[00:00.000 --> 00:16.700]  Of particular concern to some refugee advocates are the new changes which, while removing those already detained for years from detention centres, nevertheless places them in the vulnerable position of having to agree to return home if the Government of Australia deems it is now safe for them to do so.
[00:16.840 --> 00:20.820]  This is Erica Volz in Sydney, reporting for Free Speech Radio News.
[00:24.610 --> 00:27.150]  You've been listening to Free Speech Radio News.
[00:27.270 --> 00:28.670]  I'm Aura Bogado.
[00:33.870 --> 00:39.870]  And you're listening to radio station WBAI in New York, where it's just about 7 o'clock.
[00:40.090 --> 00:42.330]  Time once again for Off the Hook.
[01:09.520 --> 01:10.920]  Understood, but let me know.
[01:50.300 --> 01:51.360]  And a very good evening, everybody.
[01:51.520 --> 01:53.400]  The program is Off the Hook.
[01:53.620 --> 01:55.400]  We're here with you for the next hour or so.
[01:55.820 --> 02:01.620]  Talking about high technology and the latest developments in the Orwellian world we find ourselves in.
[02:02.920 --> 02:04.740]  We have a full cast of characters tonight.
[02:04.740 --> 02:07.700]  We have myself, Emmanuel, we have Jim over there.
[02:07.920 --> 02:08.100]  Hello.
[02:08.660 --> 02:09.080]  Mike.
[02:09.560 --> 02:10.020]  Hi.
[02:10.780 --> 02:12.180]  Redbird and Arseny.
[02:12.320 --> 02:12.640]  Good evening.
[02:13.160 --> 02:13.720]  And Bernie S.
[02:13.800 --> 02:14.340]  down there in Philadelphia.
[02:14.980 --> 02:15.920]  Hello from Philadelphia.
[02:17.040 --> 02:17.400]  Okay.
[02:17.560 --> 02:18.140]  Everything is working.
[02:18.280 --> 02:18.860]  Everything is fine.
[02:19.100 --> 02:21.480]  And, of course, RedHacked is sitting over here learning the board.
[02:21.660 --> 02:21.900]  Hey.
[02:22.200 --> 02:22.580]  How are you doing?
[02:22.680 --> 02:29.920]  RedHacked, actually, you're going to be running this thing while that one week that I'm away, and actually a few weeks while I'm away, you're going to be the person in charge.
[02:30.200 --> 02:30.380]  Yep.
[02:31.040 --> 02:31.400]  Okay.
[02:31.540 --> 02:34.440]  That's something frightening for the rest of us to realize.
[02:35.480 --> 02:37.780]  What's been happening in this week?
[02:38.060 --> 02:40.660]  Arseny, I believe you've been terrorized by a fax machine.
[02:40.800 --> 02:40.940]  Right.
[02:40.940 --> 02:41.560]  High technology.
[02:43.320 --> 02:46.220]  You know, I was getting phone calls from a fax machine every 10 minutes.
[02:47.800 --> 02:51.120]  So, you know, you just get beep, beep, beep when you pick up the phone.
[02:51.300 --> 02:52.300]  And this is nonstop.
[02:52.480 --> 02:55.000]  I mean, you can't even make a call because all you hear is beeps.
[02:55.460 --> 02:59.380]  So, I called the phone company, and basically, they just couldn't do anything.
[02:59.640 --> 03:00.540]  They couldn't get the number.
[03:00.640 --> 03:01.600]  They couldn't block it.
[03:01.600 --> 03:04.500]  But they're pretty much useless in the matter.
[03:04.620 --> 03:08.840]  I mean, like, I'm getting phone calls, and I can't block them anyway.
[03:10.860 --> 03:11.340]  I don't know.
[03:11.420 --> 03:12.140]  It was just really bad.
[03:12.380 --> 03:15.280]  And they never even suggested plugging a fax machine in.
[03:15.540 --> 03:15.780]  Uh-huh.
[03:15.840 --> 03:19.260]  Yeah, well, plugging a fax machine in seems to be the thing that would work the best.
[03:19.340 --> 03:23.420]  You plug a fax machine, you receive the fax, find out who's faxing you, call them and tell them never to do that again.
[03:23.820 --> 03:24.180]  Right.
[03:24.180 --> 03:30.040]  Well, when I did finally plug it in, because I had to carry it from the other room, you know, it was a mess.
[03:30.200 --> 03:31.620]  They stopped calling, so...
[03:31.620 --> 03:33.100]  Yeah, but they're going to start again.
[03:33.180 --> 03:33.660]  You know they will.
[03:34.120 --> 03:34.400]  Exactly.
[03:34.480 --> 03:35.600]  I'll be ready this time.
[03:36.240 --> 03:39.640]  I had this on my cell phone once, to which you can't plug a fax machine.
[03:39.640 --> 03:40.900]  Well, no, that's not entirely true.
[03:41.060 --> 03:43.580]  On T-Mobile, I know you can receive faxes.
[03:43.980 --> 03:44.340]  Well...
[03:44.340 --> 03:44.600]  Somehow.
[03:44.800 --> 03:46.260]  Yeah, you have to press a button, though, to do it.
[03:47.340 --> 03:47.700]  Huh?
[03:47.840 --> 03:51.300]  You have to press 2, I think, to send a fax to somebody's T-Mobile phone.
[03:52.080 --> 03:53.240]  Well, that didn't happen.
[03:53.240 --> 03:53.960]  I don't know if it's 2.
[03:53.960 --> 03:58.240]  It might be a different button, but yeah, you can send faxes to cell phones, and then you retrieve them somehow.
[03:59.380 --> 04:00.800]  It doesn't come out of your cell phone, though.
[04:00.920 --> 04:03.640]  You retrieve it some other way and go to a fax machine or something.
[04:04.660 --> 04:10.520]  Well, you know, it just surprised me that Verizon didn't tell you to pursue the annoyance call bureau or something like that.
[04:10.540 --> 04:12.900]  They said that there's literally nothing they can do.
[04:12.960 --> 04:21.200]  They said that they could intercept the call, and somehow, since they intercepted, I guess they can talk to the fax machine and tell it to stop.
[04:22.060 --> 04:25.060]  I'm not sure what else they could really do by intercepting it.
[04:25.140 --> 04:30.400]  And she said that I could file a police report if I wanted to, I guess.
[04:30.800 --> 04:33.500]  And then I could call Trace by doing star 6-7.
[04:33.660 --> 04:36.360]  But I have to do that three times, and it'll cost me a dollar every time.
[04:36.360 --> 04:43.640]  So basically, without paying anything, I mean, even like $3, you have to pay to block these people from calling you.
[04:43.980 --> 04:45.580]  And they wouldn't give you the number, either.
[04:45.740 --> 04:46.460]  Right, you wouldn't get the number.
[04:46.460 --> 04:49.020]  If you did the call Trace thing, the star was at 5-7.
[04:49.560 --> 04:53.240]  I think you have to get six successive Traces.
[04:53.720 --> 04:59.140]  And then Verizon won't even give you the caller's number.
[04:59.140 --> 05:06.260]  They'll only turn it over to the police if you agree to, you know, to the press charges with the police.
[05:06.620 --> 05:08.920]  It's a really crazy way of dealing with it.
[05:09.300 --> 05:10.680]  Yeah, it is.
[05:11.460 --> 05:15.760]  You can always go to the Annoyance Call Bureau and tell them to tell whoever it is to stop.
[05:15.840 --> 05:16.340]  They can do this.
[05:16.380 --> 05:21.180]  I did it 10 years ago, before, or maybe even before that, before caller ID even existed.
[05:21.740 --> 05:25.600]  And they were able to track down the person who was doing this because they were calling on a regular basis.
[05:26.020 --> 05:28.780]  And I could tell them exactly when the calls came in.
[05:28.880 --> 05:29.980]  And they are able to do this.
[05:30.340 --> 05:32.640]  You know, in television, in fact, they even do this.
[05:32.740 --> 05:35.540]  They run around the crossbar exchanges with wires and things like that.
[05:35.600 --> 05:38.380]  And they have a little meter saying how close they are to tracing the person.
[05:39.280 --> 05:42.660]  Unfortunately, the person usually has the same meter and he knows how close they are to tracing them too.
[05:42.800 --> 05:45.180]  But, you know, in real life, it sometimes works as well.
[05:46.320 --> 05:48.960]  But, you know, the thing is, don't let it get to you too much.
[05:49.100 --> 05:50.900]  I have telemarketers calling all the time.
[05:51.740 --> 05:54.260]  And I just, I don't pick up the phone.
[05:54.400 --> 05:56.360]  I don't have it so that a phone can wake me up.
[05:56.760 --> 06:02.000]  You know, I don't think that that really, if something is really, really important, somebody will visit.
[06:02.300 --> 06:05.300]  You know, they'll kick in the door and they'll, they'll tell me in person.
[06:05.940 --> 06:13.120]  But there's just too many things that can, that can ring your phone these days for a phone to actually bother you in that, in that way.
[06:13.300 --> 06:13.760]  I don't know.
[06:13.960 --> 06:19.080]  Maybe, maybe I'm just, you know, cutting myself off in the world out of necessity, but it works.
[06:20.500 --> 06:21.780]  Okay, I got deposed today.
[06:21.960 --> 06:22.360]  Yes.
[06:22.640 --> 06:26.080]  Today was, was my deposition with the city.
[06:26.340 --> 06:27.280]  You know what that means, right?
[06:27.640 --> 06:29.920]  It means you made a statement under oath.
[06:30.060 --> 06:30.460]  I did.
[06:30.580 --> 06:31.580]  I did make a statement under oath.
[06:32.540 --> 06:33.880]  This has to do with the lawsuit.
[06:33.920 --> 06:38.040]  I thought that you were, held some office in the city.
[06:38.160 --> 06:39.600]  No, I wasn't deposed in that manner.
[06:39.740 --> 06:40.840]  No, no, I still hold my office.
[06:41.180 --> 06:52.920]  No, they, basically, we're suing the city for what happened during the Republican convention, where over a thousand people were arrested without cause, and detained for upwards of two days.
[06:55.080 --> 06:59.540]  And that's part of the, that's part of the lawsuit involves answering questions from the city.
[06:59.960 --> 07:03.840]  And basically, I just had to relive the whole experience, describe the whole thing all over again.
[07:03.920 --> 07:05.300]  It was, it was so much fun.
[07:05.600 --> 07:07.700]  They, they brought up the bologna sandwiches.
[07:08.220 --> 07:11.580]  You know, everybody who was incarcerated knows what those bologna sandwiches look like.
[07:11.580 --> 07:13.280]  Like, they're, they're ingrained in your mind.
[07:13.620 --> 07:14.560]  Horrible, horrible things.
[07:14.700 --> 07:17.280]  Soggy bread, single slice of rancid bologna.
[07:17.400 --> 07:19.600]  And, ugh, it just kept coming back to you.
[07:19.740 --> 07:22.020]  Every, every few hours, the same sandwiches would be presented.
[07:22.200 --> 07:23.800]  And, of course, nobody wanted them.
[07:23.880 --> 07:25.060]  And, God forbid, you were a vegetarian.
[07:26.920 --> 07:29.560]  So, it was kind of, it was kind of traumatic going through all that again.
[07:29.940 --> 07:32.800]  Having to, having to talk about it and just think about it.
[07:33.500 --> 07:34.880]  But, the stage is over.
[07:35.200 --> 07:37.040]  The stage of the operation is over.
[07:37.180 --> 07:38.060]  And, what happens next?
[07:38.520 --> 07:39.800]  I don't really know what happens next.
[07:39.800 --> 07:42.920]  I guess, um, there's some kind of a hearing in court or something.
[07:43.960 --> 07:48.800]  And, if this lawsuit is successful and there's an award, who is it that gets to pay again?
[07:49.460 --> 07:51.700]  Well, uh, of course, yeah, it is the taxpayers.
[07:52.360 --> 07:54.380]  Um, because the taxpayers have to pay for everything.
[07:56.160 --> 07:58.660]  It might, it might be covered under the city's insurance.
[07:58.860 --> 07:59.540]  I'm not sure about that.
[07:59.540 --> 08:00.900]  It's possible that, uh...
[08:00.900 --> 08:06.260]  But, in any case, the people who were actually responsible for violating people's civil rights, what will happen to them?
[08:06.660 --> 08:07.480]  Uh, Bloomberg, you mean?
[08:07.920 --> 08:09.380]  Uh, probably nothing.
[08:10.040 --> 08:13.080]  Probably, he'll just get re-elected and forced to do this for four more years.
[08:14.100 --> 08:15.760]  It's, it's, it's nonsense, I know.
[08:15.960 --> 08:20.800]  So, the message, the message to these people who are responsible, ultimately, will be...
[08:22.020 --> 08:22.720]  Nice job.
[08:23.740 --> 08:24.140]  Okay.
[08:24.560 --> 08:25.440]  Just wanted to clear that up.
[08:25.460 --> 08:26.340]  See you at the Olympics.
[08:27.460 --> 08:42.480]  Operation Rescue, which is not a particularly wonderful organization, uh, actually successfully, uh, sued, kind of, the individual, uh, beat cops who were arresting their members as they, uh, blocked abortion clinics and did other nasty things.
[08:42.700 --> 08:42.900]  Mm-hmm.
[08:42.900 --> 08:48.060]  Uh, and, uh, from then on, they were treated very deferentially by the police, so...
[08:48.060 --> 08:50.200]  Well, it can work, but it's a lot, it's a lot of effort.
[08:50.380 --> 08:57.420]  It's a lot of effort, but, uh, you know, seeing the effort that the National Lawyers Guild has put into this thing, I don't think effort is a problem with this, with this group of people.
[08:57.420 --> 08:58.880]  I think anything can be done.
[08:59.240 --> 09:01.480]  So, if that's a valid tactic, I'm all for it.
[09:01.640 --> 09:06.820]  You know, I do think people should be held accountable for their actions, whether they're cops or politicians or regular individual people.
[09:07.740 --> 09:11.260]  And, uh, it sure would be nice to actually see that happen.
[09:12.460 --> 09:13.360]  Uh, okay.
[09:13.500 --> 09:15.240]  Does anybody else have, uh, any other news?
[09:15.360 --> 09:16.300]  Bernie, anything down there in Philadelphia?
[09:16.800 --> 09:22.960]  Well, on the subject of accountability, uh, raise your hands over the radio.
[09:22.960 --> 09:28.560]  How many, uh, people have heard the, the term hackers dragged through the mud this past week?
[09:29.100 --> 09:30.420]  Oh, look at all the hands.
[09:30.740 --> 09:32.760]  There's people raising hands outside the studio, even.
[09:32.940 --> 09:33.240]  Wow.
[09:33.420 --> 09:34.300]  It's, uh, it's incredible.
[09:34.460 --> 09:35.940]  People on the TV monitor raising their hands.
[09:36.200 --> 09:40.580]  Is, is this some sort of, uh, editorial, uh, thing that you're talking about, Bernie?
[09:41.320 --> 09:42.020]  Well, no.
[09:42.240 --> 09:46.820]  I think, Bernie, you're talking about the latest, uh, instance of, uh, of a bank or something like that.
[09:46.880 --> 09:47.620]  More people raising hands.
[09:48.140 --> 09:52.820]  Of a, of a bank, uh, losing, losing people's, uh, credit histories and hackers being blamed.
[09:52.960 --> 09:53.360]  Somehow, right?
[09:53.560 --> 09:54.540]  Actually, it wasn't a bank.
[09:54.680 --> 10:00.620]  It was a, uh, a third-party, uh, uh, processor of, uh, of, of credit card, uh, payment data.
[10:00.860 --> 10:03.000]  A company known as Card Systems Solutions.
[10:04.440 --> 10:05.640]  Well, not this week, huh?
[10:06.400 --> 10:08.260]  It's Card Systems Problems this week.
[10:08.500 --> 10:10.740]  It's a different company every week, it seems, lately.
[10:10.880 --> 10:15.260]  But, uh, this company wasn't even supposed to be storing this data.
[10:15.260 --> 10:24.040]  Uh, and we're, we're doing it, uh, in, uh, in violation of their agreements with MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Discover, et cetera.
[10:24.740 --> 10:34.680]  And, um, you know, they just had these millions of, uh, uh, credit card numbers associated with the names and the expiration date and the little security code number.
[10:34.880 --> 10:38.540]  Everything you need, basically, to, to, to use someone else's credit card.
[10:38.540 --> 10:45.460]  And, um, they just had this stuff sitting around, uh, you know, against policies that they weren't supposed to.
[10:45.680 --> 10:48.920]  And, uh, someone saw it sitting there and decided to copy it.
[10:49.080 --> 10:50.580]  And, uh, who gets blamed?
[10:51.620 --> 10:54.180]  Well, now, I'd like to know, how did the hackers get blamed for this?
[10:55.000 --> 11:05.400]  I believe this company, Card Systems Solutions, was, was blaming, uh, you know, we never, you know, when you hear news reports these days, you don't, you don't get actual reporters saying who said what.
[11:05.940 --> 11:15.580]  But, um, I would really like some investigative reporter to find out who actually, uh, first said that hackers were responsible for this.
[11:16.080 --> 11:25.820]  Um, I don't believe, uh, uh, I, I believe it was Card Systems Solutions that was pointing the finger at, uh, someone else saying, oh, it's someone else's fault that this information got there.
[11:25.820 --> 11:36.740]  Well, if they had, if they'd been following their own guide rules as, as, as dictated by a MasterCard visa, American Express, et cetera, um, this wouldn't have happened because they shouldn't have been storing it there in the first place.
[11:37.140 --> 11:39.380]  But, uh, I'm, of course, they're blaming someone else.
[11:40.400 --> 11:52.220]  Now, is it possible, is it possible that, um, the only reason we're hearing about this is because of that, that, uh, law in California that says companies have to reveal the information if they have some kind of a breach or, or lose information?
[11:54.000 --> 11:59.360]  Well, I, I found out something interesting a couple days ago about, about how that law came about in California.
[11:59.880 --> 12:06.000]  It turns out that, uh, state legislators, uh, information had been compromised, um, a few years ago.
[12:06.480 --> 12:13.060]  And so they hurried together and put together some legislation to make sure that they would know about it next time it happened to them.
[12:13.320 --> 12:16.040]  And, and that's the only reason it happened in California.
[12:16.660 --> 12:31.260]  Um, and, you know, maybe, uh, maybe legislators' information around, uh, other states ought to be compromised just to, uh, get them off the stick and, and make, uh, at least, you know, this is like the least amount of accountability for companies to at least let people know that,
[12:31.260 --> 12:34.240]  uh, uh, their private information has been compromised.
[12:34.540 --> 12:41.520]  New York state's actually, um, starting to get law, uh, uh, in the works to make a law about, same, same law as California.
[12:41.680 --> 12:43.280]  They're modeling it off of California law.
[12:43.440 --> 12:45.620]  I imagine a lot of states probably are doing this now.
[12:45.740 --> 12:47.620]  This is front page news everywhere.
[12:48.420 --> 12:53.360]  Card System Solutions actually, uh, said that the FBI told them not to tell anybody.
[12:53.360 --> 12:56.280]  So that's why, this supposedly happened many weeks ago.
[12:56.420 --> 12:56.660]  Really?
[12:56.840 --> 12:57.440]  And, uh, yes.
[12:57.980 --> 13:02.680]  They're saying that the FBI told them not to, not to publicize this information.
[13:03.160 --> 13:05.020]  Contrary to the law that says they have to.
[13:05.560 --> 13:05.920]  Well?
[13:06.520 --> 13:08.120]  Well, are they located in California?
[13:08.520 --> 13:09.340]  I don't know this.
[13:09.540 --> 13:09.760]  Okay.
[13:09.900 --> 13:14.120]  I wouldn't be surprised if they had a branch of some sort there that, that requires them to do this, but...
[13:14.120 --> 13:14.480]  They probably do.
[13:14.480 --> 13:15.740]  I don't know where the location was.
[13:15.760 --> 13:24.380]  I do know that they're incorporated in the state of Delaware, but, but all kinds of companies that don't really have much physical presence in Delaware are incorporated in Delaware just because of the tax laws.
[13:24.600 --> 13:30.080]  Like, MBNA, the biggest, one of the biggest credit card companies out there is incorporated in Delaware, but they don't have, they don't have a lot of people working there.
[13:32.060 --> 13:34.840]  There's one thing I don't understand about credit cards.
[13:34.960 --> 13:38.620]  Why does it require so many different companies to process every transaction?
[13:38.920 --> 13:43.420]  There's probably at least six companies involved every time a credit card gets processed.
[13:43.420 --> 13:47.040]  And if any one of them has a problem like this, then the data gets leaked.
[13:47.160 --> 13:47.200]  Yeah.
[13:47.260 --> 13:49.400]  I mean, we see this with the 2600 store.
[13:49.600 --> 13:51.180]  Basically, we use Yahoo store.
[13:51.340 --> 13:52.400]  That's one company right there.
[13:52.740 --> 13:59.240]  Then we have to use another company to actually, well, actually, no, there's Visa and MasterCard and American Express and Discover.
[13:59.460 --> 14:00.440]  Those are credit card companies.
[14:00.660 --> 14:02.140]  So the purchase goes through them.
[14:02.240 --> 14:06.820]  And then there's a company that processes that by card services, problems or solutions, whatever they're called.
[14:07.180 --> 14:08.780]  And there's other companies that do that too.
[14:09.420 --> 14:16.300]  And then it has to come out of the customer's bank and then it has to go into the merchant's bank.
[14:16.760 --> 14:18.460]  And yeah, it's a big carnival.
[14:18.640 --> 14:23.300]  I think there's at least two companies that you're forgetting somewhere in there too.
[14:23.480 --> 14:24.420]  I'm sure there are.
[14:24.620 --> 14:27.360]  There's companies we've probably never heard of before that are just handling.
[14:27.500 --> 14:28.260]  And you're right.
[14:28.320 --> 14:35.320]  Any one of these can give out information or leave something lying around and the risk is out there.
[14:35.460 --> 14:42.360]  I feel like having multiple companies would make more sense if each company was given a piece of the whole picture as opposed to all of them getting everything.
[14:42.360 --> 14:45.320]  You mean one company gets four credit card numbers, like the first four digits?
[14:45.320 --> 14:47.760]  No, I just mean that, you know, like you don't give everyone all the information.
[14:48.020 --> 14:49.940]  Like a key escrow system, of course.
[14:50.100 --> 14:50.160]  Yeah.
[14:50.160 --> 14:50.520]  Yeah.
[14:50.680 --> 14:55.540]  Well, it would be nice if there was some kind of, you know, a fail-safe, but apparently there isn't.
[14:56.100 --> 14:56.500]  But...
[14:56.500 --> 15:05.000]  There'd be an easy way, at least for solving the problem with the people whose information was just compromised, all these names, addresses, and card numbers that were just compromised.
[15:06.160 --> 15:11.180]  The Eastern MasterCard and the other card companies could send new cards to all of these people.
[15:11.380 --> 15:15.680]  That would cost between $20 and $30 per person.
[15:15.860 --> 15:19.260]  And since there's millions of people, apparently, they don't want to spend the money.
[15:19.600 --> 15:26.600]  Well, Bernie, that's also a real pain in the ass of the customer, too, because in my case, I have a lot of things that pay automatically every month.
[15:26.900 --> 15:31.840]  Now, if they send me a new card number, I have to tell these companies, by the way, my card number has changed.
[15:31.940 --> 15:42.520]  I think in addition to sending people card numbers, they should take the effort and tell all these other merchants, by the way, our customer's card number has changed because we messed up and lost all his information or gave it out to the public.
[15:42.940 --> 15:43.420]  Agreed.
[15:43.640 --> 15:43.820]  Yeah.
[15:44.100 --> 15:56.840]  So it's... The other thing that really gets me is watching these reports where they're talking about this and they say, and they invariably say this, that customers are liable for no more than $50 of fraudulent charges.
[15:57.140 --> 16:01.380]  What they don't tell you is that you're liable for zero if it's something like this.
[16:01.460 --> 16:07.080]  The only time you're liable for any charges whatsoever is if you lose your card and you don't tell anybody you lost your card.
[16:07.260 --> 16:09.520]  Not if somebody uses your credit card number.
[16:09.680 --> 16:11.820]  Not if a bank leaks your information out.
[16:12.000 --> 16:15.280]  Not if somebody figures out what your credit card number is by wildly guessing.
[16:15.700 --> 16:17.340]  You're not responsible for any of that.
[16:17.400 --> 16:20.380]  You're only responsible if you lose it and don't tell anybody.
[16:20.600 --> 16:22.980]  And when that happens, you're only responsible for $50 maximum.
[16:23.200 --> 16:24.780]  I'm going to guess your credit card number.
[16:25.240 --> 16:26.660]  It starts with four.
[16:27.540 --> 16:28.460]  Actually, you know what?
[16:28.460 --> 16:29.760]  I don't have any beginning with four.
[16:29.820 --> 16:32.320]  All my visas turn into MasterCard, So they all begin with five now.
[16:32.440 --> 16:32.860]  Oh, well...
[16:32.860 --> 16:34.140]  You are responsible.
[16:34.420 --> 16:44.540]  The sad thing is that people are responsible for convincing all the merchants that it wasn't them who charged this stuff.
[16:44.820 --> 16:46.560]  And that can be a real nightmare.
[16:46.820 --> 16:53.280]  And I heard a statistic on... I think it was on a PBS affiliate here in Philadelphia.
[16:53.760 --> 16:58.400]  It might have been the whatever, the McNeil Lair.
[16:58.580 --> 16:59.320]  It's not McNeil Lair.
[16:59.460 --> 17:01.360]  I mean, it's the... The one guy died.
[17:01.460 --> 17:01.720]  I'm sorry.
[17:01.880 --> 17:02.280]  Anyway...
[17:02.280 --> 17:03.120]  Well, one guy did die.
[17:03.360 --> 17:04.080]  Didn't Lair die?
[17:04.260 --> 17:04.400]  Yeah.
[17:05.080 --> 17:05.240]  Yeah.
[17:05.380 --> 17:07.060]  No, McNeil retired.
[17:07.300 --> 17:07.960]  It's Lair.
[17:08.180 --> 17:09.040]  Maybe he means Siskel and Ebert, though.
[17:09.100 --> 17:09.880]  One of them died, too.
[17:10.800 --> 17:27.000]  They announced that it takes an average of something like 300 hours for an individual to finally get over a situation, to resolve a situation where there's their identity has been stolen.
[17:27.260 --> 17:29.800]  Now, this recent case was not identity theft thing.
[17:29.900 --> 17:34.920]  It was just exposure of credit card information, name, address, credit card number, expiration date, that stuff.
[17:35.100 --> 17:39.740]  So your whole identity can't be hijacked just for this kind of a thing.
[17:39.840 --> 17:50.000]  But in cases where your Social Security number and address and all that other stuff has been compromised, it takes hundreds of hours to finally get that whole thing over with.
[17:50.000 --> 17:51.440]  Who has the time to do this?
[17:51.720 --> 17:52.940]  I don't have hundreds of hours.
[17:53.260 --> 17:57.920]  And who compensates you for having to do this when it was somebody else's fault?
[17:58.040 --> 18:02.800]  I think, again, it comes down to accountability like you were being deposed about today.
[18:03.440 --> 18:08.160]  I think people should be held accountable for their mistakes that cause other people a lot of trouble.
[18:08.300 --> 18:14.280]  Now, if you get your identity stolen, how much of the information do you have to get, like new information, do you need a new Social Security number?
[18:14.320 --> 18:16.340]  How much do you have to kind of recreate?
[18:17.060 --> 18:20.080]  It's on a case-by-case basis, but you can get a new Social Security number.
[18:20.240 --> 18:23.000]  But that, and you can imagine, that's a very difficult thing.
[18:23.080 --> 18:29.620]  Not only do you have to go through the whole procedure with the Social Security Administration, you have to get a change in all kinds of things.
[18:29.800 --> 18:31.620]  So it's difficult.
[18:31.920 --> 18:38.240]  And one of the reasons why people have to do this in the first place is because of the prevalence of Social Security numbers everywhere.
[18:38.740 --> 18:43.980]  They're being used as identity trackers when they were never meant for that in the first place.
[18:44.300 --> 18:48.120]  Every time I do anything these days, somebody wants to know my Social Security number.
[18:48.220 --> 18:50.580]  In fact, at the deposition today, they want to know my Social Security number.
[18:50.740 --> 18:51.600]  Why do they want to know this?
[18:52.160 --> 18:52.860]  It's ridiculous.
[18:53.040 --> 18:54.280]  The phone company wants to know it.
[18:55.020 --> 18:56.420]  The banks want to know it.
[18:56.560 --> 19:00.000]  The only people who should be knowing this is the Social Security Administration.
[19:00.080 --> 19:00.980]  That's what it's for.
[19:01.180 --> 19:03.620]  If there's some kind of other person number, why don't we just call it that?
[19:03.760 --> 19:06.320]  Well, there's no reason why other people can't know it.
[19:06.400 --> 19:08.140]  It's just the assumption that it's a secure number.
[19:08.320 --> 19:14.620]  I mean, for example, I was just dealing with the FCC for a I have a license I hold and they had to verify my identity.
[19:14.880 --> 19:17.580]  And the only question they asked me was my social security number.
[19:17.740 --> 19:19.440]  And that's all they needed to...
[19:19.440 --> 19:22.920]  But how does that verify your identity any better than your name or address?
[19:22.920 --> 19:23.260]  It shouldn't.
[19:23.260 --> 19:26.020]  It shouldn't ever have to be used to verify your identity.
[19:26.020 --> 19:26.020]  But that's the problem.
[19:26.440 --> 19:32.280]  People think that that is something secure and there's no way you would have this were it not for you being the person.
[19:32.280 --> 19:33.440]  And it's just not the way it is.
[19:33.460 --> 19:37.080]  Yeah, it's not secure because you're giving it to everybody to verify your identity.
[19:37.360 --> 19:43.740]  I mean, if someone were to steal my school ID out of my wallet, they'd have my name and my social security number because it's encoded on the MagStripe.
[19:44.440 --> 19:48.080]  Assuming they had a MagStripe reader, yes, that definitely would be a bad thing.
[19:49.080 --> 19:56.600]  So, yeah, you have to think about all the times when your social security number has shown up someplace where it shouldn't be, where somebody else can see it.
[19:57.260 --> 20:03.320]  We have one letter in the upcoming edition of 2600 where somebody was taking a test at a school.
[20:03.580 --> 20:12.400]  And they have these little scroll down bars, you know, you type something in on a browser, for instance, if you're typing the same letter.
[20:12.940 --> 20:13.300]  Autocomplete.
[20:13.340 --> 20:14.020]  It's not autocomplete.
[20:14.260 --> 20:15.820]  It basically shows you below.
[20:16.220 --> 20:16.800]  Okay, right.
[20:16.980 --> 20:17.520]  A drop down.
[20:17.680 --> 20:20.440]  So you probably get a list of all the previous social security numbers.
[20:20.620 --> 20:27.120]  If you type one as your social security number, yes, you get a list of everything beginning with one that used that machine before you to take that test.
[20:27.560 --> 20:28.320]  Now, how stupid is that?
[20:28.360 --> 20:31.060]  And you also get the same thing for last name, address, city, whatever.
[20:31.640 --> 20:33.100]  And that's how these systems work.
[20:33.180 --> 20:37.780]  So when you put the social security number as one of the fields, yeah, that's a good way to gather a whole lot of them.
[20:37.780 --> 20:45.360]  Right, and again, it's this fundamental flaw where people are under the assumption that you're the only one that knows this number, and that's not the case at all, so...
[20:45.360 --> 20:45.560]  No.
[20:46.220 --> 20:49.700]  And you can always get social security numbers by simply calling them something else.
[20:49.760 --> 21:02.420]  For instance, if I was to call Red Hacks Dormitory and ask everybody, you know, say I was calling from the school, I want their student identity number, student ID code, they would probably give it to me not thinking, hey, that's also my social security number.
[21:02.500 --> 21:03.680]  I'm not supposed to give that out.
[21:03.840 --> 21:04.140]  Right.
[21:04.240 --> 21:04.460]  Right?
[21:04.460 --> 21:06.980]  It's, you know, it's just a question of how you phrase it.
[21:07.560 --> 21:09.760]  My bank calls it my customer number.
[21:10.360 --> 21:12.900]  Whenever they ask for it, I say, oh, do you mean my social security number?
[21:13.040 --> 21:14.320]  They're like, well, yes, the same thing.
[21:14.420 --> 21:16.280]  It's like, well, why don't you call it a social security number?
[21:16.360 --> 21:17.940]  I do that every time, and they don't get it.
[21:18.120 --> 21:21.200]  My health insurance, actually, they fudged the number.
[21:21.520 --> 21:24.280]  Apparently, when they typed it, they hit the same number twice.
[21:24.280 --> 21:29.200]  So the number on my health insurance was supposed to be the same as my social security number.
[21:29.300 --> 21:30.900]  It was actually like a little bit off.
[21:31.300 --> 21:32.340]  I didn't correct it.
[21:32.420 --> 21:35.500]  I kept that as, because there's no reason why it should have to be the same.
[21:36.040 --> 21:38.700]  And I just used that as my account number.
[21:38.800 --> 21:43.400]  And occasionally, they would ask me for my social security number for something else, and they were puzzled when it was different.
[21:43.940 --> 21:49.100]  This will cause you great trouble once you hit your 60s, because the same thing happened to my mother.
[21:49.380 --> 21:53.460]  When you hit Medicare and Medicaid, this will cause you great trouble.
[21:53.460 --> 21:57.600]  Actually, it won't, because they have since switched their...
[21:57.600 --> 21:57.920]  Ah, okay.
[21:58.400 --> 22:04.720]  Out of security concerns, they have switched their customer ID codes to be unique.
[22:04.860 --> 22:05.760]  Finally, good news.
[22:05.900 --> 22:06.980]  Social security numbers, yeah.
[22:07.180 --> 22:08.180]  But, you know, it didn't affect me either.
[22:08.180 --> 22:09.060]  You have to ask for it.
[22:09.080 --> 22:09.740]  They're like Blue Cross.
[22:09.900 --> 22:17.740]  I had to ask them, Blue Cross Blue Shield, to issue me a different card that didn't have my social security number emblazoned on the front of it.
[22:18.280 --> 22:21.240]  And they did it, but you have to go through all these procedures and so forth.
[22:21.240 --> 22:25.380]  So I recommend doing that, but, you know, you shouldn't have to have to go through all that.
[22:25.540 --> 22:30.160]  Now, Bernie, I don't know if you remember, a few years ago, we revealed President Clinton's social security number on the air.
[22:31.420 --> 22:37.920]  I'm wondering, you know, since these things are out there so much, what exactly are the rules against this kind of a thing?
[22:38.040 --> 22:42.400]  Why not display the elected officials who are responsible for this kind of thing?
[22:42.480 --> 22:48.660]  Why not display the bank presidents who disregard people's privacy and let this information leak out?
[22:49.340 --> 22:54.040]  I mean, if they know all of our numbers, then maybe we should know everybody's number.
[22:54.860 --> 22:55.740]  Might as well be.
[22:55.840 --> 22:57.740]  It's almost public information anyway.
[22:57.960 --> 23:12.480]  But there was a case a few years ago where a friend of mine published the social security numbers of a lot of high-ranking generals in the military because these guys were being cited for, you know, extra medals and stuff.
[23:12.640 --> 23:14.440]  And all that stuff was in the congressional record.
[23:14.780 --> 23:27.080]  And in the congressional record, which is a public record, the social security number was, you know, spoken aloud in the halls of Congress along with this, you know, this honorary medals that these generals were getting.
[23:27.140 --> 23:34.760]  And I guarantee you, if you're involved in any kind of court action, your social security number will be read into the record as, you know, public information.
[23:34.760 --> 23:35.480]  So it's out there.
[23:35.580 --> 23:36.840]  Now, I looked up George W.
[23:36.940 --> 23:38.320]  Bush's tax return, and guess what?
[23:38.420 --> 23:39.340]  That's scrolled out.
[23:39.480 --> 23:40.740]  So they know it's an important number.
[23:40.820 --> 23:47.600]  They know it's something that people shouldn't have, but they're not willing to afford that protection to normal people, just the privileged few.
[23:48.020 --> 23:52.840]  I think that the flaw is that there's the word security in the name, and everyone misinterprets it.
[23:52.900 --> 23:54.580]  It's social security, not number security.
[23:54.720 --> 23:54.860]  Yeah.
[23:55.360 --> 23:55.860]  That's the difference.
[23:56.100 --> 23:57.900]  Not so much of that either these days.
[23:58.160 --> 23:58.960]  No, not really.
[23:59.240 --> 23:59.820]  All right, speaking of...
[23:59.820 --> 24:00.760]  We can call it your social anymore.
[24:00.920 --> 24:01.560]  They don't even say...
[24:01.560 --> 24:01.700]  No.
[24:01.700 --> 24:03.320]  A lot of times, it's just, give me your social.
[24:03.540 --> 24:05.720]  Well, that was for the people in the know, you know.
[24:06.020 --> 24:10.200]  People... When you're social engineering, another term, you would just ask for the social.
[24:10.500 --> 24:16.040]  And if you ask for the social, that meant you knew what you were talking about because you used the lingo, and you'd always get it too.
[24:17.040 --> 24:17.560]  Okay.
[24:17.600 --> 24:22.720]  So we talked about something, a variation of this.
[24:22.840 --> 24:30.440]  We talked about the Stanford incident a few weeks ago where basically students were able to see if they were accepted before getting the letters.
[24:30.840 --> 24:40.340]  And what happened was everybody who checked whether or not they found out was systematically rejected for even making the attempt.
[24:40.340 --> 24:42.760]  And we were questioning the logic of that.
[24:42.820 --> 24:44.540]  What did we basically conclude?
[24:44.640 --> 24:45.420]  That that was unfair?
[24:45.540 --> 24:46.040]  That it was fair?
[24:46.200 --> 24:47.900]  I think I said it was unfair, right?
[24:48.320 --> 24:49.120]  I think it's unfair.
[24:49.260 --> 24:50.040]  I think it's unfair too.
[24:50.240 --> 24:50.900]  Anybody else?
[24:51.120 --> 24:52.540]  Anybody think it was fair, Jim?
[24:52.700 --> 24:56.180]  We essentially said it was unfair because essentially it wasn't hacking.
[24:56.980 --> 24:58.540]  It was out there.
[24:58.680 --> 25:05.020]  It was sort of like saying, hey, you know, the list of everybody who made it is posted at the end of Corridor B.
[25:05.400 --> 25:06.300]  Don't go down there.
[25:06.760 --> 25:07.080]  Right.
[25:07.540 --> 25:13.060]  Well, let's say, you know, you had access to, like, death records and you could know when you were going to die in the Grim Reaper database or something like that.
[25:13.080 --> 25:16.900]  And you looked up just to see, okay, how am I going to meet, you know, the end of my life?
[25:17.360 --> 25:21.760]  And then, you know, you got caught doing it, trying to do that, and you were penalized.
[25:21.880 --> 25:22.820]  By getting killed early.
[25:22.940 --> 25:23.840]  By getting killed early, yeah.
[25:23.840 --> 25:27.300]  Well, you also have to understand the sort of thing that's going through the students' minds.
[25:27.420 --> 25:33.820]  I mean, this is a huge decision that the schools are making, and it really sets them for the next, you know, however many years of their life.
[25:33.820 --> 25:37.140]  Like, it's not, you know, it's not like they were trying to get in on false pretenses.
[25:37.300 --> 25:43.020]  They were trying to find out if they got in, and maybe by finding out a little earlier, they would be able to make another application.
[25:43.840 --> 25:45.240]  Sure, it would help them out a lot.
[25:46.220 --> 25:52.620]  But these were people who just tried, and anybody who just tried, you know, I don't even see how they could prove that somebody even tried just by entering a name.
[25:52.720 --> 25:54.140]  But obviously, you have some news.
[25:54.640 --> 25:56.920]  Well, I have a letter from one of our listeners.
[25:57.340 --> 25:58.860]  I'm a big proponent of free information.
[25:58.860 --> 26:00.020]  I don't pay for music.
[26:00.380 --> 26:01.540]  I take a wild guess how I get it.
[26:01.540 --> 26:08.840]  But having just completed an MBA recently, I can give a pretty good counter-argument to your shows editorializing on the Stanford MBA rejections.
[26:08.920 --> 26:11.820]  It has to do with ethics, in particular, insider trading.
[26:12.060 --> 26:16.520]  As we all know from the Martha Stewart case, insider trading is illegal, and it is harmful.
[26:16.780 --> 26:24.780]  It is harmful because you are trading on information not publicly available, and as a result, are passing on property or shares that you know to be seriously devalued.
[26:24.780 --> 26:27.220]  In the case of I.M.Clone.
[26:27.400 --> 26:28.000]  I.M.C.Clone?
[26:28.200 --> 26:28.880]  I.M.Clone.
[26:28.940 --> 26:29.340]  I.M.Clone.
[26:29.340 --> 26:29.500]  I .M .Clone.
[26:29.560 --> 26:30.200]  That's how you say it, right.
[26:30.680 --> 26:31.720]  I just keep seeing I.M.C.
[26:31.780 --> 26:31.900]  in there.
[26:32.200 --> 26:41.360]  To a buyer who does not have the same access to information, most MBA programs have ethics as part of their core curriculum now, at least mine did.
[26:41.680 --> 26:51.000]  And someone who would seek out privileged information would certainly be more likely to commit ethics violations and white-collar crime, and in the process wreck a company, or save a company even, right?
[26:51.240 --> 26:53.300]  Don't they do that sometimes with their ethics violations?
[26:53.800 --> 27:00.780]  Cause financial distress to employees, ask anyone who worked for Enron, and shareholders, and cause potentially billions of dollars worth of damage.
[27:00.880 --> 27:04.120]  If I were on the admissions board, I would not want this person at my school.
[27:04.380 --> 27:10.520]  You might argue that insider trading should be legal, and that all information would trickle down to everyone eventually, but this is hardly the case.
[27:10.800 --> 27:16.880]  What you would really end up with is the same good old boys network that already conspired to make themselves richer at the exclusion of others.
[27:17.140 --> 27:22.340]  Though this is not by any means extinguished by banning insider trading, it certainly is a step in the right direction.
[27:22.520 --> 27:23.040]  Signed, Glenn.
[27:23.320 --> 27:26.160]  Now, here is the problem with business school ethics courses.
[27:26.800 --> 27:44.480]  If the only unethical thing they can think of is insider trading, I mean, the business model of capitalism is so inherently unethical in so many ways, it destroys workers' lives, it destroys the world, and the only unethical thing they can think of is insider trading,
[27:45.040 --> 27:51.820]  ...which is a crime against other rich business people, not so much against everyone else, the rest of us.
[27:52.660 --> 27:59.540]  I just find it hard to follow that this argument has anything to do with ethics as it's commonly understood by the rest of the world.
[27:59.720 --> 28:07.340]  Also, I don't think the insider trading analogy really applies because in this case, even if they knew ahead of time, there wasn't much they could have acted upon.
[28:07.720 --> 28:12.200]  I don't think ultimately knowing a few weeks early would have affected whether or not they went to the school.
[28:12.200 --> 28:17.140]  They'd make that decision seeing all the schools they got into and then deciding as anyone normally would.
[28:17.600 --> 28:17.900]  Exactly.
[28:18.100 --> 28:23.540]  Insider trading, I agree, is wrong because it can conceivably damage someone else.
[28:24.140 --> 28:30.860]  In this case, there is no way that this knowledge could have damaged anyone else.
[28:31.180 --> 28:35.680]  It could have only improved the status of the people learning about it.
[28:35.800 --> 28:48.840]  They could have planned what they were going to do better, either by saying, oh, good, I should get an apartment near Stanford because I'm in, or gee, I better scramble to get into someplace else because I'm not going to be going to Stanford.
[28:49.020 --> 28:51.200]  It did not harm anyone else.
[28:51.200 --> 28:52.700]  It could only have helped.
[28:52.880 --> 28:55.500]  The insider trading analogy is fallacious.
[28:56.580 --> 29:01.000]  And just for the record, Martha Stewart was neither charged nor convicted of insider trading.
[29:01.980 --> 29:02.840]  That's true, too.
[29:02.840 --> 29:08.440]  Well, the thing that bothers me about this particular, about the Stanford case, is that they're evading the real issue.
[29:08.600 --> 29:17.680]  Namely, how does a school have something so sloppy where anybody can check and see if somebody was admitted or not, and all this allegedly private information is out there in public?
[29:17.700 --> 29:22.180]  I think that's the real issue, and they seem to be very skillfully avoiding that.
[29:22.720 --> 29:30.320]  And if anyone should be carrying responsibility for behaving improperly, I think the people who designed the system, and did they ever fix the system?
[29:30.440 --> 29:31.580]  Is it still like this?
[29:32.180 --> 29:35.860]  Keep in mind, a lot of the people went and simply checked to see.
[29:35.960 --> 29:39.320]  Maybe they were checking to see if it really was that wide open a hole, you know?
[29:39.440 --> 29:40.620]  Because I certainly would want to know.
[29:40.920 --> 29:42.900]  Is my information really out there for everybody to see?
[29:43.000 --> 29:45.440]  Don't I have the right to keep that information private?
[29:45.780 --> 29:46.260]  You know?
[29:46.400 --> 29:50.900]  And I would complain to somebody if I saw that my information was easily accessible like that.
[29:51.600 --> 29:59.140]  But just by trying that, that somehow makes me somebody who's dishonest and somebody who's not worthy of attending.
[29:59.320 --> 30:03.660]  I'm curious to know if anyone used that as their reasoning when Stanford asked.
[30:04.360 --> 30:04.760]  Right?
[30:04.800 --> 30:06.680]  They did give the students a chance to explain, right?
[30:06.780 --> 30:07.800]  They probably were too scared.
[30:08.080 --> 30:09.880]  You know, they probably thought that they were going to be arrested.
[30:10.560 --> 30:11.160]  Who knows?
[30:11.380 --> 30:11.480]  Emmanuel?
[30:11.700 --> 30:11.880]  Yes?
[30:12.300 --> 30:13.560]  Do you see a pattern here?
[30:13.560 --> 30:26.620]  I mean, I see a pattern where the people responsible for not carefully protecting information about other people are blaming other people once again.
[30:27.020 --> 30:31.340]  I think Stanford realized, oh, this is going to get out and we're going to look really stupid.
[30:31.440 --> 30:41.220]  So we better blame all the students and be really harsh on them for checking to see how bad our security is, just to divert the argument.
[30:41.400 --> 30:42.960]  And that's what I see this as.
[30:43.040 --> 30:43.440]  Yeah, absolutely.
[30:43.560 --> 30:47.380]  I know there's definitely a common theme running throughout just about all these stories because...
[30:48.200 --> 30:51.100]  Something I don't understand about this particular case.
[30:52.480 --> 30:55.180]  Could people go in and get all the admissions records?
[30:55.360 --> 30:59.300]  I thought there was some, like, login system where they could only get their own admissions records.
[30:59.300 --> 31:01.020]  Well, I was too petrified to actually try it myself.
[31:01.020 --> 31:06.160]  But I think all you had to do was type in someone's name and that got you the information.
[31:06.600 --> 31:10.940]  It had to be information that somebody had and it was easily accessible to them.
[31:11.840 --> 31:13.760]  And their name, maybe their address.
[31:14.100 --> 31:15.540]  I don't know if you needed more than one field.
[31:15.740 --> 31:16.840]  Maybe you could see everybody's.
[31:16.920 --> 31:17.260]  I don't know.
[31:17.780 --> 31:21.680]  Maybe one of those poor rejected students out there can tell us how exactly it worked.
[31:21.820 --> 31:25.360]  But continuing in this vein, there's something else that's even worse.
[31:25.560 --> 31:32.640]  More than 100 students who failed their classes at the University of Kansas last semester found out who shared their misfortune.
[31:32.640 --> 31:41.920]  The school's Office of Student Financial Aid sent email to 119 students on Monday, notifying them that they were in jeopardy of having their aid revoked.
[31:42.280 --> 31:43.200]  Guess what they did?
[31:43.300 --> 31:44.960]  They used CC instead of BCC.
[31:46.040 --> 31:52.360]  The names of the students were included on the email address list, meaning everyone who got the email could see the names of all the other recipients.
[31:52.760 --> 31:55.720]  It was a completely inadvertent, unintentional mistake.
[31:55.800 --> 32:01.140]  University spokesman Todd Cohen said Thursday, It was our error, our mistake, and we deeply regret it.
[32:01.380 --> 32:03.700]  See, they get to just say that, and that's the end of it.
[32:03.880 --> 32:10.500]  You know, the students can't say, Yeah, I guess it was bad judgment on my part to try and see that information before I had the right to see it.
[32:11.020 --> 32:12.520]  So, yes, I apologize for that.
[32:12.520 --> 32:13.120]  Let's move on.
[32:13.380 --> 32:14.280]  They can't do that.
[32:14.380 --> 32:15.460]  They always have to pay the penalty.
[32:16.540 --> 32:18.220]  Nancy George is a student on the list.
[32:18.300 --> 32:25.620]  She said the mistake was tantamount to releasing the grades of students without their permission, which the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act prohibits.
[32:25.620 --> 32:29.800]  Nobody should have known that I failed a class or that I even had a student loan, she said.
[32:31.440 --> 32:35.500]  And basically, the university is contacting students to apologize.
[32:36.380 --> 32:41.780]  The incident had been reported to the Department of Education, so I could determine if there was a violation of the federal law.
[32:42.660 --> 32:43.340]  I don't know.
[32:43.460 --> 32:45.280]  This kind of thing just seems to be happening every day.
[32:46.420 --> 32:54.360]  I went to a school that routinely did this with students who belonged to various groups, and every single email address was revealed in the CC.
[32:54.680 --> 33:00.340]  And, you know, you would literally have to scroll down through pages and pages of headers before you actually get to the content of the message.
[33:00.400 --> 33:01.440]  Was it sensitive information?
[33:01.600 --> 33:02.880]  Well, it could have been if you were...
[33:02.880 --> 33:08.920]  You know, I'm assuming that they did this for groups of students who were probably in academic danger as well.
[33:08.920 --> 33:14.200]  But they did it for students who were, you know, in, let's say, an honors program or...
[33:14.200 --> 33:15.740]  Can you imagine if doctors did this?
[33:15.760 --> 33:22.920]  Oh, by the way, we have, you know, HIV results here, and they just CC'd everybody that has a certain result.
[33:23.100 --> 33:26.740]  And, my God, you know, is this how little people's privacy means?
[33:26.760 --> 33:31.580]  Could you imagine schools doing it for social groups, like the closeted gay students club?
[33:31.600 --> 33:33.940]  I mean, it could be disastrous.
[33:34.820 --> 33:35.960]  It could be very disastrous.
[33:36.100 --> 33:36.900]  It already is disastrous.
[33:37.180 --> 33:38.000]  You have something there, Jim.
[33:38.000 --> 33:38.720]  I see you holding up.
[33:38.720 --> 33:46.440]  Yeah, it's a case of somebody actively blaming hackers for a change as opposed to just nebulous attribution.
[33:47.180 --> 33:49.400]  It's the Los Angeles Times of all people.
[33:49.580 --> 33:52.720]  They had a very interesting experiment a couple weekends ago.
[33:52.720 --> 33:55.740]  They invented something called a wickitorial.
[33:56.360 --> 34:03.560]  You may recall the Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that anyone can add to or edit.
[34:03.560 --> 34:04.000]  I heard about it.
[34:04.080 --> 34:05.140]  This actually made the Times, huh?
[34:05.400 --> 34:06.300]  This actually made the Times.
[34:06.320 --> 34:07.340]  Yeah, it's an interesting story.
[34:08.720 --> 34:11.020]  They developed something called the wickitorial.
[34:11.180 --> 34:19.480]  They posted a thousand-word editorial on the Iraq War and asked readers to add information, make changes, or come to different conclusions.
[34:19.480 --> 34:28.500]  They had hundreds of entrants, and then, much to their regret, it got posted, after they posted it Friday on their website at 8.32 p.m.
[34:28.600 --> 34:31.760]  Saturday, it got posted to Slashdot.org.
[34:31.760 --> 34:33.100]  And it all went downhill from there.
[34:33.220 --> 34:34.340]  It went downhill from there.
[34:34.920 --> 34:35.720]  It went downhill from there.
[34:35.720 --> 34:48.060]  The deputy editorial page editor, Michael Newman, said, Slashdot has a tech-savvy audience that, to be kind, is mischievous, and to be not so kind, is malicious.
[34:48.640 --> 34:49.020]  Oh, really?
[34:49.240 --> 34:50.520]  Way to categorize everybody.
[34:50.860 --> 34:54.040]  How many people do you think visit Slashdot in the time I said this sentence?
[34:54.040 --> 34:56.300]  I'm in the mischievous category, but anyway.
[34:57.420 --> 35:04.200]  We were taking, continues Mr. Newman, we were taking stuff down as soon as it went up and staving them off.
[35:04.380 --> 35:08.380]  Sort of like that Capital One commercial with Attila the Hungry.
[35:08.380 --> 35:09.680]  I'm sure it was going through their minds.
[35:10.000 --> 35:11.800]  Finally, we had to go to bed.
[35:12.260 --> 35:15.380]  Someone called the newsroom a little bit before 4 a.m.
[35:15.640 --> 35:18.260]  and said, there's something bad on your website.
[35:18.520 --> 35:20.540]  And so we just took the whole site down.
[35:21.100 --> 35:21.860]  Wait, wait, wait.
[35:22.020 --> 35:22.960]  What paper is this?
[35:22.960 --> 35:24.000]  Los Angeles Times.
[35:24.100 --> 35:25.000]  They had to go to bed?
[35:25.280 --> 35:26.620]  Oh, you mean they had to go to print.
[35:26.900 --> 35:27.700]  That's what they meant.
[35:28.140 --> 35:32.380]  You know, I read this dozens of times, and I think they meant to sleep.
[35:32.520 --> 35:33.920]  Why would they be telling us that?
[35:34.080 --> 35:35.320]  Well, this is why they...
[35:35.320 --> 35:36.840]  It's a press term, turning the paper to bed.
[35:36.920 --> 35:37.720]  I think that's what they mean.
[35:37.740 --> 35:38.300]  Right, but this is online.
[35:38.420 --> 35:41.880]  So obviously, they could have stayed up and worried about this stuff online.
[35:42.080 --> 35:43.300]  They imagined themselves as being publishers.
[35:43.620 --> 35:45.340]  They didn't have to print it physically.
[35:45.340 --> 35:46.380]  It was online.
[35:46.740 --> 35:48.780]  Yeah, but I think they used the same lingo, you know?
[35:48.920 --> 35:52.440]  I thought that too, but it makes much less sense if they...
[35:53.480 --> 35:59.400]  When they say go to bed, if you think it means they printed it, it makes much more sense if they actually went to sleep.
[35:59.680 --> 36:02.500]  Right, because they got a call at 4 a.m., thus waking them up.
[36:02.760 --> 36:06.020]  Yeah, but if they work on a newspaper, they're probably up at that time anyway.
[36:06.240 --> 36:09.040]  But if they were up at that time anyway, they wouldn't have had this trouble.
[36:09.200 --> 36:11.260]  They could have taken all this stuff and been hardcore porn.
[36:11.260 --> 36:14.460]  Do you actually think that that newspaper turns off its lights and closes down ever?
[36:14.680 --> 36:16.380]  I think they did it for their webpage.
[36:17.180 --> 36:18.120]  I think they...
[36:18.120 --> 36:19.400]  All right, the people went to bed.
[36:19.540 --> 36:20.580]  All right, the people went to bed.
[36:20.660 --> 36:22.040]  Whoever went to bed, it doesn't matter.
[36:22.520 --> 36:23.180]  So what happened?
[36:23.260 --> 36:29.740]  And they just ended up taking the whole site down because they had hardcore pornography inserted into the editorial.
[36:29.740 --> 36:36.240]  Apparently, they used open source software that allowed people to insert photographs.
[36:36.840 --> 36:40.440]  Well, I mean, wikis are supposed to take care of themselves in this matter, right?
[36:40.560 --> 36:41.480]  I mean, anyone can...
[36:41.480 --> 36:42.280]  Yeah, we had a wiki for hope.
[36:42.500 --> 36:44.400]  They had a wiki for the chaos camp.
[36:44.400 --> 36:46.360]  They have a wiki for what the hack.
[36:46.800 --> 36:48.640]  And these kinds of things aren't going on there.
[36:48.720 --> 36:49.760]  And that's where the hackers hang out.
[36:49.760 --> 36:51.260]  So how do you explain that?
[36:51.380 --> 36:53.780]  Well, people would be able to re-revise the articles, right?
[36:54.060 --> 36:55.280]  So as soon as...
[36:55.280 --> 37:00.480]  Well, maybe they knew how to run the system there, and these guys just thought it would run itself, you know?
[37:00.740 --> 37:02.200]  It sounds like they didn't know what they were doing.
[37:02.380 --> 37:04.620]  And then again, a lot of wikis are like Wikipedia.
[37:05.140 --> 37:09.460]  I mean, it's semi-moderated in that people can suggest that this should be...
[37:09.460 --> 37:10.840]  This is nonsense and things like that.
[37:10.940 --> 37:11.440]  And then moderate...
[37:11.440 --> 37:14.740]  But in this case, you've got Slashdot versus, what, four or five people?
[37:14.940 --> 37:15.600]  I don't know.
[37:16.040 --> 37:16.500]  That's true.
[37:16.600 --> 37:20.240]  But, I mean, there are ways to set up wikis so that...
[37:20.240 --> 37:26.700]  But to say it's Slashdot is really unfair because you have somebody who read Slashdot, you know, and that's like one person versus somebody else.
[37:26.780 --> 37:28.200]  Probably just one or two people doing this.
[37:28.460 --> 37:30.520]  One or two people can bring them to their knees.
[37:30.680 --> 37:32.200]  They have a real problem right there.
[37:32.380 --> 37:35.760]  I think the obvious flaw was just that they allowed photographs.
[37:36.060 --> 37:38.060]  I mean, that's a bit insane.
[37:38.300 --> 37:40.560]  Yeah, it sounds ill-advised at best.
[37:40.740 --> 37:43.520]  Okay, let's tear through some listener mail, then we'll take some phone calls.
[37:43.600 --> 37:46.080]  212-209-2900.
[37:46.280 --> 37:48.400]  This is the story of the week.
[37:48.400 --> 37:56.740]  Airline passengers who submit iris and fingerprint scans at Orlando International Airport will be able to breeze through security scans this week.
[37:56.940 --> 38:01.200]  Frequent flyers can enroll in the Registered Traveler Program beginning today, actually.
[38:01.820 --> 38:03.100]  OIA is the first U.S.
[38:03.140 --> 38:05.440]  airport to implement the pre-screening security program.
[38:05.820 --> 38:10.280]  Passengers registered as a known traveler will submit to a background check and iris scans.
[38:10.480 --> 38:19.880]  After submitting the information, passengers will be granted express access to the airport's security checkpoint and avoid the long lines and random inspections.
[38:21.060 --> 38:23.320]  Now, there's something I just don't get about this story.
[38:23.740 --> 38:25.000]  Only one thing you don't get?
[38:25.440 --> 38:25.800]  Well, okay.
[38:25.880 --> 38:27.080]  But one big thing I don't get.
[38:27.140 --> 38:28.080]  The random inspections.
[38:28.440 --> 38:36.820]  The random inspections are supposedly meant to, you know, ferret out terrorists and find people at random because you never really know who the terrorists are, right?
[38:36.960 --> 38:40.460]  So now we're saying that the frequent travelers, there's no way they could ever be a terrorist.
[38:40.580 --> 38:44.440]  So somebody qualifies for this program, which I imagine isn't that hard to do.
[38:44.440 --> 38:49.380]  You know, if your background is clean, then pretty much you qualify, and you're guaranteed not to get a random inspection.
[38:49.460 --> 38:52.640]  How smart is that kind of a policy and to let everybody know about it, too?
[38:52.840 --> 38:59.700]  I'm wondering how having my fingerprints would, you know, deter me from doing anything possibly that could be considered.
[38:59.780 --> 39:03.880]  I'm sure the September 11th hijackers would have been happy to give their fingerprints, their names, whatever information.
[39:04.020 --> 39:06.860]  In fact, they did give their information when they boarded airplanes.
[39:07.240 --> 39:08.320]  They had information.
[39:08.440 --> 39:08.860]  They had ID.
[39:09.440 --> 39:13.160]  So this kind of thing, what exactly are they accomplishing?
[39:13.680 --> 39:20.820]  I think we should scrutinize the people who sign up for that, because undoubtedly, all the terrorists are signing up for it just so they can get a free ride.
[39:20.920 --> 39:21.840]  Oh my God, Bernie, you're right.
[39:21.860 --> 39:22.400]  It's a sting.
[39:22.500 --> 39:23.360]  It's a sting operation.
[39:23.920 --> 39:25.020]  They're setting these people up.
[39:25.140 --> 39:29.940]  I mean, you could understand why people would sign up for it, because the security screenings are very inconvenient.
[39:30.000 --> 39:33.820]  Yes, the kind of people who disapprove of security, the kind of people who want to tear our nation down.
[39:34.100 --> 39:35.500]  I understand that perfectly well.
[39:36.320 --> 39:39.160]  If you're a flyer and you don't want to have to deal with that, which is perfectly understandable...
[39:39.160 --> 39:42.160]  You don't want to have to deal with maintaining the freedom of your land.
[39:42.260 --> 39:42.520]  I know.
[39:42.600 --> 39:42.820]  I know.
[39:42.860 --> 39:43.440]  I know the type.
[39:44.020 --> 39:44.360]  All right.
[39:44.380 --> 39:45.780]  We'll see what happens out of a land, though.
[39:47.300 --> 39:47.660]  Okay.
[39:47.780 --> 39:50.260]  Let's look at some letters here.
[39:50.660 --> 39:52.180]  I'm a real big fan of the show.
[39:52.320 --> 39:55.640]  I know that very few people are fans of the Real ID Act that the U.S.
[39:55.700 --> 39:57.400]  government is trying to pass to make the U.S.
[39:57.400 --> 39:58.240]  a safer place.
[39:58.780 --> 40:04.760]  Please help stop this injustice by signing our petition, www.petitiononline.com slash anti-ID.
[40:05.220 --> 40:06.400]  It would also be a great help.
[40:06.440 --> 40:08.460]  I'd be very grateful you could mention this on your radio show.
[40:08.460 --> 40:10.560]  Well, then, you are very grateful because we just did.
[40:10.760 --> 40:12.740]  Thanks, Tobin, for sending that in.
[40:12.840 --> 40:14.360]  Somebody want to tell us about the Real ID?
[40:14.460 --> 40:19.900]  I'm going to criticize this proposal, just not because I don't think it's a wonderful idea.
[40:19.920 --> 40:20.820]  Because you're a spoil sport.
[40:20.840 --> 40:21.220]  That's why.
[40:21.300 --> 40:22.820]  Well, that's mostly the reason.
[40:23.260 --> 40:30.560]  But I don't think that online petitions are a particularly effective way to create change or, in this case, to stop change.
[40:31.700 --> 40:46.100]  I think that a much more effective tactic would be writing individualized letters to your alleged representatives in the Congress or organizing in other ways against it.
[40:46.220 --> 40:50.640]  I think that few, if any, online petitions have ever had much effect.
[40:50.800 --> 40:52.300]  Or just going down and visiting them.
[40:52.360 --> 40:53.880]  I know that sounds threatening, but it's not.
[40:54.040 --> 40:54.380]  Go down.
[40:54.540 --> 40:57.220]  You have every right to talk to your congressperson or their representative.
[40:57.220 --> 41:04.120]  Maybe they won't have time to see every one of their constituents, but go down there and speak your view in a polite way.
[41:04.320 --> 41:06.000]  Don't raise your voice or anything like that.
[41:06.740 --> 41:15.820]  And when enough people are doing this, when people are literally lined up into the street to voice their concerns about something, some pending legislation, it does make a difference.
[41:15.960 --> 41:17.320]  I've talked to congresspeople about this.
[41:17.400 --> 41:18.420]  Those letters do count.
[41:18.720 --> 41:19.480]  It doesn't...
[41:19.480 --> 41:21.640]  I mean, look at all the spam you get in your mailbox.
[41:21.800 --> 41:28.260]  Do you really think that if somebody gets 100 copies of the same letter with different names on it, that they're going to think, wow, 100 people just contacted me.
[41:28.360 --> 41:32.300]  They're going to think, no, some robot did this, and it doesn't really represent anything.
[41:32.420 --> 41:41.880]  But if you get phone calls, if you get visits, if you get real letters, and not just Xerox letters, real letters, if you take the time to do it, you wouldn't believe how much of a difference it makes.
[41:42.020 --> 41:45.420]  This place here, BAI, is a good example of how individual people make a difference.
[41:46.340 --> 41:48.940]  You add all that up, and you can create amazing things.
[41:49.080 --> 41:50.160]  Of course, it works negatively, too.
[41:50.800 --> 41:59.940]  The same people that wrote The Ugly American wrote a book called A Nation of Sheep, which was about Americans and their congressmen and foreignist policy.
[42:00.140 --> 42:05.420]  And they said then that 10 letters to a congressperson made an immense difference.
[42:05.460 --> 42:06.980]  And this was in the 1950s.
[42:07.060 --> 42:11.540]  So I would think nowadays, even less letters could make a large difference.
[42:11.740 --> 42:12.900]  Yeah, because less people know how to write.
[42:13.080 --> 42:13.600]  That's true.
[42:13.760 --> 42:16.360]  Now, at this point, we're not trying to prevent the legislation, right?
[42:16.360 --> 42:20.760]  We're trying to reverse it, because I thought that it would slip into that appropriations bill that passed.
[42:22.820 --> 42:24.300]  Bernie, do you know the status of Real ID?
[42:26.120 --> 42:30.300]  I believe it was enacted, but it hasn't been implemented yet.
[42:30.300 --> 42:33.540]  I don't think the money has been allocated to pay for it.
[42:35.220 --> 42:36.920]  Another one of these unfunded mandates.
[42:37.240 --> 42:41.980]  But, so, you know, it's not too late to keep it from happening, because it hasn't happened yet.
[42:41.980 --> 42:46.420]  Bernie, aren't many provisions of it obligations of the states?
[42:47.180 --> 42:47.560]  Yes.
[42:47.920 --> 42:55.380]  And the government, federal government, hasn't given any money to the states to say, hey, this is how you, this is going to pay for all this stuff you've got to implement.
[42:56.040 --> 43:00.400]  As Tobin asked, could you possibly, in a couple of paragraphs, summarize what it does?
[43:01.280 --> 43:06.320]  You know, I'm going to, at the risk of, well, I've got to back out of this.
[43:06.320 --> 43:13.380]  It basically standardizes licenses and makes it so that everybody carries the same type of ID.
[43:13.600 --> 43:15.740]  It doesn't really sound that threatening on its face.
[43:16.020 --> 43:28.340]  But by making something, and I also had some exception to the opponents of this who were insisting that this meant everybody had to carry ID, because as far as I could see, it only applied to people with driver's licenses.
[43:29.140 --> 43:34.680]  However, it could open the door to mandatory ID carrying, and that's something to be very concerned about.
[43:34.680 --> 43:38.340]  So if there's anything in there that states that, that's something we have to pay close attention to.
[43:38.380 --> 43:48.080]  One thing about it, I don't think it's going to do, I mean, as far as preventing terrorism and all that, I don't think it's going to do much, because if someone really, really wants to fake one of these identifications, I'm sure they'll figure out a way.
[43:48.320 --> 43:50.760]  I think it's just going to make college students' life a lot more difficult.
[43:51.540 --> 43:52.740]  That's what it's all geared towards.
[43:53.380 --> 43:58.780]  Okay, very quickly, we had a bunch of mail about the cell phone things that we were talking about over the last couple of weeks.
[43:58.900 --> 44:02.680]  Too many to read, and we do have to move on, but let's...
[44:02.680 --> 44:12.020]  Before we do that, there was a very effective example of folks calling their congresspeople and getting some bad legislation stopped.
[44:12.300 --> 44:24.240]  The broadcast flag, which we've talked about on this show before, was defeated a while ago, and then they were going to reintroduce it in some Senate subcommittee this week.
[44:24.240 --> 44:32.080]  And the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the EFF, sent out an action alert to folks in the...
[44:32.080 --> 44:38.780]  I guess there are 20-something states where the senators on this committee are from.
[44:38.980 --> 44:41.980]  And so folks in those states called their congresspeople.
[44:42.240 --> 44:46.240]  Apparently, they logged tens of thousands of calls and faxes and emails.
[44:47.680 --> 44:51.860]  And as far as they can tell, the broadcast flag was again stopped.
[44:51.900 --> 44:54.400]  So it seems to be good news.
[44:54.760 --> 44:55.020]  Okay.
[44:55.620 --> 44:59.020]  Now, getting to these letters, and again, the number is 212-209-2900.
[44:59.480 --> 45:02.220]  I just listened to the show about driving while using a cell phone.
[45:02.340 --> 45:08.560]  Someone had mentioned that driving with a cell phone in your hand takes away from a driver's ability to operate a vehicle since both hands aren't always on the wheel.
[45:09.000 --> 45:10.740]  I don't think this argument holds any water.
[45:10.960 --> 45:14.200]  If this is true, shouldn't standard transmissions also be illegal?
[45:14.200 --> 45:17.940]  Well, after all, you need to take a hand off the wheel to shift unless you're very creative.
[45:18.600 --> 45:19.120]  Signed, Brian.
[45:19.360 --> 45:20.360]  You know, I never thought of that.
[45:20.520 --> 45:21.400]  That's actually a point.
[45:21.460 --> 45:22.720]  I don't think that was an argument, though.
[45:23.000 --> 45:30.540]  I'm pretty sure that, you know, I was saying that, you know, if you have a standard and you're trying to use your cell phone, then you really need a third hand.
[45:30.800 --> 45:31.840]  Well, okay, fine.
[45:31.860 --> 45:33.400]  But the law isn't written that way.
[45:33.480 --> 45:39.160]  The law says anybody using a cell phone, you know, a cell phone held up to their ear.
[45:39.300 --> 45:40.140]  That's how the law is written.
[45:40.280 --> 45:44.020]  It doesn't differentiate between automatic transmissions and standard transmissions.
[45:44.200 --> 45:46.760]  Or if you're moving one mile an hour or 50 miles an hour or anything like that.
[45:46.840 --> 45:48.360]  Well, you can approach it from that angle, too.
[45:49.100 --> 45:51.720]  My point is, I think it should be based on reckless driving.
[45:51.720 --> 45:54.400]  If you're driving unsafely, that's when you get pulled over.
[45:54.600 --> 45:55.220]  That's when you get a ticket.
[45:55.240 --> 45:58.980]  Not if somebody sees something held up to your head, which could be your hand.
[45:59.600 --> 46:00.280]  It's already a law.
[46:00.360 --> 46:00.580]  I know.
[46:01.040 --> 46:02.040]  What do you mean it's already a law?
[46:02.240 --> 46:04.620]  It's already a law against reckless driving.
[46:04.740 --> 46:05.740]  Why don't we just leave it at that?
[46:05.760 --> 46:06.820]  Yeah, what do we need this for?
[46:07.060 --> 46:07.600]  It's insane.
[46:08.780 --> 46:14.580]  Okay, and after listening to last week's show, I just wanted to let you all know that I run red lights all the time when there's nobody around.
[46:15.040 --> 46:17.200]  When there is traffic, I always faithfully stop.
[46:17.320 --> 46:18.080]  But if it's 2 a.m.
[46:18.120 --> 46:24.580]  and I don't see any headlights or movement for miles, I'll treat a red light as a stop sign, pull up slowly, come to a stop, and then drive past the intersection.
[46:24.780 --> 46:25.480]  Signed, logic.
[46:26.120 --> 46:29.960]  Well, logic, I know a lot of people will find that illogical, but I see your point.
[46:30.780 --> 46:38.260]  It's, you know, kind of flying in the face of authority and it can be said to be dangerous, although I really don't see it if there really is nobody coming.
[46:39.240 --> 46:45.360]  There are some really poorly designed intersections where you will be sitting there for, you know, 5, 10 minutes before the light changes.
[46:45.500 --> 46:51.120]  And in a circumstance like that, it's kind of reasonable to do that if there's no traffic.
[46:51.300 --> 46:52.720]  And that usually happens late at night.
[46:52.880 --> 47:03.820]  And I think, you know, if we simply modify things a little bit so that when there isn't very much traffic, the lights know to go into blinker mode so that you basically use your judgment.
[47:04.520 --> 47:08.120]  Now, that's the thing that we as Americans are taught that we don't have any of.
[47:08.120 --> 47:11.000]  So, we have to have everything told for us.
[47:11.060 --> 47:12.540]  Are you allowed to make a left turn now?
[47:12.620 --> 47:13.080]  No, wait.
[47:13.220 --> 47:13.880]  Wait for the signal.
[47:14.060 --> 47:17.020]  You know, even though nobody's around for 10 miles, wait for the signal to do this.
[47:17.100 --> 47:18.540]  And if you don't, you've broken the law.
[47:19.000 --> 47:26.640]  You know, in other places, you have a little bit more confidence placed in your ability to make decisions.
[47:26.820 --> 47:35.880]  And I think when you have to look for permission to do every single small action, you suddenly lose the ability to make those decisions yourself.
[47:36.300 --> 47:39.880]  And you lose the confidence that you need in order to be able to do that.
[47:40.000 --> 47:42.940]  So, that's something that I think is a big problem.
[47:43.480 --> 47:45.200]  So, yeah, you know, good luck with that.
[47:45.980 --> 47:46.380]  All right.
[47:46.400 --> 47:47.180]  Let's take some phone calls.
[47:47.260 --> 47:48.660]  212-209-2900.
[47:48.720 --> 47:49.780]  RedHack, you're going to press the button?
[47:49.920 --> 47:50.080]  Yeah.
[47:50.240 --> 47:50.460]  Okay.
[47:50.600 --> 47:51.000]  Good luck.
[47:51.380 --> 47:52.400]  See, you have to press it hard.
[47:52.860 --> 47:53.360]  Good evening.
[47:53.480 --> 47:53.820]  You're on the air.
[47:54.320 --> 47:54.940]  Hey, Emmanuel.
[47:55.160 --> 47:55.520]  It's Jones.
[47:55.660 --> 47:55.980]  How are you?
[47:56.160 --> 47:56.520]  How are you doing?
[47:56.840 --> 47:57.560]  I'm doing okay.
[47:58.400 --> 48:00.400]  I wanted to share a story.
[48:03.100 --> 48:04.060]  Well, I don't know how major it was.
[48:04.160 --> 48:05.440]  But anyway, I used to work for a university.
[48:05.860 --> 48:12.760]  And they protected their financial data with a username and password in JavaScript.
[48:13.580 --> 48:14.300]  Oh, great.
[48:14.660 --> 48:14.900]  Yeah.
[48:15.040 --> 48:19.160]  It took me about 10 seconds to do a view source.
[48:19.200 --> 48:23.200]  And I was able to view all this supposedly protected data.
[48:25.040 --> 48:25.440]  Wow.
[48:26.620 --> 48:27.260]  Fantastic, huh?
[48:27.900 --> 48:28.160]  Yeah.
[48:28.380 --> 48:29.560]  Well, now, do they still do that?
[48:30.280 --> 48:31.120]  I don't know.
[48:33.000 --> 48:34.100]  Hopefully, it's been fixed.
[48:34.840 --> 48:34.940]  Yeah.
[48:35.500 --> 48:37.240]  Well, did you notify anybody?
[48:37.540 --> 48:38.140]  Well, yeah.
[48:38.240 --> 48:39.220]  My boss was there.
[48:39.380 --> 48:43.680]  I called him into the room and said, hey, so-and-so, look at this.
[48:44.380 --> 48:46.260]  And he about flipped.
[48:46.420 --> 48:48.100]  He was quite surprised.
[48:48.460 --> 48:49.880]  Yeah, but you didn't get blamed for it, did you?
[48:50.140 --> 48:50.500]  No, sir.
[48:50.720 --> 48:51.100]  All right.
[48:51.320 --> 48:52.780]  Well, that's the important thing.
[48:52.960 --> 48:53.620]  Yeah, yeah.
[48:53.820 --> 48:56.840]  That's probably because you worked for them and weren't just a student who found it.
[48:57.900 --> 49:00.120]  Yeah, I was a full-time employee, so.
[49:01.420 --> 49:03.100]  All right, well, thanks for the info.
[49:03.480 --> 49:04.040]  Not a problem at all.
[49:04.200 --> 49:05.020]  All right, good luck.
[49:05.220 --> 49:05.400]  Bye.
[49:07.240 --> 49:08.840]  All right, yeah, you do have to press out of the button.
[49:09.160 --> 49:09.800]  Okay, we're learning.
[49:09.920 --> 49:11.160]  We're learning slowly how to find system works.
[49:11.220 --> 49:11.840]  Good evening, you're on the air.
[49:12.180 --> 49:14.420]  Hello, Michael, long-time listener, first-time caller.
[49:15.380 --> 49:17.460]  I would like to ask one question for Bernie, though.
[49:17.760 --> 49:20.420]  I used to have a cable, but it disconnected my cable recently.
[49:21.240 --> 49:22.020]  You used to have a what?
[49:22.180 --> 49:22.480]  I'm sorry.
[49:23.280 --> 49:24.400]  Cable television cable.
[49:24.980 --> 49:25.300]  Right.
[49:25.680 --> 49:27.120]  But they just disconnected my cable.
[49:27.120 --> 49:34.580]  But is there any possible where I can go, anywhere I can buy an antenna or box to get any of my local channels because I cannot get anything right now?
[49:34.920 --> 49:36.360]  Is this a call from the 1980s?
[49:38.620 --> 49:40.200]  More like from the 1950s.
[49:40.220 --> 49:45.340]  No, we didn't have cable TV in the 50s, but I remember everybody in the 80s wanted to hook their cable up for free.
[49:45.460 --> 49:52.100]  And I don't know, has it gotten much more difficult than simply hooking it back up and getting some guy in a van to come bring you a magic box?
[49:52.220 --> 49:53.460]  Well, I don't know whether that's what he's asking.
[49:53.460 --> 49:56.000]  You just want to get the local channels with an antenna.
[49:56.120 --> 49:56.480]  Is that right?
[49:56.480 --> 49:57.320]  Yeah, that's it.
[49:57.400 --> 49:58.120]  The only local channel.
[49:58.200 --> 49:58.600]  That's what I need.
[49:58.680 --> 50:00.900]  I don't need no more all those...
[50:00.900 --> 50:02.580]  You don't want HBO or anything like that?
[50:02.600 --> 50:03.060]  I don't want HBO.
[50:03.260 --> 50:03.440]  Okay.
[50:04.580 --> 50:06.480]  Do you live in an apartment or a house?
[50:06.740 --> 50:07.640]  I live in an apartment.
[50:09.120 --> 50:12.260]  Well, you can try...
[50:12.260 --> 50:13.020]  Do you have...
[50:13.020 --> 50:13.500]  Let's see.
[50:13.600 --> 50:17.960]  Do you know which direction the TV transmitting towers are?
[50:18.240 --> 50:20.580]  Well, I do have a big backyard.
[50:20.940 --> 50:22.440]  You know, I don't know exactly, but...
[50:22.440 --> 50:23.700]  What are you driving at, Bernie?
[50:24.160 --> 50:26.060]  Well, I'm getting at you can put up an antenna.
[50:26.060 --> 50:27.800]  You can try one on the top of the set.
[50:27.800 --> 50:33.760]  You can get a pair of rabbit ears for the VHF channels or one of these little UHF loop antennas.
[50:33.860 --> 50:36.260]  It's about an 8-inch diameter piece of loop.
[50:37.300 --> 50:42.300]  You can buy those at Radio Shack or electronic stores and just connect them to the back of your set.
[50:42.400 --> 50:45.120]  Now, if your set doesn't have antenna inputs, which it probably doesn't...
[50:45.120 --> 50:45.660]  It does.
[50:46.000 --> 50:47.000]  It does.
[50:47.000 --> 50:50.920]  have antenna inputs as opposed to just this cable TV connector on the back?
[50:51.260 --> 50:51.520]  Yeah.
[50:52.140 --> 50:52.500]  Oh, good.
[50:52.600 --> 50:53.040]  You're all set.
[50:53.220 --> 50:59.460]  Connect a UHF antenna to the terminals marked UHF and a VHF antenna to the ones marked VHF.
[50:59.520 --> 51:02.180]  Or just attach a piece of wire to it and see what happens.
[51:02.900 --> 51:05.120]  It might get enough signal that way.
[51:05.260 --> 51:06.300]  Well, the cable company...
[51:06.820 --> 51:11.180]  The cable company told me even if I get antenna, I will not be able to get my local channels.
[51:11.480 --> 51:13.740]  Well, if they're local channels, you'll be able to.
[51:14.360 --> 51:14.640]  Yes.
[51:15.560 --> 51:16.640]  Do you live in a city?
[51:17.260 --> 51:17.940]  I live in Jersey.
[51:18.520 --> 51:19.800]  How far away from New York City?
[51:20.280 --> 51:21.400]  Oh, like 20 miles.
[51:21.740 --> 51:23.640]  No, of course, you'll be able to get all the...
[51:23.640 --> 51:26.940]  In fact, you'll be able to get them better than people living in Manhattan because you won't have the ghosting effect.
[51:27.340 --> 51:27.760]  All right.
[51:27.840 --> 51:31.380]  So, you'll have no trouble with Bernie's suggestion getting antenna.
[51:31.500 --> 51:31.880]  Great show.
[51:32.000 --> 51:32.400]  Great show.
[51:32.500 --> 51:33.040]  Thank you so much.
[51:33.180 --> 51:33.720]  Okay, thanks.
[51:34.100 --> 51:39.180]  You know, I'd like to know, though, how many people actually use antennas to receive television?
[51:40.720 --> 51:42.720]  You know, most people have cable.
[51:42.820 --> 51:43.680]  Most people have satellite.
[51:44.000 --> 51:48.100]  How many people still use antennas?
[51:48.360 --> 51:49.620]  Well, I used to use an antenna.
[51:50.640 --> 51:50.960]  Uh-huh.
[51:51.000 --> 51:54.520]  I didn't know that they can pick up TV channels over the air for free.
[51:54.940 --> 51:57.300]  Yeah, you know, I think a lot of people don't realize that.
[51:57.560 --> 52:10.500]  And I wonder, you know, these TV broadcasters, how much money are they pumping into their 100,000 watt transmitters when almost nobody is actually paying any attention to them and everybody's getting their signal off of cable or off of satellite?
[52:10.780 --> 52:12.680]  I used an antenna all last year.
[52:12.880 --> 52:13.000]  Did you?
[52:13.000 --> 52:13.560]  I didn't have cable.
[52:13.820 --> 52:14.840]  I didn't want to pay for it.
[52:15.060 --> 52:15.840]  It's like 30 bucks a month.
[52:15.960 --> 52:16.400]  I didn't forget it.
[52:16.460 --> 52:17.200]  And does it still work?
[52:17.280 --> 52:18.040]  Yeah, it works fine.
[52:18.680 --> 52:29.180]  I've used an antenna the last six years and what's most interesting is that from about 11 o'clock until about 5 o'clock, I pick up Philadelphia stations as well, Channel 6 and Channel 12.
[52:29.760 --> 52:30.140]  Yeah.
[52:30.520 --> 52:32.100]  WPVI and WHYY.
[52:32.180 --> 52:33.460]  I used to DX when I was a kid.
[52:33.460 --> 52:37.040]  What's very interesting is that I pick up sound from something else.
[52:37.040 --> 52:39.180]  I don't know what, but it doesn't match the picture.
[52:40.040 --> 52:40.280]  Really?
[52:40.500 --> 52:40.780]  Yes.
[52:40.920 --> 52:41.700]  That's rather strange.
[52:41.720 --> 52:42.500]  I think so too.
[52:42.860 --> 52:51.520]  Well, you can find all kinds of interesting things, especially on the UHF band with the UHF antenna that are not carried on any cable system.
[52:52.000 --> 52:56.700]  There was a 3D UHF channel broadcasting out of New Jersey a few years ago.
[52:56.920 --> 53:06.640]  There are Korean stations, all kinds of strange things that are out there, low power stations, but you'll only get those if you have antennas on your TV set and you don't hook it up to...
[53:06.640 --> 53:12.420]  or if you hook it up to a cable box, have a switch so that you can detach from that and just listen to the airwaves.
[53:12.600 --> 53:13.920]  Some really cool stuff out there.
[53:15.180 --> 53:17.160]  WNJN, Montclair, Channel 50.
[53:17.400 --> 53:17.580]  Yeah.
[53:17.620 --> 53:19.180]  When did that change from WNJM?
[53:19.360 --> 53:20.120]  It used to be...
[53:20.120 --> 53:20.680]  I remember.
[53:20.680 --> 53:26.540]  It had to be about 10 years ago because I remember I used to regularly watch Doctor Who on it.
[53:26.720 --> 53:26.960]  Uh-huh.
[53:27.180 --> 53:35.640]  I used to, on those hot summer days, I used to simply go through my VHF tuner and I'd get stations from all over the place.
[53:35.680 --> 53:40.460]  You know when the signal turns to mishmash because of the skywave interference or something like that?
[53:40.520 --> 53:45.200]  I once picked up a station all the way from Kansas on my TV set with a roof antenna.
[53:45.200 --> 53:50.980]  It's called the heavy side layer of the ionosphere and it's scattering off it.
[53:51.340 --> 53:53.480]  I couldn't watch anything channel 2 through channel 6.
[53:53.760 --> 54:03.960]  We didn't have a channel 6 but 2 through 5 were pretty much obliterated but sometimes you can get some really interesting things and there are nights when you get signals from Philadelphia, from Massachusetts, from further away than that.
[54:04.200 --> 54:14.940]  There's a lot of those really cool propagation events, ducting and whatnot, happen, you know, at sunrise and sunset when, you know, when there's a lot of temperature inversions.
[54:15.200 --> 54:20.340]  And it's very cool to do that especially on, you know, on the hand bands, on the TV bands.
[54:21.220 --> 54:24.540]  Well, it's especially unusual on television because hardly anybody does it anymore.
[54:24.940 --> 54:26.620]  AM is pretty much...
[54:26.620 --> 54:32.300]  It's easy to do because at night you simply get things much further away and you can listen to Chicago and New York pretty easily.
[54:32.840 --> 54:33.840]  FM is very weird.
[54:33.960 --> 54:37.800]  I was traveling once out on the island and all of a sudden I was listening to BAI.
[54:37.900 --> 54:40.540]  All of a sudden BAI turned into 99.5 from Minnesota.
[54:40.780 --> 54:44.500]  And then a second later 99.5 from somewhere in the south I think Atlanta.
[54:44.840 --> 54:46.620]  And the whole thing took about 30 seconds.
[54:46.780 --> 54:48.600]  I've never seen anything like that before.
[54:49.000 --> 54:49.100]  Right.
[54:49.320 --> 54:51.040]  And I verified both stations really exist.
[54:51.220 --> 54:51.360]  Right.
[54:51.420 --> 54:56.220]  A lot of the effects are very temporary so you'll get communications for only a couple of seconds and then it'll be gone.
[54:56.440 --> 54:57.520]  And it's just...
[54:57.520 --> 54:58.060]  It's very cool.
[54:58.180 --> 54:58.940]  Let's take another phone call.
[55:00.200 --> 55:00.920]  And good evening.
[55:01.040 --> 55:01.460]  You're on the air.
[55:02.540 --> 55:04.040]  Yeah, I think the...
[55:04.840 --> 55:07.200]  This thing about the information being lost...
[55:07.200 --> 55:07.400]  Mm-hmm.
[55:07.740 --> 55:10.100]  I think it's something that they're floating right now.
[55:10.100 --> 55:21.260]  They're just trying to scare the credit card users or everybody into going into some sort of biometric identification every time you need to make a purchase.
[55:21.420 --> 55:22.160]  That's a good point.
[55:22.160 --> 55:25.640]  And also what they're scaring into doing is buying one of their protection plans.
[55:25.980 --> 55:26.900]  Oh, absolutely.
[55:27.140 --> 55:27.980]  That was...
[55:27.980 --> 55:34.640]  Man, I had to call Citibank to dispute a charge and I couldn't get off the phone with this guy which he sounded like he was from India.
[55:35.560 --> 55:37.720]  His life depended on selling me this thing.
[55:37.920 --> 55:38.320]  Uh-huh.
[55:38.500 --> 55:42.260]  And I was very careful having listened to your show recently about what I said to him.
[55:42.480 --> 55:46.800]  So when I was finally able to interrupt him I said, this call is being recorded, right?
[55:46.960 --> 55:47.140]  Yes.
[55:47.300 --> 55:50.900]  Well, I just want to tell you that I am not interested in this plan.
[55:51.120 --> 55:52.020]  Do not send me...
[55:52.020 --> 55:52.760]  Et cetera, et cetera.
[55:52.920 --> 55:53.040]  Mm-hmm.
[55:53.040 --> 55:58.260]  They were very clear and then emailed them and made sure they told me that I was not signed up for it.
[55:59.280 --> 55:59.460]  Okay.
[55:59.560 --> 56:01.820]  Well, sometimes that's what you have to do if they're particularly aggressive.
[56:01.820 --> 56:02.240]  Right.
[56:02.380 --> 56:05.760]  It's unfortunate that you have to watch what you're saying in case they decide to take it out of context.
[56:06.080 --> 56:06.340]  Yeah.
[56:06.460 --> 56:06.980]  Let's take one more.
[56:08.840 --> 56:09.660]  And good evening.
[56:09.760 --> 56:10.220]  You're on the air.
[56:11.720 --> 56:11.920]  Yeah.
[56:11.980 --> 56:12.420]  Hi there.
[56:13.480 --> 56:26.880]  Sometimes I go to a bank and I don't have an account in the bank but my employer does and the bank will let employees cash an employer's check there but they want you to put your thumbprint on the check.
[56:27.380 --> 56:27.740]  Yes.
[56:27.740 --> 56:28.480]  I've heard about that.
[56:28.760 --> 56:29.660]  What's that all about?
[56:29.800 --> 56:30.440]  What do you think of that?
[56:30.920 --> 56:31.880]  I don't like it.
[56:31.980 --> 56:33.380]  I don't like giving my thumbprint to anybody.
[56:34.400 --> 56:44.940]  And, you know, in this day like the previous caller said in this day where all this information is being bandied about maybe people will think hey, that somehow makes me more secure and it won't.
[56:45.080 --> 56:45.920]  It definitely won't.
[56:46.280 --> 56:49.140]  I wish we could talk more about this but we're clear out of time.
[56:49.960 --> 56:56.400]  So we will be back again next week with another exciting edition of Off the Hook.
[56:56.620 --> 57:04.220]  Until then, stay aware, stay awake, email us OTH at 2600.com and we'll see you back here next week.
[57:04.440 --> 57:04.700]  Good night.
[57:41.140 --> 57:47.360]  One of these days when you hear a voice say come we're gonna run one
[57:51.720 --> 57:58.680]  of these days when you hear a voice say come we're gonna run
[58:02.620 --> 58:07.980]  We're gonna run through the rock for a rescue, there will be no wrong.
[58:08.960 --> 58:13.720]  We're gonna run through the rock for a rescue, there will be no wrong.
[58:39.220 --> 58:45.460]  Walking down the road with the pistol in your waist, journey to bed.
[58:50.510 --> 58:57.070]  Walking down the road with the ratcheting waist, journey to bed.