WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.300 --> 00:00:03.550 - [Alexa!] - Where is the Echo? 2 00:00:05.861 --> 00:00:09.131 - That's my daughter Ellev. She is not happy, that 3 00:00:09.131 --> 00:00:11.818 I disconnected our Alexa. Or that she couldn't watch the 4 00:00:11.818 --> 00:00:15.574 only three movies she loves in the whole wide world. 5 00:00:15.574 --> 00:00:18.317 Coco, Monsters Inc. and the Incredibles. 6 00:00:18.317 --> 00:00:21.045 All of which we watch either through Netflix or videos 7 00:00:21.045 --> 00:00:24.712 purchased via Amazon. - Coco, Coco, Coco. 8 00:00:26.805 --> 00:00:29.243 - So why did I put her through this misery? 9 00:00:29.243 --> 00:00:31.865 Because I decided to block the five tech giants 10 00:00:31.865 --> 00:00:34.135 from my life, one week at a time. 11 00:00:34.135 --> 00:00:36.805 Of course, that explanation means 12 00:00:36.805 --> 00:00:38.747 nothing to my one year old. 14 00:00:45.056 --> 00:00:47.536 Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft 15 00:00:47.536 --> 00:00:50.035 collectively make products that we love. 16 00:00:50.035 --> 00:00:52.633 Products that we hate, but can't stop using. 17 00:00:52.633 --> 00:00:55.136 Products that dictate how we communicate and 18 00:00:55.136 --> 00:00:57.765 how we are seen. Their devices and services 19 00:00:57.765 --> 00:01:00.795 make our lives both easier than they've ever been before 20 00:01:00.795 --> 00:01:04.045 and more complicated in unforeseen ways. 21 00:01:05.115 --> 00:01:06.635 - Oh man, not us bud. 22 00:01:06.635 --> 00:01:08.805 - They're offerings have replaced core 23 00:01:08.805 --> 00:01:11.904 functions of our brains. - Here's your reminder, 24 00:01:11.904 --> 00:01:14.255 Laura says the teething ring is in the freezer. 25 00:01:14.255 --> 00:01:16.124 - And people are increasingly worried that 26 00:01:16.124 --> 00:01:18.576 it's as possible to get addicted to these buttons, clicks, 27 00:01:18.576 --> 00:01:21.936 screens and scrolls as it is to get hooked on nicotine 28 00:01:21.936 --> 00:01:25.244 or heroin. I wanted this to be more than just a boycott. 29 00:01:25.244 --> 00:01:28.824 I wanted to cut these companies from my life as completely 30 00:01:28.824 --> 00:01:31.496 as possible. Including all the invisible ways in which 31 00:01:31.496 --> 00:01:34.104 I might interact with them. For example if you 32 00:01:34.104 --> 00:01:36.835 are watching this on Gizmodo.com right now, your device 33 00:01:36.835 --> 00:01:40.534 is invisibly interacting with Amazon, Facebook and Google. 34 00:01:40.534 --> 00:01:43.633 As far as I know, this kind of an experiment hasn't been 35 00:01:43.633 --> 00:01:47.300 done before. And I didn't know how to do it. 36 00:01:48.374 --> 00:01:50.275 So I knew I would need to get help. 37 00:01:50.275 --> 00:01:53.485 - Hello, my name is Dhruv Mehrotra, I am helping Kash 38 00:01:53.485 --> 00:01:56.405 build the back end system that prevents her 39 00:01:56.405 --> 00:02:00.715 devices from reaching out to all these tech giants. 40 00:02:00.715 --> 00:02:03.235 - Dhruv built a virtual private network (VPN) for me. 41 00:02:03.235 --> 00:02:05.824 And I directed all of my devices to send their internet 42 00:02:05.824 --> 00:02:08.835 traffic through it. It was as if my devices were 43 00:02:08.835 --> 00:02:12.445 hanging out in a fancy club. And Dhruv was the bouncer 44 00:02:12.445 --> 00:02:15.595 who decided which data got to come mingle with them. 45 00:02:15.595 --> 00:02:17.795 When I'm blocking a particular tech giant, 46 00:02:17.795 --> 00:02:20.155 Dhruv turns away any data from that company 47 00:02:20.155 --> 00:02:24.805 trying to get in. Even if my devices have invited them. 48 00:02:24.805 --> 00:02:26.965 Dhruv was able to do this, because all the tech giants 49 00:02:26.965 --> 00:02:29.925 publish lists of the internet protocol addresses they own. 50 00:02:29.925 --> 00:02:33.685 Which is basically like a list of directions to the servers 51 00:02:33.685 --> 00:02:36.222 they control. The VPN blocked my devices 52 00:02:36.222 --> 00:02:39.094 from talking to those servers. It wasn't a perfect blockade 53 00:02:39.094 --> 00:02:42.062 though, as some of the companies basically had fake ID's 54 00:02:42.062 --> 00:02:44.664 and managed to get into the club and make moves on 55 00:02:44.664 --> 00:02:47.143 my devices. I'll tell you more about that later. 56 00:02:47.143 --> 00:02:50.635 Setting up the parameters of the block alone 57 00:02:50.635 --> 00:02:53.583 gives you a sense of how massive these companies are. 58 00:02:53.583 --> 00:02:56.216 And how much of the internet they each control. 59 00:02:56.216 --> 00:02:58.464 Amazon controls twenty-three million, two-hundred and 60 00:02:58.464 --> 00:03:02.005 nineteen thousand, nine hundred and sixty-eight IP addresses. 61 00:03:02.005 --> 00:03:04.565 I started the experiment out with the company, 62 00:03:04.565 --> 00:03:06.565 that I thought would be the hardest to cut 63 00:03:06.565 --> 00:03:08.595 out of my life. The everything store. 64 00:03:08.595 --> 00:03:12.416 - So it's day one of my month-long tech blockade. 65 00:03:12.416 --> 00:03:16.333 - We use a lot of Amazon products in our house. 66 00:03:18.365 --> 00:03:21.942 We've got an Echo, an Echo dot, two Kindles, two Amazon Prime 67 00:03:21.942 --> 00:03:25.113 credit cards, Amazon Prime video on our TV and two 68 00:03:25.113 --> 00:03:28.605 Prime accounts on Amazon.com itself. 69 00:03:28.605 --> 00:03:31.755 I know, I know, it's kind of ridiculous, 70 00:03:31.755 --> 00:03:33.765 that both my husband and I are paying a hundred 71 00:03:33.765 --> 00:03:36.673 nineteen a year for two prime accounts. 72 00:03:36.673 --> 00:03:39.115 This exercise made me look back at how much I usually 73 00:03:39.115 --> 00:03:41.995 spend on Amazon. And I alone am averaging about three 74 00:03:41.995 --> 00:03:46.184 thousand dollars a year. - Usually I get all 75 00:03:46.184 --> 00:03:47.904 my birthday presents there, all my Christmas presents 76 00:03:47.904 --> 00:03:50.824 there, anytime I need anything, I basically 77 00:03:50.824 --> 00:03:53.664 go to Amazon first. And not even Amazon.com, I just go 78 00:03:53.664 --> 00:03:57.664 to the Amazon App on my phone. Yes, I have Amazon's 79 00:03:57.664 --> 00:04:00.584 app on my phone. I am so addicted to this company. 80 00:04:00.584 --> 00:04:04.245 It's insane. - And I'm not alone. Amazon reportedly controls 81 00:04:04.245 --> 00:04:07.496 fifty percent of online commerce, which means half of 82 00:04:07.496 --> 00:04:11.996 all purchases made online in America. Which is insane. 83 00:04:13.376 --> 00:04:15.805 And Amazon's footprint is much bigger. 84 00:04:15.805 --> 00:04:18.024 If you think of all the companies it operates, that 85 00:04:18.024 --> 00:04:20.096 don't prominently display it's logo. 86 00:04:20.096 --> 00:04:22.765 Including Amazon Web Services, or AWS, the 87 00:04:22.765 --> 00:04:25.153 vast server network that provides the backbone 88 00:04:25.153 --> 00:04:27.704 for much of the internet. There's also Twitch.com 89 00:04:27.704 --> 00:04:30.085 the broadcasting behemoth, that is the backbone of 90 00:04:30.085 --> 00:04:32.936 the online game industry. And of course there's 91 00:04:32.936 --> 00:04:37.274 Whole Foods. The organic backbone of the yuppie diet. 92 00:04:37.274 --> 00:04:39.696 - I hear you have a degree in cheese. 93 00:04:39.696 --> 00:04:41.704 - I do, I went to cheese school. 94 00:04:41.704 --> 00:04:44.875 - AWS is the internet's largest cloud provider. 95 00:04:44.875 --> 00:04:48.375 Generating almost seven billion in revenue per quarter, 96 00:04:48.375 --> 00:04:51.475 which is the primary driver of Amazons profitability. 97 00:04:51.475 --> 00:04:53.965 Halfway through the week, I started to wonder why 98 00:04:53.965 --> 00:04:56.595 so many sites that use AWS were still working for me. 99 00:04:56.595 --> 00:04:58.875 For example, I was able to do some searches for a 100 00:04:58.875 --> 00:05:01.696 Thanksgiving vacation home on Airbnb, despite it 101 00:05:01.696 --> 00:05:04.525 being a famed user of Amazon's hosting platform. 102 00:05:04.525 --> 00:05:07.136 That how Dhruv and I discovered a major flaw in our 103 00:05:07.136 --> 00:05:10.568 blocking technique. Hey Dhruv, how's it going? 104 00:05:10.568 --> 00:05:14.399 - Hey, so this is working, eh? That's good. 105 00:05:14.399 --> 00:05:16.508 - We ran into some situations where the blocker 106 00:05:16.508 --> 00:05:19.749 didn't seem to be working 100%. That there were some Amazon 107 00:05:19.749 --> 00:05:22.239 kind of base services that were getting through. 108 00:05:22.239 --> 00:05:24.747 - And that's I guess another interesting part of this 109 00:05:24.747 --> 00:05:27.069 puzzle, it's like, yeah Amazon has published 110 00:05:27.069 --> 00:05:29.320 their IP addresses and that's what we're using 111 00:05:29.320 --> 00:05:31.368 to block this stuff, but like sometimes 112 00:05:31.368 --> 00:05:33.168 things get through. Like Airbnb. 113 00:05:33.168 --> 00:05:36.139 - We were blocking IP addresses that we knew Amazon, 114 00:05:36.139 --> 00:05:39.669 and thus AWS use, but it turns out that a lot of sites, 115 00:05:39.669 --> 00:05:43.858 in addition to using a company like AWS tend to employ 116 00:05:43.858 --> 00:05:45.909 a secondary service, called a 117 00:05:45.909 --> 00:05:47.879 content delivery network (CDN) to 118 00:05:47.879 --> 00:05:49.567 load their web pages faster. 119 00:05:49.567 --> 00:05:54.167 - For me the metaphor is like whack-a-mole sometimes. 120 00:05:54.167 --> 00:05:55.939 Like, when I'm looking at your logs 121 00:05:55.939 --> 00:05:58.360 and I'm seeing traffic that should not be going through 122 00:05:58.360 --> 00:06:00.939 going through, I like spy on that IP address, 123 00:06:00.939 --> 00:06:02.968 and figure it out and figure out why it's 124 00:06:02.968 --> 00:06:04.128 there and quickly make a block. 125 00:06:04.128 --> 00:06:05.888 - Think of AWS as the central warehouse for a sites 126 00:06:05.888 --> 00:06:08.619 digital packets. The CDN's are the storefronts 127 00:06:08.619 --> 00:06:11.328 around the world, that help people get the packets 128 00:06:11.328 --> 00:06:13.869 faster. So that their visitors don't have to 129 00:06:13.869 --> 00:06:16.008 wait for the packets to come all the way 130 00:06:16.008 --> 00:06:17.928 from the warehouse. Amazon does run it's own CDN 131 00:06:17.928 --> 00:06:20.888 called Cloudfront. But it has fierce competition from 132 00:06:20.888 --> 00:06:23.379 CDN's offered by other companies, like Fastly 133 00:06:23.379 --> 00:06:26.768 and Cloudflare. If a website used AWS in combination 134 00:06:26.768 --> 00:06:29.560 with a non-Amazon CDN, my blocker would 135 00:06:29.560 --> 00:06:31.899 see the CDN's IP addresses and let that AWS 136 00:06:31.899 --> 00:06:36.459 hosted content slip through. This was a wrinkle 137 00:06:36.459 --> 00:06:40.069 in the experiment that we just could not engineer around. 138 00:06:40.069 --> 00:06:42.280 - So I'm at the grocery store, trying 139 00:06:42.280 --> 00:06:44.696 to buy size five diapers. 140 00:06:44.696 --> 00:06:46.808 - Some of the challenges of life without Amazon 141 00:06:46.808 --> 00:06:50.699 are probably obvious. - So we made it through the weekend 142 00:06:50.699 --> 00:06:53.379 without Amazon. We didn't watch TV, we didn't 143 00:06:53.379 --> 00:06:57.046 watch movies. We spent a lot of time outside 144 00:06:58.619 --> 00:07:01.898 and took our daughter to the playground a lot and 145 00:07:01.898 --> 00:07:06.000 honestly it wasn't that bad. But we definitely 146 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:09.459 screwed up. - One day my husband went to 147 00:07:09.459 --> 00:07:11.560 get lunch for us, and came back with 148 00:07:11.560 --> 00:07:14.299 sushi from Whole Foods. I'd already put a 149 00:07:14.299 --> 00:07:17.429 delicious piece of inari in my mouth, before 150 00:07:17.429 --> 00:07:20.408 I remembered I was consuming Amazon produced 151 00:07:20.408 --> 00:07:23.048 food. I wasn't willing to purge for the sake 152 00:07:23.048 --> 00:07:26.377 of the stunt. Another time, I unintentionally 153 00:07:26.377 --> 00:07:28.669 patronized Amazon. It was when I ordered a phone 154 00:07:28.669 --> 00:07:32.947 holder for my car. - Oh, I ordered through eBay, 155 00:07:32.947 --> 00:07:35.709 like that should be pretty easy, there 156 00:07:35.709 --> 00:07:38.138 were a lot of choices there. I ordered one 157 00:07:38.138 --> 00:07:39.737 that was like 17 dollars, 158 00:07:39.737 --> 00:07:41.739 and it came in this package. 159 00:07:41.739 --> 00:07:45.728 - Turns out the seller uses fulfillment by Amazon. 160 00:07:45.728 --> 00:07:48.728 - But some challenges were unexpected. 161 00:07:48.728 --> 00:07:50.739 Like not being able to use the encrypted 162 00:07:50.739 --> 00:07:52.909 messaging app Signal, to contact sources. 163 00:07:52.909 --> 00:07:56.429 And of course Slack, the workplace communication 164 00:07:56.429 --> 00:07:58.469 platform which is basically how I keep in touch 165 00:07:58.469 --> 00:08:00.608 with my colleagues on the other coast, 166 00:08:00.608 --> 00:08:02.297 since I work remotely. At my work, 167 00:08:02.297 --> 00:08:04.840 Slack has replaced meetings, phone calls, 168 00:08:04.840 --> 00:08:07.678 and definitely email. I sent emails to colleagues 169 00:08:07.678 --> 00:08:10.068 but it seemed like most of them went into 170 00:08:10.068 --> 00:08:12.477 a black hole. Dhruv kept track of all the times 171 00:08:12.477 --> 00:08:14.560 my devices tried to ping Amazon's 172 00:08:14.560 --> 00:08:16.800 servers during the week. 173 00:08:16.800 --> 00:08:18.560 - Your devices collectively reached out to Amazon 174 00:08:18.560 --> 00:08:20.320 close to three hundred thousand times. 175 00:08:20.320 --> 00:08:22.720 - Seems like a lot - Yeah, it's a lot. 176 00:08:22.720 --> 00:08:24.659 - But so there's many Amazon services that 177 00:08:24.659 --> 00:08:27.069 I use in a given week that we didn't capture, 178 00:08:27.069 --> 00:08:29.029 that I just stopped using. - Whatever was connected 179 00:08:29.029 --> 00:08:31.909 in your house, Amazon still did find a way. 180 00:08:31.909 --> 00:08:34.088 Like over, you know at night you could see 181 00:08:34.088 --> 00:08:36.829 Amazon being pinged a few times throughout the night. 182 00:08:36.829 --> 00:08:38.746 - Oh, hello! [Laughing] 183 00:08:41.566 --> 00:08:43.149 - It was clear that a permanent Amazon ban 184 00:08:43.149 --> 00:08:45.678 would wall me off from crucial services 185 00:08:45.678 --> 00:08:48.560 and key websites, that I just can't function without 186 00:08:48.560 --> 00:08:51.099 for both personal and professional reasons. 187 00:08:51.099 --> 00:08:52.928 - It seems like Amazon just runs the 188 00:08:52.928 --> 00:08:55.399 infrastructure of the web. And there's just, 189 00:08:55.399 --> 00:08:57.208 there's like no alternative when you block Amazon. 190 00:08:57.208 --> 00:08:59.440 - These companies are following us around whether 191 00:08:59.440 --> 00:09:01.728 we know it or not. - Yeah. 192 00:09:01.728 --> 00:09:04.120 Like I don't think I could cut Amazon from my life. 193 00:09:04.120 --> 00:09:07.620 - Yeah - Bye. - Next up: Facebook.