• 40:37Nilay Patel?

  You gotta drag people with you.

• 40:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:39Nilay Patel?

  You gotta bring them along.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  We're talking about a new edit calendar system and it is gonna be-

• 40:44Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 40:44Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:45Nilay Patel?

  No, I'm, I'm very interested. I mean, what's, is it Trello? Is it Trello with dates?

• 40:48Speaker 02

  It's just Google Calendar.

• 40:49Nilay Patel?

  Oh, it's just-

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 40:50Speaker 02

  It's moving from a text document to a calendar and it will not be seamless.

• 40:56Nilay Patel?

  It will not, uh, don't use Google Calendar for that.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  What should we do?

• 40:58Nilay Patel?

  Use Trello with dates, with dates on the cards.

• 41:00Speaker 02

  We've tried Trello and-

• 41:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, do it. Trello. Trello, the only company that matters. Uh, we don't have ads on the show today, so-

• 41:08Speaker 02

  Kindness.

• 41:09Nilay Patel?

  Just talk one out.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Kindness, an ad for kindness.

• 41:11Nilay Patel?

  If anyone at Fox Creek Software wants to throw me a couple bucks, uh, Trello, just fucking use it, okay?

• 41:17Speaker 02

  Venmo, Venmo has $10 and will shell anything you want.

• 41:23Speaker 03

  They don't wanna be associated now that you sided with the government.

• 41:26Nilay Patel?

  I know. Uh, Trello, you should break your encryption. Everyone should see the racked editorial calendar. Now in Trello.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  I was, I was talking to, but you, you were talking about the calendar, right? I was talking to our, uh, stalwart Microsoft reporter, Tom Warren. And I was talking about this story, cause like, you know, what's Microsoft doing to try and not like lose? This is like a serious existential threat to them, right?

• 41:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Like, you lose all the K-12 schools and then all of a sudden like, most of the, you know, businesses are like, "Well, we wouldn't mind spending 70%, you know, 70% less on our IT. That sounds pretty okay."

• 41:54Nilay Patel?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  And he was like, "Oh, well, you know, kids will use Chromebooks in, in the beginning, but then they get to high school and they have to do spreadsheets and then they'll really need a Windows machine." And I thought, "What the fuck?" That's your example of some like really high powered, you know, activity that requires like a serious Windows machine with like a solid state drive and all this, you know, it's like, spreadsheets? What are you talking about?

• 42:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so yeah.

• 42:15Speaker 03

  Well, I also wonder, I mean, it's funny because I always look at like Adware as like a story and sort of think about it. And, and like, what does it mean that there's all this crap out there that just piles up on machines?

• 42:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:26Speaker 03

  And it really is sort of, Windows as an ecosystem has just been out there for long enough and fragmented in such a way that it's hard to really keep that stuff from proliferating. And it gets to a point where it's a problem for Microsoft as a company now because they can just switch to Chromebooks and Chromebooks, it's like a shiny new operating system that's got like, you know, is a little bit immune to these things.

• 42:54Nilay Patel?

  I think there's actually a huge crazy market here, just go with me on this, for sick old computers running this neverware version. It's just called Cloud Ready, right?

• 43:05Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:06Nilay Patel?

  It's a neverware. So like, I might buy a Titanium PowerBook and put, oh, I can't because that's PowerPC. This is like those old cars.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Do they run on PowerPC or just Intel processors? Oh, no, they run on many different kinds of very common.

• 43:20Nilay Patel?

  I'm betting they don't run on PowerPC chips.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  I'll have to find out.

• 43:22Nilay Patel?

  If they make a version of Cloud Ready that runs on the PowerPC G4 and I can put that shit on a Titanium PowerBook, do you remember that thing?

• 43:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:29Nilay Patel?

  The sickest laptop ever made.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  This is gonna be the fastest Chromebook of all time.

• 43:32Nilay Patel?

  No, well, because that thing was ancient. That thing came out in like 2001.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  Doesn't matter.

• 43:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but like, that was-

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Even a 10-year-old computer has crazy hardware compared to your Chromebook.

• 43:40Nilay Patel?

  I challenge the audience. Tell me what is the sickest old laptop you can put this, you can put Chrome OS on?

• 43:45Speaker 03

  This is like the Fast and Furious garage of computers where you're like, yeah, I've had this Chromebook since 72.

• 43:52Nilay Patel?

  What's the coolest laptop you can think of?

• 43:54Speaker 02

  The one I have.

• 43:55Nilay Patel?

  Oh, God. That thing is like, the MacBook Air, where's your Matrix? It's like-

• 44:03Nilay Patel?

  Where's the one that's like, where's the section labeled like, obvious?

• 44:07Speaker 03

  Drab and practical.

• 44:08Nilay Patel?

  No, drab and practi- so the MacBook Air is drab practical now?

• 44:11Speaker 02

  I think it's elegant practical.

• 44:13Nilay Patel?

  Nah, it's just like everyone has one.

• 44:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it's still elegant, it still looks, you know, it's clean.

• 44:18Nilay Patel?

  Can you be elegant if everybody has it?

• 44:20Speaker 01

  So, but Neelai?

• 44:21Speaker 02

  It's not about being exclusive, Neelai.

• 44:23Nilay Patel?

  I think elegance implies a level of exclusivity.

• 44:26Speaker 02

  No.

• 44:27Nilay Patel?

  No?

• 44:28Speaker 02

  No.

• 44:29Nilay Patel?

  Okay, well, then you and I disagree on it.

• 44:31Speaker 02

  It's fine.

• 44:31Nilay Patel?

  On our completely subjective definitions of elegance.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  I'm in the comments on the YouTube live thing, and believe me, there are a lot of follow-up questions about the Matrix. I had to tell Jared to chill, but like, it's good.

• 44:43Nilay Patel?

  Whoa. Yeah, you dropped a, you dropped some F-bombs on the Twitter when people were sending you the gaming mice. By the way, thank you to the audience for immediately tweeting gaming mice.

• 44:53Speaker 02

  I like the people who po- who sent me pictures of mice on...

• 44:56Nilay Patel?

  Actual mice?

• 44:57Speaker 02

  Gaming controllers. That was the best. Like, cute animals, duh.

• 45:02Nilay Patel?

  That's pretty good. I guess, so what's the sickest laptop you would put? Cause this is a whole thing, right? If you are the sort of, just think about this, I want everybody to clear their mind. You're the sort of person who can get your life accomplished inside of Chrome OS. Suddenly, you are free from the boundaries of time and space when it comes to computing hardware.

• 45:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:22Nilay Patel?

  You no longer need the newest one, you can just literally pick the one that looks the dopest.

• 45:29Nilay Patel?

  Then I'm, I'm saying to me, that is a titanium power book. Like, if I just rolled into a meeting with that thing, people are like, what is that? I'd be like, this is the sickest laptop ever made, and I'm using it right now.

• 45:39Speaker 03

  And then they're like, oh, let me send you this spreadsheet.

• 45:43Nilay Patel?

  And I'm like, oh, foiled by another high school student!

• 45:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 45:47Nilay Patel?

  Oh, why am I always talking to high school seniors?

• 45:49Speaker 01

  So, but that's the crazy thing, is that there is like 10 years' worth of laptops, and all of this horsepower and hardware that is like, thrown on the junk pile, which suddenly you could resurrect and people could use. And when this guy in Ovid, L C, Michigan, an hour outside of Flint, like the middle of nowhere, saw the school doing that, he literally opened up a store now where he sells like, he takes junk laptops... That people pay him to take because you have to pay to recycle them.

• 46:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 46:15Speaker 01

  They're full of lead, turns them into Chromebooks and then sells them to people. He has like a Chromebook store.

• 46:21Nilay Patel?

  This is amazing.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  Nothing but recycled computers.

• 46:22Nilay Patel?

  Can we go to this store?

• 46:24Speaker 01

  I have pitched it as a follow up.

• 46:26Nilay Patel?

  The Chromebooks, and it's just dope old laptops.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  It's just dope old laptops.

• 46:30Nilay Patel?

  Yes, laptops are back.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  Right, it's like a 1950's car that has an engine that's too big.

• 46:34Speaker 03

  This is really like, this is like the Mad Max cars. It's like society has ended. All we have is this Corvette on tank treads.

• 46:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 46:42Speaker 03

  And it looks incredibly junky, but like I, there's this guy sort of playing guitar on the back of it and I like it.

• 46:50Nilay Patel?

  It's Chrome OS.

• 46:51Speaker 03

  The guitarist of Chrome OS.

• 46:53Nilay Patel?

  No, this is awesome. I'm gonna do this and this is like my weekend, you know, nerd project.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're actually gonna, we're gonna do like an explainer video, how to do it. So wait.

• 47:01Nilay Patel?

  Oh my god, someone sent me a picture of the Dell Adama. Literally, I remember when we reviewed the Dell Adama, I think we reviewed it at Engadget. Like Josh's last line was Dell should really consider why it decided to make this product. Like, it's like he has no reason that this should exist.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  Um, we have like 10 minutes left. I want to talk about drones because I know you had a blast using one.

• 47:22Nilay Patel?

  I did.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  I encouraged you to take it and it seems like you went above and beyond everything I dreamed you would do with it.

• 47:27Nilay Patel?

  Uh, I love drones.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:29Nilay Patel?

  They're the coolest. Uh, so I took the Phantom 3 Professional out of our review closet, so I have to give it back.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:36Nilay Patel?

  Um, uh, yeah, I got fairly good at flying it. You know, when you like learn how to do something, but it is outside of boundaries of like other people teaching you, you just develop what you believe are the right ways to do something.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:52Nilay Patel?

  Does this make any sense?

• 47:53Speaker 01

  You got better. You don't know.

• 47:54Speaker 03

  That's how I am with Rocket League.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  With best practices, but you were doing it. You're self taught.

• 47:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I was like, here's, here are the best practices. So I like, I have all these ideas about how the drone should fly. None of them, I'm assuming are right, but I was so afraid to fly it at the beginning. I was like terrified that like, Becky, the one I'm married to, not the one who works in this office, she was like leaving for the day on a Saturday and she's like, what are you gonna do? And I was like, I'm gonna go outside and fly the hell out of that drone. And then she came back and I was like still in the kitchen watching YouTube videos.

• 48:26Nilay Patel?

  Because I was like, I'm gonna kill someone. Like, basically, it's flying death.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  But here's the thing about the drone. You went from being really afraid to fly it, to feeling you're getting pretty good, to doing something really stupid where you attached a lot of extra hardware and like used it at a wedding.

• 48:37Nilay Patel?

  Flew it into a wedding.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  The most dangerous thing possible.

• 48:41Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah. It's funny. Once you... Now, the CR48 Chromebook is not the dopest laptop ever made. It is... It is... It looks amazing. I... Sorry, I was supposed to unmute you. It looks amazing, the CR48, but it is the slowest piece of junk ever.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  Well, that's because it wasn't running Chrome.

• 48:59Nilay Patel?

  It was running Chrome OS. It was the first Chrome OS device. But it looked amazing because it had no branding. It was just like a totally matte black object. Like, no branding, no divots, no nothing.

• 49:09Speaker 02

  Love it. Sounds elegant as hell.

• 49:13Nilay Patel?

  It was like super exclusive. It's a thing that I'm saying about elegance. I think elegance implies like a slight level of like, it's just one tick. It's just one tick above the mainstream. Do you know what I mean?

• 49:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:27Nilay Patel?

  It's like, it's not a lot. It's just, it's more thoughtful than what everyone else has. That's like a...

• 49:33Speaker 02

  It's a gloss. It's got a gloss to it.

• 49:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And the MacBook Air has not... The MacBook Air is literally what everyone else has.

• 49:38Speaker 02

  Standard issue.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was elegant when it came out, but now that elegance has been rubbed off by the fact that it's like so...

• 49:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Right. It's like...

• 49:46Speaker 02

  Which is part of a larger thing we've been talking about.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  Eagles songs are really elegant, but you've heard them so many times that they sound kinda chintzy.

• 49:52Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Eagles songs are elegant?

• 49:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:54Nilay Patel?

  I think we just had the ultimate Ben Popper dad moment on the verge.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  I got so deadened out last night. I was watching this Eagles documentary, and I was like, I hate all of these songs, but yet, right now, as a 32-year-old watching a documentary about the Eagles' rise to fame, I find myself loving them.

• 50:09Nilay Patel?

  I had this moment. So, let me tell you three stories about the Eagles. That's my new podcast. It's Three Stories About the Eagles, with Neil I. Patel. And I just bring in guests, and we just talk about the Eagles. At CES, I was sitting in, I believe it was the Volvo booth. It's a crazy, like, $100,000 Volvo SUV for like, the soccer mom with the side hustle, right?

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:35Nilay Patel?

  She's a sock... It's like weeds.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  Weeds, yeah, no.

• 50:37Nilay Patel?

  It's like basically, right?

• 50:38Speaker 01

  Didn't she? Or no, I don't remember.

• 50:40Nilay Patel?

  No, she drove a crap car for a long time. Anyway, but it's the... Basically, like, if you're the mom in weeds, like, you're doing all right, but you also sell all of the weed in your local community. Uh, so it's like this car, it has a screen that like comes up out of the thing and I push the button and the screen comes up. And it's just a DVD of the Eagles live playing Hotel California. And it was like, sounded beautiful, like beautiful sound system in this car, you know, 400 speakers. Subwoofers everywhere, your kids are wearing their own wireless headphones, listening to their own shit in the backseat. But you're just, you're just captivated, driving down the street, watching the Eagles.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 51:17Nilay Patel?

  And it's like, you can check out, we can never leave. And I was like, this, this is the ultimate CES moment. That's what's happening now. Uh, second Eagle story, another Hotel California story.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  Okay. Um. I love how you had three queued up.

• 51:30Nilay Patel?

  That's right. Hotel California has been a real theme with me lately. Uh, we were in the Dominican Republic for Dieter's wedding. Uh, we're like in the pool, great, the figures work. And then the staff is there and they're like, we can play some pool games. Everybody get ready, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap. Right. And we're like, no, we're not doing that. Old biddies in the pool love playing pool games with the staff. So they're all like getting over there. And they, I didn't realize this, it took, look, we're drinking on that. They, they started Hotel California, but then they looped it in Serrato. So I listened to the first, you know, four or eight bars of Hotel California for easily 10 minutes. Before I was like, and I kept on, I was like, all day. So I kept on being like, dun, dun, dun. It didn't happen. Over and over and over again.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:15Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, I don't have a third Hotel California. I mean, I do, but.

• 52:19Speaker 02

  I think it's been enough.

• 52:20Nilay Patel?

  I think the third one, the third one is like, one time I listened to it and I thought it was rad. Like that's basically, well, do you have a Hotel California story?

• 52:26Speaker 02

  No.

• 52:26Speaker 01

  I defy you to watch. Go and watch this documentary on Netflix.

• 52:30Nilay Patel?

  Where does Hotel California go on the hype matrix?

• 52:33Speaker 03

  I feel like that's ostentatious drag.

• 52:36Speaker 02

  You think so?

• 52:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. I'm sorry.

• 52:39Speaker 02

  I'm like begging of my head for myself.

• 52:41Speaker 03

  Don Henley.

• 52:42Nilay Patel?

  Where does Don Henley go on the hype matrix?

• 52:44Speaker 02

  I don't know who that is.

• 52:45Nilay Patel?

  Is there, oh my God.

• 52:47Speaker 03

  Well, you know Glenn Frey, obviously.

• 52:50Speaker 02

  No.

• 52:50Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my god.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  Wow. It is ostentatious. That's why I loved it. Like, if you, I defy you to go watch this Netflix documentary. See them in studio, working on Witchy Woman, and not laugh at them, but also with joy. Like, it's just so 70s. Everything about it is like, these guys are the cheesiest, but they didn't know it, and so it's pure.

• 53:09Nilay Patel?

  Cause they invented it.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  Cause they invented it. Right, exactly.

• 53:11Nilay Patel?

  It's like Slash.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:13Nilay Patel?

  Slash in Guns N' Roses, everything he did is now like, a cartoon. Right? What was that band that played during the Grammys, the Johnny Depp was in? Vampire Hotel, what the hell is it called?

• 53:23Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 53:24Nilay Patel?

  Doctor Zombie, like, that's a terrible name. And it's like, that's like a pastiche of like, 80s glam rock bands. But when Slash was doing it, he was inventing that shit.

• 53:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:34Nilay Patel?

  He was like, what if I grow my hair long and just constantly do heroin and like, hammer-ons? And that's my shtick. And everyone's like, "Brand-new idea!"

• 53:43Speaker 02

  And now, and then it becomes a joke.

• 53:45Nilay Patel?

  What if I wear no shirt, leather pants, and this belt of circles? Hmm, yeah, to Slash, everybody, I did it!

• 53:51Speaker 02

  I feel like that's what Kanye's gonna be. Like, he's gonna do all this whack shit, and then it's gonna create some culture, and then it's gonna become a joke.

• 53:59Nilay Patel?

  He's gonna create some culture.

• 54:01Speaker 01

  I think he might have jumped the shark already.

• 54:02Nilay Patel?

  I don't think so.

• 54:03Speaker 03

  I was worried that with, after Yeezus, I was like, maybe we're into late Kanye now? But I think actually, we're still in the prime Kanye era.

• 54:12Speaker 02

  You think so?

• 54:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I think like, Life of Pablo, like, not maybe like, absolutely his best, but like, I was like, okay, we're not in late Kanye yet.

• 54:21Nilay Patel?

  I haven't listened to it yet. Show this to me.

• 54:22Speaker 03

  Oh, it's awesome, yeah.

• 54:23Nilay Patel?

  I don't have title, um, which is a requirement.

• 54:26Speaker 02

  I did the three-month trial just for it.

• 54:29Nilay Patel?

  Okay, first, you just mumbled that Micah can pirate this album for me, which is useful and wonderful information. You, you signed up for the title.

• 54:36Speaker 02

  I signed up for the title.

• 54:37Nilay Patel?

  What do you think of title?

• 54:37Speaker 02

  Three-month thing. Well, all I did was listen to that.

• 54:41Nilay Patel?

  It'd be years. This is like the era that we live in where you sign up for West Jimmy Music Service once for every exclusive and then you have like seventeen.

• 54:50Speaker 02

  Well, I went on Hot New Hip Hop. I went on SoundCloud. Couldn't find it. My friend sent me the zip thing to whatever. Again, I couldn't figure it out. I had to go. I'd be somewhere. So I like sign. I was like, all right, title. Let's do that. I had like three minutes. I was like, let me see if I can do this in like three minutes.

• 55:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 55:05Speaker 02

  Signed up with the PayPal, set the calendar alert so I don't, I can cancel that and done. And I listened to it.

• 55:11Nilay Patel?

  What did you think?

• 55:12Speaker 02

  I don't love it.

• 55:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 55:14Speaker 02

  It's a fucking mess. I also had heard it. I went, so I went to the album. Well, also, I heard Wolves a year ago at the Passion Show. I was like, oh my God, what the fuck? Obviously heard No More Parties. And what else did he just put out?

• 55:27Speaker 03

  Thirty Hours? Thirty Hours was like on SoundCloud like the day before.

• 55:30Nilay Patel?

  Ultra Lightroom?

• 55:31Speaker 03

  But it was a little less than that?

• 55:32Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no.

• 55:33Nilay Patel?

  Everyone keeps sending me the IBM ThinkPad Butterfly Keyboard Laptop. Yo. I'm just saying, get ready. That thing's in a moma.

• 55:40Speaker 02

  Really?

• 55:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. IBM made this ThinkPad. It's just like in the nineties. There's a butterfly keyboard where it's really small. And when you open the lid, the keyboard raised up and butterflied out. So it became a full-size keyboard deck. I mean, it is literally one of the coolest things ever made. And it's in the moma.

• 55:59Speaker 03

  It's the Eagles of laptops.

• 56:00Nilay Patel?

  You guys.

• 56:01Speaker 03

  What? You like the Eagles? It's fine.

• 56:05Nilay Patel?

  I don't like the Eagles. I'm saying I have a number of stories about the Eagles to tell.

• 56:09Speaker 03

  It's all right.

• 56:10Speaker 02

  Kanye is ostentatious, elegant.

• 56:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think so. I mean, he's maybe closer to the center axis.

• 56:16Nilay Patel?

  Did you play the Kylie Kendall game?

• 56:19Speaker 02

  No, but I stood over Kaitlyn Tiffany's shoulder while she played it. And she showed me that Kylie keeps putting on her lipstick. And then I showed her two photos. Well, whatever. It's a whole other story.

• 56:30Nilay Patel?

  Oh, really? I can, I can die on the hill of the Eagles? You won't finish your Kylie Jenner story?

• 56:36Speaker 02

  Okay, so I had, Kylie and I spent three, three days last week together. The first was Monday, and it was the Kylie and Kendall Collection launch. And we stood very close to each other and have many pictures.

• 56:48Nilay Patel?

  What does she smell like?

• 56:49Speaker 02

  You know what? You're not the first person to ask me that.

• 56:51Nilay Patel?

  I was saying, I know what she looks like.

• 56:53Speaker 02

  Well, the number one thing I noticed is that we have the same nervous tic where we run our nails under our nails.

• 56:58Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 56:59Speaker 02

  Like, she wasn't wearing big nails. She had like little, regular, dark.

• 57:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 57:02Speaker 02

  Black painted nails. And she was like running her, when she was giving interviews, like, there's like a whole lineup of press interviews and she was like running her fingernails into them. And I was like, oh, I do that too. You're so nervous.

• 57:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 57:12Speaker 02

  Oh, your life's horrible. So I had all those pictures of her. And then two days later, I saw her at the V-File show. And she was wearing a lace, see-through lace jumpsuit. But her butt was so much bigger than it had been on Monday. But it was a see-through lace jumpsuit. So it was like, if there's padding or whatever is going on there, it's see-through. So like, I, I'm just perplexed. So I spent a while looking at the photos I took. And the new photos.

• 57:38Speaker 01

  This is actually, that was really helpful because I came into the kitchen and heard that discussion.

• 57:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  But I didn't know who you were talking about. I thought it was somebody at work.

• 57:46Speaker 02

  She showed up on Wednesday in a see-through lace jumpsuit. And I swear, her butt was so intriguing. And then I saw her again at, uh, at Kanye's thing on Thursday, the next day.

• 57:55Nilay Patel?

  Oh, how was the Kanye thing? Give us the two-minute rundown.

• 57:57Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 57:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 57:58Speaker 02

  It was weird. This Madison Square Garden was not full. Um, the layout was strange. I was like sitting in the, I was in section 105. The Kardashians were in section 106. Like, we were right next to each other. There was no, it was all very mellow and like low-key. He played the album. He didn't like perform it. He just played it like listening.

• 58:17Nilay Patel?

  What did he do while he was listening?

• 58:19Speaker 01

  He played it from his laptop and like he would get an email and you would hear the notification. It was super weird.

• 58:23Speaker 03

  Although there's also a phone notification sound in one of the songs, which people are not happy about.

• 58:28Speaker 02

  No, that's in the Rihanna, there's a Rihanna song, the iMessage sound.

• 58:31Speaker 03

  No, no, the, in 30 Hours, at the end, he's just like, there's like, and then she called my phone. And, and like just in a weird ad lib part at the end. And, and the like marimba iPhone ring goes off.

• 58:43Nilay Patel?

  Best ring though, best of the default rings.

• 58:45Speaker 01

  The weird thing about that show was like he's forced. He forced the models to suffer. They had to stand on stage. They couldn't dance. They couldn't smile. They couldn't sit down. And he was jamming out to the music.

• 58:54Nilay Patel?

  Oh, so he was dancing?

• 58:55Speaker 01

  And they were like just suffering on stage. And it was like, why are you making them do, like, let's all have fun at your album release party.

• 59:01Speaker 03

  But like, they're models. I mean, they got paid.

• 59:03Speaker 01

  They looked very unhappy.

• 59:06Nilay Patel?

  Alexa, play Hotel California on Spotify.

• 59:09Speaker 01

  And we're out.

• 59:12Speaker 02

  You can't play, you can't play Life of Pablo on Spotify, so don't even ask her.

• 59:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  Oh my god, Spotify on Alexa has changed my life.

• 59:19Speaker 02

  Really? Tell me about it, because I'm really close to buying the thing.

• 59:22Nilay Patel?

  You got, dude, get in there.

• 59:23Speaker 02

  Should I just do it?

• 59:23Nilay Patel?

  Just do it.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  I loved Alexa before because I wouldn't, I didn't know what was gonna come on, and I would just be like, Alexa, play X artist, and it would be random, whatever Amazon has.

• 59:32Nilay Patel?

  Now, Amazon has nothing.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  And they have nothing. And so then you would find these weird songs. You'd be like, off, period, wrong decade. Oh, I didn't know this.

• 59:39Nilay Patel?

  Oh, this isn't my favorite Eagles jam?

• 59:41Speaker 01

  But I've never heard it before, so it sounds good. I like to hear things for the first time.

• 59:45Nilay Patel?

  This is so elegant.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:46Nilay Patel?

  Oh, this Glenn Frey guitar noodling is so, he was a guitar player, no?

• 59:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, he was.

• 59:52Nilay Patel?

  I love, I love a good guitar noodle.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  Glenn Frey was the guitar player, then they had another one, and they needed, they felt they needed two more.

• 59:58Nilay Patel?

  We've talked about the Eagles too much.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:00:00Nilay Patel?

  I'm just, I'm putting it down. Like, we're like one step away from talking about Rush.

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  So the Flying Barita Brothers before the Eagles.

• 1:00:09Nilay Patel?

  We're so done.

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, Alexa is the bomb. I would recommend getting her. I love her as a music experience. I love being able to just shout out. I'm like wrestling with my kids on the floor, and I'm like, hey, play this, and it just happens.

• 1:00:21Nilay Patel?

  Um, I've been calling Ubers with it, because that is the single most decadent thing you can possibly do in your life. Alexa, ask Uber for a ride.

• 1:00:28Speaker 02

  That's ostentatious elegant, for sure.

• 1:00:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it is the best. And then she's like, there's an Uber, da-da-da, away. And then, and then when you're like, and she's like, would you like me to call it for you? You say yes, and then it makes a spaceship sound until the Uber's.

• 1:00:41Speaker 02

  What does that sound like?

• 1:00:42Nilay Patel?

  It's like, woo.

• 1:00:46Speaker 02

  For like five minutes?

• 1:00:48Nilay Patel?

  No, it's like a couple of seconds. It's not a long time.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  Oh, while it's pinging it.

• 1:00:52Nilay Patel?

  Well, it's, well, until an Uber driver, until an Uber driver says yes.

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  I thought you meant right, the whole time it was coming, it just keeps going like.

• 1:00:59Nilay Patel?

  But it's like, sometimes, and it's like, it's like, this is all the spaceship stuff that I want in my house. Like, I just asked a car, I asked a robot to bring me a car, and it made a spaceship sound.

• 1:01:08Speaker 02

  Oh, it's all happening.

• 1:01:10Nilay Patel?

  And it said, your car is arriving, and I was like, I love you.

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  Right. And then you say, play the Life of Pablo, get in the car, and it's already playing.

• 1:01:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, yeah, you could do that.

• 1:01:16Speaker 02

  Well, you can have the Spotify on the, on the car.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  That is elegant.

• 1:01:21Nilay Patel?

  Nicholas, someone's sending you pictures of trackballs. What, what, trackballs? What do they fall on your, on your?

• 1:01:26Speaker 02

  Dude.

• 1:01:27Nilay Patel?

  All right, I think we know the answer to that. You need a secondary, like, matrix of crappy things?

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  Is this the gif of the butterfly keyboard that I'm getting here?

• 1:01:36Nilay Patel?

  Yes, look at that thing!

• 1:01:37Speaker 01

  That's pretty gorgeous.

• 1:01:39Nilay Patel?

  That is a triumph of hardware engineering.

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  Okay, well, we got our answer then.

• 1:01:42Nilay Patel?

  Alright.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  This is the Chromebook you need.

• 1:01:44Nilay Patel?

  This is the Chromebook you need. Can we get one of those and try to put Chrome OS on it and see if it's fast and awesome? And then that will be my main computer.

• 1:01:51Speaker 01

  We have to get an old computer for, to do, to make this video, so let's get this one.

• 1:01:56Nilay Patel?

  Everybody, okay, here's what I want you to do. Everybody listen to me. The three of you in this room and the hundreds of thousands of people in their cars.

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  Millions, millions.

• 1:02:04Nilay Patel?

  Millions, millions of, millions of nerds, angry nerds who are mad that we talked about. Was it Kylie or Kendall's butt?

• 1:02:12Speaker 02

  Yo.

• 1:02:13Nilay Patel?

  What?

• 1:02:13Speaker 02

  It's Kylie's!

• 1:02:16Speaker 02

  You read no news? Come on! No, oh my god, okay.

• 1:02:21Nilay Patel?

  You said you saw them both?

• 1:02:23Speaker 02

  I know, but whose butt has been a topic of conversation since summer?

• 1:02:27Speaker 03

  I have no idea, yeah.

• 1:02:28Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 1:02:29Nilay Patel?

  Let me ask you a-

• 1:02:30Speaker 02

  This is like my version of you being like, "Which laptop?" And I'm like, "I only know one laptop."

• 1:02:34Speaker 03

  We were chill when you didn't know that, you know, members of the Eagles. We were totally fine with it.

• 1:02:39Nilay Patel?

  What is the more difficult engineering challenge? Building a backdoor into the iPhone that keeps the operating system secure? Or see-through lace jumpsuit that does not reveal the padding that makes the butt bigger?

• 1:02:50Speaker 02

  It's a lot of engineering going on in both elements.

• 1:02:55Speaker 02

  Backdoor is happening.

• 1:02:56Nilay Patel?

  Real secure element joke right there. Real secure element joke, just waiting for us. Anyway, that unfortunately is how the show will end.

• 1:03:03Speaker 02

  Bye!

• 1:03:04Nilay Patel?

  Goodbye, everybody.

• 1:03:05Speaker 02

  No, you have to do all the social stuff.

• 1:03:06Nilay Patel?

  You gotta do all the social. So tweet at us, Nicola underscore Fumo on Twitter, Russell Brandom, I'm Reckless, Ben Popper. Uh, just hit us up. Tell us what dope laptop, particularly me and Ben, tell us what dope laptop from the past we should put cloud ready on. Cause that is a project I am deeply interested in. Uh, we're on Snapchat, we're at verge on Snapchat, we're-

• 1:03:30Nilay Patel?

  At Verge on YouTube.

• 1:03:31Speaker 03

  SoundCloud. Oh, and if you're curious about any encryption issues, we just put up a What's Tech on encryption with me and Christopher Thomas Plant. It was actually recorded before the country started falling apart, but, um, well, not that long ago. But, uh, anyway, a couple of weeks ago, but it covers a lot of the same territory.

• 1:03:51Nilay Patel?

  Yes. Important. Listen to that. Emily and Liz at Verge SP. Walt and I have Control Alt Delete. Lauren Good has Too Embarrassed to Ask. Uh, Peter Kafka launched a new podcast yesterday at Code Media called Recode Media.

• 1:04:06Speaker 01

  We do have a fleet.

• 1:04:07Nilay Patel?

  We have a fleet.

• 1:04:08Speaker 02

  We're addicted to podcasts.

• 1:04:09Nilay Patel?

  And then Kara Swisher has, um, uh, Recode Decode, which is, uh, the only podcast name that rhymes.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  Okay, Russell, we gotta get on this. We need a podcast.

• 1:04:17Nilay Patel?

  Uh, please don't do that to me.

• 1:04:19Speaker 02

  No more casts.

• 1:04:21Nilay Patel?

  Look, you can just, you just listen to shit all day long, okay? Just go to iTunes. Find your stuff, give it all five stars, listen to it nonstop. Um, and then, I don't know, find us on Facebook, hit the like button, hit the Youtubes, get down. Somebody, you know, just, just for chits and giggles, everybody just tweet at Sam Sheffer. Just do that. Just do that right now. Okay?

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  Stop by the Mashable office, say hi.

• 1:04:41Nilay Patel?

  That's it. Goodbye, everybody. We'll see you next week.