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AI Security Gains and a Hollywood Showdown · Connecting the Dots

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Today's tech news moves fast, but understanding
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it shouldn't be hard. That's why Snarfl Solutions
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Group brings you Connecting the Dots, where we
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break down what's happening in tech and why it
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matters to you. Now, let's dive in with your
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hosts. Good morning, everyone. You're tuning
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in to Connecting the Dots. I'm Alex. And I'm
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Morgan. It is Friday, February 20th, 2026. We
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made it we did make it and depending on where
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you're waking up today You might actually need
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a little extra motivation to get out the door.
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Oh, definitely looking at the weather maps this
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morning It is a complete tale of two extremes.
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It really is So if you're tuning in from the
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southern high plains, please keep your head on
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a swivel today We are seeing some critical fire
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weather conditions developing down there Yeah,
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the winds are super gusty. The humidity is dropping
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bottom -low It's just a really dangerous combination,
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so please be careful out there. Absolutely. And
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then on the complete flip side, if you're in
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the Great Lakes or the Northeast, you probably
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need a shovel more than anything else right now.
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Seriously. Yeah. There is a massive winter storm
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tracking from northern New York all the way up
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to southern Maine. We're talking heavy snow,
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a messy wintry mix heading right into Saturday.
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So fire on one side, ice on the other. Just a
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quiet Friday in February. Just a standard end
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to the week. Right. Well, let's let's take a
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quick look at the markets before we jump into
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the actual tech news today. Things are feeling
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a little a little heavy to end the week. Yeah,
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a bit sluggish. The Dow closed Thursday down
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zero point three seven percent sitting at forty
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nine thousand three hundred and ninety five point
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one six. And the S &P 500 is. basically flat,
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just hovering right around 6 ,861. And for those
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of you watching the crypto charts, Bitcoin is
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currently trading around 66 ,877. So it's down
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slightly this morning. Yeah, it's been a bit
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of a slow slide this week. Lots of red on the
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screen to kick off the weekend, which is never
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fun to look at. No, it's not. But hey, to keep
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routine. It is a total game changer. But speaking
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of routines, I think it's time we open up the
2:47
morning star. Let's do it. Our SNARFL Tech article
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report. We have three main stories today and
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when I was reading through the sources last night,
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a really clear theme started to emerge. Yeah.
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Yeah, it feels like today is all about fortresses.
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We're seeing massive walls going up in our everyday
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technology and we're seeing walls going up in
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the entertainment industry too. That is actually
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a great way to frame it. because we are starting
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with the fortress that sits right in your pocket,
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which is the Android ecosystem. Exactly. Google
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just released its 2025 security report for the
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Play Store, and the numbers are staggering, but
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probably not in the way you might expect. Right,
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because usually when we cover security reports,
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we expect to hear that attacks are up, everything
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is on fire, panic is the appropriate response.
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Right, the sky is falling. Exactly. But the headline
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here is that the number of policy -violating
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apps Google had to block is actually down significantly.
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Let's look at the raw data. So in 2025, Google
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blocked 1 .75 million bad apps from being published.
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Now 1 .75 million is obviously still a massive
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number, but you have to compare that to 2024
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when they blocked 2 .36 million. And the number
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of developer accounts they banned. That dropped
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to 80 ,000, down from 158 ,000 the previous year.
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That's almost cut in half. So the immediate reaction
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from a lot of people might be skepticism. Like,
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is Google just getting lazy? Are they missing
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things? Or did the bad guys just all take a collective
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vacation? Right. But it's neither of those. It's
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actually a sign that their defense strategy is
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working. Think of it like a castle. OK, I like
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this. If you build a moat that's twice as wide
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and walls that are twice as high, Eventually,
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the Marauders just stop trying to storm the front
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gate. It becomes a waste of their time. Because
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the effort required to break in isn't worth the
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payout anymore. Precisely. The script kiddies,
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those low level scammers who just buy cheap malware
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kits online, they're given up on the Play Store
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because the barrier to entry has gotten way too
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high. And the main thing making those walls so
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high right now is artificial intelligence. This
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isn't just a marketing buzzword here. It has.
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fundamentally changed how Google reviews apps.
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It really has. Google is now running over 10
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,000 safety checks on every single app before
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it gets published. 10 ,000? That's wild. Because
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in the olden days, security software mostly worked
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by looking for signatures, right? Like specific
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lines of code that were known to be malicious.
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Exactly. And if the code didn't strictly match
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the list of bad words, it slipped right through.
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But now with generative AI, they're doing something
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much more sophisticated. They are actually analyzing
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intent. And I want to unpack that because how
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does a machine know what a developer intends
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to do? This is where the tech gets really fascinating.
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The AI doesn't just read static code anymore.
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It simulates how that code interacts with the
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user and the device over a period of time. OK,
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give me an example. So let's say a developer
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submits a simple calculator app. human reviewer
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or a basic scanner might look at it and say okay
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it does math looks fine right it has buttons
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it adds numbers but the AI simulates running
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it and notices that the code has a function to
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access the phone's microphone but it only tries
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to do it between the hours of 2 a .m. and 4 a
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.m. and only when the phone is actively charging
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which is Incredibly suspicious behavior for a
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calculator. I don't need my calculator listening
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to me sleep. Exactly. A rigid signature based
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scan might miss that entirely because simply
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asking for the microphone is an illegal code.
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Many apps need the microphone. But the AI looks
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at the context. It looks at the intent. Right.
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It says this behavior pattern matches spyware.
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It catches the nuance that the old rules missed.
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And that has had a massive, tangible impact on
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user privacy. The report mentions they stopped
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255 ,000 apps from asking for excessive permission.
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That's a quarter of a million apps that wanted
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your contact list or your GPS location or your
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photo gallery when they had absolutely no legitimate
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reason to access them. Just a massive amount
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of data harvesting that simply didn't happen
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because the AI stepped in and said no. And they
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also tackled review bombing, which is something
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that has plagued app stores for years. Oh, it's
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been terrible. The report says they blocked 160
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million spam ratings last year alone. 160 million.
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Just imagine you are an independent, legitimate
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developer. You spend two years building a great
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app, and then a competitor pays a bot farm to
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drop 10 ,000 one star reviews on you. page overnight
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it just destroys your business you fall out of
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the algorithm nobody downloads your app and it's
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game over right but Google estimates that this
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AI cleanup save legitimate apps from an average
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0 .5 star drop yeah and in the app economy the
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difference between a 4 .2 and a 4 .7 rating is
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literally the difference between success and
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bankruptcy exactly so the front door of the Play
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Store is tighter and more secure than it has
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ever been But as we know, with any kind of security,
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when you heavily lock the front door, the burglars
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don't just go home and enroll in coding ethics
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classes. No, they do not. They just go around
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to the back of the house. Which brings us perfectly
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to our second story, the massive shift to sideloading.
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Because the Play Store has become this impenetrable
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fortress, the hackers are moving out into the
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Wild West of the open internet. Right. And for
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listeners who might just normally click install
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on the official store and not think about it,
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let's quickly define sideloading. Good idea.
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This is when you download an app directly from
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a website or a third -party store or maybe even
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a direct link someone sends you in a text message,
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completely bypassing the Google Play Store. Right.
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And the stats here show a terrifying migration.
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Google Play Protect, which is the security software
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that lives locally on your actual phone, scanning
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in the background, it identified 27 million malicious
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side -loaded apps in 2025. 27 million. Let's
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put that into context. What were the numbers
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looking like before? It was 13 million in 2024
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and just 5 million in 2023. Wow. So we've gone
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from 5 to 13 to 27 million in just three years.
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It is an exponential curve. The threat has physically
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moved off the official store and onto the web
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browser. But the silver lining here is that even
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if you are sideloading, Google is still watching
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out for you. The scale of their on -device scanning
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is almost hard to wrap your head around. It's
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unbelievable. Play Protect currently scans 350
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billion apps. every single day, across 2 .8 billion
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devices worldwide. And because of that, they
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blocked 266 million risky installation attempts
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in real time last year. It's essentially the
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safety net catching you when you fall off the
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tightrope. And one of the specific threats they
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are catching with that net, and this is something
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that honestly really freaks me out, is tapjacking.
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Yes. We saw a big update regarding this in Android
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16 last June. Can you walk us through exactly
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what tapjacking looks like for the user? because
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it is incredibly insidious. It's the stuff of
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nightmares, mostly because it exploits your own
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muscle memory. So imagine you were playing a
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game you downloaded from a somewhat sketchy website.
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A pop -up appears that looks exactly like a normal
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ad, and there's a little X in the top corner
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to close it. You go to tap the X, a completely
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normal action we all do 100 times a day. Right.
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But what you don't realize is that the malicious
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app has drawn a transparent invisible layer directly
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over that X. And that invisible layer is actually
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a confirmed payment button for a $50 transaction.
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Or like an allow access button for your banking
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app permission. Exactly. So you think your figure
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is just closing a stupid ad, but the phone registers
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a touch on the invisible button underneath. You've
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just authorized a transfer or given away your
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data. without even knowing it. That is just terrifying
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because it breaks the fundamental trust of the
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user interface. If I can't trust that the button
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I am looking at is the button I'm actually pressing,
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the whole digital experience falls apart. It
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really does. And that is why the Android 16 update
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was so critical. It effectively killed tabjacking
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by preventing apps from registering touches on
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those obscured transparent overlays. So the big
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takeaway here is pretty clear. The walls of the
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Play Store are incredibly high now, but if you
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choose to wander out into the woods and sideload,
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you are relying entirely on that on -device safety
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net. Because the sharks are definitely circling
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in those waters. Well, speaking of sharks, and
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big water, and people who are very protective
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of their territory, let's pivot over to Hollywood.
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I see exactly where you were going with this.
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James Cameron. The man who brought us Avatar,
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Titanic, The Terminator. He is not someone who
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usually engages in small talk and he certainly
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isn't doing it now. No, he is not. He has written
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a scathing letter to the U .S. Senate regarding
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the proposed merger between Netflix and Warner
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Bros. Discovery. This is a fascinating clash
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of titans. You have the undisputed king of the
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box office going up against the king of streaming.
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Cameron wrote this formal letter to Senator Mike
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Lee, who was the chairman of the anti -trust
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subcommittee. And he starts the letter off with
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this incredible bit of sarcasm, referring to
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himself as, quote, but a humble movie farmer.
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Right, a humble movie farmer who happens to manage
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a multi -billion dollar global crop. But the
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jokes pretty much end right there in the letter.
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He is calling this merger a potential cinema
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Skynet. Which is a very specific, very loaded
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reference to his own Terminator franchise. He
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is basically saying this merger isn't just bad
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for business, it is an existential threat to
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the art form. He argues that the merger is disastrous
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for the theatrical motion picture business. And
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to understand why he's so upset, we really have
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to look at the antitrust angle. This is all about
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vertical integration. Right. Warner Bros. is
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a legacy studio. Their entire history, their
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entire financial structure, is built on making
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big movies to play in theaters. But Netflix's
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business model is the exact opposite. Netflix
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wants you on your couch, paying monthly subscription.
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They don't care about selling you a single ticket
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on a Friday night. So the overarching fear is...
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If Netflix buys Warner Bros, they have zero incentive
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to put a new Batman movie or the next Harry Potter
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into a movie theater. Why would they help the
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theatrical competition? They'll just pull all
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that premium content exclusively onto their own
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streaming platform to drive up subscription numbers.
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Now, to be fair, Netflix co -CEO Ted Sarandos
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tried to get ahead of this criticism. He publicly
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pledged a 17 day theatrical window for Warner
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Bros films. He's saying, look, we will put these
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big movies in theaters for two and a half weeks
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before we put them on streaming. And James Cameron
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is absolutely not having it. He calls that 17
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day window ridiculously short and just a token
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gesture. And honestly, when you look at the math
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of his own movies, the guy has a point. He has
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the receipts. He points out in the letter that
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Avatar and Titanic played in theaters for months.
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I mean Titanic was the number one movie in America
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for something like 15 or 16 weeks in a row. Cameron's
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argument is all about the long tail of revenue.
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If you pull a massive movie out of theaters after
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just 17 days, you are cutting off the vast majority
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of its box office potential. You're taking what
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should be a massive cultural event and turning
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it into just another piece of content to casually
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scroll past on a Tuesday night. And it's not
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just about the studios making less money. Cameron
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is actually waving the American flag pretty hard
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here. He talks about movies as a vital cultural
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export. That was a really compelling part of
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his argument. He says the U .S. may no longer
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lead the world in auto or steel manufacturing,
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but it is still the undisputed world leader in
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movies. Right. American films are one of the
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biggest ways American culture and ideals spread
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around the globe. If we stop making massive theatrical
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blockbusters and just churn out streaming content
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for living rooms, that global soft power diminishes.
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He also warns about the downstream jobs. If the
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box office potential drops because of these short
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windows, fewer big budget movies are going to
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get greenlit. And that means fewer jobs for VFX
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artists, set builders, camera crews, down to
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the people working the concession stands at the
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local multiplex. It just spirals. It's the Sarah
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Connor approach. He sees the future war coming
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and he is trying to stop it right now in the
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present. He just doesn't trust the Netflix pledge.
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He literally asks, what are the teeth in the
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deal? Right. Because if the merger goes through
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and Netflix just decides to quietly kill that
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theatrical window a year later. Who's going to
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stop them? Once the theatrical competition is
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gone, the consumer and the industry as a whole
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completely loses leverage. It really is a battle
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for the soul of how we consume stories as a society.
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And Senator Lee seems to be taking it very seriously.
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He is planning a follow up hearing based on what
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he called this groundswell of concern. So the
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humble movie farmer might actually be the one
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to throw a wrench in the gears. of this massive
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corporate machine, it is definitely a story we
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need to keep watching. The consolidation of media
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affects what we see, how we see it, and ultimately
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who gets to tell the stories. Absolutely. Well,
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before we wrap up and try to connect these dots
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16:32
All right, so let's bring it all back home. We
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have Google tightening the screws on app security
16:39
with AI. We have side loading exploding outside
16:42
the walls. And we have James Cameron fighting
16:44
to keep the movie theater experience alive. What
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is the through line here? I think the real theme
16:50
today is the rise of the benevolent dictator.
16:53
Ooh, that is a strong term. How do you mean?
16:55
Well, think about Google. We are all cheering
16:58
for them to block the bad apps. We are genuinely
17:01
happy that their AI is scanning for intent and
17:04
stopping things like tap jacking. We want that
17:06
safety. Right, we have the high walls. But to
17:08
get that safety, we have to hand over near total
17:10
control to Google. They become the ultimate gatekeeper
17:13
of what software is allowed to exist and thrive
17:16
on our phones. That's very true. We're constantly
17:19
trading freedom for security. The walls keep
17:21
the bad guys out, but they also lock us in. Exactly.
17:24
And then you look at the Netflix and Warner Bros
17:25
situation. Antitrust laws exist to prevent monopolies,
17:29
to prevent one single entity from becoming the
17:31
dictator of a given market. Cameron is arguing
17:34
that if Netflix controls both the production
17:36
of the movies and the sole distribution platform,
17:39
they become the absolute arbiter of what constitutes
17:42
a movie. It creates a massive bottleneck, because
17:45
if one company decides that the theatrical experience
17:48
is dead, then it's dead, simply because they
17:51
own the keys to the kingdom. Right. Whether it's
17:54
the app ecosystem or the film industry, we are
17:56
seeing a heavy trend toward massive consolidation.
18:00
The platforms themselves are becoming exponentially
18:02
more powerful than the creators and certainly
18:04
more powerful than the users. And as those central
18:07
platforms get bigger and build higher walls,
18:10
the wild spaces like the open internet for indie
18:12
app developers or the independent theater for
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mid -budget movies, they get smaller and much
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harder to survive in. Which brings up a really
18:18
interesting thought to chew on this weekend.
18:20
We're talking about all these massive fortresses.
18:24
But what happens when the technology evolves
18:26
to the point where creators don't need the fortresses
18:29
at all? Oh, I like where you're going with this.
18:31
Think about it. If James Cameron is right and
18:34
the theatrical window dies, maybe the movie theater
18:37
just becomes a luxury boutique for the rich.
18:40
But what if a filmmaker like Cameron eventually
18:44
just uses decentralized tech to bypass both the
18:48
theater's and Netflix. Like what if the next
18:50
Avatar is just securely side -loaded directly
18:53
to our VR headsets? Exactly. We're worried about
18:56
who controls the platforms, but the real disruption
18:59
in 10 years might be that the platforms themselves
19:01
become entirely obsolete. That is a wild thought.
19:04
Are we losing the cultural campfire or are we
19:07
just going to build a completely new one off
19:08
the grid? We might just build a new one. Something
19:11
to think about next time you hit play on your
19:12
remote or download a new app. Heavy stuff, but
19:16
so important to think about. We're here to help
19:18
at Snarful, so reach out on our website if you
19:20
have any more questions. Have a great weekend,
19:21
everyone. That's a wrap on today's top stories.
19:28
Remember, tech doesn't have to be complicated,
19:30
and we're here to help connect the dots. If you've
19:33
got questions or want to learn more, visit us
19:36
at snarful .com. Thanks for listening, and we'll
19:39
catch you next time.