[00:00.160 --> 00:12.840]  I'm Robert Knight, inviting you to rejoin us on Earthwatch, a live, free-form radio excursion into space, science, news, politics, metaphysics, music, the arts, and more.
[00:18.380 --> 00:31.360]  That's Earthwatch, trans-terrestrial radio, Wednesdays at midnight, on the new WBAI, 99.5 FM, Pacifica Radio, in New York.
[00:41.500 --> 00:43.900]  And you are listening to WBAI New York.
[00:44.080 --> 00:45.680]  The time is 7 o'clock on a Wednesday.
[00:45.920 --> 00:48.020]  That means time for Off the Hook.
[02:26.600 --> 02:27.460]  And good evening to everybody.
[02:27.560 --> 02:28.240]  The program is Off the Hook.
[02:28.320 --> 02:30.180]  Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
[02:30.960 --> 02:33.920]  And boy, we've got a mob scene here tonight.
[02:33.920 --> 02:34.920]  A smart mob, I hope.
[02:35.000 --> 02:35.680]  I hope it's a smart mob.
[02:36.340 --> 02:37.640]  We'll find out soon enough, won't we?
[02:38.840 --> 02:40.680]  Joined tonight by Gus.
[02:40.860 --> 02:41.200]  Oh, hi.
[02:41.380 --> 02:41.680]  Jim.
[02:42.080 --> 02:42.280]  Hello.
[02:42.580 --> 02:42.920]  Mike.
[02:43.320 --> 02:43.640]  Hi.
[02:43.840 --> 02:44.240]  Rob T.
[02:44.520 --> 02:44.920]  Firefly.
[02:45.160 --> 02:45.500]  Good evening.
[02:46.040 --> 02:46.620]  Dot Rhett.
[02:47.200 --> 02:47.560]  Hello.
[02:48.120 --> 02:48.860]  Red Hacked.
[02:49.040 --> 02:50.020]  I feel like a sardine.
[02:50.760 --> 02:52.300]  And Voltaire, are you still over there?
[02:52.460 --> 02:52.700]  Yes.
[02:52.700 --> 02:52.980]  Okay.
[02:53.160 --> 02:53.800]  We have so many people.
[02:53.920 --> 02:55.160]  We don't have nearly enough microphones.
[02:55.360 --> 02:56.800]  Down in Philadelphia, we have Bernie S.
[02:57.440 --> 02:58.340]  Greetings from Philadelphia.
[02:58.680 --> 03:02.220]  And joining us, two special guests in our studio tonight.
[03:02.540 --> 03:04.100]  Tiffany Rad, who has been on our program before.
[03:04.360 --> 03:04.580]  Hello.
[03:04.880 --> 03:06.800]  And Dan Kaminsky, who has never been on our program before.
[03:06.940 --> 03:07.300]  Is that correct?
[03:07.560 --> 03:08.360]  I have never been here.
[03:08.400 --> 03:09.020]  It's an honor to be here.
[03:09.040 --> 03:09.680]  That's amazing.
[03:09.880 --> 03:11.440]  And you know, you have a Wikipedia page.
[03:12.400 --> 03:15.280]  I called it up right before just to see who had a Wikipedia page and who didn't.
[03:15.320 --> 03:17.100]  I can't believe, Tiffany, you don't have a Wikipedia page.
[03:17.160 --> 03:17.780]  We have to fix that.
[03:17.780 --> 03:22.980]  But Dan, it says about you that you're a security researcher and director of penetration testing for IoActive.
[03:23.160 --> 03:23.720]  That is correct.
[03:23.800 --> 03:26.020]  You formerly worked for Cisco and Avaya.
[03:26.140 --> 03:26.700]  Did I say that right?
[03:26.900 --> 03:27.220]  Avaya.
[03:27.260 --> 03:28.020]  Avaya, I'm sorry.
[03:28.300 --> 03:32.020]  And you're known among computer security experts for your work on DNS cache poisoning.
[03:32.220 --> 03:32.580]  Mm-hmm.
[03:32.720 --> 03:33.760]  Sounds ominous.
[03:34.160 --> 03:40.440]  Including showing that the Sony rootkit had infected at least 568,200 computers.
[03:41.040 --> 03:42.920]  Yeah, that was an adventure.
[03:43.040 --> 03:43.460]  Wow.
[03:43.840 --> 03:46.140]  How do you prove something like that?
[03:46.180 --> 03:47.100]  How do you show something like that?
[03:47.100 --> 03:50.760]  Well, it was really interesting after the whole Sony rootkit thing happened.
[03:51.880 --> 03:56.220]  There was so much noise going on about, oh, my God, I can't believe Sony did this.
[03:56.340 --> 04:02.240]  I'm like, who actually puts a CD into their computer and lets it infect their machine?
[04:02.400 --> 04:04.620]  Like, let's, you know, no one had any numbers.
[04:04.760 --> 04:06.180]  The antivirus companies weren't talking.
[04:06.560 --> 04:09.980]  Microsoft was fighting with the movie industry over HD DVD.
[04:11.060 --> 04:17.600]  And when I took a look at the situation, I'm like, well, when you put these CDs into your computer, they infect your computer.
[04:17.780 --> 04:21.280]  Your computer does a lookup in what's called DNS, the domain name system.
[04:21.780 --> 04:25.240]  And when this lookup happens, it actually leaves a mark.
[04:25.480 --> 04:31.740]  The server that you talk to actually remembers, oh, yeah, sometime in the last, I don't know, hour, I went ahead and looked this up.
[04:31.740 --> 04:37.220]  So I just went to every single one of these lookup servers and said, have you looked for Sony recently?
[04:37.360 --> 04:38.520]  Have you looked for Sony recently?
[04:38.760 --> 04:40.960]  And I didn't expect any of them to say they had.
[04:41.360 --> 04:45.000]  No, about 560,000 of them said they had.
[04:45.260 --> 04:50.580]  So it turns out that, wow, apparently if you put viruses on CDs, you'll infect people.
[04:50.740 --> 04:52.640]  So what was the immediate effect of that revelation?
[04:53.960 --> 04:57.160]  That's where I learned if you make a pretty picture, it's a big deal.
[04:57.740 --> 05:05.480]  I ended up putting out this graphic that was just, here's the globe and here's big red spots wherever infections are.
[05:06.060 --> 05:07.640]  It was actually really interesting.
[05:07.700 --> 05:13.600]  If you looked in Peru, for some strange reason, Peru was a nightmare zone.
[05:13.760 --> 05:15.000]  And I'm like, I don't understand.
[05:15.000 --> 05:16.180]  What is up with Peru?
[05:16.460 --> 05:20.280]  Peru has an enormous Japanese expatriate population.
[05:20.520 --> 05:20.680]  That's true.
[05:20.940 --> 05:22.280]  They used to have a Japanese president.
[05:22.500 --> 05:23.060]  They did.
[05:23.220 --> 05:24.140]  They absolutely did.
[05:24.140 --> 05:29.320]  And so Sony, a Japanese company, sells a lot of music down in Peru.
[05:29.320 --> 05:31.420]  And that caused a lot of machines to get infected.
[05:31.840 --> 05:32.100]  Wow.
[05:32.380 --> 05:33.980]  So how are things today?
[05:34.220 --> 05:35.700]  What's changed as a result of all this?
[05:36.040 --> 05:43.680]  Well, a lot of people consider the Sony event to be something that really did a lot of harm to DRM, to digital rights management.
[05:44.100 --> 05:45.100]  I mean, it was just an...
[05:45.100 --> 05:45.780]  Shame on you.
[05:45.940 --> 05:46.140]  Oh.
[05:46.820 --> 05:50.600]  You single-handedly are responsible for a lot of harm on DRM.
[05:50.600 --> 05:55.200]  Oh, believe me, I'm really heartbroken about this turn of events.
[05:56.240 --> 06:02.060]  But no, it was just an enormously badly managed situation for Sony.
[06:02.420 --> 06:09.360]  Once they actually realized how bad it was, I will give them credit, they basically shut down the entire operation.
[06:09.520 --> 06:12.280]  They pulled all the CDs off of the shelves.
[06:12.280 --> 06:16.400]  I mean, it took a while for Sony to realize the trouble they were in.
[06:16.660 --> 06:23.680]  And they actually eventually fired the head of Sony Music over this particular thing, or Sony BMG, to be precise.
[06:23.860 --> 06:26.480]  Now, is Sony the only company that would do something like this?
[06:26.660 --> 06:30.200]  I don't think anyone else would be so...
[06:30.200 --> 06:32.080]  Especially after Sony did this.
[06:32.160 --> 06:35.820]  I don't think anyone else is going to put malware on a CD that they sell anytime soon.
[06:35.820 --> 06:37.780]  But did they maybe do it before they were caught?
[06:38.440 --> 06:40.420]  There was certainly some talk about that.
[06:40.620 --> 06:46.140]  There were talks about, like, two different events that just got kind of combined in the press.
[06:47.420 --> 06:49.480]  But, I mean, this is back in about 2005.
[06:50.380 --> 06:53.660]  So it's been quite a few years, and we haven't seen anyone else try this stunt.
[06:54.720 --> 06:55.080]  Cool.
[06:55.300 --> 06:57.460]  Well, it sounds like you're up to no good, which is great.
[06:57.660 --> 06:58.700]  And actually, you're up to plenty of good.
[06:59.000 --> 07:04.580]  So that's amazing and very inspirational, I think.
[07:04.660 --> 07:04.900]  Yes, Mike?
[07:04.900 --> 07:08.220]  If you're going to read Wikipedia pages, couldn't you say he's got, like, three heads or something?
[07:08.900 --> 07:09.720]  Does it say that?
[07:09.900 --> 07:10.180]  Yes.
[07:10.180 --> 07:11.280]  We could make it say that.
[07:11.780 --> 07:12.960]  Well, why don't you work on that?
[07:13.220 --> 07:16.020]  Yes, and the amount of Dan Kaminsky's has tripled in the past 18 months.
[07:16.880 --> 07:17.240]  Wow.
[07:17.580 --> 07:18.060]  That's something.
[07:18.140 --> 07:20.360]  Now, Tiffany, what have you been up to since you were here last?
[07:20.360 --> 07:23.840]  I know you were causing all kinds of mayhem in the auto industry.
[07:24.080 --> 07:24.820]  I still am.
[07:24.960 --> 07:25.160]  Wow.
[07:25.360 --> 07:30.560]  And we're talking a lot about the DMCA and how it affects everything from reverse engineering to your car computers.
[07:30.760 --> 07:31.920]  I've heard of the DMCA, yeah.
[07:31.960 --> 07:33.100]  It's one of my old-time enemies.
[07:33.260 --> 07:33.340]  Yeah.
[07:33.960 --> 07:34.460]  Mm-hmm.
[07:34.660 --> 07:42.100]  So tell us where the situation is now with consumers, what's unfair, what they don't have access to.
[07:42.320 --> 07:49.020]  Well, as taxpayers, of course, you know that we own part of a couple of large automobile manufacturers like GM at Chrysler.
[07:50.120 --> 07:51.480]  Was that the case last time we were here?
[07:51.620 --> 07:52.260]  Is that fairly...
[07:52.260 --> 07:53.020]  No, this is new.
[07:53.120 --> 07:53.640]  This is new, yeah.
[07:53.740 --> 07:55.640]  As taxpayers, we're kind of a part of this company.
[07:55.640 --> 08:01.300]  But as sales are going down for purchasing cars, they're switching more to the model of repairs.
[08:01.680 --> 08:06.460]  So it makes a big difference with the Right to Repair Act about being able to access your car computers.
[08:06.780 --> 08:09.740]  The Right to Repair Act, that came from some New England state, right?
[08:10.420 --> 08:14.120]  I don't know if it came from a New England state, but right now Massachusetts is addressing this right now.
[08:14.220 --> 08:15.120]  Oh, don't say that word.
[08:15.260 --> 08:15.800]  I don't like...
[08:15.800 --> 08:16.320]  I don't want to...
[08:16.320 --> 08:17.400]  Don't say the M word tonight.
[08:18.320 --> 08:18.640]  Just...
[08:18.640 --> 08:19.220]  Ah, bad word.
[08:19.340 --> 08:23.680]  Well, that state, in fact, is fighting very, very hard, actually, to get this passed.
[08:23.860 --> 08:31.400]  There are a lot of aftermarket manufacturers that are interested in this passing of Massachusetts, as well as mechanics who work on their cars and still want the right to be able to do that.
[08:31.860 --> 08:37.420]  No, that's just mind-boggling to me, that a mechanic can't just fix any car.
[08:37.960 --> 08:42.240]  What do mechanics face as far as the challenges in getting access?
[08:42.480 --> 08:44.580]  Well, the newer cars have so many computers on them.
[08:44.580 --> 08:57.300]  I mean, I know about some of the newer cars, about 500 different computers that control all kinds of things on the cars, everything from airbags to, you know, the locks on the cars to, I mean, how the fuel is processed in the car.
[08:57.540 --> 09:00.400]  So if you can't get to those computers, there are a lot of things you can't fix.
[09:00.420 --> 09:16.160]  And for instance, I was reading in the Boston Globe, there was an article about this last week about the Right to Repair Act and how Massachusetts really needs to think about this, is that if you want to replace a tire on a car, you know, they can go to a small shop to have them change the tires.
[09:16.340 --> 09:22.580]  But to turn the light off that says you need, you know, your tire's not properly inflated, they can't do that.
[09:22.680 --> 09:27.640]  They have to have the car taken to a dealer and pay $100 just to have the light turned off.
[09:27.720 --> 09:29.740]  And of course, you can't pass inspection with any of those lights on.
[09:29.740 --> 09:35.120]  I rented a car in Canada about a year ago, and that light was on the whole damn time and nobody could turn it off.
[09:35.120 --> 09:39.800]  And my tire was fine, but I thought I was going to blow out at any second and go flipping over the road.
[09:40.140 --> 09:46.300]  So simple things like that require licenses and software agreements and things like that.
[09:46.320 --> 09:49.760]  That's why this is a lot about the money, about where the money is being spent now.
[09:49.780 --> 09:51.700]  It's not being spent on people aren't buying new cars.
[09:51.700 --> 09:57.720]  They're keeping their older cars running, despite, you know, with the Obama administration trying to get people to trade in their older cars.
[09:58.340 --> 09:58.480]  Yeah.
[09:58.780 --> 09:59.040]  Sorry.
[09:59.220 --> 09:59.700]  There's a question?
[09:59.880 --> 10:00.160]  Yes, go ahead.
[10:00.240 --> 10:03.100]  So it's not necessarily that the computers are bad for the cars.
[10:03.100 --> 10:09.320]  It's that they intentionally make them worse, that they're intentionally, like, adding a missed feature to it.
[10:10.540 --> 10:13.900]  I don't know if they're acting like a missed feature to it, but you can't access the computers.
[10:13.900 --> 10:18.780]  You violate the DMCA if you break the encryption, which is a simple challenge response.
[10:20.220 --> 10:21.220]  Actually, it depends.
[10:21.340 --> 10:34.680]  Maybe not bad for the cars, but I can tell you that a lot of old car geeks, like my dad, are really, really unhappy with it because all the skills that they know about how to, you know, maintain a machine on their own and soup up a machine on their own and make it do neat tricks and stuff like that are no longer valid under the new system.
[10:35.000 --> 10:37.800]  So you mentioned that there's an encryption layer there.
[10:37.960 --> 10:42.080]  So is there basically one interface that you can plug into to control all of these 500 computers?
[10:42.440 --> 10:46.240]  Well, it's possible to access it through the OBD2 port.
[10:46.640 --> 10:49.500]  And there's a new standard CAN that's coming out as well.
[10:49.760 --> 10:54.600]  But underneath the steering wheel, there is a port that you can plug into.
[10:55.180 --> 11:00.020]  And depending on how sophisticated the software and hardware is, you can read out a lot on your computers.
[11:00.580 --> 11:10.380]  But to get to changing some of the, like, for instance, flashing the computers, like just, you know, for instance, if you buy a new fuel pump for the car, you're going to need software for that.
[11:10.660 --> 11:16.020]  So what the dealer does is they have a license to be able to flash the computer and say, okay, here's the new software for it.
[11:16.120 --> 11:17.240]  But what if you want to do that?
[11:17.460 --> 11:18.220]  You can't.
[11:18.540 --> 11:19.160]  I did that once.
[11:19.320 --> 11:21.200]  That's like the extent of my mechanical abilities.
[11:21.340 --> 11:23.580]  I once changed a fuel pump or was it an oil pump?
[11:23.680 --> 11:25.460]  It was a pump of some sort, water pump.
[11:25.560 --> 11:26.080]  That's what it was.
[11:26.580 --> 11:29.680]  And wow, that was, I felt like a genius being able to do that.
[11:29.780 --> 11:31.780]  You're saying today I wouldn't be able to do that at all.
[11:31.880 --> 11:39.260]  Some of these things, like the fuel injection computer and like if they're related, if you are a, if you own a dealership, you get a kit and you just plug it in.
[11:39.420 --> 11:42.040]  It does it for, you know, it changes the computer setting for you.
[11:42.200 --> 11:51.840]  But if you want to do this yourself, if you're a hobbyist, if you have a small shop, you really can't do this without paying a lot of money for a license or for some of the tools unless you build your own.
[11:52.060 --> 11:54.600]  When did this begin, this kind of restriction?
[11:54.860 --> 12:01.980]  Oh, well, this restriction, well, I'd like to say that it became much more difficult for us doing this with cars when the DMCA passed.
[12:02.400 --> 12:05.260]  And that's, that was in at least 2001.
[12:05.880 --> 12:07.520]  I think it was 2001 or it was 2003.
[12:07.740 --> 12:08.180]  Sorry about that.
[12:08.320 --> 12:10.400]  So 20 years ago, this was unheard of.
[12:10.520 --> 12:12.080]  This was not something anyone was...
[12:12.080 --> 12:15.360]  There weren't really a lot of car computers in cars about 20 years ago.
[12:15.440 --> 12:15.980]  There were a few.
[12:16.220 --> 12:20.680]  Like I have a car from the 90s that's like OBD-1 and it has maybe two or three computers in it.
[12:20.820 --> 12:21.620]  I can fix that.
[12:21.740 --> 12:25.120]  But the cars today, you really need to access these computers to be able to repair them.
[12:25.260 --> 12:30.420]  So before we get into what you're doing specifically, I'm just wondering, let's look at the future 20 years from now.
[12:30.520 --> 12:34.280]  What kinds of things might they control in the future if things keep going the way they're going?
[12:34.460 --> 12:37.160]  Well, one of the things that... there are two things.
[12:37.340 --> 12:40.100]  One of them is there's something equivalent to a black box in your car.
[12:40.180 --> 12:42.460]  It stores your driving activities.
[12:42.720 --> 12:51.580]  So if you get into a car accident, law enforcement with a warrant can hook up something that looks like a small PDA or a cell phone, read out all of the recent events.
[12:51.660 --> 12:55.100]  If the airbag deployed, how fast you're going, if the brakes were pressed or not.
[12:55.320 --> 12:56.960]  And that can be used as evidence in court.
[12:57.220 --> 13:02.740]  So I find that that's something that people, I believe, should have a right to know what their cars are storing about them.
[13:02.860 --> 13:09.520]  But you can't get to that really without getting a little bit deeper into violating some aspects of the DMCA, what your car is storing about you.
[13:09.700 --> 13:12.540]  The other thing is you just... you're not going to be able to repair your car.
[13:12.540 --> 13:21.660]  The newer it is, the more specific tools you're going to need that either the aftermarket is going to be allowed to come up with these products with the Right to Repair Act or they're not.
[13:22.000 --> 13:22.940]  But that's where we are today.
[13:22.940 --> 13:24.140]  You can't fix your car.
[13:24.460 --> 13:34.060]  I'm wondering with advances in technology in a negative way, will they be able to control what you can only have shell gas in this car and nothing else will be accepted or things like that.
[13:34.300 --> 13:39.000]  Copy protection against... and maybe you can't turn on the radio other than sponsored stations.
[13:39.120 --> 13:39.220]  Dan.
[13:39.400 --> 13:40.480]  Don't give them any ideas.
[13:40.480 --> 13:41.180]  Yeah.
[13:41.380 --> 13:41.840]  I know.
[13:41.940 --> 13:42.220]  I know.
[13:42.400 --> 13:42.560]  Sorry.
[13:42.880 --> 13:54.220]  Because I think we were talking about this before and I believe you said, was there something about... mechanics are specifically upset because they have to subscribe to like... you know, they have to work with a particular manufacturer more heavily than they did before,
[13:54.320 --> 13:54.420]  right?
[13:54.620 --> 13:55.100]  Yeah, they do.
[13:55.300 --> 13:58.980]  And some of the scan tools that they need are between like $14,000 to $25,000.
[13:59.500 --> 14:07.080]  So if you... I mean, one of the statistics is that the independent bays for people fixing cars, there are about 930,000 of those in the U.S.
[14:07.080 --> 14:07.520]  Wow.
[14:07.520 --> 14:10.520]  For the dealerships, the dealerships sponsored garages.
[14:10.680 --> 14:12.020]  They're about 230,000.
[14:12.440 --> 14:18.400]  Now to say that the market of the 900,000, you know, isn't going to be able to do a lot of stuff, they're going to have to take it to the dealer.
[14:18.620 --> 14:22.060]  That's going to become a lot more prevalent if the Right to Repair Act does not pass.
[14:22.680 --> 14:23.020]  Voltaire.
[14:23.360 --> 14:35.260]  Is this a situation where the encryption that you're not allowed to break because of the DMCA, is it weak encryption that they could technically break, but there's a law against break encryption like with DVDs or is it like really hard to break?
[14:35.260 --> 14:35.820]  Oh, no.
[14:35.920 --> 14:36.580]  It's not hard to break.
[14:36.900 --> 14:37.220]  Okay.
[14:37.220 --> 14:39.260]  I'm not encouraging anyone to do it, but this is one of the...
[14:39.260 --> 14:40.740]  This is where we get into what you've been up to.
[14:40.900 --> 14:41.380]  This is.
[14:41.420 --> 14:43.960]  This is where I've often had this debate with the DMCA.
[14:44.060 --> 14:45.940]  Does it actually make security worse?
[14:46.320 --> 15:02.620]  If you have a... I mean, the misuse of a copyright law saying if you have any type of technological, you know, anti-circumvention measure, as simple as the encryption is, if it's there, you can instead of making something more secure, rely on the lawyers and lawsuits to prevent people from accessing your devices.
[15:03.420 --> 15:05.600]  And that's... that is the way it is with cars.
[15:05.880 --> 15:05.980]  Dan?
[15:06.340 --> 15:09.840]  Well, there's security and there's market control.
[15:10.120 --> 15:24.920]  I mean, at the end of the day, what we're debating here is should the market go to the 1.2 million or 1.1 million total number of garages, or should it be restricted to the 230,000 that are directly associated with the dealerships?
[15:25.540 --> 15:30.480]  We kind of have three different revolutions that are all going on at once.
[15:30.660 --> 15:34.040]  The first one is just the massive increase in complexity in your vehicle.
[15:34.240 --> 15:38.880]  Your vehicle has more computers than you have ever owned in your life.
[15:39.020 --> 15:43.760]  There is so many lines of code, and they're all accessible to some degree.
[15:43.960 --> 15:45.440]  Just the complexity increase.
[15:45.640 --> 15:49.740]  The second revolution is we've just all become geeks.
[15:49.900 --> 15:51.800]  Like, even the non-geeks have become geeks.
[15:52.260 --> 15:53.340]  Everyone's on the internet.
[15:53.340 --> 16:01.080]  Everyone can go ahead and buy a tool for $100 that plugs into your car and just gets data that we've never had access to.
[16:01.280 --> 16:05.780]  So that's a revolution from an aftermarket perspective based off the first one.
[16:05.880 --> 16:21.380]  And now there's this final one that is, wait a second, instead of having to compete with all these independent guys, we can really put a lock on the market by putting everything not even behind good encryption, but just behind enough so the DMCA applies.
[16:21.580 --> 16:33.820]  So you have this third revolution linked to legality and the use of a cryptographic barrier, not because of any technical reason, but because it allows you to play the DMCA card.
[16:34.040 --> 16:34.320]  All right.
[16:35.880 --> 16:46.640]  I think that this massive increase in technical development in areas like the cars is probably a big reason for why a lot of this is happening.
[16:46.760 --> 16:54.360]  Because like he mentioned, many people are becoming more technical or more geeky, if you will, understanding these things, but it doesn't happen evenly.
[16:54.480 --> 17:08.120]  So a large number of people may not necessarily see how these things work or how it applies to their lives, which gives certain malicious groups, if you will, the opportunity to try to lock these things out before anyone really understands what they're giving away.
[17:08.220 --> 17:11.020]  Malicious groups, corporations, governments, lobbyists, if you will.
[17:11.760 --> 17:11.960]  Absolutely.
[17:12.340 --> 17:12.680]  Tiffany?
[17:12.960 --> 17:17.180]  Well, also, one of the things that people ask me about a lot is, well, aren't you concerned about safety?
[17:17.480 --> 17:29.280]  If you can access your car computer because the car is so driven by all these computers, if your project, and I was working on OpenAuto still, if your project allows people to access these computers, is this a real safety measure?
[17:29.420 --> 17:35.600]  And one thing I often respond to this is by saying, well, you don't know what is in the code in your computer.
[17:35.780 --> 17:43.920]  I mean, really, there could be some, you know, we have found a couple of safety issues in some of the stuff we've researched, but can't talk about it, can't show it.
[17:44.020 --> 17:45.700]  It's a violation of the DMCA if you go that far.
[17:45.860 --> 17:56.660]  So, I mean, that's the type of thing that, again, it's the DMCA is being used for, I believe, to keep the market high for, you know, for the dealerships, which the money's coming back to the automobile manufacturers.
[17:56.880 --> 18:01.360]  And also, I know that there can be some things that some people will do maliciously.
[18:01.500 --> 18:08.340]  But on the other hand, like with that Bluetooth issue with Lexuses, I think that was about five years ago, someone presented at a conference about that.
[18:09.180 --> 18:11.640]  You know, there are vulnerabilities that other people can access.
[18:11.760 --> 18:16.400]  And if you don't lock those down yourself, I mean, you're going to wait for the automobile manufacturing companies to do that.
[18:16.520 --> 18:17.820]  Tell us about the Bluetooth incident.
[18:18.080 --> 18:25.860]  I believe there was a researcher in the UK, and he found that there was some unencrypted Bluetooth communications coming from Lexuses.
[18:26.080 --> 18:29.100]  And this was a while back, I think they fixed it.
[18:29.220 --> 18:32.040]  But he was able to do a lot with their cars.
[18:32.040 --> 18:36.480]  And there is a lot you can do, you could possibly do remotely with some of the new cars coming out.
[18:37.660 --> 18:38.100]  Renek.
[18:38.560 --> 18:38.920]  Oh, I'm sorry.
[18:39.160 --> 18:39.440]  That's all there.
[18:39.780 --> 18:50.260]  This sounds like this issue of controlling the market, as Dan Kvinsky mentioned, it seems like a violation of all the advantages that we get from capitalism, whether or not we're fans of it.
[18:50.400 --> 19:04.460]  And it sounds like this Right to Repair Act could be something that people from the hackers, and from any place on the political spectrum, whether they're libertarians or leftists, us or myself, how can we support the Right to Repair Act?
[19:05.180 --> 19:08.740]  Well, you can support the Right to Repair Act by telling your legislatures, we do care about this, okay?
[19:08.740 --> 19:09.820]  It's not just about cars.
[19:10.020 --> 19:18.720]  It's not just about, you know, being worried about people hacking cars or changing cars and, you know, finding out things about cars that people could expose vulnerabilities.
[19:19.420 --> 19:22.480]  It's about, you know, we want to know what our car is storing about us.
[19:22.760 --> 19:24.340]  And also, we purchased this car.
[19:24.660 --> 19:28.520]  But you don't own the license to the software, to the hardware in your car.
[19:28.640 --> 19:31.340]  You own, like, the metal, the leather seats, you know, the rubber tires.
[19:31.740 --> 19:36.780]  But the way that the industry is going, just in general with software and computers, is that you don't own the license.
[19:36.880 --> 19:37.420]  You don't own it.
[19:37.460 --> 19:37.920]  You license it.
[19:37.920 --> 19:40.820]  This is familiar to those of us who have DVDs and CDs.
[19:40.820 --> 19:42.640]  You don't actually own the music or the film.
[19:42.720 --> 19:46.180]  You're simply licensing the right to access it for a period of time.
[19:46.280 --> 19:46.380]  Rob?
[19:46.380 --> 19:46.800]  Kindles?
[19:47.000 --> 19:50.440]  This question of cars, storing information about your driving habits.
[19:51.160 --> 19:55.760]  You know, if I get a computer, I'm allowed to enable or disable any logging I want.
[19:56.380 --> 19:59.820]  Are there any, is there any legal precedent or laws on the books involving cars?
[20:00.000 --> 20:01.160]  Do cars have to log you now?
[20:02.140 --> 20:05.440]  I don't believe that cars have to log you, but it is there.
[20:05.640 --> 20:07.540]  I know that that technology is there.
[20:07.740 --> 20:11.740]  Now, whether the law enforcement officer decides to access that or not, that's up to them.
[20:11.860 --> 20:15.860]  But there was an interesting case in, I believe it was that state that you do not want me to mention.
[20:15.860 --> 20:17.260]  Yeah, that stayed up there.
[20:17.400 --> 20:17.520]  Okay.
[20:17.800 --> 20:24.800]  There was a state trooper who was in a massive accident that actually, he T-boned a station wagon with a woman and a couple of kids.
[20:25.120 --> 20:27.440]  And he said, I wasn't going that fast.
[20:27.440 --> 20:29.800]  I was in like hot pursuit of someone who was speeding.
[20:30.000 --> 20:31.280]  I really wasn't going fast.
[20:31.320 --> 20:37.900]  Well, in court, it turned out that they read out this information from his trooper car, and he was going way over the speed limit.
[20:38.080 --> 20:45.500]  So that's one case where, hey, it's not just us, you know, common citizens, but it can be used against law enforcement.
[20:45.820 --> 20:46.020]  Dan?
[20:46.400 --> 20:48.840]  You know, let's be fair and honest here.
[20:49.000 --> 20:51.280]  Like, cars are not like computers.
[20:51.480 --> 20:56.920]  Like, people really can and do die in a, you know, not insignificant amount.
[20:57.140 --> 21:02.340]  So there is some legitimacy to the desire to maintain safety.
[21:02.600 --> 21:09.820]  One of the more scary things I see in the automotive realm is just the idea that your car should be talking to anyone else on a network.
[21:10.040 --> 21:10.520]  Okay.
[21:10.680 --> 21:11.760]  Let's be honest here.
[21:12.300 --> 21:15.100]  All code is crap until it isn't.
[21:15.680 --> 21:18.000]  And, uh, you know, write that down.
[21:18.540 --> 21:19.740]  I mean, I'm serious.
[21:19.900 --> 21:26.600]  Until there are consequences for code being bad, all code is always universally really bad.
[21:26.940 --> 21:37.500]  And there is something scary about the idea that software, which has been bad, but it's been okay because it's been totally isolated, ever gets to talk to stuff that isn't.
[21:37.580 --> 21:44.260]  And we have seen some instances of, of the computers inside your systems being exposed over networks.
[21:44.500 --> 21:57.040]  Now, to some extent, this fear, which is a legitimate fear is getting dragged into, well, isn't it a safety issue to allow people to manipulate their cars and repair their cars.
[21:57.040 --> 22:01.640]  And that's where I think we've gone over the line because it's your car.
[22:01.960 --> 22:03.040]  You own it.
[22:03.300 --> 22:09.200]  One of the basic concepts of capitalism is you have property and you can do what you want to.
[22:09.420 --> 22:09.720]  I don't know, Dan.
[22:09.900 --> 22:16.620]  I think maybe you're just leasing the right to, uh, to sit in the car for a few years until it goes bad and then leasing the right to use the highways a little bit.
[22:16.740 --> 22:20.260]  You know, we, if, if I'm going to lease a car, I have this great thing I can do.
[22:20.460 --> 22:25.100]  I can get a lease for my car as opposed to buying it.
[22:25.120 --> 22:25.740]  Or take public transit, for example.
[22:25.980 --> 22:29.180]  I mean, like, why don't we just have public transit if all we're going to be doing is leasing cars?
[22:29.600 --> 22:42.380]  There, there, there has to be some societal and some, some societal protection, because at the end of the day, we are taking several thousand tons of, or not several thousand, several thousand pounds of metal and putting it on the road.
[22:42.520 --> 22:44.780]  Some of those SUVs are several thousand tons, I think.
[22:45.400 --> 22:46.960]  They certainly drive like it.
[22:47.040 --> 22:47.140]  Yeah.
[22:47.860 --> 22:54.280]  Um, but you know, there certainly needs to be some societal level protection and some, you know, work done there.
[22:54.480 --> 22:58.440]  But, uh, you know, at the end of the day, it's your property.
[22:58.440 --> 23:03.380]  You should be able to monitor it, repair it, deal with it because you own it.
[23:03.460 --> 23:05.180]  And if you don't own it, that's fine.
[23:05.580 --> 23:12.220]  Tell me you're leasing me the car and I'll pay you as much as I'll pay you for a lease, but I'm not giving you money like I'm buying.
[23:12.280 --> 23:18.580]  Well, do you think it's when you buy the car, do you think it's in the small print that you don't in fact actually own the right to, uh, to repair your own car?
[23:18.580 --> 23:23.740]  I, I think small print gets abused more and more and more.
[23:23.920 --> 23:24.620]  That's why it's small.
[23:24.820 --> 23:30.340]  I shouldn't need, I shouldn't need to go to a lawyer to buy a $50 piece of software.
[23:30.860 --> 23:32.080]  And I'm serious.
[23:32.100 --> 23:38.720]  I mean, that's, you know, I shouldn't need a $1,000 consultation for $50 software.
[23:38.720 --> 23:42.440]  But at the end of the day, I mean, that's, that's kind of the claim.
[23:42.560 --> 23:45.000]  Well, if you wanted to be legal, you should have asked a lawyer.
[23:45.160 --> 23:49.840]  And it's like, come on, that's, that's, that is a, a tax on commerce.
[23:50.400 --> 24:05.160]  Um, bringing up the issue about, uh, all code being bad until it's been tested, uh, brings an interesting question to mind with me is if you, um, if so many of these cars are now being so controlled by, uh, computers all over the, all over the, um, the actual car,
[24:05.800 --> 24:10.220]  um, and they're potentially, uh, starting to be networked.
[24:10.560 --> 24:17.640]  Does that mean that then, uh, we're going to be able to look forward to seeing people, uh, remotely unlocking and starting a car and then just walking in and driving away?
[24:17.920 --> 24:18.880]  It can already be done.
[24:18.880 --> 24:19.340]  They do that now.
[24:19.420 --> 24:20.120]  Don't they do that now?
[24:20.360 --> 24:20.680]  OnStar.
[24:21.040 --> 24:21.360]  OnStar.
[24:21.560 --> 24:24.180]  Now, do you think that no one has learned how to hack OnStar?
[24:24.540 --> 24:27.820]  And do you actually think that you can turn off OnStar in the car that you purchased?
[24:28.100 --> 24:28.460]  I'm intrigued.
[24:28.600 --> 24:29.300]  Let's hear about this.
[24:29.360 --> 24:29.620]  All right.
[24:29.620 --> 24:30.220]  Well, bring it up.
[24:30.420 --> 24:30.540]  Yeah.
[24:30.640 --> 24:30.800]  All right.
[24:30.900 --> 24:33.520]  Well, law enforcement has been known with a warrant to turn on OnStar.
[24:33.640 --> 24:34.400]  You can turn on GPS.
[24:34.420 --> 24:36.020]  You can turn on the microphones in the car.
[24:36.100 --> 24:36.680]  You can unlock it.
[24:36.720 --> 24:37.300]  You can start it.
[24:37.700 --> 24:41.100]  Now, it is possible to do this as well if you are not OnStar.
[24:41.420 --> 24:41.660]  Okay?
[24:41.880 --> 24:50.160]  So, I mean, if the technology exists, uh, this is where I get back to, like, talking with Dan about, like, the safety of being able to access stuff to your cars.
[24:50.620 --> 24:57.860]  Um, I think that legislation eventually is going to come where companies, if they put out the bad code, they are going to have some tort law.
[24:57.980 --> 25:02.320]  There's going to be some repercussions besides a slap on the hand, like, you should have known better.
[25:02.500 --> 25:11.640]  If you should have known better in, like, products liability, for instance, there's a lot of, I mean, there's a lot of money that goes into products liability if you put out product that is on, you know, is unsafe.
[25:11.940 --> 25:13.420]  We cannot have product.
[25:13.680 --> 25:21.520]  There are companies that will not be able to ship software until 2025 if you had all of a sudden product liability.
[25:21.780 --> 25:22.180]  Oh, true, true.
[25:22.180 --> 25:24.000]  I'm not even exaggerating.
[25:24.120 --> 25:28.280]  But when we talk about computers and cars, and is that unsafe when you put something that big on the road?
[25:28.380 --> 25:29.420]  What about pacemakers?
[25:29.600 --> 25:33.660]  What about a lot of medical devices that have Zigbee chips in, for instance?
[25:33.820 --> 25:35.680]  I see what Travis Goodspeed has done with those.
[25:36.080 --> 25:37.200]  But this is important.
[25:37.280 --> 25:38.500]  It's an important distinction.
[25:38.820 --> 25:45.020]  There's software that goes in life critical systems that has from the beginning gone into life critical.
[25:45.240 --> 25:49.400]  And that actually already has product liability attached.
[25:49.560 --> 25:57.840]  If there's a bug that prevents a brake from triggering and stopping the car, the car company is liable, even though it's a line of code.
[25:57.920 --> 26:03.440]  But you can't take that system and then apply it to, you know, your favorite market leading database.
[26:03.500 --> 26:05.780]  Like, you just can't make that change.
[26:05.960 --> 26:10.780]  You would have to throw the code out as an engineering rule.
[26:11.320 --> 26:12.080]  All of it.
[26:13.140 --> 26:15.280]  Well, Bernie, you've been somewhat quiet.
[26:15.420 --> 26:16.840]  What do you have to say about all this?
[26:17.340 --> 26:19.080]  Well, this is a really impressive discussion.
[26:19.360 --> 26:21.140]  And it's a serious problem.
[26:21.140 --> 26:22.980]  As you pointed out, it's not just cars.
[26:22.980 --> 26:24.040]  It's not just pacemakers.
[26:24.360 --> 26:32.700]  It's almost anything electronic we buy now has code in that we don't know what it does.
[26:33.020 --> 26:35.700]  And we don't have any control over it in most cases.
[26:36.600 --> 26:52.400]  I think really, people need to start demanding their right to take back control over the property that they pay to use, whether it's a car or a TV or a DVD player or anything that's electronic.
[26:53.120 --> 26:54.660]  So many products are electronic now.
[26:54.740 --> 26:57.440]  They all have computers in and now for the most part if they're electronic.
[26:58.680 --> 27:00.880]  And I think this is a disturbing trend.
[27:00.880 --> 27:03.060]  And it's going to get worse before it gets better.
[27:03.220 --> 27:04.620]  And people ought to really stand up.
[27:04.840 --> 27:11.680]  And as Tiffany pointed out, talk to their legislators and say, hey, want the Right to Repair Act to be enacted.
[27:12.660 --> 27:17.080]  There is an important issue about complexity that I wanted to mention.
[27:17.260 --> 27:26.460]  And that's, you know, the fact that we've gone to code has allowed us to implement some very impressive things, but it's allowed complexity to explode.
[27:26.780 --> 27:33.440]  Now, there's just only so much weirdness you can do with timing belts, with pulleys and gates and so on.
[27:33.520 --> 27:39.920]  But you pull in code and the ability to predict all states of the system just diminishes.
[27:40.240 --> 27:49.220]  So as we've gone ahead and put so many of these knobs and whistles on, it is a statement of fact that things have gotten less predictable.
[27:49.440 --> 27:54.020]  Well, if that's the case, I mean, isn't that just what you're saying when you're saying that all code is crap?
[27:54.180 --> 27:57.420]  I mean, like, isn't it you're just saying it's so complex, we can't really tell.
[27:57.620 --> 27:59.300]  I mean, isn't it just a matter of it being complex?
[28:00.220 --> 28:00.940]  It's hard.
[28:01.340 --> 28:13.660]  Because the other, I mean, the force for, hey, we want the new, we not want the new widgets, we want to push up the, we want to push up the mileage, we want to reduce pollution.
[28:13.660 --> 28:18.880]  You know, a lot of the timings, you can build a car and Tiffany, you know more about this than I do.
[28:18.980 --> 28:20.640]  So I've only heard this from rumor.
[28:20.780 --> 28:32.040]  But I mean, you can tune a car to get the most gas mileage, you can tune a car to be the most fuel efficient, you can tune a car to have the lowest emissions.
[28:32.040 --> 28:36.460]  These are all three completely separate tuners, or tunings.
[28:36.680 --> 28:43.360]  And the interests that have you doing one versus the other versus the third, aren't just yours.
[28:43.640 --> 28:48.880]  I mean, there are other interests that maybe want to have less mileage going on, maybe want to have less pollution going on.
[28:49.040 --> 28:55.200]  And if your interest is just, hey, I want to go fast, neither of those other two interests matter.
[28:55.200 --> 28:56.280]  Mm hmm.
[28:57.040 --> 28:57.280]  Wow.
[28:57.500 --> 29:02.080]  Well, Tiffany, tell us something about how, how your project is going, what kind of support?
[29:02.200 --> 29:05.560]  What kind of opposition have you gotten to what you've been doing?
[29:05.800 --> 29:07.260]  Any kind of threats, perhaps?
[29:07.620 --> 29:14.740]  Well, with the Open Auto Project, as with a lot of the projects that we, it's not associated with the University of Maine, where I'm a teacher in the computer science department there.
[29:14.840 --> 29:26.880]  But we do deal very much with reverse, well, with reverse engineering, to be able to figure out how things work, to do it legally with the clean room, dirty room type of technique, to get around the DMCA, to do it legally.
[29:27.200 --> 29:29.180]  It's a lot of work and a lot of time.
[29:29.560 --> 29:34.480]  And it is to make products that will compete with dealers products, the scan tools.
[29:34.920 --> 29:44.880]  I mean, I know the dealers are saying we put so much money into R&D, we don't want companies being able to rip this off if we, you know, if we allow the source code to be open source, free software, whatever.
[29:45.200 --> 29:53.660]  But you know, the amount of work that goes into creating a competing product on the market that doesn't cost $25,000, that costs maybe a couple thousand is possible.
[29:53.660 --> 29:56.800]  But we're putting a lot of time into doing something like that.
[29:56.940 --> 30:05.880]  So this is why the DMCA, I just don't, I just don't believe that this is what it was intended to encompass was about fixing your car, or about freedom of speech on the internet.
[30:06.040 --> 30:11.080]  I just did the DMCA really seems to be now was being used as a crutch for for the market.
[30:11.300 --> 30:13.000]  Well, I know I've had a nightmare.
[30:13.340 --> 30:15.800]  I have a smart car that I got in from Canada.
[30:16.120 --> 30:16.900]  It's diesel.
[30:17.120 --> 30:22.220]  And you'd think taking it to the smart car dealer when they opened up here in New York, they'd be able to fix it.
[30:23.960 --> 30:28.140]  access to the computer, to the star system, they call it, which you're probably very familiar with.
[30:28.600 --> 30:33.600]  And they didn't have the access, they would have to pay a huge amount to do this.
[30:33.780 --> 30:37.400]  I've heard nightmare scenarios where people have asked for manuals for cars.
[30:37.860 --> 30:41.620]  And they refuse to send it to them because they're not licensed.
[30:41.920 --> 30:47.520]  They don't have the permission to even read about how it's put together how it works, because they might, God forbid, fix the car.
[30:47.520 --> 30:47.940]  Yeah.
[30:48.340 --> 30:54.040]  And that's one of the things the dealers are saying, the license dealers from the automobile manufacturers are saying, well, you can look in the Chilton's manual.
[30:54.280 --> 30:57.220]  If any of you have looked in a Chilton's manual, there are still black boxes.
[30:57.360 --> 31:01.520]  When it comes to the electrical engineering, if you want to change anything, it's a black box in Chilton.
[31:01.760 --> 31:05.460]  You have to do, you know, reverse engineering to be able to figure out what's inside there.
[31:05.520 --> 31:08.120]  Reading out all those protocols is, it's very time consuming.
[31:08.360 --> 31:09.380]  So who are the main players here?
[31:09.480 --> 31:12.760]  Who is it that we're fighting against that is pushing this more than anybody?
[31:12.920 --> 31:14.820]  Is it simply the car manufacturers?
[31:15.040 --> 31:16.060]  Are there other entities that work here?
[31:16.060 --> 31:17.500]  The car manufacturers are lobbying.
[31:17.780 --> 31:23.900]  And actually, they're, it's becoming, they're becoming a little bit more successful in slowly kind of killing the Right to Repair Act right now.
[31:24.100 --> 31:37.500]  Now, on the other side, we have both people who are small mechanics, small time mechanics, but also the aftermarket, people who want like AutoZone, they, you know, track auto, they want these, these cheaper tools that they'll be able to sell.
[31:37.500 --> 31:47.860]  So we're talking about competing products in the market and the DMCA is kind of foreclosing them from, from creating or designing products that are scan tools that cost less than $25,000.
[31:48.020 --> 31:48.200]  Dan?
[31:48.600 --> 31:52.900]  So just, just to speak about the market stuff, because the numbers need to be set.
[31:53.040 --> 31:58.540]  If you build a car and it costs you $10,000 to build, I'm just pulling the number out.
[31:58.780 --> 32:03.240]  If it's $10,000 to build, there's the question, how much do you get to charge for it?
[32:03.240 --> 32:12.740]  Well, if you know that you're the only people who can fix it, and you know that because you're the only people, you can charge $5,000 a repair.
[32:13.140 --> 32:24.200]  You can go ahead and sell that car for $1,000 because you know they're going to have to come back to you every couple of years and you're going to make $1,000, $16,000, $20,000.
[32:24.200 --> 32:32.500]  So you, as a purchaser, you think, well, hey, this car is great and it's only $1,000, and you get socked with this huge bill later.
[32:32.900 --> 32:35.660]  That's actually what's going on.
[32:35.980 --> 32:42.320]  It's a lot of, how do we obscure the price today and then make it up on a backstop?
[32:42.320 --> 32:44.220]  How is this different than organized crime again?
[32:45.460 --> 32:46.020]  Gus?
[32:46.360 --> 32:47.460]  I love the inkjet printers.
[32:48.180 --> 32:50.540]  It's exactly like inkjet printers.
[32:50.840 --> 32:54.060]  Yeah, that's where you can't use a competing company's ink.
[32:54.200 --> 32:56.180]  Or ink expires, even though it's still good.
[32:56.860 --> 32:57.180]  Amazing.
[32:57.260 --> 33:02.860]  So about the other side, I mean, has any organizing been done with like classic car clubs or hot rodders?
[33:02.940 --> 33:05.360]  Because it seems to me they have a huge vested interest in getting this done.
[33:05.620 --> 33:11.880]  Anybody who's read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and cares about that should totally be on the side of the Right to Repair Act.
[33:11.920 --> 33:13.020]  Are we talking to people about that?
[33:13.180 --> 33:13.740]  Yeah, absolutely.
[33:13.860 --> 33:14.740]  There are a lot of mod shops.
[33:14.860 --> 33:18.740]  And every time I talk about this at Hope or in New York City area, there are a lot of people who own mod shops.
[33:18.740 --> 33:21.680]  They're like, please, you know, we need something like this.
[33:21.680 --> 33:28.980]  We need some open source, some tool that we can use that doesn't cost $25,000 to be able to access the car computer on Land Rover, for instance.
[33:29.220 --> 33:34.280]  And the off-roading market, not just like, you know, the Honda modding shops, but people do a lot of off-roading.
[33:34.660 --> 33:36.340]  And that is a big market.
[33:36.460 --> 33:37.220]  They are behind that.
[33:37.300 --> 33:40.000]  But they're not as, I think, as organized as like Track Auto.
[33:40.180 --> 33:44.560]  And I think Automobile Association of America was behind the Right to Repair Act as well.
[33:44.700 --> 33:45.180]  Go ahead, Volta.
[33:45.180 --> 33:51.040]  Is there a web page by, like, the EFF or something that has information about how to contact your representatives?
[33:51.360 --> 33:54.060]  Yeah, actually, EFF is very much on board with the Right to Repair Act.
[33:54.200 --> 33:58.540]  They have, Fred wrote a fantastic summary of the Right to Repair Act.
[33:58.620 --> 34:00.120]  So EFF is supporting this as well.
[34:00.500 --> 34:03.280]  Now, where does the Right to Repair Act actually stand right now?
[34:03.280 --> 34:05.020]  How close is it to becoming legislation?
[34:05.160 --> 34:06.180]  How doomed is it?
[34:06.520 --> 34:14.280]  Well, last year, toward the end of the year, it was looking like there were, it was a bipartisan bill, but it looked like there were a lot of Democrats that were supporting the bill.
[34:14.580 --> 34:24.920]  But I believe that just in the past few months, it seems like, as they figured out that car sales are way down, automobile manufacturers are doing a whole lot of lobbying right now against this.
[34:25.020 --> 34:32.060]  And they're using safety as the primary issue of why we don't want, like, how can we control everyone who's, you know, who's accessing their car computers?
[34:32.200 --> 34:33.100]  That's one of their arguments.
[34:33.360 --> 34:37.940]  But I really think behind this is about, as Dan was saying, this is about service contracts.
[34:37.940 --> 34:48.180]  I just think it's incredible how we're talking about all these different aspects of life, computers, DVDs, and now cars.
[34:48.440 --> 34:57.440]  And you have people coming together in all those fields who are into open source solutions to various things and, you know, basically sharing information.
[34:57.600 --> 34:59.160]  It ties together very nicely.
[34:59.280 --> 35:06.100]  I never would have guessed back in 2000 when we were getting sued in the first DMCA case that cars would somehow be brought into this as well.
[35:06.100 --> 35:17.380]  But it's great to see that community out there of mechanics and people who understand cars, because I sure don't, that understand the concept of free exchange of information and being able to have access to technology.
[35:18.340 --> 35:19.440]  Didn't Ford sue you?
[35:19.640 --> 35:20.020]  I'm sorry.
[35:20.460 --> 35:21.500]  Ford sued me, yeah.
[35:21.620 --> 35:22.480]  They've been involved forever.
[35:22.580 --> 35:23.800]  For a different reason, but yeah.
[35:24.860 --> 35:33.700]  There is a bit of a societal and cultural battle going on, which is, is repurposing good or bad?
[35:33.900 --> 35:38.000]  Is it good to use something in a way other than originally intended?
[35:38.020 --> 35:39.200]  Or is it bad?
[35:39.400 --> 35:41.580]  And let me tell you, it's a war.
[35:41.760 --> 35:47.680]  Because if you can repurpose something, you're getting more value than you were sold.
[35:48.480 --> 35:49.920]  That's the bottom line.
[35:50.080 --> 36:01.100]  Instead of going out and buying the $50,000 car, the $80,000 car, the $100,000 car, you're buying a $9,000 Honda and putting $10,000 of goodies on it.
[36:01.180 --> 36:03.820]  And now you've gotten awesome for $19,000.
[36:04.160 --> 36:05.700]  Now, interesting point here.
[36:05.960 --> 36:11.660]  The Digital Millennium Copyright Act only applies to the United States, as far as I know.
[36:11.920 --> 36:14.360]  So, what's happening with cars in other countries?
[36:14.360 --> 36:16.700]  Are they being subjected to the same restriction?
[36:16.920 --> 36:26.100]  Well, what's interesting is when I was up in, doing a presentation up in Canada at Sektor, there were some students from a university there who said, we don't have the DMCA up there.
[36:26.220 --> 36:28.620]  Let me show you what we've done with car computers.
[36:28.880 --> 36:32.020]  And in their hackerspace there, they actually, they brought it to DEF CON too.
[36:32.120 --> 36:36.660]  I was able to see a demo of that at DEF CON this year, but they are doing a lot more.
[36:36.800 --> 36:41.920]  And so, I got to say, I always believe that the DMCA is very difficult on innovation.
[36:42.500 --> 36:44.160]  And so, they're innovating up there.
[36:44.320 --> 36:44.720]  That's, yeah.
[36:44.820 --> 36:45.920]  I mean, that's basically...
[36:45.920 --> 36:53.840]  So, the DMCA is putting us behind in terms of like digital literacy, in terms of computer knowledge and skills, because we don't have access to these things.
[36:53.840 --> 36:56.020]  Basically, DMCA is making our nation stupider.
[36:56.620 --> 36:57.680]  Yes, but...
[36:57.680 --> 36:58.020]  Oh, go ahead, Dan.
[36:58.220 --> 36:59.740]  So, it's not just stupider.
[36:59.900 --> 37:10.700]  So, a huge aspect of military protection is there's a real desire to have supply trains that don't have drivers, because drivers can get kidnapped and shot.
[37:10.940 --> 37:13.880]  So, if you look at the DARPA Grand Challenge, which was all about...
[37:13.880 --> 37:14.300]  That was my dad.
[37:14.400 --> 37:17.260]  My dad was actually working on Caltech's DARPA Grand Challenge card.
[37:17.280 --> 37:18.820]  I don't think you're supposed to say anything about that.
[37:18.920 --> 37:19.940]  Wasn't that a confidential...
[37:19.940 --> 37:20.280]  No, it was...
[37:20.280 --> 37:21.740]  The Grand Challenge is totally public.
[37:21.740 --> 37:26.340]  Although, I shouldn't say that he was in Caltech's, because Caltech's was the car that charged the security barrier and...
[37:26.340 --> 37:28.200]  I think they're going to be getting a phone call after the show.
[37:28.300 --> 37:30.140]  Yeah, my dad's going to be pissed off that I said this in the air.
[37:30.240 --> 37:33.780]  I actually met a bunch of the Caltech guys, and their car was awesome.
[37:35.320 --> 37:42.220]  And, you know, if you think about it, like, you know, you're repurposing a standard vehicle to go ahead and drive.
[37:42.380 --> 37:44.880]  I mean, this thing was designed to have a human being.
[37:45.020 --> 37:47.480]  You're saying, no, we're going to build one that doesn't.
[37:47.480 --> 37:49.800]  And, you know, it's not just making us stupider.
[37:50.060 --> 37:53.160]  You know, this DARPA Grand Challenge is about making us safer.
[37:53.480 --> 37:58.760]  And if we don't have people who know how to do this work, we're going to fall behind those that do.
[37:58.920 --> 38:10.160]  Well, I take exception, though, to us being made stupider and technology not moving ahead, because I'm looking at a picture that was from the International Herald Tribune a couple of weeks ago of the new dashboards that are coming out.
[38:10.220 --> 38:10.540]  Look at this.
[38:10.620 --> 38:14.540]  You can have a display of an album cover of the songs you're listening to.
[38:14.540 --> 38:17.240]  You can have all kinds of information being displayed there.
[38:17.560 --> 38:18.560]  I'm seeing a story here.
[38:19.020 --> 38:22.580]  Ford cars now are going to be equipped with Twitter feeds so that you can actually...
[38:22.580 --> 38:27.760]  Yeah, you can actually hear your friends' tweets or see your friends' tweets as you're driving.
[38:27.960 --> 38:32.400]  How can you say that we're being left behind when we have these kinds of marvelous advances to look forward to?
[38:32.720 --> 38:36.560]  I mean, a little freedom is worth giving up for this kind of advancement, isn't it?
[38:36.760 --> 38:37.680]  God, don't...
[38:37.680 --> 38:40.760]  I really don't want anyone to cross-site script my car.
[38:41.560 --> 38:41.960]  Okay?
[38:43.340 --> 38:43.820]  Dot Red.
[38:43.820 --> 38:45.220]  Let me get this straight.
[38:45.500 --> 38:52.120]  We're not allowed to use text messages or talk on a cell phone, but we can look at Twitter on our dashboard.
[38:52.440 --> 38:52.820]  Yeah, yeah.
[38:52.940 --> 39:01.780]  I don't know who Twitter got to, like, take over the imagination of the press, but, like, that guy's soul is gone.
[39:02.320 --> 39:05.320]  That thing has been sold so far.
[39:05.960 --> 39:09.860]  I think at least in that case, they're having it read it out loud.
[39:10.020 --> 39:13.500]  I mean, it's still just as distracting, I'm sure, but you're not staring at a...
[39:13.500 --> 39:15.760]  Talking to a person in the car can be distracting as well.
[39:15.860 --> 39:23.920]  But, you know, the invention I've always wanted is to have SMS be read to you where you can speak into your phone and simply carry on a conversation while you're driving instead of having to read.
[39:24.060 --> 39:24.220]  Yeah.
[39:24.320 --> 39:25.140]  I don't think that exists.
[39:25.280 --> 39:26.240]  But the whole thing...
[39:26.240 --> 39:26.840]  The whole thing is...
[39:26.840 --> 39:33.280]  I mean, all these things are silly, but you don't need to be constantly updated on what your friends are blathering on about while you're driving.
[39:33.280 --> 39:35.220]  Or really any time, to be honest.
[39:35.520 --> 39:35.960]  True.
[39:36.300 --> 39:48.660]  We're talking with Tiffany Radd and Dan Kaminsky, and we're taking phone calls, 212-209-2900, if you have any questions for either of them on security or cars or things like that.
[39:48.740 --> 39:49.420]  Fascinating discussion.
[39:49.540 --> 39:49.980]  Volta, go ahead.
[39:50.120 --> 39:57.920]  I'm actually kind of interested in this new technology, the Ford Sink and Ford MyTouch, or whatever it's called.
[39:58.860 --> 40:00.680]  Yeah, Tiffany, do you know anything about these?
[40:00.680 --> 40:07.040]  I've heard that they were going to quote-unquote open-source the API to it, but I don't know how much of that is marketing.
[40:09.140 --> 40:10.840]  Do you know anything about this product?
[40:11.020 --> 40:12.380]  No, I don't actually about that.
[40:12.420 --> 40:13.160]  Can you tell me more about that?
[40:13.160 --> 40:14.100]  I don't know what you just said.
[40:14.220 --> 40:15.240]  Open-source the API.
[40:15.920 --> 40:16.860]  What part of the car?
[40:18.400 --> 40:19.960]  It's called the Ford Sink.
[40:20.160 --> 40:21.880]  That was what you had a picture of.
[40:22.040 --> 40:28.100]  Well, the Ford Sink is just the audio portion of it, and that's what's currently in Ford cars, the new models.
[40:29.280 --> 40:37.960]  It basically hooks up with your phone and does voice recognition and will read text messages and stuff to you.
[40:38.080 --> 40:43.400]  I think the danger in this is that these cars are getting so computer-savvy and you have all these...
[40:44.080 --> 40:46.080]  It's like mission control at your dashboard.
[40:46.260 --> 40:47.860]  People say, you know, that's kind of complicated.
[40:47.860 --> 40:50.800]  I don't trust Ray down at the auto mechanics to fix this.
[40:50.880 --> 40:56.240]  It's obviously going to take a computer technician, so I'm going to trust them with these codes because they're the only ones that could possibly understand this.
[40:56.240 --> 41:01.420]  I think that's one of the dangers of having all these gizmos that you don't need on your dashboard.
[41:01.640 --> 41:05.000]  Well, one thing that was interesting about this is I think I did hear about this.
[41:05.100 --> 41:11.820]  Microsoft has their couple of models of cars that you can do a lot with your cell phone, with an iPod jack that you put in there.
[41:11.980 --> 41:16.300]  But there have been some interesting cases that you cannot, as the driver, be able to see video from...
[41:16.880 --> 41:18.180]  Maybe they'll change the law.
[41:18.340 --> 41:20.020]  I don't see that going back.
[41:20.020 --> 41:28.500]  But Pioneer got wrapped into a terrible lawsuit where an aftermarket dealer put a video screen where the driver could see it.
[41:28.660 --> 41:30.120]  It was the cause of the accident.
[41:30.560 --> 41:31.680]  Pioneer got sued.
[41:31.800 --> 41:32.420]  It went all the way up.
[41:32.500 --> 41:38.460]  I mean, it wasn't just the mechanic who violated the little sticker on the box that says, do not put this within view of the driver.
[41:38.720 --> 41:41.680]  The Pioneer got sued just because they made the screen.
[41:42.100 --> 41:44.100]  When people die, things change.
[41:44.100 --> 41:49.000]  So you're proposing the Right to Repair Act for people who own cars.
[41:49.120 --> 42:01.020]  Can we propose a Companion Act, the Right Not to Get Hit by Car Drivers Act for people who are walking down the street and their cars are twittering and reading things aloud to them and whatever else it's doing.
[42:01.080 --> 42:02.880]  And I'm just crossing the street.
[42:03.060 --> 42:07.260]  Yeah, add bicyclists to that too because I see people texting while they're riding bikes, which is about the dumbest thing I could imagine.
[42:07.400 --> 42:22.220]  We may not like this situation where cars are adding new technology to read stuff aloud, but I think it's better than the current situation where you have to, even though we don't like that people look at their screen, they do, and it's safer if they have it read aloud to them than looking at their tiny cell phone screen.
[42:22.240 --> 42:23.260]  All right, let's take some phone calls.
[42:23.380 --> 42:24.120]  Do you want to meet the listeners?
[42:24.280 --> 42:25.080]  It's quite an experience.
[42:25.280 --> 42:25.380]  No, thanks.
[42:25.700 --> 42:26.020]  212.
[42:26.340 --> 42:27.200]  Oh, you don't want to meet the listeners?
[42:27.380 --> 42:29.560]  Well, you can step outside then if you're afraid of them.
[42:29.600 --> 42:30.920]  If global warming comes up, I will.
[42:31.260 --> 42:32.160]  Why'd you have to mention it?
[42:32.260 --> 42:33.720]  I can't believe you even said that.
[42:33.740 --> 42:34.360]  Don't say it!
[42:34.600 --> 42:36.800]  212-209-2900.
[42:37.320 --> 42:38.880]  And let's take some phone calls.
[42:39.080 --> 42:39.440]  Good evening.
[42:39.540 --> 42:40.800]  You're on Off the Hook.
[42:42.340 --> 42:42.660]  Live?
[42:42.860 --> 42:43.500]  Yes, live.
[42:43.740 --> 42:44.120]  What's up?
[42:44.240 --> 42:44.640]  Oh, wow.
[42:45.440 --> 42:46.500]  Pleasure talking to you, Emmanuel.
[42:47.040 --> 42:48.660]  So, let's take a look at the discussion here.
[42:48.780 --> 42:50.260]  I definitely want to bring up some points.
[42:50.800 --> 42:52.460]  I'm a mechanical engineer by trade.
[42:52.460 --> 42:53.820]  I'm actually still finishing up my school.
[42:55.300 --> 43:01.860]  And hearing this, it seems like there's a little bit of excess negativity towards the idea of computers and cars.
[43:02.040 --> 43:05.320]  First of all, right to repair, fantastic idea.
[43:06.080 --> 43:10.880]  Some of the other people that have been really pushing that are the guys on Car Talk on your little rival NPR.
[43:12.320 --> 43:18.800]  But looking at this from the perspective of an engineer, the design side of this, I see a few issues.
[43:19.920 --> 43:29.780]  While we should have access to the things that need to be repaired, we shouldn't be protected by the DMCA by any stand whatsoever.
[43:30.740 --> 43:34.060]  You run into issues with training of mechanics.
[43:34.680 --> 43:41.040]  Licensing of mechanics, not in terms of licensing of software, but licensing in terms of qualifying, is not compulsory.
[43:41.140 --> 43:46.880]  It's not compulsory in terms of people repairing cars in their garage, at a local shop, or at the dealership.
[43:47.020 --> 43:57.040]  If you look at the other real major technology of the last 100 years that has had a lot of technology come into play in the control side of things, is aircraft.
[43:57.040 --> 44:03.760]  You look at aircraft mechanics, they're highly trained, highly specialized, and they are licensed.
[44:04.740 --> 44:14.360]  And I see the points being made, but I guess I do have a concern of that technology being made available to people who really aren't well-trained.
[44:14.440 --> 44:16.000]  I was just wondering if I had a comment on that.
[44:17.620 --> 44:18.420]  Go ahead, Dan.
[44:18.640 --> 44:28.260]  So you're right about the need to have quality repair and to have licensing systems that make it so that when you get the repair, it's actually good.
[44:28.420 --> 44:30.820]  The conflict is we have this conflation.
[44:30.960 --> 44:34.760]  We have the need for safety and we have the desire for market control.
[44:34.980 --> 44:45.140]  And it is very difficult to identify when a restriction is being put on because it's keeping people safe and when it's keeping the market really tightly controlled.
[44:45.140 --> 44:56.940]  I mean, as a mechanic, what if you did have all the skills to go ahead and repair a car, but because of the market control, you were unable to use your skills?
[44:57.360 --> 45:01.200]  Well, you'd have no money and the other side would.
[45:02.700 --> 45:03.140]  Absolutely.
[45:03.700 --> 45:04.620]  Tiffany, you want to respond?
[45:04.820 --> 45:05.240]  Yeah, I do.
[45:05.360 --> 45:12.680]  I think that in computer science as well, we look at the same type of thing that some people are saying, well, there's code out there that's in devices.
[45:12.680 --> 45:16.240]  There were some interesting cases with Airbus where it was fly-by-wire.
[45:16.420 --> 45:21.420]  And I know that there were some problems with the software that caused some accidents with airplanes.
[45:22.180 --> 45:32.580]  And so we often discuss in computer science the ethics of, okay, so should we have some kind of license exam for everyone graduating computer science or electrical and computer engineering?
[45:32.580 --> 45:34.460]  Is that going to make everything safer or better?
[45:34.800 --> 45:38.780]  Well, there are problems with that is how do you define the best testing for who's qualified?
[45:38.800 --> 45:40.500]  And I think that's what Dan was talking about as well.
[45:40.500 --> 45:57.500]  So I don't necessarily believe that licensing for a particular group is going to result in more quality or safer because I think there are plenty of professions that are licensed that there are some people in it who it doesn't necessarily mean that they are the best and make it safer or better.
[45:57.700 --> 45:59.960]  Yeah, in terms of the safety thing, I mean, you basically have to look at it.
[46:00.380 --> 46:03.700]  First of all, people have been repairing cars for as long as they've been out there.
[46:03.840 --> 46:06.040]  And there are good mechanics and there are bad mechanics.
[46:06.700 --> 46:15.560]  But you shouldn't let the car company, you know, through their control of their software, decide who's good and who's bad because it's really for them, it's who gives them money.
[46:15.760 --> 46:24.640]  So, you know, they could sell a $25,000 piece of equipment to someone who's a terrible mechanic and who will still, you know, not do a good job of programming your car.
[46:25.400 --> 46:30.260]  And so really, you know, it's kind of one of those things that if someone's a bad mechanic, the market will kind of decide that.
[46:30.360 --> 46:38.000]  You know, people won't go to them because they're a bad mechanic, not because they don't have the specific piece of hardware that they need and they can't obtain it.
[46:38.140 --> 46:38.740]  Go ahead, Dan.
[46:38.960 --> 46:41.780]  Just to say, there are always two models for a market.
[46:42.060 --> 46:46.640]  There is the kingmaker market where someone determines who wins and that's just it.
[46:46.780 --> 46:51.780]  And there's the gladiator market where everyone fights it out and whoever's best wins.
[46:52.020 --> 47:11.280]  If you want to maximize quality of service and you want to maximize ultimately safety, you have a gladiatorial situation where, you know, the actual quality mechanics, there's some kind of bar to keep things safe, but you have the ability for competition to weed out the bad and reward the good.
[47:11.980 --> 47:20.860]  The kingmaker model is one where you basically, there is a flat level of service that frankly doesn't have to be very good or maybe arguably even very safe.
[47:21.020 --> 47:24.080]  Okay, we have a really full switchboard here, so let's see if we can get some more calls in.
[47:24.480 --> 47:25.200]  Good evening.
[47:25.200 --> 47:26.240]  You're on off the hook.
[47:27.020 --> 47:27.500]  Hello.
[47:27.900 --> 47:28.560]  Hi, what's on your mind?
[47:30.340 --> 47:31.360]  Turn down your radio.
[47:32.800 --> 47:34.840]  Yes, my radio is off, sir.
[47:35.060 --> 47:35.820]  Okay, what's on your mind?
[47:37.360 --> 47:51.160]  Well, could any of your guests mention that how much improvement in the car gas mileage or the quality of safety has occurred due to all these innovations?
[47:51.460 --> 47:51.980]  Absolutely.
[47:52.000 --> 47:53.480]  Or all these computer gadgets in this.
[47:54.100 --> 47:54.620]  Absolutely.
[47:54.880 --> 47:55.540]  I will listen off the air.
[47:55.620 --> 47:56.080]  Okay, thanks.
[47:56.080 --> 48:05.940]  The computerized software is far more able to take advantage of timings and so on, much more than belts ever were.
[48:06.480 --> 48:08.400]  Mileage has gone dramatically up.
[48:08.520 --> 48:13.000]  The ability to have airbags and have all of that timed correctly has gone far up.
[48:13.080 --> 48:17.380]  So it's not that software is an evil thing by any chance.
[48:17.400 --> 48:23.300]  No, a lot of our advance is in cars has come from computerization.
[48:23.800 --> 48:30.800]  It's the market control that's being injected into what has actually made cars a better and safer product that is questionable.
[48:31.980 --> 48:38.080]  Also, I've met some people who have some interesting innovations for cars that they're having trouble getting to the data because of the DMCA.
[48:38.300 --> 48:44.460]  But someone I know wanted to associate GPS where you are, like if you're in a city, it changes...
[48:44.460 --> 48:53.040]  It doesn't just go by, you know, wheel speed or engine speed or engine temperature, but GPS and you associate all those, create an algorithm that does create better fuel efficiency.
[48:53.040 --> 48:56.320]  But you can't create it if you can't get beyond some of the aspects of the DMCA.
[48:56.980 --> 49:04.660]  There are so many people who are doing plug-in hybrids right now where they have modified their Toyota Priuses to actually plug in overnight.
[49:05.000 --> 49:10.320]  And, you know, frankly, if they're not violating the DMCA in a future version of the car, they would be.
[49:11.680 --> 49:12.780]  Okay, let's take another phone call.
[49:13.000 --> 49:13.560]  Good evening.
[49:13.700 --> 49:14.280]  You're on Off the Hook.
[49:15.660 --> 49:16.240]  Speak up.
[49:16.860 --> 49:17.160]  All right.
[49:17.580 --> 49:21.300]  How much salute did Google and the CI give you to pass the channel last week?
[49:21.480 --> 49:21.960]  Oh, boy.
[49:22.560 --> 49:22.840]  $50.
[49:23.080 --> 49:24.600]  Yeah, welcome to some of our listeners.
[49:24.840 --> 49:25.240]  Good evening.
[49:25.340 --> 49:25.940]  You're on Off the Hook.
[49:26.240 --> 49:26.900]  Yes, good evening.
[49:27.120 --> 49:27.760]  Hi, what's on your mind?
[49:28.040 --> 49:31.480]  I was the one to talk about the cars.
[49:31.800 --> 49:34.480]  Like, say, they got these computers in the cars and whatnot, right?
[49:34.640 --> 49:39.040]  But how come they don't use the ESP, like, for safety?
[49:39.040 --> 49:48.460]  There's a lot of safety things they could put on the cars, but they don't include that as standard, even though it wouldn't cost them a lot of money to put in one more, one more, you know, chip in the car.
[49:49.880 --> 49:52.160]  They put a lot of stuff into cars.
[49:52.340 --> 49:54.820]  There's always, there's an infinite amount of stuff you can put in.
[49:55.000 --> 49:56.060]  Is there something specific?
[49:56.500 --> 49:57.000]  Oh, I'm sorry.
[49:57.080 --> 49:57.740]  He's no longer with us.
[49:57.880 --> 49:58.780]  You mentioned ESP.
[49:59.660 --> 50:00.600]  I don't know what that means.
[50:00.760 --> 50:01.280]  I don't either.
[50:01.640 --> 50:02.180]  Okay, I'm sorry.
[50:03.100 --> 50:04.340]  Let's see if we can take another phone call.
[50:04.400 --> 50:04.640]  Good evening.
[50:04.760 --> 50:05.520]  You're on Off the Hook.
[50:06.380 --> 50:07.040]  Hey, Emmanuel.
[50:07.280 --> 50:07.820]  Hi, what's on your mind?
[50:08.420 --> 50:14.520]  I just wanted to ask where you guys were about a couple of months ago when they had to write a paper on the very same topic.
[50:15.280 --> 50:16.460]  We were at where?
[50:18.280 --> 50:22.200]  Yeah, basically I had computer science and ethics class and if I...
[50:22.200 --> 50:22.360]  Oh.
[50:23.400 --> 50:24.660]  And if I...
[50:27.140 --> 50:28.740]  Well, that's true.
[50:28.860 --> 50:29.160]  That's true.
[50:29.220 --> 50:29.500]  But you know what?
[50:29.520 --> 50:35.120]  Come to Hope, and I'm sure we'll be talking about this and you can take notes and get all kinds of high grades in whatever classes you have in the future.
[50:35.280 --> 50:35.980]  Let's take another phone call.
[50:36.060 --> 50:36.340]  Good evening.
[50:36.480 --> 50:37.280]  You're on Off the Hook.
[50:37.600 --> 50:38.200]  Hey, hi.
[50:38.280 --> 50:38.740]  How are you?
[50:40.300 --> 50:40.920]  This is off...
[50:40.920 --> 50:42.020]  Well, it is off topic.
[50:42.220 --> 50:43.440]  Well, I'm sorry if it's off topic.
[50:43.520 --> 50:44.260]  We're not going to talk about it.
[50:44.340 --> 50:44.700]  Good evening.
[50:45.240 --> 50:45.840]  I'm sorry.
[50:46.000 --> 50:47.860]  We have 55 people in the studio.
[50:48.020 --> 50:48.500]  We don't have time.
[50:48.560 --> 50:48.840]  Good evening.
[50:48.960 --> 50:50.000]  You're on Off the Hook.
[50:50.000 --> 50:50.960]  Good evening.
[50:50.960 --> 50:51.120]  Good evening.
[50:51.860 --> 50:52.200]  Hi.
[50:52.780 --> 50:53.720]  When I was...
[50:53.720 --> 50:54.700]  I'm from Guyana.
[50:55.180 --> 50:55.340]  Okay.
[50:55.460 --> 50:58.620]  And when Mercedes-Benz first came out, they used to seal the engine.
[50:58.880 --> 51:01.280]  The engine used to be locked down when they come to Guyana.
[51:02.000 --> 51:04.940]  And when you wanted to repair, you had to take it back to the agency.
[51:05.660 --> 51:06.300]  You see?
[51:06.420 --> 51:07.100]  That's all it.
[51:07.560 --> 51:09.160]  Now it's open, wide open.
[51:09.260 --> 51:10.360]  Everybody can go into it.
[51:11.380 --> 51:15.660]  Some of these computer additions are good.
[51:20.000 --> 51:22.620]  A airbag killed a woman just a few months ago.
[51:23.640 --> 51:26.260]  Maybe she was too small or something like that.
[51:26.440 --> 51:29.420]  And the force of the bag stopped her heart.
[51:30.220 --> 51:34.340]  You see, these things are good in one way, but destructive in another way.
[51:34.820 --> 51:40.940]  I wonder when they could be, you know, adjust these things properly to suit the masses.
[51:41.640 --> 51:43.100]  Not John Thomas.
[51:43.680 --> 51:47.600]  I think one of the ways that could be done is leaving it up to the purchaser of the car.
[51:48.140 --> 51:53.220]  Right now, to be able to turn off the airbag, which is federally mandated, it has to be operational in your car if it's there.
[51:53.420 --> 51:56.320]  If you turn it off, you're violating a federal law.
[51:56.920 --> 52:10.960]  Unless you take it back to the dealer, and at least this was this way about a couple of years ago, you had to show a letter from a physician saying you had a child or someone who was going to be sitting in the passenger seat who had a medical condition that they needed to turn the airbag off.
[52:12.260 --> 52:15.740]  So it doesn't leave a lot of choice up to the people who are purchasing the car.
[52:15.820 --> 52:22.920]  And for instance, I do off-roading, it's one of these things that I sure would like a button to be able to turn off my airbags if I'm off-roading.
[52:23.040 --> 52:25.540]  That's one of the purposes for which I purchased a vehicle.
[52:25.760 --> 52:29.820]  And if I can't turn it off, it is a safety issue, I believe, for me leaving it on.
[52:30.060 --> 52:34.600]  So I would like more choice in the cars that are being manufactured now.
[52:35.280 --> 52:37.480]  I'm going to say one word with no context.
[52:38.580 --> 52:38.940]  Vaccination.
[52:39.980 --> 52:40.340]  Okay.
[52:40.660 --> 52:41.020]  All right.
[52:41.020 --> 52:41.840]  All right.
[52:43.300 --> 52:50.180]  We're speaking with Dan Kaminsky and Tiffany Radd about cars and security and technology and the DMCA and all kinds of evil things.
[52:50.440 --> 52:52.660]  Take a couple of remaining phone calls from our listeners.
[52:52.980 --> 52:53.280]  Good evening.
[52:53.380 --> 52:54.100]  You're on Off the Hook.
[52:55.140 --> 52:55.540]  Hello.
[52:55.740 --> 52:55.920]  Hi.
[52:55.920 --> 52:56.440]  What's on your mind?
[52:57.340 --> 52:57.740]  Yes.
[52:57.900 --> 52:58.960]  I was talking earlier.
[52:59.200 --> 52:59.740]  You'll cut me off.
[52:59.880 --> 53:00.960]  I was talking about the DSP.
[53:01.600 --> 53:01.820]  Okay.
[53:01.920 --> 53:02.060]  Yes.
[53:02.140 --> 53:02.820]  Explain yourself, please.
[53:02.820 --> 53:03.360]  Right.
[53:04.300 --> 53:05.100]  That's digital.
[53:05.340 --> 53:07.400]  Like, it's control for the cars.
[53:07.620 --> 53:10.560]  Like, it's electronic stability controls.
[53:10.920 --> 53:17.680]  Like, if you're skidding or you turn, you know, it will slow down the tires or whatever so you don't flip the car and things like this.
[53:18.300 --> 53:19.560]  And these are in the cars.
[53:19.660 --> 53:20.920]  They don't put them in all the cars.
[53:21.040 --> 53:24.340]  They only put them in the expensive cars, even though it's not expensive for what a chip.
[53:25.200 --> 53:27.300]  Although, doesn't that require...
[53:27.300 --> 53:31.580]  I mean, it's not just the logic of what you're doing to the wheels.
[53:31.580 --> 53:32.380]  There's also...
[53:32.380 --> 53:42.860]  Don't you have to have additional motors or drives or gears or some kind of differential mechanical systems for actually allowing the chip to alter how the car works?
[53:42.980 --> 53:45.180]  Well, usually, it just works with the anti-lock brakes.
[53:45.680 --> 53:47.580]  Usually, something like that with the anti-lock brakes.
[53:48.140 --> 53:56.920]  I think this also goes back to what Tiffany was saying about, you know, giving the person who owns the car control over it because this isn't something that everybody wants standard.
[53:57.060 --> 54:04.700]  I know plenty of people who are very passionate car collectors and they don't always want these sorts of things turned on in their car.
[54:04.800 --> 54:06.740]  There's some people that say, I don't want the stability control.
[54:06.740 --> 54:09.780]  I know how to handle the car better than a computer does.
[54:09.900 --> 54:14.860]  And if it's trying to stabilize me steering, I might actually be doing something that it's fighting me.
[54:15.260 --> 54:22.620]  And on the complete opposite side, shouldn't I be able to install a DSP as an aftermarket item?
[54:22.620 --> 54:31.140]  Like, wait a second, so my life is being controlled by, wait, wait, you've got to spend an extra $3,000 for a $100 bar?
[54:31.280 --> 54:36.340]  This sounds kind of dangerous, almost anarchistic, the things that you're advocating here.
[54:36.440 --> 54:39.960]  Control over your own cars and being able to install things at will.
[54:40.080 --> 54:40.620]  I don't know.
[54:41.360 --> 54:42.000]  Let's take another phone call.
[54:42.060 --> 54:42.400]  Good evening.
[54:42.560 --> 54:43.300]  You're on Off the Hook.
[54:43.940 --> 54:45.440]  Hey, greetings from Lexington.
[54:45.540 --> 54:47.200]  I finally made it through Lexington, Kentucky.
[54:47.520 --> 54:48.260]  Lexington, Kentucky.
[54:48.600 --> 54:48.940]  Congratulations.
[54:49.300 --> 54:50.020]  Yes, Lexington, Kentucky.
[54:50.880 --> 54:55.320]  Your stream link on the website's actually old and I had to figure out and find the new one.
[54:55.900 --> 54:57.380]  What, on our own site it's old?
[54:57.580 --> 54:58.740]  On your own site, yes.
[54:59.060 --> 55:00.380]  Oh, well, Jones will have a talking to you later.
[55:00.940 --> 55:01.460]  All right.
[55:02.520 --> 55:14.060]  Actually, one of the projects that has been going on, I listened to you all talking about the open source ECM earlier and there's another project to read the data using the Arduino called the MPGuino.
[55:14.360 --> 55:16.180]  I have no idea if that's how it's said or not.
[55:16.960 --> 55:19.980]  But that's an interesting project for people who want to read information.
[55:21.080 --> 55:28.720]  And as far as the Ford Sync that Voltaire was talking about earlier, I believe Ford is planning to put that in future model cars.
[55:29.420 --> 55:39.600]  And there's already a couple companies like Wave and AutoNet Mobile that provide services like that where you plug in the modem into your car and it provides Wi-Fi service in your car.
[55:40.060 --> 55:43.020]  Sort of like the Wi-Fi thing but it's actually built into the car.
[55:43.280 --> 55:47.220]  So now you can send AIM messages and be on IRC and reading email while you're driving.
[55:47.220 --> 55:47.880]  Right, right, right.
[55:47.960 --> 55:50.000]  You don't even have to watch DVDs in the car anymore.
[55:51.860 --> 55:54.260]  You can watch all sorts of YouTube videos.
[55:54.460 --> 55:55.760]  Yeah, I can hardly wait.
[55:55.900 --> 55:56.020]  Dan.
[55:56.560 --> 55:59.160]  You know, I gotta say I actually think it's really cool.
[55:59.420 --> 56:03.700]  I mean, you know, if you have kids like you need to entertain those kids.
[56:03.700 --> 56:04.420]  Yeah, okay, fine.
[56:04.480 --> 56:05.460]  If the kids are there, great.
[56:05.620 --> 56:08.380]  But if you're just by yourself watching YouTube videos I think that's...
[56:08.380 --> 56:09.320]  I'm just saying...
[56:09.320 --> 56:10.140]  Recipe for disaster.
[56:10.140 --> 56:22.280]  As long as this stuff that does all this cool stuff is nowhere near in terms of network connectivity is just not connected to the car itself it's kind of cool.
[56:22.360 --> 56:39.100]  And it's kind of cool to hear this stuff because I remember I think maybe five, six years ago a bunch of people were driving over to some conference in the Midwest probably not a con or something and they had you know, a wireless network running between their two cars that they were driving in and one of them had a cell phone modem connection and so,
[56:39.180 --> 56:43.120]  you know this has existed in the past and now it's only hitting the commercial scene.
[56:43.300 --> 56:46.140]  See, that's the rule it's awesome if we do it.
[56:46.220 --> 56:46.420]  Yeah, right.
[56:46.920 --> 56:47.880]  Because we do it right.
[56:48.080 --> 56:48.480]  Go ahead, Tiffany.
[56:48.640 --> 56:55.640]  And your point about reading out information is great because it's not just accessing and changing the car computers that people are upset about.
[56:55.800 --> 56:56.960]  I can't even read out.
[56:57.080 --> 57:03.680]  There's so much information the car computer has that I can only read out stuff that's from the federally mandated emission standards control.
[57:04.620 --> 57:06.320]  That's what I can read out through OBD2.
[57:06.420 --> 57:11.440]  If I want to go beyond that the car knows so much more about how it's operating, I can't read it out from the DMCA either.
[57:11.580 --> 57:12.180]  Guys, I'm sorry.
[57:12.180 --> 57:13.600]  We are out of time.
[57:13.740 --> 57:16.400]  We have to have you back to have more of this rousing discussion.
[57:16.560 --> 57:23.940]  But can you tell the folks how they can get more information in both of your fascinating lives or get involved or contact you or anything like that?
[57:24.020 --> 57:24.200]  Go ahead.
[57:24.520 --> 57:30.940]  You can contact me through the University of Southern Maine and I have a website TiffanyRad.com No dashes in there?
[57:31.040 --> 57:31.640]  Just Tiffany Rad?
[57:31.860 --> 57:32.660]  One D in rad?
[57:32.820 --> 57:33.880]  One D in rad.
[57:34.000 --> 57:35.200]  R-A-D, not red.
[57:35.940 --> 57:43.480]  But you can also go to EFF and read more about the Right to Repair Act and do a Google search where it pulls up a lot of organizations hoping to get that to pass.
[57:43.680 --> 57:46.120]  And Dan, are you a man of mystery?
[57:47.080 --> 57:48.140]  How about Twitter?
[57:48.480 --> 57:49.840]  I'm docking me on Twitter.
[57:50.060 --> 57:52.040]  D-A-K-A-M-I.
[57:52.440 --> 57:52.680]  Okay.
[57:53.060 --> 57:54.500]  And that's pretty cool.
[57:55.320 --> 57:59.840]  Now, hopefully you guys will both be at The Next Hope which will be taking place July...
[57:59.840 --> 58:01.080]  Someone help me out here.
[58:01.540 --> 58:02.640]  What are the dates of hope?
[58:02.720 --> 58:03.260]  Does anybody know?
[58:03.640 --> 58:04.740]  Is it 16 to 18?
[58:05.020 --> 58:05.900]  I think it's...
[58:05.900 --> 58:07.020]  Yeah, 16, 17, 18.
[58:07.200 --> 58:07.440]  Yes.
[58:07.540 --> 58:08.360]  It's been a busy week.
[58:08.960 --> 58:12.740]  More information will be up at www.hope.net pretty soon.
[58:12.840 --> 58:17.440]  Probably within the next week we'll have all kinds of information on how you can attend and register and things like that.
[58:22.280 --> 58:26.260]  And with these words of wisdom we're going to leave you until next week.
[58:26.420 --> 58:29.400]  Write to us othat2600.com for Off the Hook and Emmanuel Goldstein.
[58:29.540 --> 58:29.860]  Have a good night.
[58:29.860 --> 58:31.540]  A series of tubes.
[58:31.800 --> 58:35.040]  The internet is not... The internet is not a big truck.
[58:35.180 --> 58:38.220]  The internet is not something that you just dump something.
[58:38.360 --> 58:41.800]  The internet is not... The internet is not a big truck.
[58:42.000 --> 58:48.140]  The internet... Streaming stuff under the internet.
[58:48.600 --> 58:49.060]  Why?
[58:49.400 --> 58:50.000]  Tubes.
[58:50.140 --> 58:51.600]  The internet is tubes.
[58:52.020 --> 58:52.620]  Connections.
[58:52.780 --> 58:53.360]  Consumers.
[58:53.520 --> 58:54.900]  Massive commercial purposes.
[58:55.040 --> 58:55.560]  Big truck.
[58:55.740 --> 58:56.540]  Long distance.
[58:56.940 --> 58:57.400]  It's tubes.
[58:57.540 --> 58:58.360]  Tangled up tubes.
[58:58.660 --> 58:59.840]  Part of a series of tubes.
[58:59.860 --> 59:00.160]  Tubes.
[59:00.260 --> 59:01.580]  Your own personal internet.
[59:02.220 --> 59:03.240]  The world wide web.
[59:03.880 --> 59:05.100]  The internet is tubes.
[59:05.440 --> 59:06.800]  Those tubes can be filled.
[59:07.120 --> 59:10.840]  And if they're filled, the internet is going to be delayed.
[59:11.280 --> 59:12.160]  A series of tubes.
[59:13.420 --> 59:17.240]  The internet is not... The internet is not a big truck.
[59:17.380 --> 59:20.620]  The internet is not something that you just dump something on.
[59:20.800 --> 59:22.920]  I want to make sure people understand my position.
[59:23.340 --> 59:29.000]  This system... These people are asking for regulation, okay?
[59:29.000 --> 59:33.560]  I just the other day got... The internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday.
[59:33.780 --> 59:34.640]  I got it yesterday.
[59:34.860 --> 59:37.020]  If we want to talk about the consumer, let's talk about you and me.
[59:37.020 --> 59:37.200]  Mr. Chairman.
[59:37.480 --> 59:38.060]  Yes, sir.
[59:38.140 --> 59:38.440]  I'm sorry.
[59:38.640 --> 59:39.540]  I thought you were finished.
[59:39.740 --> 59:40.380]  No, I'm not finished.
[59:40.400 --> 59:43.880]  These people are massively invading this world of the internet.
[59:44.960 --> 59:45.360]  Why?
[59:45.360 --> 59:45.760]  Tubes.
[59:45.940 --> 59:47.380]  The internet is tubes.
[59:47.940 --> 59:48.340]  Providers.
[59:48.680 --> 59:49.080]  Consumers.
[59:49.500 --> 59:50.800]  Movies delivered to your house.
[59:50.900 --> 59:51.340]  Big truck.
[59:51.560 --> 59:53.180]  Small business is tubes.
[01:00:00.900 --> 01:00:06.640]  And if they're filled, the internet is going to be delayed.
[01:00:07.060 --> 01:00:07.960]  A series of tubes.
[01:00:08.220 --> 01:00:09.380]  The internet is providers.
[01:00:09.700 --> 01:00:10.960]  The internet is consumers.
[01:00:11.340 --> 01:00:12.820]  The internet is you and me.
[01:00:13.180 --> 01:00:14.800]  The internet is not a big truck.
[01:00:14.800 --> 01:00:17.800]  The people who are streaming through a whole book at a time.
[01:00:18.340 --> 01:00:20.300]  Maybe there is a place for the internet.
[01:00:20.580 --> 01:00:23.800]  And again, the internet is a series of tubes.
[01:00:25.800 --> 01:00:26.360]  Woo!
[01:00:27.080 --> 01:00:29.360]  WBAI, New York 99.5 FM.
[01:00:30.020 --> 01:00:33.320]  Hey, man, these guys, they're off the hook, I tell ya.
[01:00:33.820 --> 01:00:35.420]  Off the hook.