VOCAB BOOST: Roomba Hacking, Lodged Bombs & Chinese Malfoy

Three bizarre news stories from around the world that are sure to give us a bunch of new vocabulary. A man who accidentally hacked into 7000 robot vacuums, a man who introduced a WW1 era bomb into his body, and Draco Malfoy goes viral in China. I swear I didn't make any of these up.

Controlling 7000 robots

Frenchman with lodged projectile

Malfoy viral in China

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, what's up? What's going on? Welcome to another episode of English with Dane, a show designed to help you enjoy the process of perfecting your English. As always, I'm your host Dane, and you can find me on Instagram and TikTok at English with Dane. On today's episode, we're looking at some strange news stories from around the world. I got some really good ones today. We're starting off with a man who accidentally gained control of 7,000 robot vacuums at once, then the unlikely story of a Harry Potter star becoming the face of the whole country of China. And finally, and I'm not making this up, a man who went to the ER, the emergency room, to the ER with wait for it, a World War I bomb lodged in his rectum. Yes, you heard that right. As always, we're gonna come across a lot of new vocabulary that will break down, and I'm sure we'll be in for a few more surprises too. Alright, you are listening to episode 45 of season two of English with Dane. Hit it. Okay, that's the music, so you know we have officially started the show. Let's get into this first strange news story. This one is from Popular Science, which is a renowned science and technology publication from the US. So a well-known and regarded science and technology publication. The headline reads Man accidentally gains control of 7,000 robot vacuums. Sammy Asdufal, I think that's how you pronounce it, Asdufal, just wanted to steer his DJI Romo with a gaming controller. That's the brand, DJI Romo. A software engineer's earnest effort to steer his new DJI robot vacuum with a video game controller inadvertently granted him a sneak peek into thousands of people's homes. While building his own remote control app, Sammy Asdufal reportedly used an AI coding assistant to help reverse engineer how the robot communicated with DJI's remote cloud servers. But he soon discovered that the same credentials that allowed him to see and control his own device also provided access to live camera feeds, microphone audio, maps, and status data from nearly 7,000 other vacuums across 24 countries. The back-end security bug effectively exposed an army of internet-connected robots that, in the wrong hands, could have turned into surveillance tools all without their owners ever knowing. Jesus Christ, that's pretty insane. There were a few words there that I want to talk about real quick. Earnest, spelled E-A-R-N-E-S-T. Earnest means resulting from or showing sincere and intense conviction. Sincero, I'd say, especially in this case, because the sentence was a software engineer's earnest effort to steer his new robot. So, like unintento sincero, he wasn't trying to be sneaky or evil or anything. He just honestly, earnestly, wanted to control his robot vacuum with his controller. And to steer, of course, is to control the direction of something. You can use it in a figurative sense too, though. You can steer a conversation away from a certain topic. You can steer clear of something. If someone tells you to steer clear of something or someone, they are advising you or warning you to avoid, evitar, to avoid or keep away from said thing or person. You can say something like, if I were you, I'd steer clear of spicy food until your stomach is back to normal. I don't know why that was my example, but it might be from recent personal experience. Steer clear of that neighborhood if you're coming home late at night is another example. Let's keep going. Luckily, As Dufal chose not to exploit that. Instead, he shared his findings with The Verge, that's another publication, which quickly contacted DJI to report the flaw, el fallo, the flaw. While DJI tells popular science the issue has been, entre comillas, resolved, no sé por qué, the dramatic episode underscores warnings from cybersecurity experts who have long warned that internet-connected robots and other smart home devices present attractive targets for hackers. As more households adopt home robots, including newer, more interactive humanoid models, similar vulnerabilities could become harder to detect. AI-powered coding tools, which make it easier for people with less technical knowledge to exploit software flaws potentially risk amplifying those worries even further. I'm gonna skip ahead a bit and read this next part called Homeowners are grappling with the privacy cost of smart homes. To grapple, spelled G-R-A-P-P-L-E grapple, means to wrestle or fight. To grapple with something means to struggle with an idea, situation, or problem. So homeowners are grappling with the privacy cost of smart homes. The DJI security concerns come amid a period of growing unease or discomfort, you can say, growing unease, generally about the surveillance capabilities of smart home technology. Earlier this month, ring camera owners flooded social media, inundaried. Around the same time, reports that Google was able to retrieve video footage from a nest doorbell camera to assist in an abduction investigation, despite earlier indications that the footage had been deleted, reignited debate over how much control consumers truly have over their sensitive data. To reignite or rekindle or revive are all words that we associate with fire, and we use them to say that we give new life to a debate, right? We fan the flame, we reinvigorate a debate, so to speak. Let's keep going. On top of that, lawmakers from both political parties in the US have spent years warning that DJI and other Chinese tech manufacturers pose a unique security threat. The evidence for those claims are murky. It's nonetheless helped justify the banning of certain Chinese-made products. The irony of many robot vacuums and other smart home devices is that as a category, they have a long history of questionable security practices, despite the fact that they operate in some of our most private spaces. All signs suggest that the average person will soon welcome more cameras and microphones into their homes, not fewer. Let's stop that one there. If you want the full story, the link is in the description of the episode. Two quick words I'd like to talk about that funnily enough have come up in recent episodes too. To underscore and murky. To underscore means to emphasize. The sentence was the dramatic episode underscores warnings from cybersecurity experts who have long warned that internet connected robots and other smart home devices present attractive targets for hackers. I know we talked about this one a few episodes ago, but it's important to talk about these words that pop up again because we're more likely to retain them. Hopefully, some of you listening to this episode right now are going to use underscore in your next presentation at work. Instead of saying highlights, this highlights or this emphasizes, throw underscore in there and sound extra smart. The other word was murky, M-U-R-K-Y, like murky. Something that is murky is unclear, confusing, or difficult to understand. Turbio, I think, is the best translation. The sentence was the evidence for those claims is murky. It's nonetheless helped justify the banning of certain Chinese-made products. Nice. Yeah, I don't know how I feel about all of this. I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I feel like how are they not listening to as much as they can? I don't think it's some evil plot, but I do know one thing. Companies really want your money, and they really want a competitive advantage over every other possible company. So I don't put it past them, says Wienna, I don't put it past them to be doing sketchy stuff. Plus, I feel like we all agree to this when we just click yes on the terms of services that we can never bother reading. Anyway, let's keep going. This next headline is wild. I can't believe it, so get ready for it. This one is from like a month ago, you might have heard about it, but somehow I didn't hear about it, so I'm talking about it now. It says, Frenchman arrives in the emergency room with a World War I era missile lodged in his rectum. Doctors halt surgery midway and called Bomb Squad. A French hospital was temporarily evacuated after doctors discovered a World War I era artillery shell lodged inside a patient during surgery, prompting bomb disposal experts to step in. Authorities later confirmed the 1918 shell posed no immediate danger, but the rare incident stunned, or left them really surprised, stunned medical staff and halted the operation midway. Midway Tolundo. If something is lodged somewhere, it is stuck or embedded in cajado, I'd say in Spanish. And the verb to halt is spelled H A L T and means to stop. So they halted the operation midway. Seguimos. According to the Daily Mail, the unnamed twenty of course he's unnamed, the unnamed 24-year-old man was rushed to an emergency unit in Toulouse late on Saturday night. A source described the patient as being, quote, in a state of extreme discomfort, having inserted a large object up his rectum, end quote. As reported by El Bais, when questioned by medical staff about the cause of his condition, the patient admitted to inserting an object but did not specify what it was. Doctors proceeded with surgery, but the operation was stopped when staff realized the unidentified object was a World War I shell. The artillery shell was described as relatively small, measuring about 20 centimeters 8 inches in length and just over 3 centimeters in diameter. Fearing the risk of a possible explosion, Jesus, hospital staff suspended the procedure and alerted authorities. Later, police came and activated the bomb squad. Right now I'm watching The Pit on HBO, and I feel like it's just a matter of time until something like this happens. I remember watching Gray's Anatomy, and there was kind of a similar situation, it wasn't in his rectum, but there was a similar situation where they had to evacuate and there was a bomb in the surgery room, in the OR. Anyways, a security perimeter was established while experts assessed or inspected, they assessed the device amid concerns that the operation could blow up at any moment, as per the French outlet. It was later determined that the shell dated back to 1918, the final year of World War I, and posed no immediate danger. Once the risk was ruled out, officers notified the judicial support group, which opened proceedings for possession of a category A ammunition, according to Depeche. The patient, identified as a French national, was expected to be interviewed by police. While rare, similar incidents have been reported in the past. In 2022, doctors in France encountered a comparable case involving an 88-year-old man who arrived at a hospital with a World War I bomb lodged in his body. According to El País, a separate case was also reported in the UK in 2021, though the object involved in that incident dated back to World War II. So there's a difference, right? There's a difference. One's World War I, one's World War II. Wow, okay, let's leave it there. That's intense. I met this guy a few months back after a show I did, and he worked at a hospital, and he told me that the amount of things people put, let's say, in their bodies is insane. I remember he told me about one guy that put two Barbie dolls all the way up in there and had to have emergency surgery. Anyway, let's shift gears, cambiemos de marcha, let's shift gears and talk about something that feels completely surreal but in a different way. Here's the last headline. Draco Malfoy becomes unlikely lunar new year mascot in China. So Tom Felton is best known for his role in the Harry Potter series. But now the actor is also making an appearance in some Chinese houses, with e-commerce sites selling festive decor prominently featuring his face. His sudden popularity is thanks to his Chinese translation of his name, Malfoy, Ma Erfu. It contains the words for horse and fortune, so suerte and fortune ringing especially auspicious for the upcoming year of the horse. Harry Potter is hugely popular in China with hundreds of millions of books sold. A re-release of the series' first film in 2020 grossed more than 90 million yuan, which is like$13.6 million or 9.4 million pounds in just three days. So ahead of Lunar New Year this past month, Chinese households typically decorate their doors with couplets, a set of auspicious writings heralding health and prosperity in the new year. To herald, spelled H-E-R-A-L-D, means to announce or signal the arrival of something and to publicly celebrate something as important. So those two meanings. So they hang things on their doors. Writings heralding health and prosperity. It says, others decorate their houses with fuzzi, red square papers printed with the Chinese word for prosperity. The fuzi are commonly hung upside down to symbolize luck, arriving in the household. The Chinese word for upside down has the same pronunciation as the word for arrival. On Chinese social media, pictures show some users sticking couplets or upside-down pictures of Malfoy's signature smirk. Merchants on e-commerce site Tao Bao are also seizing on the trend, coming up with stickers and magnets featuring the Harry Potter character. Others began sharing photos of the character saying, quote, share this image for good fortune. Felix Felisis said one comment, a reference to a potion in the series that makes the drinker lucky for a period of time. The Malfoy-themed Lunar New Year decor has even caught the eye or the attention of actor Felton, who reshared an Instagram story about his character becoming a symbol of Chinese New Year in China. That's it for that story. Wow. Sometimes when I see stories like this, it feels like we're in a simulation, like we're living in a simulation. Real quick, to seize on something, in this case, to seize on a trend means to quickly take advantage of an idea or opportunity, trend, or detail, often eagerly or opportunistically. Aprovechar, I'd guess, I'd say in Spanish, capitalizar. Is that Spanglish? Capitalizar? Sometimes I can't tell. To seize, by the way, is spelled S-E-I-Z-E, as in seize the day, which is how we translate Carpe Diem into English. And last but not least, smirk, spelled S-M-I-R-K. The phrase was Malfoy's signature smirk. A smirk is a small controlled smile, I'd say, that kind of suggests that someone is pleased with themselves. There's a sense of self-satisfaction or a smugness to it. You know exactly what I'm talking about when I say Malfoy's signature smirk. I feel like I can see his face right now as I'm saying it. God, I hated him so much growing up. Alright, that's it for now. Some pretty bizarre stories, some good vocabulary words. I hope you are all adding the ones you like to your own personal vocabulary lists, which you definitely have. And if you don't remember, it's never too late to start one. Alright, thanks for listening to the show as always. I appreciate it so much. Share this episode with someone who would also like it. And don't forget to follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you listen. Alright, hope you have a great week. Talk soon later.