Chaos Lever Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Join Ned and Chris in this episode of Chaos Lever, where they explore the fascinating and sometimes bizarre history of email and the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). Special guest Dylan Beattie, software development consultant and creator of the Rockstar programming language, shares his insights on how email evolved from early telegraph systems to the global communication tool we rely on today.

**Key Topics Covered:**
- The origins of SMTP and email's predecessor, telegraph systems
- Why email became the default communication tool, despite its flaws
- The first spam email and its lasting legacy
- The quirks and limitations of SMTP, including its security flaws
- Modern efforts to secure email with protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC

If you're a fan of tech history, email protocols, or just enjoy hearing about the wild west days of the internet, this episode is for you!

 In this episode, we discuss how Google is improving Android security with Rust, significantly reducing memory-related vulnerabilities and enhancing developer productivity. We also dive into NIST's latest revision of its Digital Identity Guidelines, a crucial standard for protecting digital identities. Next, we explore the ongoing feud between WP Engine and Matt Mullenweg, which is impacting WordPress users. Finally, we touch on the latest legal development where authors suing OpenAI are granted access to the company’s training data for inspection. 

Links:
 - Android Is Gathering Rust: https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/25/google_rust_safe_code_android/
 - NIST Releases Second Draft Revision 4 of Digital Identity Standard: https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.800-63-4.2pd.pdf
 - WP Engine Spat with Matt Mullenweg Prat: https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/25/wordpress-org-bans-wp-engine-blocks-it-from-accessing-its-resources/
 - OpenAI’s Training Data To Be Made Available To Search By Authors Who Are Suing Them: https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/26/openai_training_data_author_copyright_case/ 

Ned and Chris cover quirky keyboard history, from missing keys and ThinkPad debacles to vintage typewriters and relic keys like Sys Rq and Scroll Lock.

Mo Keys Mo Problems

Ned and Chris explore the quirks of keyboards, starting with the irritation of missing home and end keys and the infamous ThinkPad function/control key switch. They journey back to typewriters of the late 1800s, like the Remington which gave us the QWERTY layout, and poke fun at old-school innovations like the shift key and tab key. The chat then shifts to terminal keyboards and early computers like the PDP-1, with its own peculiar keys. The guys also cover obsolete keys like Sys Rq, Pause/Break, Scroll Lock, and Num Lock, showing how they’ve become relics in today’s tech world.

Episode: 74 Published: 9/19/2023

Well, ok, it���s not deprecated yet. It���s been marked ���obsolete.��� And it���s the end of a crazy tale that is a lot about technology in the early phases of Linux becoming mainstream, and also a liiiiiiiittle bit about, well. Let���s just say that there was some ���unpleasantness��� surrounding the namesake of the filesystem that greatly contributed to its downfall. But we���ll get to that.

• Lets start with some Linux filesystems
• 1992 saw the release of Windows 3.1

Intro and outro music by James Bellavance copyright 2022

Episode: 009 Published: 9/14/2023

• Your Car Is Spying On You. Like, a Lot.
• TLS Must Stand For Totally Lacking Security
• An Interesting Tale of DevOps Gone Wrong
• The Back to Office Dominos Keep Falling

Intro and outro music by Ned Bellavance copyright 2022

Episode: 73 Published: 9/12/2023

It���s been a while since we really harped on the whole Advertising Company Google thing, and that���s because we���ve been busy watching Elon absolutely destroy what little good was in Twitter to begin with, observing Microsoft stomp the yard of infosec rakes so hard Sideshow Bob would be impressed, and of course complaining about kids these days and their AI web3 NFT drones. Or something.

But believe it or not, Google is still a gigantic company worth $1.72T, and the vast majority of their revenue and most of their profit comes from selling ads. Hence the moniker Advertising Company Google. Now that���s exhausting to type and say every time, so I���m just going to shorten it to Google, with the understanding that advertising company is implied. Savvy? Excellent.

• What are Third-party Cookies
• Google rolls out privacy sandbox
• Antique Spoon Collectors Anonymous
• Everybody Hates FLoC
• Topics API ain’t much better
• Try Vivaldi if you must use Chromium
• Disable Third-party Cookies in Chrome

Intro and outro music by James Bellavance copyright 2022

Episode: 008 Published: 9/7/2023

• US-EAST-1 Should Not Be The Default
• Newly AI Powered Instagram CGI Avatar Noonoouri Given Record Contract
  • ���We Are The People��� by Empire of the Sun
• Are Self-Driving Cars Really That Bad?
• Facebook Floating Paid Model In EU After EU Continues To Be Tired Of Facebook���s Shit
  • Facebook Average Revenue Per User has been pretty steady

Intro and outro music by Ned Bellavance copyright 2022

Episode: 72 Published: 9/5/2023

This month saw Samsung announcing some frankly absurd upcoming SSD products. Among them are a 256TB SSD and a PBSSD solution that encompasses, you guessed it, petabyte-sized SSD solutions. These are obviously future looking, and heavily based in the datacenter. Not addressed at the event is why a consumer would want or need that kind of storage, nor the fact that the market barely has any options for said consumers at 4TB, let alone larger. Still, in the enterprise this is big news, and announcements like it have lead companies such as Pure Storage to announce the effective end of HDDs, or, in parlance, spinning rust, as soon as 2028.

• The Spinning Disk Hard Drive Is Dead
• Long Live The Spinning Disk Hard Drive
• This month saw Samsung announcing some frankly absurd upcoming SSD products
• IBM announced a TS1170 tape that handles 50TB native at an IO rate of 400mb/s
• The LTO Ultrium Roadmap has a 576TB native tape listed in just 5 more generations

Intro and outro music by James Bellavance copyright 2022

Episode: 007 Published: 8/31/2023

• When We Said Unlimited, We Didn���t Really Mean It
• Instacart Filing For IPO On The Back Of Creative Cost Savings In The Cloud
  • Instacart���s IT staff published blog that explains in more detail
• Microsoft Revokes Retired Cert, Things Predictably Break
• Microsoft Announces Preview of Python Integration Into Excel

Intro and outro music by Ned Bellavance copyright 2022

Episode: 71 Published: 8/29/2023

Last week was VMware Explore 2023, formerly known as VMworld. The conference was renamed in 2022 for��� reasons? For those of a certain age, i.e. me, VMware was a pivotal (no pun intended) technology that transformed our use of compute, storage, and networking in the data center. We talked a bit about VMware the company when the Broadcom acquisition was announced, but I thought it would be interesting to revisit the company and pontificate on its future.

• VMworld history
• Broadcom acquisition
• UK approval
• SiliconANGLE analysis
• VMware Explore News Summary

Intro and outro music by James Bellavance copyright 2022