Latest news with #VictoriaCraig
Wall Street Journal
3 days ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Remote Work Is Convenient for Employees…and North Korean Scammers - Tech News Briefing
Jobs that allow employees to work from home have allowed for more flexibility. But in the quest to achieve a better work-life balance, we've helped open the door for hackers looking to capitalize on America's workforce. Bob McMillan covers computer security, hackers, and privacy for the Wall Street Journal. He joins host Victoria Craig to discuss how laptop farms have allowed North Korean scammers to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars to the sanctioned country. Full Transcript This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated. Victoria Craig: Hey, TNB listeners, before we get started, heads up, we're going to be asking you a question at the top of each show for the next few weeks. Our goal here at Tech News Briefing is to keep you updated with the latest headlines and trends on all things tech. Now, we want to know more about you, what you like about the show, and what more you'd like to hear from us. So our question this week is how often do you want new episodes and how long do you want them to be? Do you want shorter shows more often or longer shows less frequently? If you're listening on Spotify, look for our poll under the episode description, or you can send us an email to tnb@ Now onto the show. Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Friday, May 30th. I'm Victoria Craig for the Wall Street Journal. Remote jobs have become common for workers in industries across America. They make the work-life balance easier for employees, but they've also allowed countries like North Korea to infiltrate US companies with the help of everyday Americans. Today we're taking a deep dive into an intricate scam involving illegal paychecks and stolen data. A scam that the FBI says involves thousands of North Korean workers, has brought hundreds of millions of dollars a year into the country. It's a place where international sanctions have frozen the flow of funds, so the country has gotten creative in its quest for cash. And it's capitalized on some of America's remote work opportunities to start laptop farms in states across the US. Bob McMillan covers computer security hackers and privacy for the Wall Street Journal. Bob, I'm going to guess that the phrase "laptop farm" is not a familiar one for most of our listeners. So what is it and what kind of person typically runs one? Bob McMillan: Yeah, it's a new gig economy job that's popped up since the COVID epidemic and the advent of massive remote work. That's not something you'll find advertised, but basically you get a request, maybe via LinkedIn or some kind of gig work site that asks if you want to help a foreign company with a US representation. And the next thing you know, you're getting laptops shipped to your house and you're turning them on and you're operating them, but they're shipped to fake workers who have got jobs at these companies and who need a US address to pretend to be working out of. So laptop farmer receives the computers for the fake workers, turns them on, connects them, and then adds remote software so these people offshore can connect to these laptops. And then doing things like tech jobs, Python development and stuff like that. Here's the kicker though. The remote workers are actually North Koreans and they're trying to, in a very illegal way, make money for the heavily sanctioned regime there. Victoria Craig: Tell us about Christina Chapman because she was one of the people in America who participated in this scheme. Bob McMillan: Christina Chapman's case was interesting because you had the court record that had all these allegations of what she was doing. And then she left a very long TikTok trail of just all kinds of political TikToks, personal TikToks, TikToks about Japanese boy bands. But embedded in that were a few comments on her work and her situation in life. Christina Chapman: And I did not make my own breakfast this morning. My clients are going crazy, so I just got a smoothie bowl. It's an acai smoothie bowl and it has bananas, strawberries. Bob McMillan: But coincidentally in the background, you can see I counted at least 10 laptops there. They've got Post-it notes on them that apparently say the name of the worker and the company they're supposed to be working for. And you hear them just whirring away in her apartment. Victoria Craig: And what made Chapman a target for this kind of scam? Bob McMillan: Her story is probably, in many ways, very typical of these people. They are gig workers who reach a point in their life where they're desperate. And that's what happened with Christina Chapman. She was basically living in a trailer in Minnesota. She didn't have any heat. She was showering at her local gym. She really was at a dead end in her life. And this offer came in through LinkedIn saying, "Hey, do you want to be our US representative?" It became clear pretty quickly that some of the stuff she was doing was illegal. It's at least fraudulent, right? But she was desperate, and it really did turn her life around. I mean, she ended up having a much better quality of life as a result of this job. The problem is it's completely illegal. Victoria Craig: So the question about whether these people who are acting on behalf essentially of the North Koreans, whether they know what they're doing is illegal. Christina Chapman may not have known the nationality of the people she was working with, but you're right that she did acknowledge that she could "go to federal prison for falsifying federal documents." Bob McMillan: Yeah, it's pretty hard to do this gig without realizing you're doing something illegal, right? Because quite often you have to forge signatures. You have to facilitate the presentation of fake credentials. But if you look at the court records, she's basically saying, "Hey, what you're asking me to do is illegal," all the time. And the thing is that if you do fraud, that's one thing, but if you do fraud in support of the North Koreans, that's way worse. Victoria Craig: Coming up, a look at the corporate side of this scheme, who the scammers are targeting and what they want after the break. To make a laptop farming scam successful tech specialists usually trained in North Korea's technical education programs need to first find a back door into corporate America. We're back with WSJ reporter, Bob McMillan, who's been reporting on this. Bob, you write that. Christina Chapman, the so-called laptop farmer, who we about earlier helped North Koreans who got jobs at big companies like at a top five national television network here, a premier Silicon Valley tech company, an aerospace and defense manufacturer. And the list goes on. How exactly does this process work? How do they effectively trick the companies into hiring people who are really based in North Korea, China, or even Russia as you report? Bob McMillan: They basically operate a complete shadow economy. They have LinkedIn profiles, they have GitHub repositories where they store source code. They even have fake companies that they can use as references. So they build this sort of simulation of a legitimate, usually a tech worker profile. And then they just are so good at bombarding people with job requests. Companies have different levels of diligence they do around making sure the people they're hiring for remote work are real. A lot of them require that you come in, but some don't. And so with the people who can just straight up be hired by a staffing agency, for example, and never even have to show up, that's an easy one for them. But even if a company requires a face-to-face meeting, the North Koreans have a way around that. For a while, they were doing virtual face-to-face meetings with AI-driven avatars. So there're these fake faces that they would show up on Zoom meetings. And when people started figuring out how to get around that, if you ask the AI avatar to wave their hand in front of them, then the software doesn't work. And so you can tell it's a fake person. So they got around that though. They started hiring people who legitimately had tech skills to pass these interviews. Victoria Craig: And what do the North Koreans ultimately want from these workers? Bob McMillan: There are three things they want. First and foremost, they want money. Their regime is sanctioned. They have a hard time trading with anyone in the West, and they need cash. They need cash for their weapons program, for example. And the FBI estimates that they are making hundreds of millions of dollars a year just from paychecks, from companies hiring these North Koreans, who by all accounts, some are terrible workers and some are not bad, some last months or even years at these companies. And so they found sort of a hack of our remote work situation right now. So that's the first thing they want is money. The second thing, they want more money. So quite often they'll exfiltrate data, they'll steal your corporate secrets, your source code, customer information, and then they will threaten to dump it once you fire them. And so they'll extort you. So that's number two. And then the third case is murky, but the FBI suspects that they're also conducting espionage. So they've hit aerospace companies. There are certain types of companies that might have secrets that the North Korean regime would be interested in. So those are the three things they're doing. Victoria Craig: And how widespread is this? Bob McMillan: The FBI thinks there are thousands of these workers out there. And what's fascinating to me is I heard about this scam a couple of years ago. And where it started was in the cryptocurrency world. The crypto companies were getting with these fake workers all the time. And I didn't realize until I wrote this story how incredibly widespread it is. It feels like anybody who is hiring a remote worker has to worry about this. Victoria Craig: And is there anything the companies can do once they find out that this has happened to them? Bob McMillan: Since the story published, there's been a lot of debate over this. I actually asked Amazon's CSO about this problem, and he was aware of it. And I said, "What can you do about it?" And he said, "Well, you could have your employees come in five days a week." Victoria Craig: So just to close the loop on Christina for us, what ended up happening to her once she was found out, essentially? Bob McMillan: The FBI raided her house in October of 2023. She was charged the next year, and she struck a plea deal. So she's pled guilty, and she's due to be sentenced on July 16. According to the terms of her plea deal, she could be facing just a little bit more than nine years in prison for this. Victoria Craig: Wow. Wow. But her financial situation didn't turn out any better. She essentially wound up almost back where she was before. Isn't that right? Bob McMillan: It was worse, really. I mean, she's living in a homeless shelter now. She attempted to do a variety of things after the raid. The North Koreans didn't pay her for her final month of services. And she tried to do a GoFundMe. She tried to sell coloring books on Amazon. She did DoorDash one night and made $7.25 doing it. She struggled when this gig went away, and she eventually lost her home. And she's, yeah, living in a homeless shelter now. Victoria Craig: That was WSJ reporter, Bob McMillan there. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. Today's show is produced by Julie Chang. I'm your host, Victoria Craig. Jessica Fenton, and Michael LaValle wrote our theme music. Our supervising producer is Melony Roy. Our development producer is Aisha Al-Muslim. Scott Saloway and Chris Zinsli are the deputy editors. And Philana Patterson is the Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. We'll be back this afternoon with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening.
Wall Street Journal
13-05-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
TNB Tech Minute: Softbank Posts First Annual Profit in Four Years - Tech News Briefing
Full Transcript This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated. Victoria Craig: Here's your TNB Tech minute for Tuesday, May 13th. I'm Victoria Craig for the Wall Street Journal. Softbank today reported its first annual profit in four years. After expenses, the Japanese tech investment company booked a profit of $7.7 billion, helped in part by gains from its stake in T-Mobile US. The company has been pivoting to a strategy focused on bigger investments, especially as earnings improve and tech stocks march higher on advancements in AI. Elsewhere, at Microsoft announced it will cut thousands of jobs as it streamlines its management ranks. The company said less than 3% of its workforce or fewer than 7,000 jobs will be affected. Last month, Microsoft's CFO told investors the company's headcount was 2% higher than a year ago. She said the focus is on building high-performing teams and increasing agility by reducing layers with fewer managers. Microsoft's latest earnings beat analysts' expectations and showed revenue growth across its business segments. And finally, ESPN took the wraps off its highly anticipated streaming service called ESPN. It's priced at $29.99 a month. Set to launch this fall, the company says the new platform will give users access to all content on ESPN's TV channels, that includes professional and college football and basketball. Disney, which owns ESPN, will include the new sports streaming service in its bundle with Disney+ and Hulu for a cost of $35.99 a month. For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Wednesday's Tech News Briefing podcast.
Wall Street Journal
06-05-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
To Starbase and Beyond: SpaceX Gets a Town of Its Own - Tech News Briefing
For a few years, a section of land in southeast Texas has been dubbed Starbase. It's where SpaceX houses rocket production sites, launch facilities and employee housing. WSJ reporter Micah Maidenberg tells us what a weekend vote to greenlight the town's official incorporation means for the future of SpaceX. Then: We'll take you to Dubai, where Token2049 drew crypto industry celebrities and their followers, and ushered in 'a new era of freedom' for the battered industry. Host Victoria Craig speaks with reporter Angus Berwick. Sign up for the WSJ's free Technology newsletter.
Wall Street Journal
05-05-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
AI Listening Devices: Handy Helpers or Legal Minefields? - Tech News Briefing
Would you strap a device on your wrist that listens to your every word every day so it can send you relevant reminders and summarize your conversations? WSJ senior personal tech columnist Joanna Stern did just that and shares her insights about the usefulness of such devices and the legal questions around their use. Plus: We get an update on the courtroom showdown between Meta and the Federal Trade Commission over whether the social-media company is operating a monopoly. WSJ reporter Dave Michaels brings us up to speed. Full Transcript This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated. Victoria Craig: Hey TNB listeners, before we get started, a heads up, we're going to be asking you a question at the top of each show for the next few weeks. Our goal here at Tech News Briefing is to keep you updated with the latest headlines and trends on all things tech. Now we want to know more about you, what you like about the show, and what more you'd like to be hearing from us. We already asked you about some corners of tech you might be interested in. Now we've got a few others in mind. Biotech, data science, robotics. Let us know what sparks your interest. If you're listening on Spotify, look for our poll under the episode description, or you can send us an email to tnb@ Now onto the show. Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Monday, May 5th. I'm Victoria Craig for the Wall Street Journal. Weeks into a legal showdown between the Federal Trade Commission and Facebook parent company, Meta, what have we learned? Our reporter gives us an update from what he's seen and heard in the courtroom. Then, would you willingly allow a device to record your every word, every day? Our tech columnist did for three weeks. She'll share her insights from the experience. But first, is there enough competition in social media? That's the big question a judge is looking to answer, without a jury, in an ongoing legal battle between the Federal Trade Commission and Meta. The FTC argues that Meta created a monopoly by buying up its competition, WhatsApp and Instagram, more than a decade ago. But Meta says social media has become a lot more competitive since then, and it faces increasing competition from the likes of TikTok and YouTube. Dave Michaels, who covers antitrust litigation and corporate law enforcement for the Wall Street Journal has been in the courtroom as the trial unfolds. Dave, why is the FTC arguing that YouTube and TikTok don't actually compete with Meta's social media platforms? Dave Michaels: The FTC says that those services as well as X, formerly Twitter, are basically entertainment services, or they're apps that connect you with your interests. The FTC says those services are not built on what's called a social graph, meaning they're not built on the relationships that you as a user have with friends and family. And the FTC says that network of relationships is what is at the heart of the value proposition for Facebook and Instagram and even WhatsApp, which is a messaging service, but a lot of people use it in a way that they stay in touch with groups of friends or groups of family members within the app. That's important because if the court agrees with the FTC that the social media market for friends and family just includes the companies that the FTC says it does, then the FTC has a good chance of winning. But if the social media market is broader and TikTok is part of it, then it will be a lot harder for the FTC to be able to convince the court that Meta has a monopoly today. Victoria Craig: And I thought one of the interesting parts was what the Instagram co-founder had to say about the success, or not, of his platform before Meta bought it all those years ago. Dave Michaels: There were some really compelling testimony from the Instagram co-founder, Kevin Systrom, and he was saying that Instagram was growing superfast. It was doing something similar to what Facebook did, but with photos at the center of their offering. And he was insistent that after Meta bought Instagram, Meta's executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, were really conflicted about the effect of Instagram's growth on Facebook's. That is that there was concern that they were competing for users and that the marginal new user for Instagram was perhaps not using Facebook as much as a result. Systrom eventually was questioned by Meta's lawyers, and he conceded a point that is important for Meta when he said that today these products, these social media products, they're all about entertaining users with video content. That's what TikTok does, that's what YouTube Shorts does, that's what Facebook does, that's what Instagram does. Even Systrom conceded that the market for user attention today is very different than it was in 2012. Victoria Craig: You also mentioned in your story the judge presiding over this case. Can you just give us some context around some of the questions that he's been asking both sides in this case so far? Dave Michaels: It's US District Judge James Boasberg, and on the one hand it's pretty apparent that he doesn't use a lot of social media, and he has asked some questions that get at the heart of the issue such as whether the differences between social media today are really firm or if it's, as he questioned it, it's just a difference in degree. In other words, these projects share a lot of features, and so perhaps they're not as different as the FTC maintains. Victoria Craig: Dave, what's next in this case? Dave Michaels: We think there's at least a week more of testimony from the FTCs witnesses, including the FTCs main expert. And expert witnesses can play a really big role in these antitrust cases trying to explain to the court why the market is defined the way that the FTC says, and the expert has to be very credible in making that presentation. But then Meta will get its chance and it will put its witnesses up on the stand. It will question those witnesses and try to drive home its point that this stuff about Instagram and WhatsApp being acquired is just ancient history. It's going to try to drive home that point that Meta today faces just an onslaught of competition from TikTok and YouTube and other forms of social media and entertainment that were just not as prevalent in 2012 when this market was making that transition from desktop to mobile. Victoria Craig: That was WSJ reporter Dave Michaels. Coming up, if we want artificial intelligence to become all-knowing assistants in our daily lives, we got to let them learn by listening. At least that's the mantra our tech columnist followed recently. After the break, she'll explain how it's made her life easier and how it might cross some legal lines. Want AI to generate a to-do list for you or maybe remind you to send that email you keep forgetting? How about summarizing a long meeting you zoned out in? Well, 15 years ago I would've told you there's an app for that. Now I'll say there's an AI listening device that's always on for that. WSJ tech columnist, Joanna Stern strapped one to her wrist for three weeks. Joanna, first, why in the world would you do this? Joanna Stern: Back in January I read about this device called the Bee Pioneer Bracelet, and it was $50, it was announced at CES, and I saw people talking about this device that just records everything. It is nonstop recording when it hears your voice or other voices, and then it uses AI to summarize and analyze what you are saying. And I will say that within a few minutes or hours of wearing this thing, I was completely blown away, one by how creepy it was, the fact that everything I had said had been transcribed and now lived in an app. And that wasn't only everything I'd said, but anyone I had talked to, that transcription was there. And then two, how it was proactively listening to those conversations and adding things that I had said I would do or somebody had asked me to do to a to-do list. And so my memories and everything I need to remember has just been outsourced to this bracelet on my wrist. Victoria Craig: And that's the part that I'm so curious about because if you think about this device hearing absolutely everything you do in a day, what actionable information did it create for you from all that it was hearing you say and do? Joanna Stern: Here's an example. Me and you were talking about this and at the end of this conversation I'll say, "I'm going to send you that recording. I'll do it when I'm done with this next meeting." And it would take that and put it on my to-do list. It would say, "Send Victoria the recording of the podcast." It has that context, it's using AI, using large language models to make sense of all that's being said. Victoria Craig: A question that a lot of our listeners will probably have is, how exactly can it process all of that information, because you're talking about 24 hours a day, 365 days a year? What does it do with all that information and how does it process it so quickly? Joanna Stern: The way Bee does it, and I did review some other devices, but I'll talk about how Bee does it, is the device is listening, it's monitoring for audio. Once it hears that audio, it uses Bluetooth to take the microphone, what it's hearing on the bracelet, sending it to the phone, and then sending it to the cloud to do the processing of the transcription. And Bee is actually tossing out the audio. You can't listen back to your conversations, you can only read the transcriptions. And frankly, they're not great transcriptions. Like we use transcriptions of course, a lot in our work and we want them to be as close as possible because we want to get the quote perfect. This doesn't really need to get the quote perfect, it just needs to get a general sense of what that conversation was about. And so then they take that transcription and they run it through large language models and they're using that to summarize as you go. Yes, it's a lot of data, but it's also not as much because you don't have that big audio file and it's been turned into a text file which is smaller and they're doing special stuff to make those files smaller and then send it back to your phone and your app so you can always access it. Victoria Craig: What protections are in place to make sure that the private conversations that you do have, if you don't think about, because you mentioned in your story, there is a way that you can turn it off, make it stop listening, or is lack of privacy just something we're going to have to get used to as these things become wider spread? Joanna Stern: Look, this is a privacy nightmare, but Bee and Limitless, which is the other one I've talked to, they have the right ideas about privacy in mind if you're going to build something like this. Yes, both of them have buttons on them to turn off the mics. Limitless is this little pendant that works in a similar way, but actually also gives you the audio to listen back to. It has a little light on it that's always glowing when you've got the mic on. Bee is in the process of changing the light setup, but right now it does also have a button. You press it and actually when you press the button to turn off the microphone, it glows red, which doesn't make much sense since the universal light for recording is red. But they are planning to switch that soon in an update. Another thing you can do is you can delete any conversations or your account from the apps and they say that completely clears this from their servers. Limitless, they keep that audio. You can say in the app how long you want them to keep the audio so they can toss it after a number of days or they have some presets that you can do. On top of that, both of them say that this information is encrypted on their servers, nobody or no employees can access it. But of course there's always risk with all of this stuff. Victoria Craig: For the tech savvy first adopters out there though, one of the important things to consider as this, if this, becomes much more widespread, is that there are state by state restrictions on recording people's speech without their permission. Is this a minefield for individuals to navigate? Whose responsibility is this? Joanna Stern: Absolutely. The first questions I started getting when I would tell people I was recording, and I was really clear with most of my conversations, "This is recording," it's not recording the audio with the Bee, and I would explain all of that. But almost always the first question I would get from people is, "Is that legal? Can you even record me without my consent?" And so talked to a few lawyers about this, and it really depends on what state you're in. I was in New York and New Jersey, which are one party consent states where only one person, that's me, in that case has to agree to the recording. But if I were in one of the about a dozen other states that require two party consent, I would need that permission of the person I was talking to and possibly people within an earshot that might be getting picked up. And I asked the companies about this, they said they're going to start to get more aggressive about telling people this. But there is such usefulness and utility in this that I do think some will start to use it. And I do think also I heard from a lot of readers in response, especially those that are starting to experience memory loss and they were pretty game to try it. Victoria Craig: That was Wall Street Journal's senior personal tech columnist, Joanna Stern. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. Today's show was produced by Julie Chang with Deputy Editor Kristin Slee. I'm Victoria Craig for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back this afternoon with TNB Tech Minutes. Thanks for listening.
Wall Street Journal
02-05-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
TNB Tech Minute: Temu Stops Shipping to U.S. - Tech News Briefing
Full Transcript This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated. Victoria Craig: Here's your TNB Tech Minute for Friday, May 2nd. I'm Victoria Craig for the Wall Street Journal. Chinese bargain site Temu says it's no longer shipping products directly to customers in the US, a dramatic shift in its business model. It comes as the US ended its longstanding de minimus provision today, that was a trade exemption that let overseas packages valued at $800 or less arrive duty free. A spokesperson from Temu said the shipping changes are, quote, part of Temu's ongoing adjustments to improve service levels. Staying with China, the country's popular social video app, TikTok has been fined $600 million by Ireland's privacy watchdog. It said the company failed to guarantee user data sent to China was protected from government surveillance under Chinese laws governing espionage and cybersecurity. That is a blow to TikTok's efforts to convince Western countries, including the US, that the app is safe to use. The company vowed to appeal the fine and said the decision covers a period of time before it put new protections in place. It also denied that it turns user data over to the Chinese government and it said it hasn't received requests for it to do so. And finally, the maker of Grand Theft Auto issued an apology for delaying the release of the game's next installment, but investors aren't accepting it. Shares of Take-Two Interactive fell 6.7% today after the company's Rockstar Entertainment subsidiary confirmed its hotly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI will now drop a year from now rather than this fall. One analyst said the delay is consistent with the company's track record of putting product quality over hitting deadlines. For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Monday's Tech News Briefing podcast.
