Chaos Lever Podcast Ned Bellavance and Chris Hayner

The contentious debate about tabs vs. spaces in coding, breaking down its historical roots and current implications.
Tabs vs. spaces 
This Chaos Lever episode explores the surprisingly intense debate around using tabs and spaces in programming. Ned and Chris cover the historical journey of coding practices from punch cards to modern coding environments. They discuss how seemingly small choices, like whether to use tabs or spaces, have great implications for code readability, maintenance, and even programmers’ salaries.
Links: 
Whereupon I Ramble Hopefully Somewhat Coherently About The Spacing Wars In Computer FilesWhich is, as is true with so very many things, FORTRAN.All the way up to 1990, when FORTRAN finally made the formatting optionalThis has been proven by analyses that I choose to support because they totally line up with my already existing beliefsAn analysis of the data behind Stack Overflow’s 2017 developer surveyBut what google did is kickstart the tabs vs spaces war by including in their formatting requirements this line

This week in Tech News of The Week Ned and Chris discuss a variety of recent tech headlines, an influencer's negative impact on Humane AI, Google Drive's new dark mode, the controversial debut of Airchat, and the rising threat of the Latrodectus malware loader!
Links:
Humane AI Pin Sucks, Influencer Blamed For Killing CompanyGoogle Drive Gets Dark Mode; I’m Irrationally Excited About ItDark ReaderAirchat Bursts Onto The Scene To Make Us All DumberNew Malware Loader Latrodectus Making More And More Inroads With Bad Actors

Ned and Chris explore the curious origins of everyday tech terms, like "download" and "log in," and how they became part of our digital lives.
Tech Etymology 
This episode of Chaos Lever examines the fascinating backstory behind standard tech terms. Ned and Chris discuss how these terms evolved from practical uses in the past to the digital expressions we use daily. This episode also touches on current events in the tech world, including Redis's licensing changes and HashiCorp's legal battles, providing a humorous yet insightful look into the complexities of the tech industry.
Links: 
Torsion of Wing Trusses at Diving SpeedsEnglish Stack ExchangeI asked ChatGPT, which unsurprisingly quoted Wikipedia at me.I’ll just link the Etymonline post for that oneorigin of Kubernetes at the linkNational Advisory Committee for Aeronautics technical note from 1947Matt Ferrell over at Undecided

This week in Tech News of the Week we dive into a series of significant tech and cybersecurity developments: Home Depot's troubling supply chain data breach, Supermicro's controversial decision not to fix hackable BMCs, and much more!
Links:
Home Depot Hammered by Supply Chain Data BreachHackable BMCs for Supermicro Won’t Be FixedIntel Releases New AI Accelerator Chip, Looks To Keep AcceleratingGoogle Tries To Get A Leg Up Intel With A New ARM

Ned and Chris discuss the impact of a sophisticated cybersecurity vulnerability, CVE-2024-3094, found in xz compression software by a Microsoft employee.
CVE-2024-3094
In this Chaos Lever episode, Ned and Chris look into the shadowy depths of cybersecurity where a malicious code, CVE-2024-3094, lurks within the seemingly benign xz compression software. This problem was deliberately created by someone with harmful intentions and essentially allows hackers to sneakily access and manipulate data in systems using this software. Ned and Chris uncover how this exploit could give hackers unfettered access to Linux systems worldwide, transforming SSH connections into potential gateways for data manipulation and unauthorized entry. Join us as they discuss the complexity of this cyber threat, its discovery, and the critical lessons in vigilance and software upkeep it teaches us. 

Links: 
https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/04/what-we-know-about-the-xz-utils-backdoor-that-almost-infected-the-world/ https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-3094 https://gynvael.coldwind.pl/?lang=en&id=782 https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/pull/1609 https://mastodon.social/@AndresFreundTec/112180406142695845 https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/03/29/4 https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/tech-giants-chastened-by-heartbleed-finally-agree-to-fund-openssl/ https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/open-source-maintainers-what-they-need-and-how-to-support-them 

This week In Tech News of The Week, headlines suggests that there are advancements in PCI 7 development, confirmed instances of problematic behavior by Facebook, potential security improvements for SS7, increasing email security requirements driven by Google and Yahoo, and much more!
Links:
PCI 7 Coming Along NicelyMore Shitty but-only-SUSPECTED Facebook Behavior Proven Real… AgainSS7 Might Finally Get SecureSMS and why it’s a security nightmareEmail Security Mandates Becoming Mandat-ier Thanks To Google And Yahoo