Let's Know Things Podcast Por Colin Wright capa

Let's Know Things

Let's Know Things

De: Colin Wright
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 A calm, non-shouty, non-polemical, weekly news analysis podcast for folks of all stripes and leanings who want to know more about what's happening in the world around them. Hosted by analytic journalist Colin Wright since 2016.

letsknowthings.substack.comColin Wright Política e Governo
Episódios
  • 2026 Hungarian Election

    2026 Hungarian Election
    Apr 21 2026
    This week we talk about Orbán, Hungary, and reformers.We also discuss Fidesz, Tisza, and illiberalism.Recommended Book: I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom by Jason ParginTranscriptHungary is a Central European country that was formed in the aftermath of WWI as part of the Treaty of Trianon, which—due to it having fought on the losing side of that conflict—resulted in the loss of more than 70% of its former territory, most of its economy, nearly 60% of its population, and about 32% of ethnic Hungarians who were left scattered across land that was given to neighboring countries when what was then Austria-Hungary was broken apart, initially by Hungary declaring independence from Austria, and then by those neighbors carving it up, grabbing land at the end of and just after the war, all of them pretty pissed at Hungary for being part of the Central Powers, quadruple alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria.Today, Hungary is surrounded on all sides by other nations, including those who gobbled up some of their territory, back in the day. They’ve got Slovakia to their north, Ukraine to their northeast, Romania is to the east, and Serbia is to the south. Croatia and Slovenia are to their southwest, and Austria, which used to be part of the same nation as Hungary, is to their west.In 2026, Hungary has a population of a little over 9.5 million people, and the vast majority of those people, around 97.7%, are ethnic Hungarians, the next-largest ethnic group is Romani, weighing in at just 2.4%.During WWII, Hungary was on the Axis side of the conflict, once again ending up on the losing side of a world war, and was eventually occupied by the Soviet Union, which converted the nation into a satellite state called the Hungarian People’s Republic. Hungarians tried to revolt their way out of the Soviet Union’s grip in 1956, but it didn’t work. In 1989, though, during the wave of other regional revolutions that tore the Soviet Union apart, Hungary peacefully transitioned into a parliamentary democracy, and it joined the EU in 2004.What I’d like to talk about today is post-Soviet, Third Republic Hungary, the country’s conversion into an ultra-conservative, ultra-corrupt state, and how a decade and a half of democratic backsliding might be eased, at least somewhat, by new leadership that just won an overwhelming majority in Hungary’s recent elections.—In the 1990s, Hungary began its transition from state-run authoritarianism under the Soviets into the type of capitalism-centered democracy that was being spread by the US and its allies during the Cold War.In Hungary, like many other post-Soviet nations, this transition wasn’t smooth, and the country experienced a severe economic recession that sparked all manner of social upsets, as well.Hungary’s Socialist Party did really well in elections for a while, in large part because of how badly capitalism seemed to doing, and all the downsides locals now associated with it, but the Socialists went back and forth with other governments, especially the liberal conservative Fidesz (FEE-dez) party, each government taking the reins for four years before being voted out, replaced by the opposition, which was then voted out four years later and replaced by their opposition.In 2006, there was a big to-do about a report that the then-Prime Minister, in charge of the Socialist Party, had admitted behind closed doors to having lied to win the last election. “We lied in the morning, we lied in the evening, and we lied at night,” he said during that closed-doors speech, and the divulgence of this led to nationwide protests and a period, which continues today, in which no left-wing party could attain power, only conservative governments standing a chance of running things in Hungary.In 2010, the Fidesz party, led by Viktor Orbán, won a supermajority in parliament, and the following year, parliament approved a new constitution that brought a huge number of significant changes to the government and the nation’s laws. This adoption was criticized for basically being a nation-defining document that enshrines the party’s Conservative Christian ideology into law, permanently, despite that ideology not reflecting the views of the country at large; just over 40% of Hungary identifies as Christian. This new constitution also significantly cut or curtailed the rights of formerly independent institutions, removing basically all checks on the government’s power, and making it nearly impossible to push back against anything they might want to do, moving forward.Under Orbán, Hungary saw significant democratic backsliding, meaning the country was converted from a functioning democracy into something that looked like a democracy from the outside, with elections and a press and such, but with actual functionality closer to that of Russia, which also holds elections, but those elections are tightly controlled by ...
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    16 minutos
  • Mythos

    Mythos
    Apr 14 2026
    This week we talk about Project Glasswing, Anthropic, and Q Day.We also discuss exploit markets, vulnerabilities, and zero days.Recommended Book: The Culture Map by Erin MeyerTranscriptIn the world of computer security, a zero-day vulnerability is an issue that exists within a system at launch—hence, zero-day, it’s there at day zero of the system being available—that is also unknown to those who developed said system.Thus, if Microsoft released a new version of Windows that had a security hole that they didn’t know about, but someone else, a hacking group maybe, discovered before it was released, they might use that vulnerability in Windows or Word or whatever else to hack the end-users of that software.While large companies like Microsoft do a pretty good job, considering the scope and scale of their product library, of identifying and fixing the worst of the security holes that might leave their customers prone to such attacks, that same scope and scale also means it’s nearly impossible to fill every single possible gap: a truism within the cybersecurity world is that defenders need to get it right every single time, and attackers only need to get it right once, and the same is true here. There’s never been a perfect piece of software, and as these things expand in capability and complexity, the opportunity to miss something also increases, and thus, so does the range of possible errors and exploitable imperfections.Because of how damaging zero-days can be for both users of software and the companies that make that software, there are thriving marketplaces, similar to those that deal in other illicit goods, where those who discover such vulnerabilities can sell them, usually for cryptocurrencies or funds derived from stolen credit cards.Software companies have countered the increasing sophistication of these exploit black markets with white and grey market efforts, the former being direct payouts to hackers, basically saying hey, thanks for finding this bug, here’s a lump-sum of money, a bug bounty, rather than punishing all hacking of their systems, which is how they would have previously responded, which had the knock-on effect of sending all hackers, even those who weren’t looking to cause trouble, either underground, or actively hunting for bugs for the black market.The grey market is more complicated and diverse, and also the largest of marketplaces for those shopping around for these types of exploits. And it’s populated by the same sorts of neverdowells who might frequent the exploit black markets, but also includes all sorts of governments and intelligence agencies, who scoop up these sorts of vulnerabilities to use against their opponents, or to deny them to others who might use them instead, against them.All sorts of governments, from the US to Russia to North Korea to Iran are regular shoppers on these computer system exploit grey markets, and that has created a complicated, entangled system of incentives, as is some cases, it’s better for the US government, or Iranian government, or whomever, if the company making these systems doesn’t know about a bug or other vulnerability, because they just spent several million dollars to buy a map to said bug or gap, which could, at some point in the future, allow them to tunnel into an enemy’s computers and cause damage or steal information.What I’d like to talk about today is a new AI system that is apparently very, very good at identifying these sorts of exploits, and why this is being seen as a milestone moment for some people operating in the zero day, and overall computer security space.—On April 7, 2026, US-based AI company Anthropic announced Project Glasswing—a new initiative that is currently only available to 11 companies that’s meant to help those companies shore-up their cyber defenses before more AI systems like the one that underpins Project Glasswing, which is called Mythos Preview, hit the market.So these companies, Amazon Web Services, Anthropic, Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, CrowdStrike, Google, JPMorganChase, the Linux Foundation, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Palo Alto Networks, make a lot of stuff, and in particular make and maintain a lot of vital online and device-based software infrastructure, like operating systems and all the stuff that keeps things in our apps and on the web secure.Mythos Preview is a new model created by Anthropic, similar to their existing Claude models, but apparently vastly more powerful. There are tests that AI companies use to compare the potency of their models at a variety of task types, but those are generally considered to be flawed or game-able in all sorts of ways, so the main thing to know here is that Mythos did way better at most of those tests, especially the coding, the programming-related ones, than the other, currently most capable models, the ones that professional programmers, most of them anyway, are using these days. It was also able to do impressive and worrying ...
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    16 minutos
  • US Router Ban

    US Router Ban
    Apr 7 2026
    This week we talk about modems, WiFi, and kinda sorta bribes.We also discuss Huawei, government subsidies, and the FCC.Recommended Book: Replaceable You by Mary RoachTranscriptMany homes, those with WiFi connections to the internet, have two different devices they use to make that connectivity happen.The first is a modem, which is what connects directly to your internet service provider, often via an ethernet jack in the wall that connects to a series of cables webbed throughout your city.The second is a router, which plugs into the modem and then spreads that signal, derived from that network of city-wide cables around your home, either by splitting that single ethernet jack into multiple ethernet jacks, allowing multiple devices to plug into that network, or by creating a wireless signal, WiFi, that multiple devices can connect to wirelessly in the same way. Many routers will have both options, though in most homes and for most modern devices, WiFi tends to be the more common access point because of its convenience, these days.That WiFi signal, and the connection provided via those additional ethernet ports on the router, create what’s called a Local Area Network of devices, or LAN. This local area network allow these devices—your phone and your laptop, for instance—to connect to each other directly, but its primary role for most people is using that connection to the modem to grant these devices access the wider internet.In addition to providing that internet access and creating the Local Area Network, connecting devices on that network to each other, routers also usually provide a layer of security to those devices. This can be done via firewalls and with encryption, which is important as unprotected networks can leave the devices plugged into them vulnerable to outside attack. That means if the router is breached or in some other way exploited, a whole company’s worth of computers, or all your local devices at home, could be made part of a botnet, could be held hostage by ransomware, or could be keylogged until you provide login information for your banks or other seemingly secure accounts to whomever broke into that insufficiently protected LAN.What I’d like to talk about today is a recently announced ban on some types of routers in the US, the reasoning behind this ban, and what might happen next.—On March 23, 2026, the US Federal Communications Commission announced a ban on the import of all new consumer-grade routers not made in the United States.This ban does not impact routers that are already on the market and in homes, so if you have one already, you’re fine. And if you’re buying an existing model, that should be fine, too.It will apply to new routers, though, and the rationale provided by the FCC with the announcement is that imported routers are a “severe cybersecurity risk that could be leveraged to immediately and severely disrupt US critical infrastructure.”They also cited recent, major hacks like Salt Typhoon, saying that routers brought into the US provided a means of entry for some components of those attacks.This stated concern is similar to the one that was at the center of the Trump administration’s 2019 ban of products made by Chinese tech company Huawei in the United States. Huawei made, and still makes, all kinds of products, including consumer-grade smartphones, and high-end 5G equipment sold to telecommunications companies around the world for use in their infrastructure.The concern was that a company like Huawei might leverage its far better prices, which were partly possible because of backing from the Chinese government, to put foreign competitors out of business. From there, they could dominate these industries, while also getting their equipment deep in the telecommunications infrastructure of the US and US allies. Then, it would be relatively easy to insert spy equipment and eavesdrop on phone calls and data transmissions from phones, or to incorporate kill-switches into these grids, so if China ever needed to, for instance, distract the US and its allies while they invaded Taiwan, they could just push a button, kill the US telecommunications grid, and that would buy them some time and fog of war to do what they wanted to do without immediate repercussions; and undoing a successful invasion would be a million times more difficult than stepping in while it’s happening to prevent it.As of 2024, Huawei still controlled about a third of the global 5G market. It controlled about 27.5% back in 2019, the year it was banned in the US and in many US allied nations, so while it’s possible they could have grown even bigger than that had the ban not been implemented, they still grew following its implementation.Chinese companies currently control about 60% of the US router market, and it’s likely the local, US market will shift, reorienting toward US makers over the next decade or so. But it’s possible these Chinese companies will grow their global ...
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    13 minutos
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