Here Comes The News - 10/1/26 - The Frog's Rock 'n' Roll

Mx. Maxwell (0:00)

[♪THEME MUSIC PLAYING Hello, hello.

Stevie (0:08)

Hi.

Mx. Maxwell (0:09)

And how are you doing tonight, Stevie?

Stevie (0:12)

I'm doing solid, I'm doing very chill, I'm drinking unnamed cider beverage, I'm having a good time, I think my hair looks cute, I think your shirt looks cute. We're here, it's us, your news anchors for the evening. How are you, Mika?

Mx. Maxwell (0:23)

Yep, we are indeed the news anchors for the evening. I am one of your news anchors, my name is Mika. Pronouns are she, her.

Stevie (0:30)

My name is Stevie, I use he, they pronouns. And guess what, Stevie?

Mx. Maxwell (0:33)

I'm excited to get into this week's news. What? We're gonna talk about the news.

Stevie (0:38)

We can do it. That's why we do it here, we can do it.

Mx. Maxwell (0:42)

We can do it.

So you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna launch this into our first headline immediately. Because I actually do have a lot of headlines, but we're gonna bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, through all of them.

Stevie (0:51)

Okay.

Mx. Maxwell (0:52)

Okay.

Stevie (0:52)

I'll just do that.

Mx. Maxwell (0:53)

The first headline that I'm jumping into right now.

I have to ask a question. I'm sorry. I gotta derail it for a second. I have to ask a question.

SPEAKER_4 (1:03)

Stevie.

Mx. Maxwell (1:05)

Do you have a car? Yeah.

Do you know people with cars?

SPEAKER_4 (1:11)

Yeah. Okay.

Mx. Maxwell (1:12)

Good. Good. That helps. That helps this. Okay.

Do you know people with newer cars?

Stevie (1:20)

No, none of us can afford that.

Mx. Maxwell (1:22)

Okay, then you're safe.

Stevie (1:24)

Good.

Mx. Maxwell (1:25)

Because our first headline is 19 out of 21 late model cars tested are apparently sharing shit tons of data with third parties, including basically all the big tech companies.

Stevie (1:42)

Oh my God. So all the cars with puters in them basically?

Mx. Maxwell (1:47)

Yeah, pretty much.

Stevie (1:49)

Damn. Thank God for my homologous.

Mx. Maxwell (1:52)

Also, to sound entirely accurate, your car has a computer in it, too.

Stevie (1:55)

This is true. This is true. It doesn't have one of the little tablets, the little tablet. It doesn't have the screen like that. It has a beautiful traditional LCD.

Just like...

Mx. Maxwell (2:07)

There is a little computer inside your car next to the engine.

Stevie (2:14)

What's it do?

Mx. Maxwell (2:16)

It reads all the sensors, and when you take it into the shop, the mechanic plugs a little thing into the little computer, and the little computer tells them what's fucking up.

Stevie (2:26)

They do have to have a little pewter for that, don't they? That makes sense. I was never quite sure what the mechanics were checking or plugging into. Yep.

Mx. Maxwell (2:33)

But...

Stevie (2:33)

The tiny pewter in my car.

Mx. Maxwell (2:35)

Modern cars don't have tiny computer.

Stevie (2:40)

They have big computer.

Mx. Maxwell (2:44)

And big computer likes to talk a lot, apparently.

That giant infotainment screen, as they call it. Yeah. And all the other high-tech shit and all the extra connected features that have been put in like every fucking car for the past decade.

Stevie (3:09)

Whether you use them or not.

Mx. Maxwell (3:11)

Whether you use them or not.

Well, there was a study that was created in partnership with Consumer Reports and Northeastern University. And apparently, they tested 21 late model vehicles and 30 companion mobile apps to figure out like, how's the privacy?

Stevie (3:41)

If a car ever tells me to download an app, I'm blowing it up.

Mx. Maxwell (3:46)

And apparently, researchers collected the Wi-Fi traffic from the 21 vehicles using a Raspberry Pi Wi-Fi access point to see where they were sending the data to.

Stevie (4:02)

It's good to know. That's good to check.

Mx. Maxwell (4:05)

And everywhere, everyone.

Stevie (4:10)

Anyone who requests it, they just hand that stuff out like it's candy on Halloween night. Happy October, by the way.

Mx. Maxwell (4:16)

Yeah.

They tested whether blocking a vehicle's ability to communicate over cellular networks would force more Wi-Fi communication by covering 11 electric vehicles in a Faraday tent. And they blocked the connection entirely. And apparently, seven of the 30 companion vehicles transmitted sensitive identifiers, including the VIN number of the vehicle, emails, phone numbers, and precise location.

Stevie (5:00)

That's the worst of them all, I believe, is precise fucking location of the vehicle.

Mx. Maxwell (5:09)

Would you like to know which two companies were the worst?

Stevie (5:17)

Ford, and Tesla, those are my guess.