TechTime with Nathan Mumm

263: AI Mimics Voices, Fools Google, and Infiltrates Therapy. Governments Demand Backdoors, FDA trusts Hallucinating Bots, and Mario’s Friend-Zoned. The Digital Frontier Blurs as Nick Espinosa shares what’s next with AI | Air Date: 8/12 - 8/18/25

• Nathan Mumm • Season 7 • Episode 263

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The digital landscape is evolving at breakneck speed, and with it comes a host of unexpected consequences that blur the lines between helpful innovation and concerning overreach. In this eye-opening episode, we examine how AI is creeping into spaces where human judgment and empathy might better serve us.

A troubling new wave of voice phishing attacks has emerged, with cybercriminals using AI to perfectly mimic human voices in real-time conversations. Even tech giant Google fell victim to this sophisticated approach when the notorious Shiny Hunters group breached their Salesforce CRM instance. The days of obvious phishing emails are behind us – now your boss's voice on the phone might actually be an AI impersonation designed to extract sensitive information.

Our special guest Nick Espinoza joins us to unpack the fascinating world of AI competitions, revealing how OpenAI's model recently outperformed Elon Musk's Grok in a chess tournament. But the conversation takes a more serious turn when we discuss government pushes for backdoor access to AI chips – ostensibly for security, but creating vulnerabilities that could be exploited. Most alarming is the FDA's implementation of AI in drug approval processes, with former employees reporting the system hallucinating non-existent studies and misrepresenting research.

The human cost of AI overreach becomes clear when we explore the growing trend of using chatbots for psychological support. As one journalist discovered when using ChatGPT for couples counseling, these systems lack the empathy and insight necessary for therapeutic work, exhibiting "sycophancy" by agreeing with users rather than providing objective guidance. 

On a lighter note, we tackle Nintendo's official announcement that Mario has been friend-zoned by Princess Peach after four decades of rescue missions, and share the tale of a man who successfully sued Google after Street View captured him naked in his private backyard despite having a tall privacy wall.

Pour yourself a glass and join us as we taste Still Austin Straight Rye whiskey while navigating the complex intersection of technology, privacy, and human connection in our rapidly evolving digital world.

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Speaker 1:

Broadcasting across the nation, from the East Coast to the West, keeping you up to date on technology while enjoying a little whiskey on the side, with leading-edge topics, along with special guests to navigate technology in a segmented, stylized radio program. The information that will make you go mmmm. Pull up a seat, raise a glass with our hosts as we spend the next hour talking about technology for the common person. Welcome to Tech Time Radio with Nathan Mumm. Glass with our hosts as we spend the next hour talking about technology for the common person. Welcome to.

Nathan Mumm:

Tech Time Radio with Nathan Mumm. Welcome to Tech Time Radio with Nathan Mumm. The show that makes you go mmm, mmm, mmm. Technology news of the week. The show for the everyday person talking about technology, broadcasting across the nation with insightful segments on subjects weeks ahead of the mainstream media. We welcome our radio audience of 35 million listeners to an hour of insightful technology news. I'm Nathan Mumm, your host and technologist, with over 30 years of technology expertise. Our co-host, mike Roday, is in studio today along with Mark, and you'll see that I am behind the board because Odie is on vacation. Mike, how are you doing? The award-winning author and human behavior expert, are you ready for today's episode?

Mike Gorday:

Maybe, maybe, yeah, okay, I'm waiting to see what all kinds of stuff you're going to do back there.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, now we're live streaming here at our show on four of the most popular platforms, including YouTube, twitch TV, facebook and LinkedIn. We encourage you to visit us online at techtimeradiocom and become a Patreon supporter at patreoncom. Forward slash techtimeradio. We are friends from different backgrounds, but we bring our best technology show possible weekly for our family, friends and fans to enjoy. We're glad to have Odie on vacation Not really really that glad, but hopefully she's enjoying a great time. I am at the control panel today, so that means you do not know what's going to happen, right, mike? It can go crazy or it can go normal, but welcome everyone.

Mike Gorday:

We already have pretty good evidence about which way it's going.

Speaker 1:

Let's start today's show. Now on today's show.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, welcome to Tech Time Radio. Today on the show, we have Nick Espinoza back and he's going to be talking not about cybersecurity, but he's going to be talking about AI. He's going to explain what is going on in the world and a few key AI stories. In addition, we have, of course, our standard features, including Mike's mesmerizing moment. Our technology fail the week at a possible absolutely Nathan Nugget and our pick of the day whiskey tasting to see if our selected whiskey pick is 0, 1, or 2 thumbs up at the end of the show. But now it's time for the latest headlines in the world of technology.

Speaker 1:

Broadcasting across the nation. Broadcasting across the nation from the east of the week.

Nathan Mumm:

Let me try that again. Here we go again. Damn it. And now it's time for the latest headlines in the world of technology.

Speaker 1:

Here are our top technology stories of the week.

Nathan Mumm:

All right Story number one Google is the latest company to suffer a data breach in its ongoing wave of Salesforce CRM data theft attacks Conducted by the group known as Shiny Hunters. Let's go to Lisa Walker for more on this story hunters.

Speaker 2:

Let's go to Lisa Walker for more on this story. In June, google warned that a threat actor they classify as UNC6040 was using a voice phishing social engineering attack to breach Salesforce instances and download customer data. In an update, google said that it, too, fell victim to the same attack after one of its Salesforce CRM instances was breached and customer data was stolen. As for the other companies impacted in these attacks, one company has already paid four bitcoins, or approximately $400,000, to prevent the leak of their data. Back to you guys in the studio.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, so let's talk about this. So this is a phishing attack, right? Put a bounty of their data Back to you guys in the studio. All right, so let's talk about this. So this is a phishing attack, right, put a bounty on their heads, all right. So somebody already spent four Bitcoin. I remember when Bitcoin was nothing, but now it's worth almost $100,000. So $400,000 was paid out.

Nathan Mumm:

This phishing attack used voice recordings to make them sound like somebody else, and used real-time voice recordings to make them sound like somebody else, and used real-time voice conversations to convince the people to allow access, so we've talked about this as phishing. Now this phishing voice is becoming kind of the new edge AI-assisted cybercriminal tool that is being used so you can have a monitor set up, you talk into it, you can have a real-time conversation with somebody on the phone, convince them of what's going on in the voice of somebody else, and then, all of a sudden, they say, sure, yeah, we'll get things taken care of. Now. Shiny Hunters has been around for years, responsible for a wide range of breaches, including the PowerSchool, oracle Cloud, snowflake, data Theft Attacks, at&t, nitro, pdf, wattpad, mathway and many, many more that they have been a part of.

Nathan Mumm:

Now, with this breach, though, from this data breach, many other companies, of course, that use Salesforce CRM are going to be a part of this attack, and that includes Adidas, qantas, alliance, life, cisco and Tiffany Company. Now what happens to Google now? So they disclose the information, they pay a fine? And Tiffany Company Now what happens to Google now? So they disclose the information, they pay a fine and they move on? Is our data not secure anymore, and does it seem that companies are getting so lax about security or the damages it does that no one cares?

Mike Gorday:

Where are we even asking if our data?

Nathan Mumm:

is secure. I'm kind of curious about this. What is your take on this?

Mike Gorday:

Mike, Specifically I want your take on your data. Well, it's understandable why they're using this method, because if you can have somebody sitting behind a machine and actually conversing while the machine converts your voice into that of another person, it makes more sense instead of some chatbot type of thing that may give you some weird answer.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, Mark, have you seen or been victim to any of this phishing stuff yourself? No not yet, not yet. Okay, it will happen Not yet.

Speaker 7:

Yeah, so there it is.

Mike Gorday:

Not yet, I just want to know.

Marc Gregoire:

You said the group's been around for a long time.

Nathan Mumm:

Yeah.

Marc Gregoire:

So do you know how long Are they our age where they're using that old toy voice modulator that we all used to have?

Nathan Mumm:

No, and they're not using the Home Alone version of the. What is it? The voice boy, or whatever that.

Mike Gorday:

Macaulay Culkin recorded all the stuff. Here we go with the fantasy references.

Nathan Mumm:

So it's not that no, but they're just using. I mean, you can go to any AI tool set now, pay literally five bucks to seven bucks, import people's voices on YouTube. I've done this myself. Import voices on YouTube and then reuse those voices, type in text and have it in a real-time conversation where I can sound like a female, I can sound like a robot, I can sound pretty much whatever I do, by just taking existing youtube videos and making the uh correlation there.

Marc Gregoire:

So are they pretending to be like something, somebody from salesforce, because you really wouldn't need a voice modulator? Are they taking voice clips from, like, the ceo of the company and pretending to be them?

Nathan Mumm:

so they have done it for local people and security people. The the case that I did my deep dive into, they were actually the boss of the employee itself at the help desk service. They called on in and said hey, I know we don't need to do it this way or this way, but I need to grab this information really quick. There's a bunch of breaches that are going around right now and I want to protect us. So they literally used the breaches that were in the news as a what do you want to say? Prop to actually get in and convince the people to give them access codes.

Marc Gregoire:

So is the new thing to look if your boss is calling from an unknown number.

Nathan Mumm:

That would be probably pretty smart to do right. But you know what I get, the spam calls. Do you ever get the one that says like unknown caller, or then you get like likely fraud or likely scam or scam likely. Those are all different type of categories that I get on my phone. What I'm finding is now that all those scam likelies are actually legit numbers for a lot of the people that are calling. So now, whatever algorithm that we had or whatever type of security we used to have to make sure this was in check, now it just comes as everything being a scam likely call. Even if it's my wife calling me, it could be a scam.

Marc Gregoire:

But I mean? So now you don't know what to do, right, Whoa, whoa, whoa. Your wife is in your contact book.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, sometimes she uses a voice over IP phone when she's at her preschool and then if you get a call there and it comes in from an unknown number, boom all of a sudden guess what happens? I probably should.

Marc Gregoire:

I probably should write Because you're Nathan Nugget about having your phone not answer those calls.

Nathan Mumm:

No, that's not what Nathan Nugget's about.

Mike Gorday:

You just need to be grumpy like me and never answer your phone. Is that what you need to be? That's right. I never answer my phone.

Marc Gregoire:

Mike needs a new hat Instead of don't click on it's like don't do.

Nathan Mumm:

Don't do, that's right Stuff. Don't do any technology.

Mike Gorday:

Most likely like my child self, who grew up without all this stuff. Okay, right, I write my passwords down. All right, that's good. I don't answer my phone Okay, that's good. I don't answer emails. I don't open most of my emails, okay. So, yeah, I live a pretty peaceful life.

Marc Gregoire:

Okay, well, that's good, isn't that, psychologically, the pattern of our lives, though, don't, as we age and we get older and older, go back to our younger childhood selves?

Nathan Mumm:

I don't know when you see a baby. I always swear, a baby looks like you when you're dead right, when they come out all wrinkly and everything like that.

Mike Gorday:

What the hell is that when you see a brand new born baby.

Nathan Mumm:

You see them all wrinkly. What does that?

Mike Gorday:

have to do with the question.

Nathan Mumm:

I think that you always revert back to the very beginning of life.

Mike Gorday:

No, no, no. You need to just stay over there where you're at and not talk Control the boards. Mike and I are talking, Okay sorry, yeah, there's always this sort of nostalgic playback in our lives because we often optimize, or what's the word Optimismize?

Marc Gregoire:

Optimismize.

Nathan Mumm:

We remember the good things of your childhood and you don't remember the bad next to me?

Mike Gorday:

yeah we remember that. We remember the good things we we tend to. We tend to color our past with goodness, and so when we get stressed out in our older ages, we tend to want to revert back to those that makes sense.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, let's go on to story number two. Are you ready for this one? This is, I don to want to revert back to those. That makes sense, all right, let's go on to story number two. Are you ready for this?

Mike Gorday:

one. This is I don't want to do story. Yeah, story number two all right must do about robots this is about somebody who used chat gpt, chat gpt as a marriage counselor relationship what? Tell me more. No, tell's bad. What's that? I can't, I just can't.

Marc Gregoire:

Really.

Mike Gorday:

Okay, so this person decided to use ChatGPT as a couples counselor. All right. The whole idea was is that you know, Gen Z is using artificial intelligence for a lot of different things, like dating advice which I don't know why they're doing that and A this person decided they wanted to try and get some sort of what do you call it Therapeutic resolve at a a cheaper price probably right, well, yeah, okay, I mean, going to a counselor is.

Mike Gorday:

So there's two problems with some of this stuff. One is that the idea that you're going to counselors before problems arise in a relationship, okay, I find that to be a problem, because if you are going to a counselor before problems arise, that means there's already problems.

Mike Gorday:

Because you're anticipating these big problems are going to show up and then you're going to a counselor to try to solve them, and part of that is bringing up the big problem. So it's sort of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Okay. The other one is don't use chat GPT. Why is that? Don't use a chatbot, okay. Okay. The other one is don't use chat GPT. Why is that?

Marc Gregoire:

Don't use a chatbot. Okay, okay, okay, it's very objective. Yeah, supposedly it is not. It is not objective.

Mike Gorday:

Okay, so the people that are saying it's objective, they so like this person here, according to a recent nationwide survey by Match.

Speaker 7:

Yeah, Matchcom Chat.

Mike Gorday:

GPT is being used to weed out dating prospects and they're saying that it's pretty objective.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, so it's objective.

Mike Gorday:

It's got no emotionally attachment to anything. It's got no emotional attachment. But isn't that how you're supposed to get dates? Is through emotional attachment, right? You're supposed to like somebody, and if you have somebody that's crawling through your profile with a language scraper, yeah, and saying, oh, this isn't a good match because this, this and this, why are you listening to that? Okay, that makes sense. Okay. Now, of course, there are other problems that I'm not addressing about the whole dating thing anyway, but this person, this journalist, said she feels like it gives better advice than her friends a lot of the time.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, that kind of makes sense. That could be true.

Mike Gorday:

That could be true. I absolutely think that could be true. And then said better advice than my therapist, okay. So if ChatGPT is giving you better advice than your therapist, okay. So if, if chat gpt is giving you better advice than your therapist, you need to find a new therapist that's probably, I think.

Nathan Mumm:

We're on, we're on I think we're on the same all pages on that okay.

Marc Gregoire:

What do they say now?

Mike Gorday:

the same screen yeah, I don't know. So, anyway, she decided to immerse herself in this trend and, drawing on the theory that couples should ask or seek therapy before major problems arise Okay, this is what I talked about earlier I proposed or she proposed to her boyfriend of less than six months, less than six months that they turn to AI chatbot for advice. Okay, assess the bot's feedback and share the results. Okay, okay. So I want you to learn a term. Yeah, okay, okay. So I want you to learn a term. Yeah, it's called sycophancy, sycophancy, sycophancy, sycophancy, sycophancy, sycophancy sycophancy.

Nathan Mumm:

You know what a sycophancy is no, not a chance.

Mike Gorday:

Sycophancy is one of those obsequious people that always agree with you and hold you up and exalt you and are like yes, man.

Nathan Mumm:

Really? Yes, I've never met one of those people in my life.

Marc Gregoire:

Really, he's definitely not married to one of those. I'm not married to one of those.

Mike Gorday:

I'm not sure you're using ChatGPT correctly, because sycophancy is one of the primary problems with AI-driven chatbots.

Speaker 6:

Okay.

Mike Gorday:

It means they agree with everything All right. For example, in this article they reference a person who had some severe mental illness issues and was using a chatbot, and because the chatbot was so sycophantic or agreeing and uplifting to this person, that person never sought medical attention oh, that's not good.

Mike Gorday:

Okay, okay, okay, okay so that's the first problem. So the person who's querying the chat bot is going to get this effect and the chat bot is naturally going to go with them, okay, okay, that's not a an objective point view. So the article talks about this and how the person had to go back and restate a question many, many times in order to get the chatbot to give it something that was objective and objective is subjective here, because we really can't define what objective is when we're looking at it with ourselves.

Nathan Mumm:

That makes sense.

Mike Gorday:

Yep.

Marc Gregoire:

Yep.

Mike Gorday:

Yep. So this person, this person used this several times and you know, it just didn't come out. It started blaming the boyfriend for being too emotional, for being too emotional, and then it started talking to the person that was making the queries, that they were carrying the emotional baggage of two, and so it made the problem worse. This is not what you need to be doing.

Nathan Mumm:

So don't use chat GPT to help you.

Mike Gorday:

Okay, so these things we want to pretend like this is some sort of human thing, and it's not. It comes from human things, but it's not a human thing. It doesn't have empathy for one, it can't empathize with the person it's talking to, yeah, and it doesn't have human insight. Okay, so it can't sit across from somebody and listen to what they're saying and understand.

Nathan Mumm:

If they're crying, know that they're emotionally distraught or not right. That's empathy.

Mike Gorday:

No, I'm talking about when they're saying stuff that you have insight, that what they're saying is not actually what they're saying, but they're trying to tell you another message by telling you this message, right, gotcha?

Marc Gregoire:

It can't do that Okay.

Mike Gorday:

So all it can do is scrape its language model for responses that it thinks you're looking for, and this is not therapeutic, all right. So do not use AI for therapeutic reasons. It will almost always backfire.

Marc Gregoire:

All right, good to know. You know nathan's gonna go do this now. So no, no, no no nathan's already done this.

Mike Gorday:

No, I haven't. I haven't done chat gpt for any counseling stuff? No, I know, but we've, we've done it with me and you have both played with it with the uh ai companions yes, we, we, because we do test for the show.

Nathan Mumm:

And so if we'll have a show prep, mike and I may go off on a tangent later on in that evening and either we're playing chess or we're doing something else, and we will test these things out to see how it goes right and we'll yell at people and we'll do different things to see how these bots interact. And it's always been these dating bots that are the ones that I love the most, the ones that they try to pretend like they like they're going to do stuff.

Mike Gorday:

That's sycophancy. So, what happened here is that these two, this couple they said a few times they felt like the chat GPT gave objective and creative feedback or offered a valid analysis of their communication styles, but it took a lot of work for them to get there and it wasn't probably worth the time and effort to get it to where they could spend time communicating to each other right yeah.

Mike Gorday:

So what their conclusion was is that they were going to go back to putting all their time and injury energy into their human relationship. Oh see, very good, that's very good, very good, good, so it worked.

Speaker 7:

I guess ChatGPT helped him.

Mike Gorday:

If we want to say that taking a gun and shooting yourself in the foot keeps you from playing with guns. Yeah, okay, yeah that worked Alright.

Nathan Mumm:

we're going to go on to story number three. Nintendo clears up Mario's love life by having Princess Peach friend zone him. Now for over four decades, mario has been risking his life and limb for Princess Peach. Bowser keeps on kidnapping her, and it's up to the Italian plumber to rescue her. Why?

Speaker 7:

are we going there?

Nathan Mumm:

Across dozens of main games, spin-offs, movies and everything else in between, mario and Princess Peach have been linked. In some cases, their special bond has been a bit more romantically charged than others. However, after years of anguish, Nintendo has crushed the dream for Mr Mario. Mario has officially been friend-zoned by Princess Peach. Nintendo released a statement saying, quote Princess Peach and Mario are good friends to help each other out whenever they can.

Mike Gorday:

The message reads Okay, alright, look alright. What's that, Aside from the fact that we're actually talking about this?

Nathan Mumm:

Most games end with a kiss of death, but this one ends with no kiss at all.

Mike Gorday:

Whatever Okay why are we talking about this.

Nathan Mumm:

First off what?

Mike Gorday:

does Princess Peach do for Mario? She just gives him stuff to do, okay.

Nathan Mumm:

Right yeah.

Mike Gorday:

She gets kidnapped and he has to go wreck him, so I guess they're already married.

Nathan Mumm:

What does she do? What does she do? She says Mario, please rescue me.

Mike Gorday:

Okay, and then when you go there, is that what the balance of a good friendship is all about, is it?

Nathan Mumm:

Toad that's there that says the princess is in another castle and you keep on going for another and another.

Mike Gorday:

Is she secretly involved with Toad or Bowser?

Nathan Mumm:

I think she probably likes the bad boy, because somehow she gets captured all the time she's going to spend a lot of time with Bowser.

Mike Gorday:

I think she's just two-timing Mario.

Nick Espinosa:

Is that what it is?

Mike Gorday:

She's just leading him on. Is that what's going on here? I don't know that ends. I don't know what Nintendo needs to be bothering with clarifying this relationship. Well, this is a big deal. Why is this a big deal?

Nathan Mumm:

Dude, this has got like 14 million hits about this. So I mean, you know what People are crying in their sleep?

Mike Gorday:

They're going to chat GPT now to ask how they can succumb to this problem. Here's the thing here. If this is all about friend zoning, Mario needs to stop because he's enabling this chick. So your counseling advice is Mario needs to go on a new adventure. Mario needs to find somebody who's going to be respectful.

Nathan Mumm:

Forget Princess Peach, he's going to go with somebody else.

Mike Gorday:

And give him what he desires.

Nathan Mumm:

Isn't Zelda a gal? Isn't Zelda a gal?

Mike Gorday:

Or Zelda, a guy, I don't know.

Nathan Mumm:

I have no idea. Is it a girl right? So you know what Mario needs to go after Zelda. Way more to add to the guy I thought.

Mike Gorday:

Zelda and Link were together. I don't even know why we're talking about this. But at the same thing, if we want to define healthy relationships, if Peach and Mario are friends and Mario spends all of his time rescuing Peach from dangerous situations, there's a really big imbalance of stuff going on in this.

Marc Gregoire:

They're good friends, they're not good friends. They're not good friends. They're not good friends.

Mike Gorday:

She doesn't give Mario anything.

Nathan Mumm:

Lots of kisses.

Mike Gorday:

But they're not romantically involved. But she gives him lots of kisses.

Nathan Mumm:

That is our top technology stories of the week. When we return, nick Espinoza from Security and Fanatics will join the show. What is AI up to? You're going to love this even more. You'll find out. Next, you're listening to Tech Time with Nathan Mumm. We'll be back after this commercial break.

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Nathan Mumm:

Welcome back to Tech Time with Nathan Mumm. Our weekly show covers the top technology subjects without any political agenda. We verify the facts and we deal with a sense of humor in less than 60 minutes and, of course, with a little whiskey on the side. Today, mark Gregoire, our whiskey connoisseur, is in the studio. Mark, what whiskey are we tasting today?

Marc Gregoire:

We have brought for you from Whiskey Chris.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, Whiskey Chris.

Marc Gregoire:

It's his bottle and he let us borrow Still Austin Straight Rye Whiskey. The artist. Now, art comes in many different forms, from the simplest line drawing to the most complex symphony, but all good art has something in common it begins with inspiration. The artist is galvanized by a visit from the muse and can't help but take up the chisel, the pen, the camera, the paintbrush. This is a whiskey for dreamers. Is that Princess Peach, not Princess Peach? Visionaries, mike and the artists who inspire us all. It's the ultimate marriage of the art and muse. The spirit's blushing, oaky hue foretells a complex nose With chocolate, apricot, sandalwood, ginger and caramel. On the palate it finishes with rye spice, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, molasses and orange zest. That all comes from their website. Very wordy, okay.

Nathan Mumm:

Have you tasted this before, Mark.

Marc Gregoire:

Before today. Yeah, yeah, when Chris brought it over, okay, okay. I put it up against. It's a rye, okay. So let me tell you a little about the bottle. So it's from Still Austin Whiskey Company, which is from Austin, texas. It's a straight rye two years, 99.6 proof, 100% Texas rye for $45. And we did a little tasting with this and about four or five other ryes okay, all right, you're not gonna tell us yet how how it did against absolutely not okay. All right, stay tuned.

Nathan Mumm:

All right okay well, with our first whiskey tasting completed, let's move on to our feature segment. Today, our technology expert, nick espinoza, is joining the show. He's an expert in cyber security and network infrastructure. He infrastructure. His clients range from small business to the Fortune 100 level. In 1998, at the age of 19, nick founded Windy City Networks, which was later acquired in 2015. He then created Security Fanatics, where he's the chief security fanatic. We welcome now Nick to our show.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the segment we call Ask the Experts. Hi Nick Radio expert Nick Espinoza.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, Nick. Welcome to the show. How's everything going? Can you hear us there?

Nick Espinosa:

Yep, yep, I can hear you guys just fine and just real quick. On the first segment one, shiny Hunters has been around since 2020, 75 years old, which is old, okay and uh. In this and also, illinois, two days ago, was the first one to actually pass a a ban on ai therapy requiring humans to actually do the therapy for you.

Nathan Mumm:

So there you go. See, nick is our just use of the resource of information there yes, now you need to move to illinois.

Marc Gregoire:

We need nick to host this show.

Nathan Mumm:

That's right. You know what. Nick is going to be able to host that maybe sooner than later from a different country, Okay.

Speaker 2:

Nick what's?

Mike Gorday:

your take on Princess Peach and Mario.

Nathan Mumm:

Yeah, there you go. Princess Peach and Mario. Are you hurt from that, Nick?

Nick Espinosa:

There you go. So that's brutal. I mean friend zoned it at some point, but to be friend zoned it for like four decades like yeah, that's a little much maybe maybe, I don't know maybe hang out with luigi more uh, that would make sense.

Nathan Mumm:

There you go, that's right. What if luigi's dating peach see?

Speaker 7:

that would be the ultimate right there, that would be the betrayal of all things.

Nick Espinosa:

They're brothers all right, we just no, we just assume they're brothers, right, oh that.

Nathan Mumm:

Oh, that's true, mario Brothers. It could be a synonym for like a business partner.

Mike Gorday:

right, I'm pretty sure they've established that Mario's brothers with Luigi in many of these little.

Nathan Mumm:

Have they? I don't know. Let's move on. Okay, all right, nick, tell us, for all the new listeners, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Nick Espinosa:

Yeah, yeah. So I'm Nick Espinosa, the chief security fanatic of security fanatics, obviously all things cyber warfare, cyber terrorism, cyber security, all that kind of stuff. And you come hang out with me on YouTube. I also do podcasts, all that kind of stuff, write articles for Forbes and blah blah blah. So happy to be here, as always.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, all right. Now, today we're going to pivot a bit right when, instead of the crazy cyber criminals, we're going to be talking about some AI stuff. Right, my other favorite topic. So everybody's passionate about AI. I'm either a positive or a negative side of AI. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground people. I've never heard anybody in my life that said well, I kind of like AI, it's kind of great, I appreciate some of it.

Mike Gorday:

It's either I hate, it or I love it. I don't hate all of it.

Marc Gregoire:

I think your sphere is built of just you and Mike, is it just?

Nathan Mumm:

me and Mike. Are there other people out there? I think there's a lot of people like me that see the benefits of it but, also see some of the potential harm.

Marc Gregoire:

And if there's not safe cards, on it.

Mike Gorday:

There's no potential harm. There is harm, there is harm.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, nick. Okay, here we go. First, let's talk about an AI chess match. This just happened. All right, this is just in the news, and I'm a big chess player. Mike's a big chess player.

Mike Gorday:

Right, we're on chesscom I wouldn't say I'm a big chess player.

Nathan Mumm:

You play, I play chess online and we play against each other quite a bit. I used to kill you all the time and now you're starting to to beat me up, so I don't know. That's why I haven't been playing.

Mike Gorday:

That's what happens when you learn something. That's right.

Nathan Mumm:

So the AI companies all got together for a chess match. What happened, what was this about and what was the outcome?

Nick Espinosa:

Okay, so basically what we're talking about here is essentially Google's Kaggle. This is a platform that essentially allows scientists to put their AI models up to task to play chess and all these things with it. So eight large language models basically entered a tournament. Now, these are basically AIs that are not designed essentially to play chess. These are the chat GPTs of the world where you can go get therapy where you shouldn't get therapy right. So Anthropic Google, openai, xai aka Grok, basically, as well as Chinese developers DeepSeek and Moonshot all basically entered this tournament, and so what happened was essentially OpenAI beat the whole thing, and it's really interesting. So OpenAI's O whole thing, and it's really interesting. So OpenAI's 03 model emerged as the winner and then Grok actually took second place. So, in other words, openai beat Elon Musk's Grok, and I think that's actually really interesting, because when we're talking about Grok, given all the garbage that Grok has been learned on, I'm just amazed it didn't angrily kick over the first virtual chessboard it saw and declared it wanted to invade Poland.

Marc Gregoire:

I mean, the thing is not, Are we sure it didn't cheat Nick? Well hey, it's very possible right.

Nick Espinosa:

So OpenAI won with 03, their model 03, followed by Grok. Google's Gemini took third place as well, and so obviously these things are designed for everyday tasks, not to play chess. So they're still improving on it, and so Grok, for example that took second place made a number of errors in the final round of games, including losing his queen or losing its queen repeatedly. The queen, obviously a very important chess piece, right.

Nathan Mumm:

And so here we are. Ten points, go ahead. It's worth ten points in the chess when you capture we don't need to know that, I just okay okay there.

Mike Gorday:

Yes, keep on going.

Nathan Mumm:

Sorry in your booth I was just trying to say that I was up to never mind. Keep on going, keep on going.

Nick Espinosa:

Sorry nick, sorry like right, right so, but, but. But strategy games like chess or go you know the chinese game go these are oftentimes used to basically assess models, abilities to learn and adapt, because chess has a bazillion moves, go has like a quintillion moves, you know. So it's an interesting one. But if anything, I think we're going to see these models just simply improve. But it's a good testing ground to understand the limitations of large language models. They're not perfect, you know. Even the new chat, gpt-5, came out. People are asking it weird questions how many bees are in the word blueberry? And it's saying there are three. You know, one in blue, two in berry.

Mike Gorday:

Do the math on that.

Nick Espinosa:

So we have a ways to go, but they're getting better.

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, that's okay, they got to be. Oh, they're not perfect. I don't understand. No, they're not.

Nathan Mumm:

All right. Now governments are pushing hard for AI chip backdoors. This is a new thing that's happening here. What is this about and what security risks would this for the everyday person have to worry about? Yeah, yeah.

Nick Espinosa:

So actually I think there are pros and cons to this, but the nutshell is, us lawmakers are trying to push NVIDIA, the biggest maker of GPUs and chips, out there, to basically grant governments back doors into these AI chips. And, for the record, china is already saying NVIDIA is doing that and letting the government in right. So obviously NVIDIA wants to be the dominant supplier in the world, including to China. But obviously there are risks with that right. And here's the thing Chinese chip companies are steadily improving their performance, primarily because they're getting a lot of the intellectual property. You know we just caught two Chinese nationals shipping NVIDIA chips overseas the other day.

Nick Espinosa:

So this obviously is a huge thing because China is trying to do a homegrown model for AI chips, but they know they're way behind NVIDIA right now, and so I think some of the pros to a backdoor would be things like emergency deactivation and containment of like a rogue AI. The thing wants to go Terminator and you can basically flip a kill switch. That's not too bad, you know. You could also enforce sanctions. So if the let's say, the Chinese do steal an NVIDIA chip, you might be able to brick the chip, all those kinds of things. So obviously unauthorized repurposing or misuse of this, you know, essentially is one of those things, but I think the cons outweigh the pros here, because, by virtue of putting in a backdoor, you're basically creating an exploitable vulnerability.

Nathan Mumm:

And it's by default, right, I mean, and everybody finds vulnerabilities in the stuff that isn't there. So now, all of a sudden, you're putting a chip in there that people will specifically target, because they know that the whole reason it's set up is to do that.

Nick Espinosa:

Exactly exactly Vulnerability is cropping anything, intentionally or otherwise, like HP Aruba, like the wireless access points. We just found that the engineers at HP had hard-coded a password into all the access points that they had to fix. But now that that's out, if you're not updating your Aruba access points, somebody could pretty much walk into the thing, right. So that is a huge issue. On top of it, it could be viewed as like cyber espionage around the world if they think, oh well, we're buying NVIDIA chips and the NSA from the United States has access to this thing. Not to mention ownership rights of buyers.

Nick Espinosa:

If you're buying something, that's a huge thing. I mean think about like an Amazon Kindle. If I buy a book there and then Amazon has a falling out with the publisher, they'll just delete the book off my Kindle. They've been caught doing that. But if I buy a physical book, nobody from Amazon is knocking on my door saying, yeah, we want that back and you're not getting your money back, right. So it comes down to a trust thing. So it's a huge thing, not to mention system disruptions if they are exploitable. So I think that it's not a good thing overarchingly. Not that I want the terminators of the world to have no checks against them. But you know, here we are.

Mike Gorday:

All right, let's have Chad. Gpt advise them, let's have Chad.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, so this gets even better. You're going to like this, mike. Here we go, nick, is it true that the FDA's AI is creating fake studies that are now becoming real facts for our large language models?

Nick Espinosa:

Yes, and this, for the record, is why it is always open bar on Tech Time Radio, that's right, I can't see what bottle that is, yes, that's why, we drink on this program. There it is this gentleman and Mark. I hope you appreciate it oh, Glenn Levin.

Nathan Mumm:

Yeah, there you go. Okay, Very nice, perfect.

Nick Espinosa:

But anyway, yes, the FDA, or Food and Drug Administration and Lord knows we could all use a drink after this one, anywho RFK Jr, who's running HHS that owns the FDA basically they're making a huge push to integrate AI tools and in a recent interview, rfk Jr went on Tucker Carlson's show on some online whatever and basically said that AI will very, very soon be used to approve new drugs quote, very, very quickly.

Nick Espinosa:

So, in other words, they're trying to speed up this process. So here's what the news did CNN spoke with six current and former employees of the FDA, three of whom basically have used ELSA. This is the AI that the FDA is using, and they described it as harmful. You know it creates meeting notes and summaries that are incorrect. It started making up non-existent studies, so it was basically hallucinating and an AI term that means it was just straight up lying. It also could misrepresent research, according to his employees, and so, by virtue of that, I started looking at, okay, what is the approval process for a drug, and it is a long and complicated process. Yes, you know you guys want a high level overview of this thing real quick, because it's absolutely insane to insert an AI into this.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, so do it real quick. Yes, real quick. How difficult.

Nick Espinosa:

Yeah, yes, real quick.

Nathan Mumm:

How difficult.

Nick Espinosa:

Yeah, so preclinical testing, right? You basically are testing the drugs in labs on animals, all that to make sure it's safe. Then they have to submit what's called an IND, an investigational new drug application. Once that is approved, then they can begin human trials. And then the human trials are done on a small group of healthy people that don't have the actual disease or infection or whatever that the drug is testing Assuming nobody dies in that, then it goes to the humans that have this particular targeted issue disease, whatever it is and then they confirm the effectiveness, they monitor side effects.

Nick Espinosa:

This takes months and months, and months and months, and then, and only then, can they apply for an NDA or new drug application, which then basically says all the trials are good, nobody's dropping like flies, this is great and boom, here we are. You can put that out there, and then the FDA reviews this and evaluates it for months and months, and months and months, which obviously is going to be difficult and then they approve it and then continue to monitor it after it's out to the general public. And with the FDA cutting staff, that's a huge issue. And if you insert an AI into this that's just making stuff up, then it could basically bs a whole bunch of clinical trials or say, oh, this is good. When the, the authors were like this is not good, it's a huge problem and I think it's going to get some people killed, if I'm being perfectly honest with you that is not so mr positive ai how do you feel about that?

Marc Gregoire:

Okay, well, all right. All right, nick. The bottom line of this is this is really a people issue, not an AI issue. Everything is a people issue.

Mike Gorday:

All this is a people issue. Every single interaction here is people issues.

Nathan Mumm:

What's interesting is we always are getting excited now with AI to replace people. We want AI to be better and better and better. So we can replace more and more people. Essentially, we want nobody to work. We want computers to run our lives and we want to be in charge of that area, so that we can just make millions and millions of dollars.

Mike Gorday:

AI is becoming our god.

Nick Espinosa:

Think of the psychological damage it's going to do to society. We're already isolated thanks to social media. We don't want to put our kids outside because there are predators everywhere. When the predators are actually online, it's a huge thing. It's much different than when we grew up. That is so this doesn't help.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, nick. How can people get in touch with you On that note? How can people get in touch with you Off of the show? What is the best way to connect?

Nick Espinosa:

Well, they can find me at the local bar, because that's probably where I'm going to be.

Speaker 7:

That's right, that's where I'm headed.

Nick Espinosa:

Feel free to follow me on LinkedIn Twitter at Nick Espinoza or Nick AESP, either one, and come say hi, Come hang out.

Nathan Mumm:

You know what I just would wish Blue Sky would get their act together and become a big dominant force out there. It's just hemorrhaging at relevancy and not being able to take over Twitter. Nick just said contact him on Twitter or X, because that is still the dominant platform. I bet you, nick, you would love to say contact me on Blue Sky, but nobody is quite using it still yet.

Nick Espinosa:

I, it's just I'm the same handle on blue sky as I am on Twitter, but I think part of it was it was a political divide, and so what you have on blue sky is just a whole bunch of like-minded people talking to each other. So there's no engagement there beyond. We all agree.

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, that's not a good reason.

Nathan Mumm:

That's a big issue for the platform. All right, Nick, we thank you so much for being a part of our show. Can't wait to have you back on again, All right, well, that ends our segment. Ask the Expert. Let's now move in to our Mike's mesmerizing moment. Welcome to Mike's mesmerizing moment. What does Mike have to say today? All right, Mike, here's the question.

Mike Gorday:

Let's talk about AI. Yay, let's talk about AI. Is there?

Nathan Mumm:

something in the counseling field that AI could be used for. That is good.

Mike Gorday:

No, okay, okay.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Mike Gorday:

Let's let's. If it has anything to do with anything other than counseling, maybe Okay. Like, if it needs to look into case notes for something and find like themes or patterns that may be helpful, okay. But if if it's doing direct counseling, absolutely not okay. It should not be a direct count. We should not be using it for counseling. We should not be using it for companionship. We should not be using it to do like 50 million things that it's already doing. But it's okay to edit through notes, not edit, pull information from.

Mike Gorday:

Like if I were querying a you know, a I don't know.

Nathan Mumm:

Some type of document? Yeah, some type of document.

Mike Gorday:

If I were querying that that may be Otherwise, no.

Nathan Mumm:

Mike, thank you for that mesmerizing moment.

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, I don't think you thanked me. I think you were like sitting over there going wah.

Nathan Mumm:

Coming up. Next, we have this Week in Technology, so now would be a great time to enjoy a little whiskey on the side, as we're going to be doing so during the break. You're listening to Tech Time Radio with Nathan Mumm. See you in a few minutes. Hey, mike, yeah.

Speaker 7:

Hey.

Nathan Mumm:

Mike, yeah, what's up, hey, so you know what we need people to start liking our social media pages.

Mike Gorday:

If you like our show, if you really like us, we could use your support on Patreoncom, or is it Patreon?

Speaker 7:

I think it's Patreon. Okay, patreon. If you really like us, you can like us in. Patreoncom. I butcher the English language. You know, you butcher the English language all the time it's. Patreoncom.

Mike Gorday:

Patreoncom.

Speaker 7:

If you really like our show, you can subscribe to patreoncom and help us out, and you can visit us on that Facebook platform. You know the one that Zuckerberg owns, the one that we always bag on. Yeah, we're on Facebook too. Yeah, like us on Facebook. Do you know what our Facebook page is? Tech Time Radio At. Tech Time Radio At.

Mike Gorday:

Tech.

Speaker 7:

Time Radio. You know what? There's a trend here.

Mike Gorday:

It seems to be that there's a trend and that's Tech Time Radio, or you can even Instagram with us, and that's at Tech Time Radio.

Speaker 7:

That's at Tech Time Radio. Or you can find us on TikTok, and it's Tech Time Radio. It's at Tech Time Radio. Like and subscribe. That's it. That's it. It's that simple.

Speaker 1:

And now let's look back at this week in technology.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, we're going back to August 13th 1993. This is a big date. Here, mike, street Fighter II Turbo Hyper Fighting for the SNES was released. Is that a good thing? That's a great thing. So this was the game that started the revolution of hyper fighting. Now Capcom released Street Fighter II Turbo the hyper fighting for the Super NES. In the US, the arcade version of Street Fighter II sparked the fighting gaming boom of the 1990s, leading to many other franchises like Mortal Kombat and Virtue Fighter. There's also tons of other knockoffs that have happened since this time, but the Super NES port brought Street Fighter 2 into the homes and college dorms, where students spent hours of countless time battling their friends. Yep, now I still own this game, so if anybody's feeling competitive, the battles can continue any time. Now I play one character. I only play blanco. That's the only character I know he's got electricity yes and I can last in the arcade.

Nathan Mumm:

With the old version arcade 25 cents to play I can last about 16 to 20 minutes on that quarter.

Mike Gorday:

I'm dead serious. Are you seriously getting on to talk about your humble bragging about how good you are at Blanca?

Nathan Mumm:

I just want to say if anybody wants to play, I'm available Now. That was this week in technology.

Mike Gorday:

Thanks for that.

Nathan Mumm:

If you ever wanted to watch some Tech Time history, with over 260-plus weekly broadcasts spanning our four-plus years, starting our fifth video podcast and blog information, you can visit us at techtimeradiocom to watch our older shows. We're going to go to a commercial break here, but when we return we have the Mark Mumble Whiskey we review. We'll see you after this break.

Mike Gorday:

How to See a man About a Dog. It combines darkly comic short stories, powerful poems and pulp fiction prose to create a heartbreaking and hilarious journey readers will not soon forget. Read how to See a man About a Dog. Collected Writings for free with Kindle. Unlimited E-book available on Kindle. Print copies available on Amazon, the Book Pository and more.

Speaker 1:

The segment we've been waiting all week for Mark's Whiskey Mumble.

Marc Gregoire:

All right. Well, at least Nathan yes, in Street Fighter. At least you knew there's no friend zone there.

Nathan Mumm:

There's no friend zone in Street Fighter.

Marc Gregoire:

That's true. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. Well, today, August 12th, we are celebrating.

Nathan Mumm:

Don't tell me you're celebrating friend zone day.

Marc Gregoire:

Well, it's the day before August 13th, so just before that today, nathan is actually celebrating. Today. He knows about today, okay.

Mike Gorday:

What are we celebrating today, Nathan?

Marc Gregoire:

We talked about it earlier this week.

Nathan Mumm:

Celebrating.

Mike Gorday:

Is it like National Elephant Day or something?

Nathan Mumm:

It was an elephant day too. There's a couple other things that we were looking at. Come on, that's like three days ago. Memory, that short-term memory, is gone. What was it?

Marc Gregoire:

National Vinyl Record Day.

Nathan Mumm:

Oh, we did see that. Remember that. We did say that I have vinyl records. Yeah, I don't remember that at all. You don't remember that?

Marc Gregoire:

Okay, go old school like nathan, our audiophile okay, spin. Music lovers around the world have disagreements on a number of things, but one thing we think everyone can agree on is vinyl records are here to stay, so now's the time to dust off the old needle and let the music take you away on a cloud of good, good, good vibration okay, this is getting more awkward that sounds like a beach boy song.

Marc Gregoire:

there you go All right, yeah, brian Wilson just passed away recently. Oh, did he? I'm sorry to hear that. Now, talking about music, it is only fitting we head to Austin, home to one of the most iconic live music scenes in the country.

Nathan Mumm:

Oh yeah, I've been down there the week before at a Dell conference when they had the big South by Southwest type of deal that they had down there. Tell me more, is that the same thing?

Marc Gregoire:

Well, that's where Still Austin's the Artist Straight Rye Whiskey may hit all the right notes for you. This is one of the few 100% Texas rye whiskeys crafted entirely from Texas grown grains, distilled in-house in Austin, austin and aged under the intense Texas sun. Each bottle features a custom label painted by a Texas artist, part of Still Austin's ongoing commitment to local artists. Every release in the series celebrates creativity, both in the whiskey and storytelling on the bottle. Wow, now, still Austin's the Artist's Straight Ride did not leave much of an impression on me. Uh-oh.

Mike Gorday:

It didn't leave much of an impression on him either.

Marc Gregoire:

Well there's nothing wrong with it. Yeah, it tastes a little youthy and leans heavily on spice, without much depth behind it. It reminds me of elevator music Perfectly fine in the background and not something I would ever choose to put on. That said, I'm looking forward to trying more age expressions from them down the road, because this one's only two years old. Okay, as there's potential for this artist.

Nathan Mumm:

Are they going to come out with a four year and a seven year and a ten year type of deal? They do have those, okay, and you haven't tasted any of those yet.

Marc Gregoire:

I have not Whiskey, chris. I believe it was the eight year that he's had, and he said it was terrific. Okay, I have not tasted that myself. Alright, I'm looking forward to it. That sounds good. So are we, and as we all drink, we must drink responsibly. Heaven can wait, heaven can wait.

Nathan Mumm:

Mark whiskey and technology are such a great pairing Like bed knobs and broomsticks.

Marc Gregoire:

Can you?

Nathan Mumm:

reference this movie. Do you remember that movie? I remember that movie Remember that movie?

Marc Gregoire:

Bed knobs and broomsticks. Can you reference this movie? Do you remember that movie? I remember that movie Remember that movie Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, angela Lansbury was in that, I think, was it.

Nathan Mumm:

Angela Lansbury.

Mike Gorday:

So now.

Nathan Mumm:

Bedknobs and Broomsticks. I didn't do the research. Was that a Disney movie?

Mike Gorday:

It was a Disney movie.

Nathan Mumm:

Or was that the imitation like Chitty Chitty, Bang Bang. Right, that was a knockoff. That wasn't actually a Disney movie, but everybody affiliates it with a Disney movie because it was very high standards.

Marc Gregoire:

Wasn't Chitty, chitty a knockoff of Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

Nathan Mumm:

I think it was.

Marc Gregoire:

We have to look up the years, because they're both flying objects.

Nathan Mumm:

Yeah, one's the bed and one's the car versus there All right.

Mike Gorday:

Well, you know what Didn't Disney buy? Chitty, chitty, bang Bang. I don't know if they did or not, bedknobs and Bruin Sticks is a Disney movie.

Nathan Mumm:

It is a Disney movie, all right Thanks for that.

Marc Gregoire:

Hopefully our viewers out there can put in the chat and fill us in.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, that's right. All right, now let's prepare for our Technology Fail of the Week, brought to you by Elite Executive Services technology experts to help you out of a technology fail. Congratulations, you're a failure.

Speaker 6:

Oh, I failed. Did I, yes, did.

Nathan Mumm:

I? Yes, all right. This week our technology fail comes to us from Google, and it's not about the hack that we talked about earlier today. This has to all do with their mapping system. Now, this man, who hails from brag braggado, a small town west of buenos aires, sued, is that? Is that braggado, bragado, bragado?

Nathan Mumm:

okay, well buenos aires buenos aires there you go, buenos aires sued the internet giant in 2019, claiming it exposed him to ridicule at work and among his neighbors. C CBS News has reported this and many others Now. He argued his privacy was invaded in the 2017 photo capture because he was behind a six and a half foot wall. The street capture shows the street, the house number and shows him completely nude in his own private backyard. Now a recent award came from the Argentinian appellate judges, who overruled a lower court decision that stated it was the fault for walking around in inappropriate conditions in the garden of his own home that Google needs to pay. Now. Google reportedly argued that a six-and-a-half-foot perimeter wall was not high enough to afford privacy.

Mike Gorday:

What that's the part of the Google report. That must be a high camera they got.

Nathan Mumm:

That's a fail yeah, okay, that's why it's in the fail, but the judge cited google's policy of blurring faces and other identities, like license plates for street view, as evidence. The company knew that it would have a duty to avoid harm to third parties and, in a sense, awarded them, in pesos, roughly $12,500 in fines.

Marc Gregoire:

That's it, yep. So you made $12,000. How much is that?

Mike Gorday:

worth.

Nathan Mumm:

You're in there naked and they got your.

Mike Gorday:

This is for Google Earth right.

Nathan Mumm:

Well no, this is for Google Streets, but it's a part of the Google area. You know that camera that comes running around. People do a lot of things. They like fall down on the ground, they try to make out with people. I mean, this has now become a sensation where people try to get on the Google Street cameras with a bunch of stuff that's there.

Mike Gorday:

So there you go, and that was a fail. How was that a fail? Well, it was a fail because I think it's a fail that people use chat GPT for counseling. How do you feel about? That I think it's a fail that Princess Peach friends on Mario.

Nathan Mumm:

You got a lot of those things that are really bugging you, aren't they?

Mike Gorday:

I'm just saying man, okay well.

Marc Gregoire:

Is it a fail that your glass is empty and I haven't refilled you?

Mike Gorday:

That could be a fail Today. That could be a fail?

Nathan Mumm:

It could be a fail. Well, you know what? Speaking of something unique, let's move on to the Nathan Nugget.

Speaker 1:

Oh no, this is your Nugget of the Week, all right?

Nathan Mumm:

So here we go with our Nugget of the Week. It's very interesting because we're talking about this guy, hopefully for the last time. No, no, this is the Newport Tip Bitcoin Saga. So this is James Howell.

Marc Gregoire:

Oh, I love this story.

Nathan Mumm:

This is the guy that he had his ex-girlfriend throw out a hard drive that had over 8,000 bitcoins in 2013.

Marc Gregoire:

Well, it was his girlfriend at the time Girlfriend.

Nathan Mumm:

At the time she didn't mean to do it but she threw out a hard drive, probably sitting on some table, that said don't throw out. She was cleaning it up and took care of it. Now this has lasted 12 years, involving high court, court appeals, public opinions.

Mike Gorday:

This is the guy that tried to buy the landfill.

Nathan Mumm:

That's exactly correct. So this hard drive is thought to be in a landfill right now and he wants to buy the landfill. The city said they were going to close it and he wanted to buy the landfill. Well, the city has decided they're not necessarily going to disclose this and what they're now doing is they're coming to him for a bill of over $117,000 for all the time and effort that they have had to spend dealing pounds.

Nathan Mumm:

That's even more US dollars, so it's even more US Over $100,000 with the fine that he needs to now pay for all of their wasted time and effort that they've spent on this case. Now, instead of buying the site to retrieve it, he's decided to come up with something different. He's created his own cryptocurrency coin and he's going to try to regain his money by having people invest. Doesn't?

Mike Gorday:

everybody do this.

Nathan Mumm:

In his own cryptocurrency. So now the move for Mr Howell describes as a financial coercion in the part where he is actually saying that he's going to use his current wallet as collateral. So all these Bitcoin and all these coin things have to have a collateral that they have of tangible assets.

Mike Gorday:

He's going to use his $8,000 Bitcoin lost wallet to back his crypto.

Nathan Mumm:

That is exactly what he's doing. He's getting ready to launch this this fall.

Mike Gorday:

You know, there's a famous SNL sketch with, you know, our buddy Elon.

Speaker 7:

It's a hustle, it's a hustle.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, since James's wallet is publicly known and the blockchain is there for all to see, it's easy evidence that the 8,000 coins do exist. The need to rapidly access them to prove their existence isn't even required. Ultimately, the market will decide how valuable they deem the new coin offering to be, but it will be available for purchase. So this is crazy. So here's what he needs to do. James just needs to sit down for another like 10 years, and then they're going to come up with a way to recover lost Bitcoin. I will guarantee you They'll come up with a way to recover old token exchanges that are available. Then he'll be able to get his money back. It'll all be taken care of.

Mike Gorday:

But instead of waiting that time, yeah, we have to. We have to say that he actually owns 8 000 bitcoins he could just be saying he owns, well, there's evidence.

Nathan Mumm:

There's evidence that his bitcoin that he all had at one time deposited it shows a transaction. So no cryptocurrency exchange. When you transact on the internet with a cryptocurrency, all that data still gets tracked. People think that it's anonymous. It thinks that nobody knows what's going on. It's still all in a ledger of tracking of information. They supposedly say they can find this evidence that there's that 8 000 coins do exist.

Mike Gorday:

You know, this is, this is how obsession becomes a problem. Okay, james, yeah, you need to let it go, buddy.

Marc Gregoire:

He's having a hard time, Mike, so maybe he should turn to chat. I get it.

Mike Gorday:

I mean, if we're talking about Bitcoin and one Bitcoin is 100,000, how much is that 800,000?

Speaker 7:

Yeah, 8,000 times 100,000.

Mike Gorday:

What is that 800,000? Yeah, it's like 8,000 times 100,000.

Nathan Mumm:

What is that? It's like 8 billion, you sure? Yeah, it's in the billions yeah, or 80 billion. Yeah, it's in the billions. I just know it's in the billions.

Marc Gregoire:

Money's making them crazy. There you go.

Nathan Mumm:

All right. Well, you know what?

Speaker 1:

That was my nugget that and now our pick of the day for our whiskey tastings. Let's see what bubbles to the top all right, what do we got here?

Marc Gregoire:

mark still austin straight rye whiskey the artist. It is a straight rye, two years old, 99.6 proof, 100 texas rye, 45 dollars oh, that hits.

Mike Gorday:

that hits $45. Oh, that hits everything that he looks for.

Nathan Mumm:

I kind of liked it myself. I don't know about you, but I'm going to give it a. I understand the comments on it, but this is actually I kind of like a little bit of a spiced whiskey, so I'm going to give this absolutely a thumbs up.

Mike Gorday:

I'm going to give it a thumbs up for the flavor, because Mark has converted me to rye. I don't think I would buy it, though you wouldn't buy it. No, okay, I mean, it was pleasant. It's like elevator music, right? I wouldn't call it elevator. I hate elevator music.

Nathan Mumm:

You don't like elevator music. I always dance to that. I like soundtracks. I think soundtracks are good.

Mike Gorday:

It's like you know. It's one of those things that's pleasant when you. It's like a light rainfall on a hot day, okay.

Nathan Mumm:

You're out there dancing all around with your Sprite and 7-Up colas and all those.

Mike Gorday:

Is that what you do in the rain? That's what it is. Do you do it naked, behind a five-foot step?

Nathan Mumm:

We want to thank our listeners for joining the program. Listeners, we want to hear from you. Just visit techtimeradiocom. Click on Be a Caller. Ask us a technology question. Remember, the science of tomorrow starts with the technology of today. See you guys next week Later.

Mike Gorday:

Bye-bye.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining us on Tech Time Radio. We hope that you had a chance to have that hmm moment today in technology. The fun doesn't stop there. We recommend that you go to techtimeradiocom and join our fan list for the most important aspect of staying connected and winning some really great monthly prizes. We also have a few other ways to stay connected, including subscribing to our podcast on any podcast service from Apple to Google and everything in between. We're also on YouTube, so check us out on youtubecom. Slash techtimeradio. All one word. We hope you enjoyed the show as much as we did making it for you From all of us at Tech Time Radio. Remember mum's the word have a safe and fantastic week.

People on this episode

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Nathan Mumm

Host
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Mike Gorday

Co-host