Axios Login: Crystal-balling the metaverse

Plus: Russia hacks cloud | Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Open in app View in browser   Presented By American Edge Project   Axios Login By Ina Fried · Jul 19, 2022 Axios is launching a newsletter for internal and external communicators. Learn what's working, what's not and what's next with Axios Communicators, coming Thursday from Eleanor Hawkins. Sign up here.  :computer: Situational awareness: Facebook's annual diversity report says that offering remote work options helped the company retain and hire employees from underrepresented groups. Today's newsletter is 1,163 words, a 4.5-minute read.     1 big thing: Why the metaverse won't be what we expect Photo illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Photo: Liveright, an imprint of W.W. Norton & Company   The metaverse is well worth building, even if we don't know exactly what will come of it, venture capitalist and tech evangelist Matthew Ball tells Axios' Stephen Totilo. Why it matters: Part of getting ready for an epochal internet change is realizing that what we expect it to be is probably very wrong. Ball's new book, "The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything" is a guide to building the metaverse so that it is sufficiently fast, secure and shared. Smart construction will be required to deliver on a potential multitrillion-dollar virtual market that supporters predict will be as transformational as the internet itself. Meta-what? Obligatory attempted definition, this time via Ball: The metaverse is a massive, interoperable 3D virtual world that is persistent (still there when you log off), synchronous (everyone experiences it the same way) and able to support an unlimited number of users with their own identities, virtual objects and access to payment systems. Maybe it'll provide a new way to learn, work, shop, socialize and entertain. But it won't necessarily take the shape now being promoted by Meta and other big companies. What they're saying: "You see these examples like, well, what are we going to do in the metaverse? 'We're going to sit at a 3D conference table with VR glasses.' I'm pretty sure we're not going to do that," Ball says. He says early internet pioneers couldn't have predicted Robinhood, Fortnite and Snapchat, and recalls that Apple used to think it was a good idea for the iPhone's note-taking app to resemble lined paper. The smartest people really can't predict. Ina's thought bubble: The tech industry has a long track record of developing powerful new platforms, but often fails to anticipate the most powerful uses for those platforms (both positive and negative). And, as we've reported, the metaverse won't arrive years from now out of whole cloth. Instead, it's being built piece by piece, with some of the key enabling technologies already either on the market or cooking within the labs of tech giants. Between the lines: In terms of where to look for a sense of what the metaverse could portend, Ball points to the video game industry, where Minecraft and Roblox have already emerged as popular virtual worlds. He calls game developers "the world's leading experts" in building synchronous virtual online spaces, attracting millions of people to them and prioritizing having a good time inside. The bottom line: The most impactful builders of all may not have even gotten started yet. Often, the key uses for a technology emerge after it hits the market — consider Uber and other on-demand startups that grew once smartphones were ubiquitous. "To some extent, we're constrained by the fact that most of the quote-unquote metaverse products of today are still created and imagined by those who long preceded it," Ball said. Go deeper: Axios Deep Dive: Inside the metaverse     2. Russian state hackers target the cloud Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios   The Russian hackers who breached dozens of U.S. government agencies in the 2020 SolarWinds incident are using a new technique involving Google Drive and Dropbox to break into diplomatic offices in other countries, as Axios' Sam Sabin reports. Driving the news: Cozy Bear, the Russian state-sponsored hacking group, shared malware-infected files with foreign embassies in Brazil and Portugal in May using Dropbox or Google Drive storage, researchers at Palo Alto Networks said in a report Tuesday. Right now, it's unclear whether the attacks succeeded. Why it matters: The findings mark an expansion in Russian state hackers' abuse of cloud services as Russia's Ukraine invasion creates new concerns over their activity. It's the first time Palo Alto Networks' researchers have spotted Cozy Bear targeting Google Drive specifically, and it builds on Cozy Bear's newer interest in abusing Dropbox tools. Details: In the report, Palo Alto Networks' threat intelligence team says it tracked three known phishing attempts that relied on Dropbox and Google's cloud storage systems, two against embassies in Portugal and another in Brazil. Cozy Bear hackers sent the embassies a phishing email disguised to look like a document containing the agenda for an upcoming meeting with a foreign ambassador. If recipients clicked on the link, they'd be redirected to either Dropbox or Google Drive, where they'd download the file onto their devices. Victims who opened that file would start a download onto their computers that gives hackers a backdoor onto the system — allowing them to launch malware at any moment. Researchers also shared this information with both Google and Dropbox and said in the report that the two companies have blocked the activity. The big picture: Russian nation-state hackers, or those working on behalf of government organizations, have been steadily finding new ways to break into cloud services as more companies adopted those tools during the pandemic. In October, Microsoft warned that the same Russian hacking group had been targeting tech resellers and other service providers that "customize, deploy and manage" cloud services with the hopes of piggybacking to gain access to a company's cloud network. Palo Alto Networks' report also comes as Western governments prepare for a possible onslaught of Russian cyberattacks in retaliation for their support of Ukraine.     3. Quick takes: Twitter bashes Musk's delay plea 1. Twitter on Monday filed its reply to Elon Musk's effort to delay the company's lawsuit against the billionaire, saying his request "fails at every level." What's next: A Tuesday hearing at a Delaware Chancery Court will consider whether the trial should proceed in September, as Twitter has requested. 2. Twitter chose to label, but not take down, a pair of transphobic tweets from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) that misgendered Admiral Rachel Levine, used crude terms to describe gender reassignment surgery and misstated what constitutes gender-affirming care for minors. Between the lines: While not unusual for Twitter, it highlights just how much elected officials can evade the platform's rules when using their official accounts.     A message from American Edge Project Voters prioritize inflation over far-reaching tech regulation     A new midterm voter poll finds that regulating tech is not a top priority for voters. Key number: 74% of voters agree that "breaking up U.S. tech companies will only hurt America's competitiveness on the global stage, at a time when our adversaries are becoming bolder." Explore the poll.     4. Take note On Tap Netflix reports earnings after the markets close. Microsoft's Inspire conference takes place online today and tomorrow. ICYMI Uber has settled with the Justice Department over claims it overcharged customers with disabilities. Uber will refund wait time fees for some customers with disabilities, among other stipulations. Russia has fined Google $365 million for failing to remove YouTube videos with what it says is prohibited content. Google has already halted Russian operations and said its subsidiary there will file for bankruptcy. (The Verge) DoorDash and GrubHub are dropping their suit over San Francisco's plan to cap delivery fees and pushing a compromise where restaurants can pay to improve their promotion in their apps. (SFist) A law firm has filed a private antitrust lawsuit against Apple alleging that its Apple Pay overcharges credit card issuers, generating what the suit claims is $1 billion in illicit fees. Slack is raising prices for paid users for the first time. (TechCrunch) Speaking of Apple, it reportedly plans to slow growth and hiring in some parts of the company. (Bloomberg)     5. After you Login Looking to play some table tennis but can't find a partner? This robot is always up for ping pong.     A message from American Edge Project Voters are focused on inflation — not breaking up tech     Midterm voters' top priorities for Congress are inflation (88%), national security (86%) and jobs (85%). 84% of voters agree "there are other, bigger problems facing the United States, we should not be focused on breaking up U.S. tech companies right now." Read more from our poll.   Are you a fan of this email format? It's called Smart Brevity®. Over 300 orgs use it — in a tool called Axios HQ — to drive productivity with clearer workplace communications.   Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. If you're interested in advertising, learn more here. 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