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There’s nothing quite like being cut off from the grid to remind oneself how dependent one is on digital infrastructure.
A tropical storm barreled up the coast while Fortune closed its latest magazine issue on Tuesday. As I was sending an email laden with edits, the power flickered—once, twice, three times before everything went dead. I lost Internet, electricity, and, quite surprisingly, cell service. I suppose Isaias knocked over a cell tower with the same force it used to split a gigantic old oak tree onto my neighbor’s house.
Once the winds died down, I sought refuge at my parents’ house on Long Island, where I am writing and sending today’s Data Sheet newsletter. (Forgive its tardiness.)
As someone who covers cybersecurity, I wonder often what it might be like if the Internet suddenly were to go dark. My childhood self remembers the before-times; I’m of the last generation in the U.S. that grew up right as the commercial web was taking off. I am—or was, rather—America Offline.
These days, having that vital communications network wrenched away—especially hours before a feature story is shipping to printer—is jarring. Dear reader, I would not recommend it.
Have you ever wondered about life in an Internet-severed world? If not, no worries: Tim Maughan, a British novelist, has done it for us. His 2019 book, Infinite Detail, named last year by the Guardian as “sci-fi book of the year,” envisions such an unhappy place. While I have not yet read the work, I did catch an interview the blog OneZero recently conducted with Maughan.
Maughan imagines a world populated with people who wear “spex,” augmented reality glasses that are as integral to his near-future as iPhones are to this one. What I like most is his description of his goal in writing dystopian fiction: to reveal what’s wrong with society’s tech obsessions and make known the hidden consequences of things like pervasive corporate surveillance. As he put it:
“It’s very easy to fall into that kind of Black Mirror trap of saying, here’s an example of when surveillance went particularly bad and the wrong person was killed or the wrong person was implicated, or a stalker was following you, your nemesis or your ex-boyfriend was stalking you on social media….
“You don’t want to fall into that thing of writing a thriller about someone that gets stalked through their Alexa. I’m unfortunately taking on the task of trying to write fiction about the real implications of technology like that. It’s an incredibly stupid, foolhardy thing to do.“
It sounds neither stupid nor foolhardy to me. I plan to check out a copy of his book—and his new collection of stories, Ghost Hardware—once I’m able to recharge my Kindle and download the e-book.
Till then, I’ll be preparing meals of newly unrefrigerated, hopefully unspoiled food by candlelight.
Robert Hackett
Twitter: @rhhackett
Email: robert.hackett@fortune.com
THREATS
Boxing Day came early. Samsung released a number of new products at its Unpacked 2020 event today. Most notably, the Korean tech giant debuted the latest edition of its flagship mobile phone, the Galaxy Note 20, a $1,000 gadget that comes equipped with super-fast 5G wireless connectivity. Analysts and reviewers expect soft sales as most people cut back on discretionary spending as a result of the pandemic. Other releases: the Galaxy Tab S7 tablet, the Galaxy Watch 3 smartwatch, and Galaxy Buds Live earbuds.
Get Reels. Facebook's Instagram introduced Reels, a short-video feature that effectively clones TikTok. The release comes after Facebook shuttered Lasso, a standalone TikTok copycat app that failed to catch on. Facebook is recycling a playbook it deployed in 2016 when Instagram released Stories, an ephemeral video feature meant to rival Snapchat.
Time is money. Everyone is wondering whether Microsoft will indeed buy TikTok from Chinese parent ByteDance, a prospective deal recently instigated and blessed by President Trump. The price tag could be as high as $30 billion or as low as $10 billion, CNBC reports. TikTok, meanwhile, rolled out new content moderation policies intended to counter misinformation ahead of the upcoming presidential election.
In the clink. A Florida teen accused of hacking Twitter and gaining control of accounts belonging to politicians, celebrities and tech titans pleaded not guilty to the crimes. Perhaps predictably, a virtual bail bond hearing for the suspect did not go as planned over Zoom... Meanwhile, Anthony Levandowski, the ex-Uber executive accused of stealing self-driving car trade secrets from a former employer, Google, was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Scrolling through the litany of doom.
ACCESS GRANTED
Obinwanne Okeke, a Nigerian entrepreneur who once appeared on the cover of Forbes's Africa edition, pleaded guilty in June to involvement in a scam to defraud a division of construction giant Caterpillar of $11 million. Okeke and his conspirators phished the unit's chief financial officer, gained access to his Microsoft email account, and then sent fake invoices to the business's finance team. Rest of World, an internationally-focused news site, chronicles the history of Nigerian scamming and its evolution into a sophisticated enterprise.
The tale of the Nigerian online scammers stretches back to the 1990s, when cybercafes sprung up across the country as internet access became increasingly widespread. Young men popularly known as “Yahoo boys” became famous for conning their unsuspecting victims out of money by posing as romantic interests — typically American soldiers based in active conflict zones in the Middle East — or as wealthy royals in need of help getting a relative’s money out of some bureaucratic logjam....
Okeke’s case reflects how much has changed since then.
FORTUNE RECON
Why COVID-19 testing in the U.S. is still plagued with delays and inconsistencies By Sy Mukherjee
Here’s what TikTok may look like if Microsoft buys it By Jonathan Vanian
Apple’s Phil Schiller moves to ‘fellow’ position, while Greg Joswiak takes on marketing role By Ian King
Bill Gates lays out a possible timeline for a ‘stop-gap’ COVID vaccine By Kristen V. Brown and Emily Chang
How antitrust investigations impact U.S. A.I. supremacy By Jonathan Vanian
Ex-Uber exec gets 18-month prison term for trade theft from Google By Joel Rosenblatt
SEC reportedly investigating Kodak’s government loan and stock spike following Trump deal By Rey Mashayekhi
ONE MORE THING
On Wednesday, Virginia became the first U.S. state to debut a COVID-19 contact tracing app using Apple and Google's technology. The app, called COVIDWISE, uses Bluetooth beaconing to exchange randomized phone identifiers among people in close proximity. Those identifiers are then cross-checked against a list that contains the identifiers of people who have reported testing positive for the coronavirus. If you come into contact with someone known to have been infected—within 6 feet for at least 15 minutes—you'll get a notification.
You can download the app here (for Apple) or here (for Android).