Hashtag Trending – new Bluetooth vulnerability; better YouTube copyright system; seniors glued to smartphones

New Bluetooth vulnerability discovered Google improves its copyright claim system, seniors spend the most time in front of a screen.

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That’s all the tech news that’s trending today. It’s Monday, August 19th, and I’m your host, Tom Li.

Our first story is about a new vulnerability discovered in the Bluetooth standard called Key Negotiation of Bluetooth, or KNOB for short. KNOB, allows the attacker to infiltrate a Bluetooth device while it’s establishing secure communication with the host device and limit the password length to a single digit, making it effortless to crack. The worst part is that it affects all Bluetooth devices without a minimum password length requirement made in the past 20 years. The organization that created Bluetooth doesn’t have a fix for this, but manufacturers can prevent this by enforcing a minimum password length on their products.

The next story came from Google. YouTube is removing the copyright holder’s ability to redirect monetization from copyrighted videos. We’ve all heard horror stories of the rampant abuse of YouTube’s copyright system. Creators would have their content copyrighted for second-long sound clips. One creator even had his video copyrighted because it included the sound of the wind. By removing the monetary incentive, YouTube hopes that copyright holders would be more lenient in allowing the creators to revise their content. The new policy only affects manual claims. YouTube’s automatic Content ID matching system will not be affected.

The younger generation has been criticized for spending too much time on their phones, but it’s actually the elderly who are most glued to the screen. Trending on Reddit, a recent report shows that American seniors 65 and older spend nearly ten hours a day in front of some sort of display–whether it be TVs, smartphones, or computers. The statistics gently alludes to the senior’s inactive lifestyle. However you’re spending your time, try and get some fresh air once in a while.

That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home daily briefing. I’m Tom Li, thanks for listening.

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada
Tom Li
Tom Li
Telecommunication and consumer hardware are Tom's main beats at IT Business. He loves to talk about Canada's network infrastructure, semiconductor products, and of course, anything hot and new in the consumer technology space. You'll also occasionally see his name appended to articles on cloud, security, and SaaS-related news. If you're ever up for a lengthy discussion about the nuances of each of the above sectors or have an upcoming product that people will love, feel free to drop him a line at [email protected].

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