The WAN Show - The NSA is Giving Out It's Hacks for Free! - WAN Show Jan 17, 2020

Episode Date: January 20, 2020

For your unrestricted 30 days free trial, go to https://www.freshbooks.com/WAN and enter in “The WAN Show” in the how you heard about us section. Save 15% today with offer code LTT on Displate at https://lmg.gg/displatewan Check Out Humble Bundle at https://lmg.gg/HumbleBundle LTX2020, Save the Date - August 8+9, 2020 - https://www.ltxexpo.com/ Check out Carpool Critics, our new movie podcast: http://carpoolcritics.libsyn.com/ Timestamps: (Courtesy of Ben Fayers) 2:39 - NSA Exploit Reveal 3:47 - Floatplane Password Character Limit 5:24 - Back to the NSA 6:33 - Linus runs away to shout at a microphone 7:17 - Luke wasn't paying attention to Linus (more NSA Chat) 9:20 - Windows 7 is dead 9:50 - Linus is back (Win7 conversation continues) 10:25 - Luke moves to Windows 10 (W7/OS conversation still going) 13:14 - (Tangent) Linus' gets crushed in beat saber. 26:27 - Discussion about TQ Video "Why is windows 10 free now" 30:40 - SPONSOR - Freshbooks 31:20 - SPONSOR - Humble Bundle 32:00 - SPONSOR - Displate 33:00 - LTTStore updates 33:40 - Nick's Twitter postings (and Linus lack of meme-ery) 34:50 - Apple may be forced to ditch the Lightning connector (EU voting on all devices using single connector) 38:25 - "USB Type C is not particularly well understood" (with example) 45:46 - (Tangent) Linus' Plex Server is fixed 46:00 - NVIDIA drops pricing of RTX 2060 to 299(USD?) 46:23 - "to the rumoured upcoming 5600XT which is releasing on ..." (Linus' makes sure he's not about to leak something) 46:38 - Back to GPU Talk 47:40 - LTT Minecraft Server Launch Soon™️ 48:23 - Scientists build living robots (Xenobots) 50:38 - Cooler Master redesign thermal paste syringe 52:58 - Corsair iCUE to support Asus motherboard RGB control 54:50 - Two random things from Luke (and Linus' broken Valve Index) 57:15 - Luke is banned from WoW for 6 months 58:10 - Like was in a dungeon with his family members 58:48 - Luke's personal WoW classic launch day story Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You know what's great about ambition? You can't see it. Some things look ambitious, but looks can be deceiving. For example, a runner could be training for a marathon, or they could be late for the bus. You never know. Ambition is on the inside. So that goal to beat your personal best?

Keep chasing it. Drive your ambition. Mitsubishi Motors. Oh,'s fine i just wanted to note that feature request because it's good uh an error occurred an error occurred please try again later uh but also it says live and excellent condition i love this so much uh hey jake oh he wandered off okay i'm just gonna snap this is probably the quickest way for me to do this i'm just gonna snap a quick picture of this because this is hilarious we have a we have a call with them uh probably next week like we actually have a contact at youtube

that's like actively working on the development of this panel and um yeah we must be hard right we were like straight up honest with them we were like look the way that it's so confusing to use because the way it messages things is terrible yeah like it's undecipherable and so me getting like excellent connection live by the way there's a problem you can't you can't do that anyway we're live welcome to the land show ladies and gentlemen we've got a fantastic show for you guys today. The NSA has revealed a major flaw in Microsoft's Windows operating system. Apple may be forced to ditch the lightning connector.

Luke got banned by Blizzard for six months. Well, I'm fascinated to hear about it. Okay, yeah. It's a great story. And you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Windows 7 is dead. Dead as a doornail. Dead as, um. I mean, you can still use it. Yeah, you can still use it, but like. People used XP for a long time. They did. They shouldn't anymore. No. Yeah. You should really not boot a Windows XP operating system on your network. yeah let's roll that intro

oh yeah Oh, it's still unlisted. I forgot it's in public. Well, whatever. We're not starting over. Sponsors for the show today. That Hufflepuff. That FreshBooks. Oh, what's up?

Oh, you've got to be kidding me. I forgot about that. Oh, wow. Crap. Wow. I can talk that. Oh, wow. Crap. Wow. I can talk about Apple being forced to ditch Lightning. Oh, I want to talk about that, though. Okay.

When do we need to do that? How long is it? I don't know. Okay. Can you find that out? Like, how set up is it? As long as I can just sprint over there, say it, and then run back over here, we should be fine. All right. So why don't we jump right into our headline topic the NSA reveals a major flaw in Microsoft Windows at a press conference the

U.S. National Security Agency everyone's best friend announced that I mean you know you confide everything to your best friends yeah you know your best friend is always kind of like hanging around, watching out for you. Very, very closely. You know, your best friend, um... Puts listening devices in your home. Uh, anyway, the NSA announced it has discovered a major flaw in Windows 10. That's normal, right? Uh, it's not clear how long they knew about the vulnerability before revealing it to Microsoft, but the bugs revealed were within Windows Remote Desktop Gateway Co- okay, how-

That's not good. Remote Desktop. Riddle me this. Okay. You know a thing or two about online security, right? Uh, sure. Okay. You probably know enough to know this.

Okay. If there's anything in your operating system that needs to be bulletproof- Yeah. Yep. Wouldn't you think needs to be bulletproof, wouldn't you think it would be the one that literally gives you, as though you were sitting in front of it, access to the machine? Yeah. Can I take a quick aside here for a second? You just asked, you know a thing or two about online security.

There's a bone that I have to pick with some of our audience that has been picked by AJ, but then after it has been picked by AJ, but then after it has been picked by AJ, they just tend to vanish. Yes. And then they come back later when AJ's not around and they attack again. And then AJ's like, hey, I see you. Is this float plane related? It is. Okay. What are they mad about now? So we have a maximum character count on our passwords. Yeah. It's like 72 or something. I don't remember what it is. It's really high. Okay. Some people try to set passwords that are higher than that and then point at other websites and say, like, you can do it there.

That means better security. A lot of really good encryption protocols can only go up to a certain amount. Right. You can allow it to accept passwords that are beyond that amount. Right. But it will just cut them off at 72, or whatever the character account is. Really?

It just slices it off. So if you go to like, Hacker News, you can put in a password that's really long, and then you can go up to the character count limit and just type whatever you want past the end, and it doesn't matter. That's not better security. Come on on I'm

not like an absolute expert of this stuff but this is not difficult to understand and like also 72 is lots I don't remember exactly what it is okay what is very high yeah okay it's it's lots yeah anyways that's just you know I just uh thanks Luke we get very aggressive tweets every once in a while

someone will be like this is unacceptable how's your chest feel lighter? Ugh. Thanks, Luke. We get very aggressive tweets every once in a while. Someone will be like, this is unacceptable. How's your chest? Does it feel lighter? Yeah, a little bit. Anyways, back to NSA and Windows. All right, so the vulnerability in Windows Remote Desktop, like the one thing you got to go through with a fine tooth,

you know, like a lice comb, you know? Get in there. Definitely included on server versions. So there's two separate bugs identified as CVE-2020-06-09. Nice. And CVE-2020-06-10. They are particularly dangerous as, while they are not yet exploited, they could be used to remotely execute code

on targeted RDP servers before the gateway even attempts to authenticate them. Nice. The public disclosure represents a major change in the NSA's approach, choosing to put computer security ahead of building up its arsenal of hacking tools that allow the agency to spy on adversaries networks. Past bugs like this were stockpiled by the NSA

as attack vectors, but eventually leaked to hacking groups for malicious use, notably Eternal Blue and WannaCry. Microsoft and the NSA reported that they have seen no active exploitation of the flaw, and the latest Windows patch addresses 48 vulnerabilities, five of which were related to Windows Remote Desktop. Okay, apparently I have to run over there

and just yell at the microphone for about 20 seconds long story short, there's a product coming out and We filmed our review and then a competitor has a product that competes with this product and they adjusted their pricing like oh An hour and a half ago and our video is already shot, so I have to go and do something. Are you just ghetto voice-overing? Oh yeah, oh yeah, so hard. Nice, nice.

I actually really enjoy that, when you watch a video and there's like, clearly, they clearly said something the first time, and then there's like, say he says $95, and he's like, $150, and it goes back to the cadence that was there before. I don't know why, but I find that highly entertaining. Not gonna lie, I wasn't fully paying attention to what Linus was saying before he left.

So I don't actually remember where he was on this. So I'm just going to pick it up. And if I'm reiterating what he said previously, I apologize. The public disclosure represents a major change in the NSA's approach, choosing to put computer security, oh, he did say this, ahead of building up its arsenal of hacking tools that allow the agency to spy on adversaries' networks. This is good because I can pretty much bet you at least some of their systems are running on Windows.

I know for a fact that a decent amount of the American government systems in general, even if they're not the NSAs, are running on Windows. And, I mean, things are better secure than than than insecure if you set up a way to access something in an unauthorized way that can also be used as an attack vector always like you can't just know that it will be used by yourself so yeah getting this fixed is good overall Microsoft and the NSA reported that they have seen no active exploitation of the flaw. That's great. I hope they get it fixed before that happens.

The latest Windows patch, which we downloaded and installed on the streaming computer right before the stream, and I was scared that the stream wasn't going to work. The latest Windows patch addressed 48 vulnerabilities, five of which were related to Windows Remote Desktop. That is terrifying. I am still extremely uncomfortable with Windows 10. I've talked about it a ton on this show in the past. I am running Windows 10 personally at home now. The thing that usually ends up getting me

to push operating systems ends up being games. And my roommate and a bunch of other people wanted to play the new Call of Duty, and you can't do that on Windows 8.1, which was my preferred operating system You do it on Windows 7 which was interesting, but yeah, you can do it on Windows 8.1 Which was kind of a bummer I don't want to do the Apple forced to ditch the lightning connector thing because Linus said he wanted to talk about that I don't think there's gonna be a ton of conversation on this one,

so I'll dive into that. The you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here, Windows 7 is dead thing. You can still use Windows 7, to be clear. It is just insecure. Official support for Windows 7 has ended as of Tuesday, January 14, 2020. The hugely popular OS, that's a little understated, will continue to get security updates for companies

who pay $25 to $200 per workstation for the privilege, but end-users are SOL due to the end-of-life clause. Wah! He's back. If you could pay $25 to $200 as a user, not as a workstation, so like for your home PC and you were like a year diehard Yes software as a service yep, let's do it to keep using Windows 7 yeah Did they ever add DirectX 12?

I don't know if they did universally. I know definitely some games that are DX 12 work on Windows 7 Right, but in like DirectX 11 mode. I haven't done it because I haven't ran with a 7 in a long time so I'm not sure what are you running now you're on Windows 8 aren't you I was 8.1 for a long time I've recently poured over oh you did yeah oh you finally did it I I had installed Do you remember when my eight point one like black screen bricked and then I installed Mint and then I was like this is too tedious Yes, all the other operating system that other operating system was Windows 10 Just because I was like it doesn't really matter all I really use is like word excel and a web browser. Yeah, so

Whatever, so I just did it and then my laptop was also in windows 10 so i was like outnumbered with my own personal device you know what personal use i'm gonna say no i'm gonna say no because the only justification for me to pay for an operating system is for it to have some kind of um it has to enable me to do something that I otherwise couldn't do. I mean, for me, the operating system is just something that mostly gets out of my way. And there are things about Windows 10

that are super obnoxious. It drives me nuts to this day that I have to, what is it, an extra two clicks to get into my network connection settings. Like, just stupid, asinine things like i want to know what the link speed of my wi-fi is i don't want to right click then this then this then this and this other thing status like it just takes too long to do something audio settings annoying to get to basically all of the settings are really annoying to get to super frustrating and still

not consolidated like some of it's in the old style control panel some of its in the Metro UI style control panel like Finish your job at some point. I have always hated this and like even I've been switched to Windows 10 for a little while Oh eight years. Yeah But the the this type of UI design, I don't know if you want to show that or not Yeah, sure, that's probably fine. I don't know if you want to show that or not. Hold on, yeah, sure. That's probably fine. I don't like this. Yeah, well, Metro. I don't think it looks good.

I have never thought it looks good. Aggressively boxy, and the majority of the time, they're just like only text. Really flat. Or text with a box out of lines around it. Remember Aeroglass? Aeroglass was sweet. Aeroglass was sweet.

This does still look so good. It does. So anyway, for me, the operating system when I'm at home is just to get out of my way. And I actually, on a machine that's working, one that I'm not tinkering with, I access that stuff

shockingly rarely. Like on my, the computer actually, wow, the computer i actually use the most now is the vr gaming rig connected to my tv in my living room yeah yeah go figure i i never would have seen that coming i use my laptop a fair bit but like only at work um oh no okay i lied my workstation at work so i use the most i'm gonna I'm gonna tangent again. Oh wow okay. I have to crush your heart a little bit That's this Jaden just decided to randomly get the song you were playing on What a monster

On beat saver after you played it, and I don't know why it's not loading right now But yeah, he hundred percent it on expert full combo no misses It was good good livestream, though. Expert plus 100%. Anyway, I will address that later. Oh, there it is. There it goes. Oh, whatever.

Anyway, so, yeah, I'd so... Okay, what? That is so off topic. Lancho, I'd so okay That is so off topic When show I guess um so Where my position changes on this oh, no you said your VRPC. That's why yeah So my VRPC is the one that I probably used the most aside from maybe my workstation, which I use for work. Yeah And I almost never dink around with anything like once i've got everything configured yeah yeah once i've got yeah once i've got steam vr set up to you know properly switch

which audio devices when i open and close vr um now that i don't actually try to use my pc to watch movies now that i just use plex through the Nvidia Shield. All my Harmony stuff is perfect. It goes to sleep. It wakes up properly with that ancient Microsoft IR receiver from way back 2002, 2003, still using that thing. It's freaking awesome. It still has driver support. So I just don't really touch that stuff.

So all I really do with Windows is go down to the task manager to like open a thing yeah and that's it like that's the only purpose it serves for me so at home the only thing i could really possibly care about is that it like supports the stuff i want to use and yeah i use pretty new stuff so i guess that's fine. And even if I used older stuff, if it was for personal use, most of the personal use type things like a webcam or a printer cost so little compared to paying a maintenance fee for your operating system that you are probably better off replacing that. With that said, if I was was a business particularly a small business like i i had a neighbor before that ran um a sign making business out of his garage and he had like cnc software and it has

to be electronics design software that only ran on windows xp and so for him, the cost of upgrading compared to the cost of maintaining a software, maintaining an operating system could actually be far more. Like that could convince him to spend $25 a year on Windows 7. So my one argument there would be... Or in his case, Windows XP, but like... Does he even need that connected to the internet? No.

Yeah, so then he can just run XP. Right, but okay, let's say in a case where it was like a production system. Yeah, and there are those airport terminals are really common for it. Yep, that's a really great example. Or even just an office that's just full of people who just type documents all day and absolutely do not need new computers like the cost of outfitting an entire office with new computers compared to the cost of spending 25 a year per seat for five years yeah like and then just replace it when it's dead style approach. Exactly.

I mean, there are... I would gladly pay a fee to be able to keep using Windows 8.1. Really? But you switched to Windows 10 voluntarily now. You have to justify that. You have to explain that. You brought up the compatibility issue. My friends wanted to play a game. I couldn't play the game with them.

It's like, hey, well, this is pretty lame. Because at this point i play most games for like social reasons right so i looked it up and uh yes microsoft did port direct x12 to windows 7 but only for certain games yeah okay yeah so you were you were right about that it's pretty unsure but yeah so how much would you pay i i would definitely pay within that range really yeah okay because i think windows 10 definitely gives me more grief than that cost is worth if that makes sense what has it done to you lately um is it that bad for some everything worked perfectly before i moved to windows 10 and i have done three reformats since this trying to figure out what the problem is and

installing not all programs every time trying to narrow out what the problem is and installing not all programs every time trying to narrow it down but it hitches like crazy really and will randomly like freeze all screens will completely freeze and then any uh game that is in full screen windowed mode yeah will and become a window and i have no idea why I've tried various Nvidia drivers I've tried like everything and it just I think Windows 10 just hates me personally at this point that does seem to be the only rational I don't know everything was perfect and was 8.1 And then now I just have a variety of issues I find like one thing that I do fairly often is we'll watch a show through my computer

because I don't have a TV yet. Yep. And I'll switch the audio source to my speakers. And that's just annoying every single time because going into the settings and doing all this kind of stuff is way simpler. Is that an external program? Sound switch, yeah.

It's a super, super lightweight. You can just set a hot key. Oh, okay, that's cool. Yeah, so that's what I was using back when I was using wireless headphones on the TV sometimes. Well, I don't know if I ever actually ended up using them, but I set up wireless headphones on the TV and then realized that nobody in the entire building I live in ever sits and watches TV alone. Yeah.

When people are consuming content alone, it's generally on a tablet or a phone. Okay. And when they're consuming it together, they don't wear headphones. Yeah. So those headphones have just been sitting there for like two years or three years or whatever. But when I set it up i uh i got sound switch oh and back when um back when the audio switching for vr was a flakier like in the very very early launch days of the htc vive um i would use sound switch to like fix it if it glitched out just like hey you need to yeah switch over to the other

thing there's other stuff that's just kind of annoying on probably a more, like, principle kind of level. Yeah. Like the start menu just being so stupid. Yeah, the search is so bad. And Windows 8.1 search was great. My favorite one now is when I search for Teams, T-E-A-M-S, my

first result is always TeamViewer. And my second result is always Microsoft Teams. Oh. result is always TeamViewer and my second result is always Microsoft and it's like it's your own software and your own search can't prioritize it I will and I put the S in I'm not searching T E A-A-M. Which if you did, TeamViewer coming up first, sure. Makes perfect sense because I use it all the time. Yep. T-E-A-M-S.

And it comes up with TeamViewer. I can't actually show it here. I don't think this has teams on it. Or TeamViewer, apparently. And then it searches it. And like, even if you have a tough time finding it, I never want you to search it. I am never going to search something online with the start menu that will never ever happen right, but you're an advanced user I don't care. I think give me the option to control this let me turn search a web search off in this

Can you not I don't maybe I just haven't found it I mean the settings suck so I'm not sure the thing about Windows is if you're willing to go in and play around with regedit it's actually very customizable use Linux it's actually very customizable no not necessarily that's not all you're going pretty far okay you're talking about you want to play a game with your friends Linux ain't necessarily the solution there There's definitely a little bit more work. Yes. That is a fair Animation speed or whatever like the first the first thing that I did that required a reformat was I followed the Linus tech tips

Windows 9 guide which like Destroyed everything and was horrible you guys need to add like a thing on the forum that says don't do this oh is it bad now yes oh very because it was great when we first did it i i'm sure oh like honestly our our export server is still running that i don't know maybe it works better with updates later on windows just hates just hates you in general. Maybe that. Maybe that. Because we've never gotten another complaint about that. One of the software, I don't remember what it was. You had to get it from GitHub.

Yeah. It's just super out of date and deprecated. And there's a few things like that where applying them now might not really work as well. Right. But if you had them and you were updating with it, maybe Windows handles it better. I'm not sure. Or Windows just it better. I'm not sure. Or Windows just hates me. I'm happy with either

of those explanations at this point. Windows 8.1 loves me, though. And I abandoned it. So, basically, how far did you get into this? So, unless you're willing to pay a bunch of money,

which I think we can probably both agree that unless it's for business reasons, you probably can't really justify it. So unless you're willing to pay, you are SOL or so we thought. So a bypass has been found that enables extended support updates for end users by bypassing the ESU key check. Unknown how long this will work for. I mean, Microsoft has demonstrated in the past that they're willing to turn a blind eye to end users working around their checkpoints, but not necessarily on everything. So one of the most famous examples of them just sort of pretending not to notice something is the free upgrade from Windows 7 or Windows 8 to Windows 10.

They said, hey, we're going to end it at this time. Then they extended it formally, if I recall correctly, by some period. Then they either extended it again or they just ignored it. And then they just never, ever, ever turned it off. So to this day, you can install Windows 7 Free upgrade it to Windows 10 or you can just install Windows 10 use a Windows 7 product key Just like enter it add install. It'll just work it treats all complete. Yeah, I didn't know that Yeah, I did it the other day even once your Windows 10 is already installed

you can like go to activate and I was able so I so I changed the hardware in my VR gaming machine, and I needed to reactivate Windows because it got mad. So the problem is that I hadn't actually dealt with that in a long time because I hadn't upgraded my personal rig in like three or four years or something like that. It had been quite a while, and they've made a lot of changes. So it is still possible to retain your license from one hardware set to another, as far as I can tell,

although I didn't successfully do it because it looks like you have to deregister it first. I will say one thing that was kind of nice is I did the, instead of doing the, I want to use a offline account thing, I used my actual Microsoft account every time. And I, in this whole move, like I'm moving to Windows 10 or whatever,

I'm going to be like, I'm going to be super legit. I'm going to buy a key properly through my Microsoft account, all that kind of stuff. And I kept the keys in my email somewhere. So I kept on just being like, I don't have a key. But then when I signed in, it would just grab it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was a nice.

Yeah, so it's tied to the hardware. That was a nice experience. But that means that you have to deregister it. Yeah, but I didn't have to, is what I'm saying. But you didn't change the hardware. That's... Oh, okay, to move it from hardware to hardware. Right.

Okay, okay, okay. So the only way for me to do that would have been to rebuild up the whole computer, deregister it, and I was just... It's a small form factor machine. I was just like, no, I can't do this. So out of desperation,

I had an old Windows 7 Ultimate key. I was just like, no, I can't do this. So out of desperation, I had an old Windows 7 Ultimate key. And I was like, what happens if I activate it? No problem. Windows 10 Pro. Bibbidi-bobbidi, there you go. Yep. Windows 10 Pro. Well, I had Windows 10 Pro installed, so I knew I was going to need something other than Windows 7 Home. I'm pretty sure that transition doesn't work. So yeah. So the the workaround that, you know, everyone, I think, knows about then is because Windows 7 is that because Windows 7 was so easy to pirate, if you pirate Windows 7 and then upgrade to Windows 10, you end up with a legit Windows 10 install. And so Microsoft has had every opportunity under the sun to block that off over the last few years, but they just, for whatever reason, didn't do it. And we made a video about this recently on Techquickie.

It was like the most explosive Techquickie we've ever made. People loved it, people hated it. It got 2.2 million views in the first few days. Which is crazy for TechQuickie. The title was, why is Windows 10 free now? And basically, some people got really mad because they were like, well, it's not free. That's piracy. How many views does it have now? 2.3, I think. 2.375. That's nuts for TechQuickie. And so people were mad because they were like, this is promoting software piracy. And actually, if you watch the video, we never say that it's the right thing to do.

We just say that Microsoft has had every opportunity to close this off and they haven't done it. then we speculate as to why that might be including some backup from statements that microsoft and their leadership have made publicly about how windows 10 is going to be the last windows and it's more about the install base and it's more about building out the ecosystem and it's less about trying to milk people for 126 dollars or whatever you know an oem windows license cost every two to three years. They've accepted that they're moving away from that model and they're moving towards this more cloud-focused one. And honestly, you look at their profits, it seems to be going just fine in spite of them not selling as many Windows licenses

and new machine licensing fees aren't going anywhere. Yeah, I was going to say, I've been convinced for a long time that it's not about selling to users that are building their own computers and stuff. I think they've essentially never cared. We're such a minority of a minority. But exactly. And if they can just shut us up

by being like, just take your stupid free operating system, that's almost certainly going to be better for them in the long run. As long as they're making money somewhere else, but yes. And they've shifted, so they are. Selling OEM licenses

and doing all these other things makes way more sense. Like, oh yeah, you're all used to using Windows because it's free. Ha ha ha ha. And then now you have to pay for it when you buy a laptop.

I mean, how else were they going to maintain their dominance? Because I don't think that in a world where Apple doesn't charge for operating system updates, in a world where Linux is continuing to get better and better and better,

they were going to be able to keep charging you $100 and $150 every couple of years forever. That wasn't going to happen. Some guy's having an aneurysm because he's telling me to change the audio output through the volume icon on the taskbar. I know. But it's like too many steps. That's my whole point. It was just easier on the taskbar. I know, but it's like too many steps, that's my whole point.

It was just easier on 8.1. Yep. Oh yeah, it's just like more stupid things. Yep. All right, so what else do we have to talk about? For those who have hardware no longer supported, try out Linux, hey, there you go. But don't stick with Windows 7 if you can at all help it.

That is really important. Security is a big deal and you ain't gonna have it. That NSA flaw is a perfect example of how, even though it's older software at this point, there are still absolutely exploits and bugs that are being found. So whatever it is that you are updating to, we did a video about this on LTT a little while ago,

it should be something. So for now, there's the ESU key bypass, check bypass. No idea how long that'll work. For the future, though, you're going to have to do something. I mean, 8.1, I think, has another couple years left on it. Not much, though, actually, now that I think about it. When's 8.1. I think has another couple years left on it Not much though actually now that I think about it. When's when's 8.1 end of support? It's I mean It's already kind of lost a lot of different forms of support just not security

January 10 2023, but it like it didn't get dx12. It's not getting other stuff. It's a it's the user base is so small Like I don't know oh no end of mainstream support january 9 2018 end of extended support january 10 2023 yeah it's basically yeah basically completely abandoned at this point they're ending that so windows 10 is the only windows that's all there is to it you can like it or you can put a lot of work into using something else uh speaking of putting a lot of work into using something else. Speaking of putting a lot of work in, I did not put a lot of work into this sponsorship segue.

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I don't usually bring them up here. I realized when they sit back there, they're out of focus. They got a quarter million different artworks spanning a bunch of different styles and influences. You don't need any power tools to hang it, because it's just like a sticker you put on the wall with a magnet on it. Look at that. Pretty freaking awesome.

I'm trying to not get glare on it. They plant a tree for every display purchased, and they've partnered with CD Projekt Red to create Cyberpunk 2077 prints you can even get some pretty special edition Linus Media Group prints as well Also, oh yeah, so Hey got him that's pretty funny got him Our link below code LTT to save 15% today and then I guess Nick also wants to give us an update on LTT store.com yeah I'm assuming that's

why you're here LTT store.com you want a hat for $5 really you can get a hat for $5 cool all you have to do is buy a t-shirt or a hoodie cool So hardware shirts hoodies buy one get a hat five dollars cool. There you go guys buy Nice that's a good promo. Yeah, do we have a lot of hats? We're trying to move through Heck yeah, heck. Yeah, all right cool. We got lots of hats Yeah, minimum order quantities on hats are pretty high in case anyone was wondering Heck yeah, all right. Let's do it I actually did not see your Twitter post an hour ago. Why? I thought it was pretty good What are you posting on the Twitter now? The LTT Twitter has been so mean. It's mostly this guy. So mean

Do you want your tech tip? I have tech tip for you. In your opinion, if we did a blind key switch challenge, which switch must be included? It's free real estate. Oh, thank you very much for that. LTTstore.com. Yeah, all right, all right, all right. Have a good weekend. Get out of here.

Honestly, like, I just, I have such a hard time ascending to that level of memery. It's been pretty. Nick can do it. Jake can do it. Alex P. A Prime, you guys will probably know him as in the credits on the videos. Those three are probably, like, peak memery around here.

Yeah, the meme masters the meme council council of memers council of memes you can join the council but we will not give you the rank of master Apple may be forced to ditch the lightning

connector so word on the street is the EU will be voting on regulations that will require all mobile devices to use a single universal charging method. Can I jump in and say I hate this? Honestly, I'm really surprised. So please continue. Okay. Why don't we get through the rest of this?

Okay. Well, no. No, you know what? No, we're not going to. I hate this. Is it a stifling innovation angle? please continue okay why don't okay why don't we get through the rest of this okay well no no you know what no we're not going to i hate this is it a stifling innovation angle not necessarily because i think stifling innovation has become like a buzzword that just means allowing um that means forcing us to not act in a non-competitive manner. Like stifling innovation has just become, its meaning has become perverted, I think, just because of the way that it's been used so frequently.

So the reason I hate this is that I think it's going to stifle innovation. Okay, not just, not. Yeah. Okay, shut just, not... Yeah! Okay, shut up. Yeah! But not in that way. Because the problem with standards...

Okay, so we're lucky right now. USB-C is pretty great. So it's more the future. Yes. Yeah, I agree. But where are we going from here? Yeah. What happens when it's time for someone

to create something different? Are you not allowed? Yeah. Because this whole thing went down ages ago. The EU tried to go after Apple about the 40 pin connector way back in the day. If I recall correctly, it might've been the 40 pin might've been lightning. Don't remember the time frame, but ultimately what we got after the Apple 40 pin connector was lightning which was so much better than anything that was available on the pc side of things or on the on the like open standard side of things yeah that it was almost worth switching to an iphone for remember this is pre-wireless charging and the lightning connector was great so i'm'm looking at it going, okay, at this moment in time, USB Type-C looks pretty great.

Seems like it's working out pretty good so far. We haven't so far identified any long-term durability or reliability problems. It holds up physically. It holds up electrically for the most part. Seems great. But we don't have to go that far in the past to find a time when allowing someone to use a different connector was a clear and obvious benefit for their customers and not to the detriment of the rest of the market. Because Apple does charge to create works with Apple accessories.

But the flip side of that is that nothing prevents you from buying an unauthorized one off of eBay. When we go back to like flip and slider phones, it was horrible. That was a gong show. It was terrible. It was terrible. I don't think we're there now because right now we have basically micro USB,

USB-C and lightning. Yes. That's not that bad. And you have like a little bit older Android phones, current Android phones, and iPhones. And that's not that bad. The other concern that I have is that these regulations, in many cases, technology regulations are created by people

who do not fully understand what they're regulating. They're often very important. I want to throw that out there too. Yes. There are lots of very important technology regulations that keep things moving and we're very thankful for. But, yes, they're also often made by people that have no idea what they're talking about. And even by engineers, USB Type-C is not particularly well understood in a lot of cases because, okay, you guys are a tech-savvy audience, right? Okay, you guys are a tech-savvy audience, right?

You see four USB-C connections on the back of the Apple Pro Display XDR. Tell me what you think they are. One of them has a little bolt next to it. Tell me what they all are. A Thunderbolt. Okay. And three USB-C 3.1s. Wrong.

Is one of them one of them's power? No. And the other ones don't allow that? No. I have no idea. Okay. See, that's the problem. There are so many different implementations of USB-C, the physical connector, electrically, that the potential for them to say, okay, well, everything has to use USB type C because

that way everything can be charged from one thing. What are they? So basically one of them is Thunderbolt and that goes to the Mac Pro or to your MacBook Pro. And the other three are actually USB Type-2 electrically. Okay. And the reason is that Apple is using up all of the available bandwidth in that connection

to put two DisplayPort streams through it because that's how they're doing 6K 60 hertz off of a single cable. Now, they could have just done two cables, which would have increased the backwards compatibility of the display, but that wouldn't have been as elegant. They would never want to, yeah. Yeah, and it would have had high-speed connectivity.

Whatever. Okay, all right. Anyway, so, sorry. So, right. So, there's so many different implementations that even if the intent was to say, USB Type-C is the past, present, and future. We want everything to use this so that

you've got universal interoperability which gives consumers choice. Now they can choose their vendor for their charging devices. Even if that was the intent, that might not actually be the result. Because we've already seen with the Nintendo Switch getting bricked by power banks and non-authorized third-party adapters, that there are so many different implementations, some of them standard and some of them non-standard, that there's no way that you would be able, that you wouldn't

have the understanding to regulate that properly and many devices just have different needs so that even though usb type c is a fantastic standard and has so many so much flexibility in its implementation that allows it to be used for so many different things everything from charging a laptop to outputting power off of your phone and charging something else. It's so cool. But that flexibility means that it's not one thing. So trying to standardize on this one thing could actually hurt what is so great about this one thing. And as far as my understanding goes, micro USB is wildly cheaper as well. And we don't necessarily want to drive up the cost of a lot of low cost devices. Like an IoT connected relay

that you use for your garage door. I have one that uses micro USB. It significantly increases the complexity of implementing the charging port if they have to use USB type C. And especially if it's a plugin once, leave always plugged in style device, you don't need really the features that USB-C give you

if you can get everything else done by a micro USB connection. With that said, we did find that USB type C was quite a bit more durable and I have had a fair number of micro Bs just from being left in die. But that I think has as much to do with it being a poor quality connector

as it has to do with the actual standard itself. So there's a different conversation to have there. I mean, that's another thing too is like unless you're regulating the quality of them as well. And speaking of quality, this might be unpopular. I personally like lightnings more than USB-C. Oh, I love the lightning connector. Yeah. I mean, Apple's like cable sleeving has had issues at times in the past,

but the actual lightning connector itself. The feel of the plug-in, unplug experience is fantastic. It does tend to get... The Verge is reporting this is about the wall charger, not the actual plug on the phone. Either way, that has its own separate... Everything I said is already still applicable to that then so all these different implementations of powering devices um yeah because yeah if you standardize

the wall charger you know how would you keep tweaking with like your your battery charge rates like your current delivery rates and and all that kind of stuff like there are advantages to having the charger talk to the device no No, I still don't support it. So there you go. All right. What else? Okay, let's go through our actual talking points for this thing. Uh-oh.

Wife messaging. Okay, cool. That's perfect. So something, something, something. Require that all mobile devices use a single universal charging method. Apple's response. This is great. Regulations that would drive conformity across the type of connector built into all smartphones freeze innovation rather than encourage it.

Such proposals are bad for the environment and unnecessarily disruptive for customers. I don't necessarily agree that they are bad for the environment because continuing to use your existing cables is definitely more better for the environment. Reduce is the best R. That's basically what I'm trying to say. I could only understand the environment thing if it was used poetically and they mean like the, you know, environment of innovators.

Oh, like the metaphorical environment. Yeah, I'm sure they don't mean that, but that's the only way that I can make it make sense. Every time millions of people replace their cables and Throw away their old cables it is Super bad for the environment yeah That's a weird try to kind of hill to fall yeah They go on we want to ensure that any new legislation will not result in the shipment of any unnecessary cables or external adapters with Every device or render obsolete the devices and accessories used by many millions of europeans and hundreds of millions of apple customers so that's great i see where

their argument is coming from if we had to include an adapter to the thing that we're shipping everywhere else in the world because we're going to do that so basically they're just being petulant children that would rather do something that's bad for the environment, then just standardize. So they're saying we will be bad for the environment if you do this. If you make us do this. Okay, that makes more sense. So it's a threat.

Oh my God. Not a warning. Brutal. Given the market steady switch to USB Type-C, it's likely that this is the standard that will be adopted if it's passed. And iPhones have been rumored to ditch lightning for Type-C for years.

But also recent rumors now point to a completely portless design with wireless charging and wireless data transfer only anyway. And honestly, we're not far away from that actually kind of making sense. Once he took the headphone jack out. Wi-Fi has gotten pretty fast. And wireless charging has gotten pretty good. How many people still transfer files through a cable to their phone? On an iPhone I don't bother but on an Android device I kind of

do a lot. Interesting. Why? Just because it's a lot faster. Well remember too as a... What are you transferring onto your phone? Not onto my phone, off my phone. So as like a video maker I'm often

doing screen cap on my phone that I need to put onto an editor. I was thinking the other way around. You could have that auto sync. Yeah, no, I don't put anything on my phone. By the way, I don't know if you've been using my Plex server lately, but it's fixed now. Oh, no, I haven't. Okay, well, it's fixed now.

It just reminded me because that's the only way I put things on my phone now. All right, what else we got? Ah, big news! NVIDIA drops pricing on the RTX 2060. It is now down to $299, also known as the price it probably should have been in the first place. It was $350 and many partner cards are still at or near that price, but the Founders Edition is now $299. That brings the

price closer to the rumored upcoming rx 5600 xt which is releasing on wait okay hold on a second are these details that amd has actually announced or are these things that people don't uh know yet hold on i'm just gonna control v uh okay uh amd announced oh good amd announces the rx 5600 xt Okay. AMD announced. Oh, good. AMD announces the RX 5600 XT on Tuesday for $279. Okay, so I can talk about that. The GTX 1660 Ti is still $279. So basically it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever,

given that you can get a 2060 for that with ray tracing. Whoa. Which you probably wouldn't run around on there. I do. On a 2060 for that with ray tracing. Whoa. But you probably wouldn't run around on there. I do. On a 2060? I do. Oh. Minecraft.

I think Minecraft with RTX is straight up. Does it even do that well on a 2060? Minecraft RTX? Yeah. Wait, is it out? It's not out yet. But they have community mod demos that are will like melt your computer oh all right well yeah you don't have to do that many bounces i'm sure yes

i'm sure you could i'm sure you could run it i think that's going to be a valid use case for it with that said not on the ltt minecraft server since we're running the Java version. So that's going to be a thing. Okay. Apparently I don't know if Jake has talked about this publicly yet, but apparently we are finally launching in the next couple of weeks. Really? Because it's been like a long time.

Four or five months? Meat Kettle. Okay. Okay. Alright. I mean, it's a Minecraft server. For five months meat kettle Okay Okay, all right. I mean it's a minecraft server Have you seen what they've been working on though? It's actually pretty cool video delivery I'm just server. Yeah, but like he also didn't take three years, so okay all right. You know you know all right know, all right, you know, that's fine, you know, that's fine What else we got that we wanted to talk about oh, yeah, this is the craziest thing ever Okay, so scientists use stem cells from frogs to build the first living robots. So this is out of the University of Vermont

Xenobots, so these are robots that are constructed out of living cells They're made from embryonic African clawed frogs. So these are tiny that are constructed out of living cells. They're made from embryonic African clawed frogs. So these are tiny sub-millimeter blobs that have between 500 and 1,000 cells. They can scoot around, they can self-organize, and they can deliver minute payloads. Potential uses include targeted drug delivery. Yeah, that totally makes sense. So unlike any previous living organism, these are living programmable organisms. This is nuts.

So they're 100% frog DNA, but they are not frogs. That is extremely cool and very terrifying. Yeah. Like, imagine, like, chemical warfare, nuclear warfare. Those are not the scariest warfares anymore. Well, this would... Is it chemical? It's...

Okay, it's biological warfare. Which I guess also, you know, exists. But this is like... I don't know. This feels like... A new category? A new category to me somehow. Micro-biological?

No. You drop a bunch of these in like a water supply or something and they like, you know, deliver. Execute program 66. Eat brains! I don't know. Right? Yeah. Interesting. Like depending on how long they can stay alive in a target's bloodstream. Right. You could potentially over some very extended period of time, basically infect an entire population. Just be like, hey. I mean, obviously they have no way at this time to put freaking Wi-Fi on the things, but like. And I'm sure I'm not putting ideas that weren't already there into people's heads, so don't worry about it.

But consume and grow would, like would very possibly be an option. And that's essentially just cancer, is it not? Deliverable cancer? That sucks. Yeah. But also maybe counter it at the same time. Really interesting. I'm very interested to see where that goes.

Hopefully all in good directions. In other news, this is off of Cooler Master's Twitter. Cooler Master has changed the design of their thermal paste syringe, not to make applying thermal paste easier, but because they were tired of having to explain to parents that their kid isn't using drugs. I think Cooler Master is social media savvy enough that this is not what happened but it's very funny so good job cooler okay hold on hold on switch my screen uh yes this

is their video i'm gonna mute it just because i don't know if it's coming through or not this is their video i just want to see if you notice what's wrong. Did you see it? Go back. Master Gel Maker. Traditional thermal grease, which is hard to spread evenly. Transitional thermal grease. Oh.

All capitalized. I did notice that thermal grease was capitalized. Transitional thermal grease. Oh, Cooler Master you tried it's and then they do the classic like infomercial i can't do this super simple task at all they had to have done that on purpose too it's so difficult that's spread enough at this point they're they're nope nope need to keep going. I don't know. With patent. That's a fun grammar bit right there. Man, you know the craziest thing about companies like Cooler Master is they actually have a lot of people who work there

who could easily proof this. Okay, what do you think? They just don't have them do it. Yeah. I think it's stupid yeah and unnecessary yeah um but i think anything that gives new users more confidence to do something okay can actually have that's a cool angle i like that yeah yeah so even if it does nothing for the actual thermal performance still kind of neat the first initial thought that i had was like that's a confusing low value

prop i'm assuming notable increase to bomb cost change that i just don't understand but if it's increasing confidence because that is a part that has always bothered people it made us talk about it it did good job cooling master marketing Yeah, there you go. Spelling things wrong was the play. You got it. Corsair IQ to support a Sooth motherboard RGB lighting control. Have we finally reached RGBtopia? Arguably the two best RGB solutions, IQ and Aura Sync, are now compatible, so you can get a cohesive RGB look without using 20% of your CPU.

Thank you. It seems simple, but syncing RGB can actually be really tough. I know Corsair has spent an inordinate amount of money on RGB development. Like, it just blew me away. Each component, RAM, MOBO, GPU, could run very different software and hardware for RGB. If they're designed, even if they're designed by different teams within the same company, they can run really different stuff. So what one company or team calls blue in their software

might be different from others, even more difficult for colors like orange, where two lights have to be dimmed correctly in order to color match. Various controllers will have different built-in delays, so even if the main software is sending out the right signals, the whole thing could look like a mess, and on top of it all, all the hardware needs to comply

with all the electronics laws. I actually found out recently that one of the reasons that RGB doesn't just all sync wirelessly instead of having to do all this crap is that it has to do with the European RF pollution laws. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So I was like, oh, all right. Yeah, I guess that makes sense.

It's like why I had to Get my Logitech powerplay mouse mat in Canada get it is they don't sell it here. They don't sell it here No, I actually did not know that I never went to buy one They sent one for review and you need a new mouse because mine double clicks like all the time, but I love it I'd never want to go back if I can I wish they made a much bigger mouse mat Yeah i know you can like do it yourself mod it but it's you gotta do it i will you should do it i will okay yeah yeah that's the way to go you just you get the other one you cut the hole yeah okay okay okay okay yeah okay so two random things i got this super early which i'm ridiculously excited about.

Oh, good for you. You're now the only one in this room with a working Valve Index. Okay, so you mentioned that before the show, but we didn't get into it. What happened? Well, my controller broke. Your controller broke? Yeah. My controller started kind of disconnecting sometimes,

and I would power it off and power it back on, and it would kick back in. And then it did it back in and then it did it again and then it like uh it happened more and more frequently until it did it and then it didn't turn back on is this your knuckles yeah yeah so my left knuckles controller is dead you can use the older ones right can't you okay so that was a bit of a bit of a fiasco ordeal it was a bit of a pain in the butt because i am using lighthouse v2s i don't own any vive gen 2 controllers okay any like steam vr 2.0 controllers so i had to come back to work borrow some controllers go home realize that my lighthouses were not compatible with my gen 1 controllers go back to the office get gen Gen 1 lighthouses, which conveniently do work

with the Index headset, and then I was able to play. But yes, I've been out of the game for a little bit. I've been playing a little bit, but not nearly as much. I don't like using the Gen 1 controllers as much. They're really heavy, and I'm weak. It's a weight thing. Well, it's a factor, yeah. I also don't find them as comfortable.

I'm really used to the Valve ones now. Beat Saber, which is a lot of constant movement. Yes. So that sort of would add up. And sometimes I'm streaming for an hour or two hours at a time, and it really does make a difference. Yeah, okay, that makes sense. There's that.

And the knuckles are very, like, when something's kind of attached to you, the weight gets distributed a lot better. Yes. Compared to, like, a stick that you have to hold or whatever. Absolutely. Okay, so I got this, which is fantastic. Did you just get that today? Yeah. Nice. It's super early.

If I remember correctly, my order was supposed to come in March. Nice. Like, it's wicked early. I don't know why. It was here. Do you need your left controller? Yeah, I think so Actually, I mean honestly you could borrow it cuz I can't set it up yet

Oh, no, it's fine. I wasn't like the room isn't ready like I didn't think it was gonna be here for a long time I can I can I can wait. They have finally shipped me one. So I'm good. Okay, that's took them like 13 days to decide to ship me a replacement. so that was pretty sweet. That's kind of annoying. Speaking of annoying, though, this is, like I said, this is a hero that's great. I got banned from WoW for six months. You got banned from WoW? Suspended. Why? I'll get into that.

Why did you get suspended from, what did you do? I genuinely don't know. That's the worst part. I went to go, this, it's been for a week. I went home after last WAN show. Yeah. And went and logged in. It was like, your account is suspended for 180 days.

And I was like, what? Maybe Blizzard's trying to tell you you have a problem. And that WoW Classic isn't that good of a game anyway. Okay, the WoW Classic has a lot of issues. I will give you that. But it's like... Maybe Blizzard said, you know what? We've consumed enough of this man's life and soul.

But it's funny that I play with my dad and my brother and my mom. Just a little while ago, I was in a dungeon with my dad, my brother, and mom. What? A while ago. I said just a while ago it's fine i'm not gonna say exactly how many days ago but it was a while ago hold on hold on let me say that out loud for you so you can hear it instead of being saying it okay a little while ago i was in a dungeon with my brother, my dad, and my mom. See, because I play WoW so much, this doesn't ping me.

Well, there's lots of kinds of dungeons. Don't worry about it. Like, okay, the day I'm going to get a little personal here for a moment. Sure. But the day that my mom-air or my grandma on my dad's side passed away, or not passed away. Her funeral was the launch day of Classic WoW. This man allowed me to borrow a bunch of laptops, and I flew across the country.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we had, like, a LAN party in the hotel room that night. Good old Classic WoW style. To try to, like, bring the family together. Now my brother, my dad, and I all raid together, and it's like a thing. So it really sucks, and I don't know why. And I have appealed it three times. I've gotten automated responses back every time,

just being like, nope, nope, nope, six months, bye. And you still don't even know what it was. I can't get to a single... They said cheating, and I was like, what? I haven't done this? So they're like, oh, it's for unauthorized program use? What is unauthorized program use? What program?

Like, I use my computer for everything. I stream on it, I work on it, I game on it. I don't know what program. What program are you upset about? So I don't get banned in the future, and they're just like, nope, stop sending in tickets, plop. They're all automated responses, so no one's really saying that. Right.

But, like, I just, I don't know. If someone out there works at Blizzard, knows a senior GM or something, I would love to talk to you. You can even leave the ban. I just don't want to get banned again. Right. Because you're back for, like, two days. You get banned for another six months. Because I don't even know why.

Yeah. It's ridiculous. Huh. I can't talk to, like, when I another six months. Because I don't even know why. Yeah. It's ridiculous. Huh. I can't talk to, like, when I used to have, if I ever had a problem with Blizzard, when I first started playing WoW, you can just call them. Well, yeah, but that was a long time ago. Yeah. But they had a big player base.

You know, the funny thing about that is that, like, it's not like they get paid less now. Yeah. But somehow they were able to sustain support staff back then. Why can't they now? I don't know. I don't know. When did we all as consumers accept this?

And, like, I even said that in one of my tickets. Yeah. I was like, I understand you guys are probably receiving a lot of tickets right now. I'd love to just, like, if I can just talk to someone, we can probably smooth this over. Yeah, if I can just talk to someone, we can probably smooth this over. Yeah. And we can just move on.

Yeah. Automated response denied, whatever. I just, I don't know. I would just love to talk to someone so I can at least, like, explain my case. I'd like to play games with my dad again. That was, like, a cool thing that we had. I would love to just talk to someone. So if anyone out there can just reach out to me,

that would be fantastic. Because I'm getting nowhere on my own. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Speaking of getting nowhere... You can take a controller. No, no.

Like, I literally can't set it up. It might be at home. Like, they shipped it a few days ago, and it's been snowy, so I think it might have gotten delayed, but it also, like, might be there by now. So I'm not too worried about it. Yeah, we're making rearrangements,

and we're literally in the process of it, but I didn't know it was going to be here so soon, so it's not ready yet. All right, so thanks for watching this week, guys. We'll see you again next week. Same bad time, same bad channel. Jaden, you're a dick.