Patching Humanity’s Security Hole - DTNSB 5083

Plus tech journalism’s dinner with Sam Altman, and why you need to be skeptical of that Booking.com link.

Starring Tom Merritt, Huyen Tue Dao, and Brian Brushwood.

TOM: This is the Daily Tech News for Friday, August 15, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up on the context of those stories and help each other understand.

HUYEN: Today Brian Brushwood thinks he knows how to patch the world’s biggest security hole, humans. And Sam Altman dishes about everything with journalists over dinner. [18:08]

I’m Tom Merritt,

I’m Huyen Tue Dao

TOM: Let’s start with what you need to know with the big story.

[[BIG STORY]]
[[SOLO story of the day. Basic details, monitor commentary and sound when possible.]]

Sam Altman defends GPT-5 launch, predicts massive new spending
OpenAI’s Sam Altman Expects to Spend ‘Trillions’ on Infrastructure - Bloomberg

TOM: Thursday night, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman held a dinner with several reporters in San Francisco and let them ask anything they wanted on the record.
These are some of my least favorite kinds of stories to cover, because unlike a typical press event, every reporter has a different take and often casts the story as "Altman told me" because, well, he did. So they're kind of hard to sum up, and full of opinion and policy rather than straightforward announcements or decisions. But this one is making all the headlines and may look like it's a dozen different stories, so let's try to sum up the salient points and evaluate how significant they really are.

If you project ChatGPT's current growth "billions of people a day will be talking to ChatGPT" and ""ChatGPT will say more words a day than all humans say"

That's a great way to show how big ChatGPT is. Current growth rates don't always stay consistent, so I'm not sure this is super useful or helpful but it sure makes a great quote.

"You should expect OpenAI to spend trillions of dollars on data center construction in the not very distant future." Yeah? OK. I'm not surprised? I mean that's a big number but it's not a detailed projection meant for stock analysts or anything.

And he said “I suspect we can design a very interesting new kind of financial instrument for finance and compute that the world has not yet figured it out.” OK? Cool man! I bet it's possible too. If anybody can do it you can!

"We can spend $300 billion and sell $400 billion in services." That's what every business believes and many make it true.

"Most of what we're building out at this point is the inference. We're profitable on inference. If we didn't pay for training, we'd be a very profitable company. We will be always training the next thing, but if we needed to run the company profitably and stay ahead, I think we probably could do that." Sure would like more details but that's a useful thing to think about. OpenAI is shifting from the expensive part that doesn't pay off immediately to the part that serves customers which they can monetize.

He also admitted that launching GPT-5 without the older models was not a good move. “I think we totally screwed up some things on the rollout. We’ve learned a lesson about what it means to upgrade a product for hundreds of millions of people in one day, and the differences in the kinds of attachment people have with this product versus previous products. You have people that are like, 'You took away my friend. You're horrible. I need it back," but also scientists saying they can finally do real research using GPT-5. That’s not mincing words.

Are we in a bubble? This was a good answer “Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited by AI? In my opinion, yes. Is AI the most important thing to happen in a very long time? My opinion is also yes.” He thinks some current startup valuations are “insane” and “irrational behavior.” He added: “Someone’s gonna get burned there.” That's useful insight. I mean, not WHOA I NEVER WOULD HAVE THOUGHT, but significant to hear from the CEO of OpenAI.

They also asked him if OpenAI would buy Chrome if Google sold it. "If Chrome is really gonna sell, we should take a look at it. I don't have a number in mind, but I would like to have it." That's nothing new beyond what was said in court in April by OpenAI's ChatGPT chief Nick Turley.

They asked him about the brain-computer interface company he's reportedly setting up. He said he thinks they're a "cool idea." I mean, yes. Why else would he set up the company, I suppose? And he said it would likely be a separate company from OpenAI, but the structure hasn't been finalized. Which is what was reported before.

He said he "would love to work much more with Apple, and I think it's cool some of the stuff we're doing together." Which fuels my own out there crazy theory that Apple and OpenAI will merge someday but it really just says he likes Apple, which is ultimately not surprising.

He expects the company will IPO someday, which we know he wants. But another executive would handle the earnings calls. He said he's not "well-suited" to be CEO of a public company. BUT TIM COOK IS! lol. Kidding.

He came down fairly firm with an answer on optimizing for engagement over usefulness. "We are not going to do that. I do worry about it. The companies that are behind in getting AI adoption, this is the easiest way you can imagine to get more so, yes, I think you will see that. And I think it's bad, really bad." That's more words than he needed which makes me think he believes that.

He said the next big model after GPT-5 will come faster than GPT-5 did after GPT-4. Vague, but at least saying something.

He denies that progress on models has hit a wall, but also agreed that limits to chat are showing up.

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TOM: There’s more we need to know today, let’s get to the briefs.

[[BRIEFS]]
[[3-9 more solo reads with sound to complete the day in tech news. These are informational with minor commentary.]]

Google Phone app starts rolling out customizable ‘calling cards’

HUYEN: The Google Phone and Contacts app is rolling out customizable "calling cards" for some beta users. It gives you the option to have a full screen image instead of just the circle with their picture. You can also pick a font and color for the name that appears near the top of the Incoming Call screen.

Leaked Pixel 10 Pro Fold specs echo a world-first for foldables

TOM: Android Authority reports that Germany's WinFuture has published an alleged spec sheet for the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, expected to be announced at the Made By Google event next week. If accurate, the spec sheet indicates it would be the first foldable phone with an IP68 rating for full resistance to dust and water. The Z Fold 7, for comparison, has an IP48 rating. The specs also say it supports 15W Qi2 charging with PixelSnap accessories.

Foxconn's AI server revenue tops its Apple earnings for first time - Nikkei Asia

HUYEN: Foxconn reported in its latest earnings report that it made 41% of its revenue from cloud and networking products and 35% from smart consumer products. You can also read that to mean it made more money off servers for Nvidia and friends than it did making iPhones for Apple. And that will continue. Foxconn expects 170% annual growth in the cloud and networking business, but lowered its expectations for smart consumer products.

Trump Administration Said to Discuss US Taking Stake in Intel - Bloomberg

TOM: Get a big old spoonful of Morton's ready. Bloomberg's sources say the US is in talks to buy a stake in Intel. Supposedly, this would mean Intel could speed up progress on its factory in Ohio, which has been delayed. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan met with the president of the US earlier this week. Intel did not comment, and the president's spokesman said “Discussion about hypothetical deals should be regarded as speculation unless officially announced by the administration.” As vague as this sounds, it's not the US government's first move toward nationalizing its industries. Last month, the US announced it would take a stake in rare earth producer MP Materials, making it the largest shareholder in the company.

Booking.com phishing campaign uses sneaky 'ん' character to trick you

HUYEN: Thanks to RW Nash for tipping us off to this story on the subreddit. The Japanese hiragana character, ん shows up as a forward slash and n on some systems. And attackers are using that to make fake URLs look like they are legitimate links from Booking.com. The link goes to a page that claims someone has accessed the account maliciously, with a button to terminate their access. When you click the terminate button, it downloads a malicious installer that includes infostealers and remote access trojans.

The Supreme Court lets Mississippi's social media age-verification law go into effect
Roblox Sued by State of Louisiana, Alleging Sexual Exploitation of Kids

TOM: A couple of legal stories regarding children and online behavior. The US Supreme Court denied an application by NetChoice to put on hold a Mississippi law to check ages of users of social media. However, NetChoice is proceeding with a lower court case and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that "NetChoice has, in my view, demonstrated that it is likely to succeed on the merits."

And over in Louisiana, the attorney general there is suing Roblox because it “knowingly and intentionally fails to implement basic safety controls to protect child users from predators” and fails to provide notice to parents and child users of its dangers.

China is about to launch SSDs so small you insert them like a SIM card | The Verge

HUYEN: Thanks to taxi_cab for pointing this story out on our subreddit. China's Biwin is making a mini solid state drive that is 15mm x 17mm x 1.4mm, just a bit larger than a microSD card. It comes in 512GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities with maximum sequential read speeds of 3,700 megabytes per second. Two portable gaming PCs, the GPD Win 5 and OneNetbook's OneXPlayer Super X, have ports to take the Biwin's mini SSD. No price or sale dates for the SSDs yet.

TOM: Those are the essentials for today. Let’s dive a little deeper.

[[IN DEPTH]]
[[Pre-made packages, interviews, discussions. Each is 3-10 mins, Can be dropped on some days.]]

[[SEGMENT A - FROM SCHEDULE]]

HUYEN: Brian Brushwood was at Defcon last week and was shocked by something he observed regarding security. Tom caught up with him to find out what it was. [10:48]

[[PROMO]]

TOM: All next week is DTNS Experiment week! We're swapping out our normal DTNS show and trying out some new ideas. In previous years we launched shows like Behind the Data and The Tech Jawn. This year we have exclusive Android Faithful reaction to the Pixel Event, Roger interviews Adam Sessler just to name a few. It all starts next week Monday Aug 18th on the feed.

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[[HELPING EACH OTHER UNDERSTAND]]
[[Short missives from people with experience. Could be written email or pre-recorded from the person.]]

HUYEN: We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. Today Allison has a very good question about Chrome.

TOM: On DTNS Jason and Tom spoke at length about Perplexity's offer to buy Chrome. It leveled me with one dumb question. Why does Chrome by itself have any value? It doesn't include search revenue, it doesn't include ad revenue, Chromium is still an open source project ... so what IS Chrome other than an interface to the Internet?

Allison

HUYEN: What are you thinking about? Got some insight into a story? Share it with us feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com

TOM: Thanks to Brian Brushwood and Allison for contributing to today’s show. And thank YOU for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron, at Patreon.com/dtns