Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerome's to my right, uh, and this is stuff you should There's probably some people going, did they replaced Jerry with Jerome? Named Jerome? Yeah, that's just the nickname we have for Jerry. Uh. It's a it's an arcane reference to the librarian at the beginning of Ghostbusters whose uncle thought he was sat Jerome. No, really, that's what I've always been referencing. I thought we were on the same page about it. We also call her Jarre's. That's a reference to nothing, right, Jerry, all right, that's a that was a great Jerry Chuck um chuck. Yes, have you ever been on the Internet of Things? M Well, you can't really be on the Internet of things. I don't understand. Explain. Well, the Internet of Things, my friend, is a really just a collection of interconnected devices to make your life simpler and more and less private, pretty much in front with potential complications, but more convenient. Allegedly, there's a lot of people who also say this is all just a bunch of navel gazing in a lot of ways, you know, Like, do we really need these apps? I ran across a a vape for smoking weed as they call it, that has an app. Uh, it's an a vaping system for smoking. It's just a little pipe marijuana. But but it's just a little pipe, and um, it has an app that goes with it that remotely controls it the heat settings and stuff. Oh does it like things like you've smoked one ounce of weed this month? No, which would be pretty intriguing. I guess that would be. Yeah, And that's the point. There's a lot of there's a lot of stuff that you can point to and say, this is pretty neat. This thing feeds my cat while I spend twenties three hours a day at work. Yeah, that's it's nice that I can keep this cat alive that I have no connection with any longer because I'm at work all the time. But this machine feeds it because I can control it remotely with an app. Right. But if you have something tracking how much we do you smoke? You're either smoking far too much or not nearly enough, or you have too much money is another way to put it. Yeah. Uh, you know what my friend Clay. I don't know if you've met Clay, but he told me something. The way, as far as being concerned about security and privacy rights and things, is what they do is they sell it to you first as a convenience and then before you know it, you know, dot dot dot Clay Clay never finished the sence he did, but you know, I don't remember exactly he finished it. Clay said this in Oh, yeah, I think i'd like Clay like way before, like he was probably just talking about geez, I don't even know, like a credit card or something, and and he was just like, just be aware, man. He was like, they sell it to he is a convenience before you know what. Everyone is doing it that way, and it's fraught with complications, was essentially what he was saying. Yeah, I think that's very precient because that's exactly the point that we're at right now. And we'll talk a little more, well a lot more, I'm sure, about security and privacy and all that stuff, but ultimately it's like you said, the Internet of things. Is this A lot of other people call it the internet, Like this is just the next wave of the Internet. This is where the Internet is going but the I guess the best description of it is it's a series of interconnected UM machines devices that, since the environment in a lot of k is, UM can carry out some sort of function. Usually it is a sensing function, and UM can communicate with central servers, usually in the cloud, via the Internet. It's about as simple as that. Like, that's the Internet of things. Yeah, Like if you think, boy, this all sounds weird and I don't use stuff like that, if you have anything that has the word smart in front of it, then you're probably using the Internet of things already, right if you've got a smartphone that to a smart thermostat or a smart smoke detector, or if you wear a exercise tracker. This that's the Internet of things right exactly. And the there's a lot of obvious steps that are right there on the horizon coming after this is like the idea that UM your refrigerator will be able to be like, oh, these guys are almost out of cash. You milk, I'll contact Amazon and have it delivered in two hours. And you're like, I don't drink cash, you milk anymore? Fridge, dupid fridge? How many times do I have to abuse was you. But that's pretty neat. I mean I think a lot of this. It's it's both good and a little creepy. Like that'd be cool. If I showed up at home one day and I was out of milk and it was waiting on my doorstep, I of milk. You wouldn't want waiting on your doorstep. O, cash your milk. It doesn't matter. Oh you don't in refrigerate it no way, because it's not milk, it's cash your juice. Yes, it is what they should call it. Um the I don't disagree with you, right, Like, I'm sure it is pretty neat. It's pretty cool, and in five years it'll be totally second nature to us. Right. But the in my experience, the more mechanized, the more automated, the more convenient and I just made air quotes, life gets, the more difficult it is to keep up with, the less simple it is, and the more horrific it is when something breaks down. Interesting, So in within simplification, you think it becomes more complicated, Yeah, because you you rely on machines that can break, and when they break, you're like, I forgot how to order cash your milk? Where you get that stuff. So you think we're headed for idiocracy, uh, to an extent, But I think it's more. It's more than that. In the short term. I think it's just that it's it's so much easier to walk to a grocery store and buy cash you milk, and walk back home than it is to um ensure that your fridge has all of the updated firmware and make sure that it's it's ordering correctly from Amazon, and to make sure Amazon gets there. And you're just relying on all these other components rather than your own two feet and the idea that the people at the store are gonna have your cash you milk. I see that in a way, but I also disagree in a way. Like, for instance, I have I have a few things in my life that I've set to auto order, like air filters, baby formula, stuff that water my fridge water filter like this stuff gets shipped to me automatically, and it's wonderful because I don't have to think about it at all. So does your fridge order itself or you just put a time around like Amazon, it's on a timer to these you know, not even Amazon, like you know, the fridge filter company. You can just set it to auto deliver like every sixty days. So it's nice because I don't have to think about it. The only thing is missing is the camera or the device itself being hooked up telling the company, Hey, my air filter is over or you know, spent um, which would be pretty awesome to tell you the truth, if your air filter could be like it's actually we're at we need to go ahead and order. However, you know what, that's a little I never really thought about that being a little dicey, because you know, you need a new water filter, trust me, Like really, but what if you could get another month out of this one that you're throwing away and you're ordering early, then they can sell another to a year to you exactly. That's what I assume when you're trusting them, like when they're like you have to change your oil every three thousand miles or or yeah, you need to change your water filter every three months, Like I never changed my oil. Yeah, I forget. That's for chumps. It's a scam. Uh anyway, all right, so that's a little personal overview. The phrase Internet of Things is actually coined, they think, in the late nineties by guy named Kevin Ashton, who worked for PNG. I'll bet he has a T shirt that says I coined the term Internet of things. Well just so he can invite people to punch him in the face or give him a hug, depending on who you are. He worked for Procter and Gamble, and he had a presentation, Uh, they're at work where he said, you know what we should do. We should put um radio frequency ID tags r F I D s on lipstick in the store, so and have that hooked up to a machine where we could automatically send that information and say, hey, the store is running low on lipstick, get a shipment over there. And he coined the term Internet of things supposedly in that meeting, and apparently though at this time, but prior to that, the nineties were a big time for something called ubiquitous computing, which is the basically the predecessor to the idea of the Internet of things, where like computers would just be integrated into our lives totally and completely um, and the Internet of things is in that vein a little similarly. But from stuff I've read, there's a lot of people were like, I didn't quite feel fulfill the promise of ubiquitous computing. This is just kind of like life slightly more convenient now thanks to this, But that that his original idea, Kevin Ashton's, makes total and complete sense, you know, like the you could how many sales do you miss when your lipstick thing is empty until you get you find out it's empty, and then get to refill it, Like if your lipstick the last one can be like, hey, I'm the last one here, you guys, better sense and replacements. It's great. That makes perfect, total sense, and that was ultimately the original basis of the Internet of Things. It's taking um dumb things and making them, like you said, smart, by give then the ability to sense their surroundings and communicate that data to a central server where that's analyzed and then the proper people are alerted. Yeah, and here's the thing that I also never considered is they must have discovered that there was a need for that. And the only need I can imagine would be that the employees were so bad at realizing that they were running out of stock that they would go several days without having lipstick on hand. So they were like, these people can't even do that. Well, what if let's say that you have a person whose job it is to restock lipstick, right, and they go one week and there's like five million tubes of orange, so much orange, they just take some handful and throw throw it away just because they don't want their bosses to feel bad about the orange lipstick that's not being sold. Tubes of orange come back right the next week and it's all gone sold out. And then it's erratic like that, you've got an employee you're sending there, Um that's just hit or miss, whether you just wasted a bunch of gas in the employees time, rather than being alerted like now you guys can come before it's too late. Sure, that's the thing that makes the most sense to me. Kevin Ashton genius. Maybe so I meant to look him up to see what he was doing these days, if he was just wearing the T shirt or he might be a professional term coiner, you know, haven't worked out quite as well to sit back in the fishnet of the future. Yeah, that that was that kind of caught on a little bit early in the two thousand's, but then it just yeah, it went the way the dodo, which was coined by Yeah, that's been around for a while. It's the Dodo. Um, the Dodo died, all right, So let's talk about a little bit what you What you've got essentially is a is a step by step system that many times starts with a smartphone this connected to the internet. Uh. Then you have other pieces of hardware in your home that are also connected to the internet, and there is most likely an app for that hardware on your smartphone, and then that's usually sent out to the cloud. It's not some guy or some ladies sitting in a room in looking at your data. It's eight thousand steps today, just following behind you, counting count No, they're looking at the data from your wearable. Yeah, so just in your guest room. That become a neat I don't know. No, it depends on whether they like get along with you, or if they drink your cash you milk. Well, Todd drinks all the cash you milk. So that's why Todd's not wanted. He's being counterproductive. So then it usually goes to the cloud, which is where we send our data these days, where it's analyzed, and that's a big that's a big part of the Internet things too, Chuck, is the cloud, because that means that you don't have to analyze the day in the little machine, in the little censer. All it has to do is sense stuff and create that data and then send it to the cloud, where you're basically outsourcing all the analysis. That takes a lot more computing power. So that was a big development that there's such a thing as the cloud now. Yeah, that's it kind of puts the smart into it all. Um. And if you're wondering how big it is right now, that depends on who you ask, but some say between fifteen and twenty five billion devices already that are connected, and uh, some people say by twenty it could be anywhere from fifty billion to a trillion devices connected, depending on how much it catches on, you know, how every day it becomes. But it's at it that way for sure. I don't think there's any going back from this. I think they're going to stick a some sort of um computing hardware that taps into the Internet on everything everything, okay, And and it doesn't necessarily have to be a smart thermostat, like they have devices now that you can tag to everyday items to keep up with things. Yeah, or let's say cameras that Let's say you have a security system at your house that you can view from your smartphone from anywhere in the world, and maybe it automatically calls the police. That's the Internet of things, right you know. Yeah, I mean there's a lot of great applications for it. And again, like this is just we're in the the nascent period of of this, like the stuff that's like, wow, holy cow, I have a smart doorbell. That's amazing and it's it's awesome and it works really well. But there's you can't you basically can't apply your imagination to predict what's even gonna be fifteen years into the future as far as the Internet of things goes, Like just the the change in uh, how we deal in inner act with the Internet and our surroundings is it's it's inestimable. Yeah, who wrote this one was a strickling No, this was Bernadette Johnson. Well, she wrote a line in here that I'm just gonna read because it really kind of hit home for me. She said, we've essentially given common physical objects both computing power and senses, and that explains it to a t. Yeah, you did a good job with this. There's a lot of information, Like you could do anything. You can make anything smart that you wanted. You could have a smart can't open her smart tuba lipstick, yeah exactly, or smart tube of toothpaste that you know when you're squeezing the end and your how do you get all the toothpaste out? What's your method? Oh? You know they make a little um remover. I can't remember what it's called. You gotta you got a machine? No, well, yeah, I have a smart toothpaste remover. It's like a little it looks like a remember those candy lips, the wax lips. It looks like those, but it's pocket right now. Okay, so pull us out. Um. If you had a like a slit in the lips, you put the tube of toothpaste in the like the end of it in there, and you just kind of tilted at an angle a little bit and puts pressure and you just slide it along and it pushes it to the to the front. Yeah. I use my toothbrush to do the same thing. How Oh you slide the tooth trust the toothpaste tube on the sink and just you know, use it as a uh flattener. Squeezer, squeezer. Yeah, that's a good one. Interesting. Yeah, I never realized you just hacked your tooth brush. What do you? Uh, what do you pay for something like what you got? Like a dollar something like that? Yeah, yeah, nothing, nothing too much. Well, boy, I guess I got away with it. See now, if if I if there was some sort of computing chip on this thing that calculated how much toothpaste was left and sent that information to my app, that would be a smart toothpaste squeezer, that's it. Or you come home and open the mailbox and there's a new toothpaste and you're like, I didn't even know I was out because I haven't been using my my lippy device. You know, Yeah, I forgot to brush my teeth for three weeks. Let's take a break. Yeah, it's getting a little silly. Yeah, And you go brush your teeth and we'll meet back in here. And how long does it take you to brush your teeth? Like? Seven? Eight seconds? Great, we'll be back here in eight seconds. By the way, seven or eight seconds is not nearly enough time. I just know. That's washing your hands. You're supposed to do the alphabet whie for brushing your teeth. Either for washing your hands, or brushing your teeth, you know, if you're supposed to do like three minutes for brushing your teeth. I've got the we won't name check here and buzz market, but I've got a mechanical toothbrush and it um electric toothbrush and you know it has it beeps and you divide your mouth up into four zones. Oh yeah, I think I have the same top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right, and it just beeps and deep like vibrates. Oh really, it's already vibrating though. How can you tell the difference? It changes its vibration really? Yeah, how weird. I guess maybe it's a pause in the vibration that I think about it. I just assigned to a vibration. Yeah, the same deal though. Yeah. And they again there's smart toothbrushes that can keep up with how much you brush your teeth and that kind of stuff. Are they really uh? Their WiFi connected toothbrushes that connect to an app. You know, my brother in law, the Marine Corps general um he. I used to laugh at him because I was in his bathroom once and opened the drawer and he had a log of his razor and shaving log and like how many times he'd used the raser And it's basically pre smart Internet of Things smart razor, because I'm sure they have those now to alert you, like when you should change your your razor blades. I haven't heard of that one, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was. I just thought it was very funny. I mean, I said a lot about who he was. Oh yeah, you know, and no surprised that he's a Marine Corps general. If he's keeping up with stuff like that, I can I can see him, like, um, I met him. He's a great guy, just sitting at the edge of the bed right before bedtime, petting his cat fifty times, no more, no less, and than putting it in the foot locker at the end of the bed for the night, and like tucking himself in. Yeah, he's the one that trere me on to peeing sitting down too. So oh yeah, a great debt to him. Nice hats off. Is he coming to our DC show again? Uh? No, man, they're transferred over overseas for the first time ever. Are they coming to our UK shows? No, not that overseas. I'm not allowed to say where he's going. Okay, that's cool. I'm with you top secret, huh. I can tell you off the airs. That says, I see what you're saying. It probably doesn't matter. I'm just respecting this privacy by telling everyone that he taught me to be sitting down. You really got starting that national combo? Why don't you I just think it's important, you know, I need to be talking about it. No mistakes is the motto of the tagline. No no drips, no runs, no errors. Nice. Um, did we just take a break and we came back with this garbage? Maybe we should start over again, Jerry, all right, well let's talk about the chech how about that? Yeah, telemetry nothing new, No apparently, this says. And again, the whole, the whole basis of the Internet of Things is what's called machine to machine um communication. Right, you have like your smart lipstick just sitting there sensing that it's the last tube it can sense all day long, and it's still a dumb stick, a lips lipstick. It can't tell you, right unless it can communicate that data to the people who need to know that stuff. And they do that through machine to machine communication. And like you're saying, telemetry was the original version of that, which apparently dates back the Yeah, it's comes from the Greek um tele means remote and uh metro metron means measure. And that's where you're basically in a remote area, you would measure something and then send that uh via back then telephone line, right, like an Arctic station or something set up to watch animals, like deep in the jungle or something. It's like, there's a world the beast, don't we go there's a wild beast. That was early telemetry exactly. And that's essentially just an extension of what we're doing now. Yeah, now it's an extension of from then. Well we've we've built upon that. I mean think like the first dial up stuff that was I would guess probably telemetry, you know, the series of like the and all that. I mean, you're sending signals from one machine to another saying and let me online. Yeah it's your problem. Why are you so slow? Uh? And what's allowed the Internet of Things to take root? Um? Very simply it gets more complicated, but the invention of the Worldwide Web by Mr Tim Burners Lee off Man h Then the ubiquitous nous is that a word? Ubiquity ubiquitousness, ubiquitousness of WiFi. Although yeah, I think ubiquity is yeah, is that right? Yeah, WiFi, I do the porky pig thing where I just skip it. Um, the the widespread nature of WiFi all of a sudden, where um, you don't have to be physically connected to something that really advanced things speed. And then like we already said, the cloud, Yeah, I think the cloud is the thing that really kind of allows it more than anything else. It's just if you had to have that kind of computing power right there in the sensor, then it's just would be very limiting. You couldn't put it on just anything, and it would be a lot more expensive. To these things that they're adding to to you know, normal inanimate objects to make them smart are very cheap to produce. They just need a few components. They need computing hardware, they need sensors, they need communication hardware, and then they need some sort of power source, which you can get that from the machine itself that you plug in, right, So like if it's a smart coffee maker, it can draw power from the the plug that the coffee maker runs off of. And then it needs Internet access, which if you have a smart coffee maker, but you don't have internet at your house. You made a poorer decision in your coffee maker purchase. Like pretty much everything comes with internet access at this point right in the Western world. Sure. Uh. The other thing we've kind of been talking about is UM your own devices in your home. But it just you don't have to be just hooked up to things that you own. You can hook up to other like SIST devices. Like let's say your town has UM devices that monitor traffic conditions, you can tap into that. I guess that's what WAYS is, right or is that all self reported? I looked up and UM, it seems to be all self reported. But there's something called like WAYS Citizen or something like that, and it it appears to be WAYS trying to get smart cities to let them tap into their information like traffic cams and stuff like that. Yeah, and apparently that's already a thing like if you just leave your phone open or like the Bluetooth on, if you're driving through a smart city with UM traffic sensors, it basically uses your phone's information while you're in traffic as real time traffic information because your phone has something like a an accelerometer in it, so it knows how fast you're moving at any given point. And if it's giving that information to just a panel on the side of the street, that panel can put all that info together and be like oh, peach trees like super backed up right now, and then if Ways can get their hands on their information, they can send that out to their users. But for right now. Ways, as far as I know, is is it's a it's a social apps. It relies on its users to update conditions, which, by the way, Ways I think might be the best app of the twenty one century so far. I didn't start using it. I had it on my phone for a while, but I never used it, but have a little bit recently. Um, I don't I don't like interact with it much. I'll just set it to tell me where to go, like I don't report accidents and things. Does that mean I'm a bad user? I mean you're you're you're using like the efforts of other people without contributing. I mean the point is is for everybody to contribute. It makes it more robust. But it's not like you're going to show up at your house, you pull over on the highway, that's That's probably the one big thing about about ways is that like you're not supposed to be using it in that situation. If you're the driver, you're supposed to be the passengers. But they're also kind of telling you to you know well, I mean there's a thing that when when it comes up or when you try to start, it'll say like are you a passenger? And they just assume that you're going to just be truthful about that. Yeah. That's like the website to say, like, tell us your twenty one by clicking here exactly and then welcome to the party. Yeah, and the twenty year olds like, no, shoot, you can click on this close two weeks, I'll be back in two weeks um. The other thing I was wondering too, like what if the lipstick as an example, what if they that's open uh to where you can look at your app and say like, well, no, this store is out of lipstick. That'd be cool, you know. Yeah, I said, of having to call and talk to a dumb person, I know it's awful wait for them to go look with their eyes. Well, but you know, I get it though, because now the days you call and say hey, I want to check and see if you have something stock, and you usually met with all right, hold on and not like sure, I'd be happy to go check before user. They're like, oh man, I can't wait to get outsourced to a robot, right. But then you get to the store and they don't have it in stock, and you're like, I called and asked someone. They're like, who'd you talk to? There's no one by their name of works here. Sorry, and he's like got covering his name back with his hand. Um and Chuck. Speaking of smart cities, you know, traffic info is a big one, so was um smart traffic lights, which I wish they's been around starting when I was sixteen, because there is there are a few things to me that are more of a waste of time than sitting in a traffic light when there's no traffic going through Decatur where near a while it is famous for its lights not being timed or trip tripped or whatever, and it's there forever it's horrible. Yeah, Decator does have really long lights and yeah, they don't even have the We found out it's either a metal detector or a weight sensor that where there's like the lines that where they obviously cut out the the um a hard top in front of you in front of a light. If you don't even have that, that's a problem. But even those ones that have sensors don't always like to it immediately. This should be like, it should be a lot smarter than that. And that's part of what the revenure engine. You're that guy have to stop right? You know Decatur's motto when you drive in it says Decator, what's your hurry? Really? No, I can kind of see it actually slow down, Decatur. What's with all the baby strollers to be another one road baby strollers? Why they have this big off road like jogging baby stroller with the huge tires and yet one of those Yeah, but that's uh, well no, I mean that I don't really go off road, But that's because the sidewalks in my neighborhood are awful there. They suck. Ye is off road might as well be like tree roots growing up everywhere, that kind of thing. Yeah, they're like, O, this tree's never gonna grow, Let's put a sidewalk up right next to it. Um, well, you're talking about smart cities. The other cool thing part actually that they could do They might actually be doing this is infrastructure, like embedding sensors into sidewalks. Well, that's a good example. Like a sidewalk that becomes cracked or broken, or bridge that becomes weak in one point, they can send the signal and say, hey, maybe you should come check out this bridge, and then eventually they will send a signal to the robots sidewalk crew, who will come out and prepare the sidewalk and everything will look perfect all the time thanks to the robots. Right, but there's forty robots and like thirty of them are just standing around working And where did they learn to smoke cigarettes? It seems weird to get so rubbed at cigarette breakes because I didn't smoke. Yeah, and I was always like, you know, I'm just gonna go stand outside and the boss will be like, you can't do that. Yeah, I mean you could take a break, but cigarette brakes weren't even real breaks. Someone's just like a new smoke, but you can never go you know, I'm just gonna go stand outside for five minutes. Like you have to be killing yourself to make that allowed. Yeah. No, I that dawned on me when I was smoker, to like that's when I was young and like, uh, you know, I was more angry back then about justice. Yeah. So again, we can sit here basically all day and talk about you know, devices and applications for this kind of thing. But there's some hurdles that are coming up that need to be addressed, um pretty soon, and we'll talk about those right after this. Alright, chuckers, we're back hurdles. So right now, there's some immediate hurdles, including the idea that a lot of smart technology operates on using totally different languages, different protocols, different everything, um, so that if you have a house full of different smart gadgets, you probably have an app for every single one of them, rather than one integrated gap or app. And that's that's a it's not a hurdle, like you can have that many apps, but the idea of it being seamlessly integrated into just one part of your phone would be great. And if they could talk to one another without you having to control it. You know, like you're, um, you're the light sensor on your light shade notices that the sun story and you go down, so it opens your blinds a little bit, right, and when that happens that you're you're smart. Candle up slicer knows that you like a slice the candle up before dinner, so it slices up the candle up. And they're all talking to one another. So it's not like everything's on a timer and things happen at once. It's happening because one thing is sensing this and it's relaying that information to the other devices in your house is as well, that's not happening right now. Yeah, what I need is I need between seven and nine am. I need my toilet, toilet to flush about every eight minutes. Yeah, man alive. It would be my smart house. Or as soon as the coffee starts brewing seven minutes later, the toilet flushes. That happens. See, coffee is good for that. It's great for that. But that's another thing that's coming very soon too. Smart toilets. I can tell you, like, you've got a lot of Billy Rubens in here, Yeah, what's up with that? It'll say, what's up with that? Uh So, basically, what you're talking about is systems that aren't integrated because it's a bunch of different companies with all their own devices. But there are companies trying to come together to um join up with open source platforms uh, and one of them is created by Qualcom called the All Scene Alliance, which is when like it sounds something like from a future horror movie, sounds really creepy, the All Scene Alliance or a new speak like we might as you might as well just say, like, we want a camera in every room of your home so we can all just talk to each other and make your life simpler, just relax, laid back. Apple's Home Kit always make it sound cute and not creepy, and it's probably creepier than the All Seeing the Lions. Yeah, a bunch of people have one. Google, as M, Samsung, there's one called everything That's missing a couple of vowels. Wink is a big one. Um, it's a big one right now. It controls some stuff like I think Phillips lights, and it works with Nest maybe or something like that. It does like two things, so it's like cutting manage right now. But um, as the author of this article, Bernadett Johnson puts out, none are all encompassing, which I saw that and I was like, Mitch Hedberg would have like that sentence, none are all encompassing. Yeah, he said he was like trying new words and um rather than like totally he said he was eating totally too much. They'd be like Mitch to you like s'mores, and'd be like all encompassingly. So another hurdle, UM that we are already getting around was um. Back in the nineties, we started to realize we were running out of IP addresses. The standard IP address was the UH, well it still is in some ways, the I p V four. Yes, I p V four, And in the nineties they got smart. It wasn't like the Y two K bug. We're like, oh my gosh, things are going to be different in a month. Uh. They got on this a while ago and created the I p v six and started UH basically created uh potentially what's the number, an undisillion number of at three forty undisillian addresses that is one with thirty six zeros behind it and enough to give uh IP addresses to everyone on the planet times ten to the tw the eighth power right, So basically they said, we don't want to run out ever again. Well, the funny thing is, Chuck is in one when they came up with the I p v four that came up with four point to nine five billion possible addresses. Yeah, they're like, that's we're doing. And then what within like thirty thirty years, thirty five years, they started really run out. And apparently there was a prediction that in two thousand and fifteen we were gonna straight up run out of I p v four Internet addresses or IP addresses UM, and apparently that was a cliff we avoided, obviously, because that's still we're still making things that have their own IP addresses. I thought they did run out, No, they used They used different things to mitigate it, including this network address translation really kind of open things up, and that's where a server identifies a network as a single IP address and then leads it to the local network to decide where the information that's supposed to be going to. One can you around the network goes see what I'm saying, but to the server, to the rest of the Internet, that whole network, which can be a ton of computers um is just one IP address. So you just reduced it by that many computers that are on that local network. That was a big one. But then also building um new things on the i p v six platform has helped mitigate it. A little bit too. So I think it's a cliff that we came very close to but avoided going over. Well, it doesn't matter now because I p V six is the new way forward. It is, but there's a lot of stuff still in use that's plenty good for the next couple of years that have like I p V before p I p V four addresses that still need to like they're like me too, Well, that doesn't matter. They can they're compatible now. Well, they're working to make them compatible. I think they're already a long way down that road. They're using both seamlessly pretty much. Um, there's a great wire state, well I think so. There's a great Wired article about it. Uh and they basically say, at first they weren't entirely compatible. Uh, you had to have some sort of layer in between to make them basically be friends. And um, they're still working on it. It's not like finished, but it said so far the transition has been pretty seamless. Like you're using you're interacting with I PB six right now. You don't even know it. Yeah, I would assume like if you have something that was made in the last couple of years, it's probably I p V six, That's what I would guess, So that's pretty neat Undistillian didn't even know there was a thing. I didn't either, I had to look it up. It's like, what the heck is that a typo on? So I don't think we can put it off any longer, Chuck. There's a lot of security and privacy concerns that crop up from the just the presence of the Internet of things. Right, if you have a bunch of sensors in your house collecting data and everything from you know how how many times you toss and turn in your sleep to um, you know how many minutes the toilet needs to be flushed in intervals to whether you're moving around your house or not, whether you're home. There's a lot of sensors in in even now the standard home in the United States, UM, that can that are collecting data and there's not a lot of regulation on what happens to that data, who has access to that data, how safe that data has to be, and um, it's just wide open for government surveillance, hackers, targeted ads. I mean, if you're paranoid about government stuff, then this probably worries you. Hacking as a whole different can of worms, like everyone should worry about that. Yeah, I feel like everyone should worry about governments aveillance as well, big time some people. You know, I think that's bunk. But governments aveillance well some people. Yeah, sure they are fools. Maybe people are utter fool and the world is full of fools. That's crazy to me. How could you not? I mean, like, there's there's testimony from the head of the n s A. There was Snowdon releasing the prison files. Like, how could anyone just say, no, that's not the case any Well, what you're saying is everyone should be as up on this as I am. And that's that's the foolish statement. Your people on the street today, fifty of them would say that's just that's just conspiracy stuff that I see. I thought you were saying like people knew and and they were saying like, no, this isn't a real thing. No, I think I got most people probably have their head in the sand of totally agree. I see what you mean. I still think they're foolish and and sad because there's the one thing that would press security into the Internet of things. There isn't any right now, there's virtually none, but I mean, it's all got to be self installed, not by the person but by the company, like, hey, we know you're probably worried, so we've done this, this and this right. And the way that that will happen is if people say, oh, that brand is not very secure, I'm going to go to their competitor, which is super secure, or if they get sued, sure, and that will cause brands to which are self regulating right now as far as security goes, to become more secure. But if people are unaware of it or just don't think that kind of stuff is going on, then there's not gonna be any call for that, and they'll be able to continue to put sensors, sensors in our home, devices in our home that can you drop on us, that can detect all sorts of different things about us without any thought for security whatsoever. Yeah, well, they have a great example in here, and it's not just the Internet of Things is already happening. Um with target His dad in two thousand twelve got mad because his teenage daughter was getting baby ads targeted toward her, and he was like, why are you trying to get my teenage daughter to have a baby? Why do you keep center to this stuff. And he found out she's pregnant and was like he actually apologized to them, but I still think like he had a beef because what I thought is they were just using her search uh information to target ads like, which is what goes on all the time. But she wasn't. What Target does is they have every customer. Every time you shop at Target with a credit card, you have a guest I D number that says, oh, here's that credit card from Josh Clark again, he's back in my store. Here's all the things that he's bought. Uh. So let's target ads at him simply by shopping there without using cash, which I didn't know that happened. Well, yeah, and it used to be you had to sign up for like a rewards program like a Kroger cards that I understand. This is the same thing without you opting into it. You know. Yeah, it's just tracking your credit card. And I think it's New York Times. I read one article where eventually they quit talking to the New York Times, but he got a little information at first, uh, And he said he talked to a Target employee that said, here's the hypothetical example. Let's say this. There's a girl in Atlanta shopping here. She buys a cocoa butter lotion. She buys a big purse that could be a diaper bag. She buys magnesium supplements, uh, and a bright blue rug. They might just surmise, Hey, I bet this lady's pregnant, but she's gonna have a boy because she's gonna buy that bright blue rug. He's gonna smell like cocoa butter. And yeah, and so you know what, I bet you she's doing August too, uh, determined to buy what she's purchasing. So let's start bombarding her, bombarding her with ads. And that just seems a little creepy if you're not opting in with I mean, it's a little creepy anyway if you get like the shopper's card, but you're you're saying like, sure, I'll take a little bit of a discount and exchange for you keeping checking my spending habits, or you willingly check the box terms and conditions with reading it, Well, that's I think terms and conditions should be a whole other episode. Man, there's a documentary about that. Yeah, that's I think it's called terms and Conditions apply and it's maybe, but boy it is creepy. Yeah, you know, I think no way, and they make it that long so that no one would but it's yeah, And there's actually we've read this uh Guardian article. Did you check that out that I sent you? So in the Guardian article there's a mention of Samsung which had, uh, they had terms and conditions for their TV. I think it was in two fourteen or fifteen that it came out and it says, in the terms and conditions for the TV that you bring into your home, please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of voice recognition, which means your TV is listening to you and transmitting your conversations. Are at the very least keywords from your conversations in your voice to somebody else who can figure out how to target ads, who can put you on a government watch list, who can do anything, Which means that you're talking normally in your own home and your TV's eavesdropping on you. Yeah, and you uh, you think you say that's okay, not you, but one says that's fine. Because I don't want to touch my remote. I just want to say, turn up volume. You know, yeah, I can't be bothered to use my finger. Fine, Nicolas Cage movies come a bad one. He didn't make bad movies, dude, kidding. I used to love Andy Sandberg's Nick Cage on SNL. I don't think I ever saw that one. So funny. I like Nick Cage's tiny elvis. Oh yeah, that was good. He was so bizarre. He's I love Nicholas Cage because he's unabashed. He will do some really great smaller movies where you're like, man, this dude is an amazing actor, and then he'll do the worst garbage you can imagine for money, yes, and just it's like, yeah, I wanna buy eight new motorcycles. But I think he's a great example of what a good director can do with an actor if they know what they're doing with them, because he does virtually the same thing in all all movies. It's just how much more he's doing it and how much he's reined in, or how good the script is. He comes in, he's like, you want Cage or Age. I mean, you're right. He has made some great movies. But man, he has made some bad ones. Wow. Oh wait, hold on, yeah, let's get back on track. There's one other thing too. There's a big debate going on right now, Chuck, about whether your phone is eaves dropping on you for at the very least targeted ads. Again, if you think that your phone is not eaves dropping on you, you're you're deluding yourself. Your phone, your TV, your laptop, everything around you that is connected to the Internet and has a microphone and or a video camera is eaves dropping on you. And you don't care, right, I do care, But I also have a feeling like what you have a smart what can I do? I know you cannot have a smart phone. That's part of it. And there's there's a that's a big thing. There's a there's a trade off. It's like, Okay, I want to be able to read Twitter every thirty seconds and just be like I was boring and then do it again thirty seconds later. Um, And I'm willing to trade that ability for the idea that yeah, I'm being listened to in the in the gamble that well, I mean, I guess I'm not saying anything that important, you know, But I mean, like that's that's that's wrong, Like that's wrong. Well, or the people say like, well, if you don't have nothing to hide, then you know, that's that's a fallacy. That's a logical fallacy that a lot of the people collecting that data bank on it has it still has a chilling effect on on society at large. And if they ever do want something on you, brother, they got it. Man, I'm sorry, I'm worked up. I was driving. I mean, I'm gonna be cool. Then that light didn't change green. It all went south. It's a dumb traffic light, all right. So we talked a little bit about hackers. Um, and we're not just talking about stealing your information or tapping into your bank. Um. What about if you if you're if your grandmother who is a shut in, has this great new smart health system that is hooked up to her body and alerts her doctor if something's wrong, she's low on meds. Uh. These are all great things, but what if someone can hack into that and tell you know, and hacking the grandma systems where it doesn't alert, then her life is literally at stake. Or what if you have and this has happened too, what if you go into your baby's room and your baby monitor you hear some guy's voice on the end of their end, yelling and screaming curse words in Russian. I think that's happened to your baby? Is just like, what's this guy's problem? Yeah, he usually tells me nice stories. Where's Sergey wants back? It's all really creepy, man. You know one of my heroes, Charles c Man, who I've never heard of it. He also he wrote an article in Vanity Fair called look Out He's Got a Phone, and it was all about the ways that the Internet of Things could be hacked to like basically really threatened somebody. Like if you've got a smart pacemaker or smart insulin pump, those things could be hacked, you know, and that's a that's a something that we're gonna have to deal with, or we're dealing with now as it as it stands. Well, one of the things that could help and what should be going on is these devices at the very least should be giving you options on how much data they get their hands on, how it's stored, uh, and what the expiration date on that is, Like if you quit using this device, they still have your information or might still be collecting it too. Yeah, absolutely, or uh, when I didn't think about when these systems are no longer supported, like you know, the company shuts down or something, it needs to have a suicide uh measure programmed in to where it like it kills itself after it's not supported anymore, and it should do it gruesomely. What about economics, Well, as you can imagine, if there's hundreds of billions of devices on the horizon being connected, it's going to have a pretty big economic impact. And they're talking about something on the order of what was it four point three trillion dollars in value up from nine billion? It seems low to me. Yeah, you know, like think about just in cash you milk alone trillion dollars. Yeah. Well, it's also costing some companies. Um. How so, well, if you've heard of square, yeah, you'd probably pay for a lot of things with ware of these days. It's a great thing because it allows a small business. Previously there was only one way to make credit card transactions. You had to get a fairly expensive system that uh or a cash register that you know made it all possible, and you had to They kind of had you over a barrel a little bit. Then Square came along and said, now you know what, you don't need that stuff. Let's democratize this. Yeah, we have the Internet. Now here's some competition. All you need this little thing to plug in to your tablet and you can swipe it right there in the cab or in the place of business and avoid the middlemen and use or use PayPal and basically skirt these companies that have kind of been ripping you off, um, as a business, and then that business passes the cost on to you as a customer so in a way, or they're like, we don't take that credit card there, fees are too high or whatever. Yeah, exactly. Um, but you're right, it's the democratization, which is good. I mean it's great. It's opened up a lot of a lot. It's taken etsy into the real world. That's right, you know. And isn't that awesome? Well yeah, Um, there's also worry that it could cost jobs. Like you said, what if the lipstick um stocker gets fired? Um because he threw away all those orange tubes of lipstick. Yeah, he deserves that. He didn't do his job good enough. Um. Well that's it. Like this, I think this article kind of just kind of glosses over that issue, and it's a big issue in and of itself. I don't know, but I don't think it glossed over it so much as there's a school of thought, a very like prominent school of thought that says, no, that's not what happens. People get different jobs and learn new things. And the one example they used in here, which I think makes sense is, um, a t M s A TMS popped up everywhere and people like, oh, well, there's not gonna be any more bank tellers. No one needs to go to a bank, And well, yeah, but they actually increased in number, right, Yeah, they did, uh. And they think part of that reason is because banks could open more branches because they didn't need to staff it with fourteen bankers, they just needed a couple. Yeah, but more branches meant ultimately more tellers, just not in one place. The thing is is, I I would be very curious to know whether that was an anomaly like that. You know, if if typically in an industry that gets replaced by a machine, a good one like an a t M works pretty well, Um, if they if they actually if jobs actually go up, or if that was just like one of the very rare examples of it. Well, I think it's it depends on your industry. If you're one of the people that did that thing, you're like, well, I lost my job to a robot. If you build the robots, you're like, I got a job because I'm now building robots. Right. And again, I think we talked about this, I don't remember in what episode, but if you are getting rid of an industry and and putting a lot of people out of their their employment your careers. Um, I'm not against automating stuff like that, but I think part and parcel with that is to figure out a way to take those out of work people and train them to go into new fields or just to to um build the stuff that that took over their jobs or whatever. But you can't just be like, best of luck, we figured out a way for a robot to do what you're doing. Go uh, go get hooked on oxyconton and go die. Wait, we gotta what was that because we got a great listener mail about that. Yeah, that's that's what I was talking about. A certain amount of people from this industry. It was a Kentucky coal coal industry like that were then cross trained to do computer work. Wasn't even that long ago, but I can't remember exactly what it was, but that's exactly what I mean. Like, that's number one. That's a role of government. In my opinion, it's one of the it's one of the clear things that you can look at and be like, oh, yeah, that's what government's for. They're supposed to invest in infrastructure and education to to um keep people employed so that everyone can earn a decent wage. That's that's my soapbox. This has basically been one long soapbox, hasn't it. I don't think so. Well, it's the Internet of Things. There's literally nothing more to speak about it. Okay, no more. Uh, I'm just kidding. And if you want to know more about that kind of stuff, you should go check out our compadre, John Strickland's podcast, tech Stuff. I guarantee talks about the Internet of Things every other week, I would imagine. Um. If you want to know more about it. In the meantime, you can look up this article on how stuff works dot com by typing Internet of Things on the search bar. And since I said things, it's time for a listener mail No, sir, Oh yeah, we already did listener mail. Well that's right, but we have a bonus because now we're gonna finish up with part two of Administered. Okay, alright again, if you're new to the show, this is when we thank people for the nice things they send us. And it goes a little something like this. Uh. Peter, the organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, they send us a cat care package after our cat podcast, and I think probably partially because of my soapbox on declining and outdoor cats, They're like this guy, yeah, send him some cats stuff. Give him some cat stuff stat. So thanks for that. Put a cat in a box and mail it to him. That's Peter's way. We got a postcard from China from Mary Kate Mueller. Thanks a lot for that, Mary Kate. We appreciate it. Beautiful. Lisa of black Bow Sweets, send us some candied pecans. Dude, those are dangerous. Oh yeah, they did not last long in the Clarkhouse. No, almost didn't make it. On the ride home, I had to be like, I, man, they're good. Uh. Aaron Supper send us the bottle of Sonoma County Distilling Companies west of Kentucky Bourbon number one. I haven't tried it as a good I have not tried it yet either, but I'm very much looking forward to it. So thanks a lot eron. And speaking of whiskey, uh, thirty three Books, Dave from thirty three Books sent us a whiskey tasting set which is a little uh I think imported from Ireland. Even a little whiskey tasting glass and book for note and a pen even. Yeah, it's everything you need, everything you need to taste whiskey. So thanks Dave for that. Um, we got a postcard from Caitlin and her fiance from the Mayo Clinic, remember the Helen Branch mentioned and I think, like I think some Unsolved Mysteries. We heard the episode on Unsolved Mysteries long ago. Yeah, but we got a Mayo Clinic postcard. Yeah, why not? Robin and Arran sent us some coasters, some Detroit coasters because they know, even though we poked on a Detroit, we secretly love Detroit. Yeah, thanks Robin and Aaron for that. Mark Singleton over at Rudolph Food sent us a ton of pork crimes and a bunch of great gear to go with it. So we can wear camouflaged hat while we eat our pork crimes right as it should be. Sam Meckling of Jeffson's Millard of Chicago, Yeah, sent us bottles of Milord, And if you've never heard of Milord, it is Chicago's own special uh liqueur, it's something it is. It's um known for its ah harsh aftertaste. Guess it's a good way to put it. Yeah. The great thing about Mallord, though, is they know the deal. They're not like, this is so delicious, You're just never gonna have anything better here. You seem to be having a good day. Let's change that. Um. Yeah, but Mlord actually have gotten this is the best thing you can say. I've gotten used to it, and um, it's an interesting taste. You should try it out. Well. Thanks to the dudes who sent us that, we appreciate. Thank you, Sam Um. Speaking of Booze, I think we mentioned it the other day, but also again, thank you to the people at Spring forty four, which is a Colorado distillery for the old tom Jin that they sent us. Yeah, that was just beautiful yea and actually just ran out Yeah, so just fire just thrown that out there. Badger body body products. Um, a competitive of my own wife. Even. That was Dave who sent us those Dave from Badger Body Products for outam New Hampshire sentence shaving stuff and sunscreen and beared oils and such. That was Dave Morrell. He was the beer guy. Yeah, he worked at Sweetwater. Yeah, so he used to bring a sweetwater. He's a great guy and like all beer guys, he ended up in New Hampshire. Um. But Emily, actually my own wife, who has her natural body product company, went and she usually poop boo's because people say they're natural in art. She went, oh, she's like Badger's good. Actually, yeah, she's like they make good stuff. So I used their beard oil. Now, well thanks a lot, David. I've been using the um the They have a bug repellent sun block that works, smells awesome, smells like citron now that works like a charm. So thank you for that. Pie Lady and Son, oh yeah, out of New York. They sent us Pie Dude and they were just getting started with their shipping program and Pie Lady and Son I have to tell you it worked great. They showed up fresh and delicious, and by delicious I mean really really delicious. Yeah, thanks a lot for that guy. Yeah, so you can support them as well. Pie Lady and Son out of New York City. UM Zach debt More sent us some beautiful cherry, walnut and maplewood boxes. Those are great. Yeah, you got mine on my desk. Matt Dent sent us his He's a he's a comic strip guy who's created the Willie who comics around for twenty five years. I know, I saw that book. It's amazing. Yeah. He sent us a big collection collector's edition. Congratulations Matt and Chuck. Some buddy, Uh made us a longboard that I've got stuff. You should know, a longboard. It's amazing. I don't know. We lost the correspondence. Who don't know who made it? Yes, so if you made it, send that in and we'll reach your name. Yeah, well, thank you, but thank you very much for the longboard. Our buttery butter buddy, Tyler Murphy, he's there, butter, He's our butter, our bread and butter. Uh from South Dakota sinis Um Instant Empire shirts and records, which is really cool. And I just realized that Tyler's emails has been going to my spam folder. I emailed them today because I never look in there and I happened to for something else. That's a bunch of emails from Tyler. I'm like, dude, so sorry. Yeah. Um, Hillary lows Are and Mike Dude. I don't know if Mike's a lows Are or not, but Hillary Mike have been with us for years. They are also from the Dakotas and travel to see our shows in Seattle and they're wonderful people. Hillary is a teacher and they as always sent us to list just delicious flathead like cheese. Dude, that is the best cheese on the planet. I think, who you got better cheese and flathead like? Send it in? Let us be the judge Rachel Stone, who is artist from Australia's East Coast. She has a site called Land of Wonderful dot com. She sent us a lovely handmade cards and letters. So thanks a lot, Rachel. Uh. And then finally you got any more? Nope? Last one. Emily and the crew at Kickapoo Joy Drinks. Oh yeah, they have their Kickapoo Joy Juice and their Atlanta base and they make all natural drinks, juice, juices and sodasn't things Kickapoo Juice and they sent us a box and that was super nice. Thanks a lot, guys. Thanks to everybody who sent us stuff. We appreciate it every time, so thank you. Uh. If you want to hang out with us on social media, you can go to s Y s K podcast on Instagram and Twitter. You can go to Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com and is always trying to start a home on the web. 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