[00:00.000 --> 00:02.180]  Go to fsrn.org.
[00:03.400 --> 00:05.160]  And that wraps up today's program.
[00:05.440 --> 00:07.100]  This is Free Speech Radio News.
[00:07.240 --> 00:07.960]  Thanks for listening.
[00:08.220 --> 00:09.900]  In New York, I'm Dorian Marina.
[00:18.990 --> 00:24.530]  And you're listening to radio station... oh yeah, WBAI New York.
[00:24.830 --> 00:27.910]  The time is just about 7 o'clock.
[00:28.130 --> 00:30.590]  That means once again it's time, yes, for Off the Hook.
[00:39.840 --> 00:41.800]  I cut myself while shaving.
[00:42.320 --> 00:44.360]  Now I can't make a call.
[00:45.040 --> 00:47.180]  We couldn't get much worse.
[00:49.500 --> 00:52.600]  Good, fun diddly bump, but the best is back from worst.
[00:53.240 --> 00:55.100]  I hope that's understood.
[00:55.320 --> 00:56.120]  Fun diddly bump!
[02:21.550 --> 02:24.230]  And very good to try to guide the program is Off the Hook.
[02:24.470 --> 02:27.750]  Emmanuel Goldstein here with you this fine Wednesday evening.
[02:27.970 --> 02:29.470]  Joined tonight by Mike.
[02:29.790 --> 02:30.070]  Hello.
[02:30.410 --> 02:30.690]  Jim.
[02:31.190 --> 02:31.470]  Hello.
[02:31.970 --> 02:32.350]  Dot Red.
[02:32.630 --> 02:32.890]  Hello.
[02:33.410 --> 02:33.850]  Rob T.
[02:33.950 --> 02:34.430]  Firefly.
[02:34.650 --> 02:34.990]  Good evening.
[02:34.990 --> 02:35.410]  Gus.
[02:35.570 --> 02:35.850]  Oh, hi.
[02:35.890 --> 02:36.050]  Walter.
[02:36.610 --> 02:37.010]  Yo, dog.
[02:37.110 --> 02:38.410]  I heard you're interviewing me.
[02:39.290 --> 02:39.610]  Sorry?
[02:40.810 --> 02:41.130]  Whatever.
[02:41.330 --> 02:42.590]  Okay, and Bernie down in Philadelphia.
[02:43.230 --> 02:44.490]  Top of the evening to you.
[02:44.550 --> 02:46.410]  Yeah, it's St. Patrick's Day, isn't it?
[02:47.010 --> 02:51.630]  Last time it was St. Patrick's Day and we were doing a show, I believe Red Hat walked in in the middle of the big green hat.
[02:51.770 --> 02:53.730]  And he's not here now, so I guess that could still happen.
[02:55.050 --> 02:56.470]  And that works really well on the radio.
[02:57.510 --> 03:00.210]  Yeah, okay, so exciting.
[03:00.530 --> 03:00.810]  Go ahead.
[03:00.810 --> 03:05.950]  There's this blinking light in the studio and maybe we could take the big green hat and cover the big green light with it.
[03:06.130 --> 03:12.150]  Yeah, okay, you know, for those people who listen to this radio station on a regular basis, we always are complaining about what's going on inside the studio.
[03:12.150 --> 03:18.150]  And yes, somebody's bright idea to install a big flashing green light whenever a microphone is on and we just cover it with gloves.
[03:18.270 --> 03:22.690]  But, you know, it's St. Patrick's Day today, so I think maybe we should have the big flashing green light on the whole hour.
[03:22.770 --> 03:23.150]  What do you think?
[03:23.310 --> 03:23.950]  Ooh, yeah.
[03:24.130 --> 03:24.310]  Yeah.
[03:24.670 --> 03:27.290]  Jim likes that idea, so I'm all for it.
[03:27.390 --> 03:28.230]  Well, it's an idea.
[03:28.370 --> 03:28.910]  I'll put it that way.
[03:28.910 --> 03:29.110]  Yeah.
[03:29.830 --> 03:30.870]  So, okay, yeah.
[03:31.450 --> 03:32.370]  Exciting news today.
[03:32.730 --> 03:38.070]  We finally were able to get the hotel special rates for the Hope Conference.
[03:38.390 --> 03:43.690]  So that means that if you go to... actually, it's not on our website yet.
[03:43.850 --> 03:45.610]  We tweeted about it, but it's not yet on our website.
[03:45.830 --> 03:50.590]  It's on... .read, it's on the NextHope wiki or blog or...
[03:50.590 --> 03:51.450]  How many things are there?
[03:51.570 --> 03:52.630]  I'm getting confused myself.
[03:52.830 --> 03:53.490]  Oh, man, there's so many.
[03:53.690 --> 03:56.410]  You have the main website, you know, hope.net.
[03:56.590 --> 03:58.690]  You have the forums, talk.hope.net.
[03:58.690 --> 04:01.610]  You have the wiki, which is wiki.hope.net.
[04:01.730 --> 04:01.970]  Uh-huh.
[04:02.250 --> 04:03.370]  And there's more, right?
[04:03.570 --> 04:05.450]  Twitter and Facebook events.
[04:05.810 --> 04:05.870]  Facebook.
[04:06.370 --> 04:10.190]  And for some reason, we don't have it on the main 2600 site yet, but...
[04:10.190 --> 04:12.330]  Well, there's plenty of places to find the prices.
[04:12.630 --> 04:12.730]  Yeah.
[04:12.730 --> 04:14.810]  The contact phone numbers, you can get that all off the wiki.
[04:14.810 --> 04:19.130]  We can't give the prices out over the air, but we can say that the prices are less than they were previously.
[04:19.430 --> 04:22.090]  That's incredible that we're able to pull that off.
[04:22.190 --> 04:28.630]  But all you have to do is call the hotel, Hotel Pennsylvania, which is Pennsylvania 65000, area code 212.
[04:28.650 --> 04:31.510]  For those of you in this century, 212-736-5000.
[04:32.210 --> 04:34.070]  And ask for the HOPE conference rate.
[04:34.350 --> 04:38.390]  And, of course, HOPE is taking place July 16th, 17th, and 18th of 2010.
[04:39.890 --> 04:43.730]  And that's just more exciting than I can think of at the moment.
[04:43.730 --> 04:49.670]  We've been involved in all sorts of things over the last week as far as organizing, getting people to show up, and projects, and things like that.
[04:49.790 --> 04:50.090]  Emmanuel?
[04:50.290 --> 04:50.670]  Yes, Bernie?
[04:51.010 --> 04:53.350]  I noticed, I called the Hotel Pennsylvania recently.
[04:53.510 --> 04:53.750]  Did you?
[04:53.830 --> 05:00.430]  And I noticed their automated system no longer plays Pennsylvania 65000.
[05:00.910 --> 05:01.630]  Get out, really?
[05:02.590 --> 05:09.930]  How could they possibly have decided to get rid of that famous song that made probably the most famous phone number in the world?
[05:10.010 --> 05:10.710]  You know what I bet it is?
[05:10.730 --> 05:12.490]  I bet they don't have the rights to play the music.
[05:12.870 --> 05:17.270]  You know, it could be that, or it could be they didn't make their demographic would be familiar with the song.
[05:17.430 --> 05:20.930]  But, I mean, still, they should make their demographic familiar with the song.
[05:21.890 --> 05:22.210]  Wow.
[05:24.090 --> 05:24.750]  I'm sorry, what?
[05:25.250 --> 05:25.890]  A demographic...
[05:25.890 --> 05:27.970]  The hotel does not have a demographic, I don't think.
[05:28.090 --> 05:29.090]  I thought we were the demographic.
[05:29.110 --> 05:32.410]  The demographic is people that need to come to New York cheap.
[05:34.070 --> 05:36.870]  That's the demographic, and we're happy to cater to that demographic.
[05:37.170 --> 05:41.610]  So, yeah, those of you who want to come to the HOPE conference, all the information is available on HOPE.net.
[05:41.610 --> 05:44.210]  The registration, register early, please.
[05:44.310 --> 05:48.610]  It helps us out, and also, you'll save money because the prices don't stay low forever.
[05:49.530 --> 05:56.250]  I mean, they're always low comparatively to other conferences and other things to do, but they'll never be lower than this.
[05:56.390 --> 05:56.990]  Let's put it that way.
[05:57.690 --> 06:04.830]  So, again, HOPE.net and 212-736-5000 to register for your special room rates for the HOPE conference.
[06:04.830 --> 06:13.190]  Yes, don't end up like I did at the last HOPE where I forgot to call in time to get the special rate, and by the time I got it, I had to pay full price.
[06:13.350 --> 06:14.110]  Yeah, you have a history of this.
[06:14.190 --> 06:19.450]  You had the same problem where somebody had to pull out all kinds of favors for you to get a ticket.
[06:19.690 --> 06:21.410]  Otherwise, you would have been standing on the other side of the street.
[06:22.090 --> 06:24.810]  So, yeah, let's take that to heart.
[06:25.870 --> 06:30.650]  Okay, we have various special things to talk about tonight.
[06:30.870 --> 06:36.650]  Now, Bernie, I know that you've been following this story, even though it's taking place in our fair city and not yours.
[06:37.350 --> 06:42.310]  Perhaps you could update us and also, by way of this, introduce our special guest.
[06:42.430 --> 06:49.790]  But some of you may have heard the story about some nefarious activities with New York City taxis.
[06:50.290 --> 06:50.330]  Oh, yeah.
[06:50.590 --> 06:52.250]  Why don't you tell us what you know about that?
[06:52.250 --> 07:08.330]  Well, it all started a few months ago, or maybe a few weeks ago, when a doctor with NYU took a cab in the city, and he knew the cab fare was normally like $5, but it must have been a short ride.
[07:08.990 --> 07:14.890]  And it went up to like $7, and he had an argument with the cab driver about it, who then offered to give him a discount.
[07:15.410 --> 07:18.710]  And he just thought it was fishy, so he paid with his credit card to have to log this.
[07:18.710 --> 07:28.770]  And then he filed a complaint with the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission, who did an investigation and found out that the taxi cab drivers were playing tricks with the fare boxes.
[07:28.970 --> 07:35.450]  They could press a button a certain way to record the fare as being outside a certain area, so they could charge more.
[07:35.450 --> 07:41.590]  And, you know, when you give somebody that kind of power, it turns out, like, a lot of taxi cab drivers were doing this.
[07:41.730 --> 07:46.170]  And to the tune of, like, $8.2 million in overcharges.
[07:46.670 --> 08:05.710]  And thanks to some creepy tracking technology that the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission has been using, which the taxi head drivers were really complaining about, and now I see why, maybe, everyone who paid with a credit card, the Limousine Commission can go back in the system and see who was really overcharged,
[08:05.710 --> 08:15.750]  because there's a GPS system in each cab now, which logs where the ride started and where it ended, and who was in the car, as far as whose credit card it was, and that sort of thing.
[08:15.810 --> 08:18.630]  But we have a special guest tonight to explain exactly how this happened.
[08:18.710 --> 08:24.970]  A special guest who spoke at The Last Hope back in 2008 on taxis.
[08:26.130 --> 08:27.430]  And, Foghorn, are you with us?
[08:27.970 --> 08:28.650]  Yes, I am.
[08:28.870 --> 08:30.490]  And, well, tell us something about yourself.
[08:31.210 --> 08:33.970]  You gave that talk at The Last Hope, which was very well-received.
[08:35.910 --> 08:39.250]  And are you a cab driver yourself, or are you involved?
[08:39.250 --> 08:51.770]  Well, actually, they wanted me to go through the licensing system and check out the taxi schools, because they were getting different reports of, you know, this taxi school, you know, slips in the braids a little bit, this taxi school doesn't really do anything.
[08:51.970 --> 08:53.710]  And so they wanted me to go through that.
[08:54.050 --> 08:56.610]  And I got my hack license, and I think it lapsed.
[08:56.670 --> 08:57.810]  Got your hack license.
[08:58.250 --> 08:58.430]  Yes.
[08:58.610 --> 08:59.390]  Okay, good to know.
[09:01.010 --> 09:06.570]  It comes from the term hackney cab back in London in the 1800s.
[09:06.570 --> 09:09.990]  They were horse-drawn carriages, and they went around at breakneck speeds.
[09:10.830 --> 09:16.310]  And the drivers were called hackney cabs, and the drivers were called hack drivers.
[09:16.730 --> 09:18.970]  And that tradition carried over to New York City.
[09:19.170 --> 09:23.210]  And so even here, like in the database, it's not called driver ID.
[09:23.330 --> 09:24.150]  It's called hack number.
[09:25.470 --> 09:26.930]  That's a fascinating bit of history.
[09:27.010 --> 09:28.610]  I didn't know that's where the term came from.
[09:29.170 --> 09:29.310]  Yep.
[09:29.870 --> 09:35.930]  Okay, so, well, can you tell us something about the talk you gave at The Last Hope, and then we'll talk about the current issues.
[09:36.570 --> 09:38.550]  The talk was actually on this specific system.
[09:39.670 --> 09:48.330]  I had an internship with the Tax Limiting Commission in 2008, in that summer, and I was working directly with the GPS system on the databases.
[09:48.630 --> 09:50.950]  So I had access to all the databases.
[09:50.950 --> 09:52.550]  I could see everything that was going on.
[09:52.930 --> 09:57.350]  And my job was to make a front end for the call center to interface with it.
[09:59.250 --> 10:16.650]  And based off the stuff that I saw and the things that were happening in the news, I figured it would be a good idea to get some of this information out to the public and inform people that it's not just Big Brother looking down his nose into our pocketbooks and making sure that we're taking tax caps where he wants us.
[10:16.950 --> 10:20.790]  It's a system that actually helps people and does a lot of good.
[10:22.030 --> 10:22.550]  Okay.
[10:23.370 --> 10:26.470]  So now let's move up to the present.
[10:26.810 --> 10:36.150]  We've all seen the story concerning what Bernie was talking about, about some taxi drivers overcharging by, I believe, double.
[10:37.970 --> 10:43.250]  Now, is there something you can tell us about how that particular system ties into all this?
[10:43.250 --> 10:43.950]  Yeah.
[10:45.290 --> 10:49.830]  In the taxi cab, as soon as you hop into the cab, there are certain fares that can apply.
[10:50.070 --> 10:54.090]  For example, if it's late at night, you might get a little extra charge on your bill.
[10:54.230 --> 11:01.870]  If you're coming from JFK or LaGuardia, rather, it's a $45 flat fee into the city, and they just press another button.
[11:02.750 --> 11:11.210]  There's other fares for certain things I can't remember at the moment, but it's just buttoned on the little taxi meter device.
[11:11.210 --> 11:23.190]  And they can just press them at will, and there's really no check system at the moment to check the machine that the fare actually applies as to where they are and what time of day it is.
[11:23.410 --> 11:26.130]  But it's all recorded in the database.
[11:27.410 --> 11:31.570]  There's a certain database that just holds all the information for the ride.
[11:31.570 --> 11:45.330]  So how long it was, pickup location, drop-off location, last four digits of the credit card, TIF amount if it's entered, and any special rates that apply are a couple different columns.
[11:46.190 --> 11:58.230]  And so what was going on was taxi drivers were just pressing that button, and what it was is as soon as you leave New York County, so any of the five boroughs, the rate doubles.
[11:59.030 --> 12:05.450]  So if you go into West District County, as soon as you hit that county line, they hit the button, and your fare jumps up.
[12:05.610 --> 12:08.690]  So the per-minute fare is what changes.
[12:08.990 --> 12:09.270]  Yes.
[12:09.570 --> 12:12.450]  The per-quarter mile, eighth mile?
[12:13.230 --> 12:13.610]  That's right.
[12:13.670 --> 12:16.150]  So it's either time or distance, right?
[12:16.170 --> 12:16.330]  Right.
[12:16.590 --> 12:16.810]  Okay.
[12:17.990 --> 12:21.410]  And so they were just pressing that button, but they weren't leaving New York County.
[12:22.190 --> 12:40.690]  And what the Taxi-Cable Moving Commission did was went back into the records, and because they had the start location and the end location and Google Maps, they could just plug that in and see, okay, this guy went from Central Park to Lincoln Center, and that's well within Manhattan.
[12:40.890 --> 12:47.470]  So wait, you mean they were able to call up records of a ride that was taken years ago and check the rate that was charged for that ride?
[12:47.830 --> 12:51.990]  I'm pretty sure they don't delete any data at this particular time.
[12:52.150 --> 12:57.170]  But the thing is, only the last four digits of your credit card are saved.
[12:57.430 --> 12:57.950]  Uh-huh.
[12:58.290 --> 13:03.130]  But the information on the actual ride that the driver had is saved.
[13:03.590 --> 13:03.950]  Yes.
[13:04.130 --> 13:04.730]  That's incredible.
[13:04.730 --> 13:06.710]  I didn't know they did things like that.
[13:06.810 --> 13:07.910]  And wow.
[13:08.550 --> 13:11.210]  Has this been used for law enforcement purposes yet?
[13:12.410 --> 13:20.150]  I can't cite anything off the top of my head, but I do remember I worked in the call center a couple days to get a feel for it so I can make the interface I was talking about.
[13:20.550 --> 13:35.650]  And at least five calls a day came through that phone that I was working at, in particular, where someone had left a bag in the back of a car or, you know, a cello in the trunk or something, and they just knew, okay, I was at this place, I went to this place,
[13:35.850 --> 13:37.450]  and they dropped me off at this time.
[13:37.450 --> 13:50.930]  And based off that, you can get the list of all the taxi cabs that picked up in an area within that location, like a 0.5-mile radius, and then dropped off within a 0.5-mile radius.
[13:51.170 --> 13:55.170]  And then based on the time, you can figure out which cab it was specifically.
[13:55.530 --> 14:10.530]  And what's nice about the new system is they implemented an SMS system where the TLC can actually message the cabbie specifically which cabbie they identified and say, hey, look in your back, see if this is back there.
[14:10.650 --> 14:13.990]  If so, return to the nearest lost item precinct.
[14:14.810 --> 14:15.690]  Hey, Foghorn.
[14:16.250 --> 14:16.470]  Yep.
[14:17.290 --> 14:19.290]  I really enjoyed your talk at the last show.
[14:19.370 --> 14:20.030]  It was really interesting.
[14:20.850 --> 14:27.010]  But what you just mentioned is that the Taxi Limousine Commission is now texting cabbies while they're driving.
[14:27.470 --> 14:41.210]  Doesn't this conflict with the recent rule that the Taxi Limousine Commission just put into effect a few weeks ago that forbade your cabbies from using their phone for any purpose while they're driving?
[14:41.890 --> 14:47.070]  There's a safeguarding system so that if the cab is moving, the text doesn't go through.
[14:47.270 --> 14:47.790]  Oh, wow.
[14:48.810 --> 14:51.910]  Bernie, I think what you were referring to was the bus system.
[14:52.750 --> 14:55.450]  No, I was referring to the Taxi Limousine Commission.
[14:55.750 --> 14:58.510]  I actually called them and verified what the article was.
[14:58.650 --> 15:00.590]  I don't know if we talked about it in detail on the show.
[15:00.850 --> 15:03.390]  But, yeah, so that's really interesting.
[15:03.390 --> 15:10.350]  The system sees if the cab is moving and waits until it's apparently stopped before it sends the SMS to the cabbie.
[15:10.910 --> 15:16.650]  Yeah, because as the cab is moving along, it's dropping breadcrumbs so that the GPS in the back can pick it up.
[15:18.570 --> 15:29.430]  Breadcrumbs being it's taking GPS coordinate locations as it's going along its path and then storing them temporarily so they can display them on the display in the back of the cab because there's a TV back there.
[15:29.630 --> 15:36.150]  And then it looks and you can trace your route and this is where you're going and this is where your destination can be.
[15:38.310 --> 15:42.230]  And as long as the points are close enough, it's a text message.
[15:42.610 --> 15:51.490]  So if they only had the last four digits of all these credit card numbers that were overcharged for cab fare, how were they going to find out individually who deserves a refund?
[15:51.630 --> 15:56.090]  Didn't the Tax and Limiting Commission say they're going to try to refund all $8.2 million in overcharges?
[15:56.790 --> 15:58.010]  That's one of the problems.
[15:58.190 --> 16:07.590]  The Tax and Limiting Commission only keeps the last four digits because they're trying to coordinate, you know, that this cab was different from this cab was different from this cab.
[16:07.810 --> 16:10.830]  And the way the database is set up, it's actually quite insane.
[16:11.090 --> 16:15.150]  There's about 16 different databases and none of them are exactly linked.
[16:15.450 --> 16:26.730]  They're actually stored in a mainframe, which is queried every day and then pulled into a MySQL database, which then you have to use all sorts of join statements to get it to work with anything.
[16:26.730 --> 16:35.490]  Well, as far as just a suggestion here from somebody who never takes cabs, but, okay, we don't know who to refund the money to, but we do know who's guilty.
[16:35.490 --> 16:41.610]  Why not have simply a day where the guilty cab drivers have to take everybody in the city around for free?
[16:41.770 --> 16:44.650]  You know, is that realistic?
[16:45.130 --> 16:48.410]  Or maybe a week, just until they pay it off.
[16:48.430 --> 16:56.410]  I would love to do a week of free cab rides, but unfortunately, another one of the problems we had was I was doing some statistical work and I had to figure out, you know, what an average cabbie's day was.
[16:56.870 --> 16:59.590]  And, you know, when they started work, how many trips they made.
[16:59.690 --> 17:09.450]  And one thing that makes it difficult is a lot of the times you're supposed to sign in with your hack number every time you make a trip, but some people, some hack drivers don't do that.
[17:09.870 --> 17:17.410]  Or they leave the hack number of the person who was in before because they leased the cab and they know the person who leases it and they use their hack number.
[17:17.910 --> 17:19.150]  All sorts of different systems.
[17:19.350 --> 17:22.630]  So you can't exactly be sure who was driving any cab at any particular time.
[17:22.990 --> 17:28.490]  Now, going back to what you were saying about the GPS and the system that logs the locations and where you go.
[17:29.250 --> 17:31.090]  I don't believe this is an entirely new thing.
[17:31.170 --> 17:35.310]  I seem to remember in the days before all this tech was in the cab that they would just write it down with a pen and paper.
[17:35.750 --> 17:40.230]  And so I think this is just automating something that was already a requirement.
[17:40.410 --> 17:41.190]  Am I correct?
[17:42.110 --> 17:50.990]  There used to be what they call trip sheets and you had to write down your pickup location, your drop-off location, the times, and how many passengers.
[17:51.710 --> 17:56.950]  And you had to have it filled out, but there was nothing about how legibly you had to do it.
[17:57.130 --> 18:01.290]  So if you look back into my slides, they're posted on my website, nickleghorn.com.
[18:02.250 --> 18:08.170]  There's a slide in there which has the most legible trip sheet I could find and I still can't read it.
[18:09.070 --> 18:21.930]  Because a lot of the stuff they did was they'd fill out a trip sheet using the worst handwriting they could possibly do and then they'd just leave it because they didn't need to necessarily hand a good one in every day.
[18:22.130 --> 18:24.510]  They'd just photocopy it and send a whole bunch in.
[18:24.710 --> 18:30.170]  But they needed to have one that looks sort of filled out or else the police could give them a ticket for not having a trip sheet.
[18:30.510 --> 18:36.410]  So was it something where when they changed over from the trip sheets to the computerized system, were there any cabbies who refused?
[18:36.410 --> 18:39.690]  Are there still people out there using trip sheets or is everybody doing digital now?
[18:40.170 --> 18:40.990]  It's mandated.
[18:41.250 --> 18:42.630]  After the last...
[18:43.730 --> 18:50.350]  after the system was implemented, it became a necessity for recertification of the cab.
[18:50.610 --> 18:55.390]  Because every four months, four to six months, the cabs need to be recertified.
[18:55.630 --> 19:07.410]  So they need to go through the inspection facility, make sure that, you know, all the springs are good, the suspension's fine, the seat doesn't have, you know, hypodermic diesel sticking out of it, the right stickers are in the right place, and nothing's lapsed.
[19:07.870 --> 19:13.630]  And they made it one of the requirements that you had to have one of the three systems.
[19:13.910 --> 19:18.090]  There are three different implementations of this GPS system.
[19:18.210 --> 19:24.230]  And they made it a requirement that you had to have one of them or else you wouldn't pass recertification and you couldn't operate as a tax cab anymore.
[19:25.010 --> 19:27.670]  So we've returned to the credit card issue.
[19:28.230 --> 19:34.130]  You had mentioned that there are lots of, like, poorly organized databases that are part of the system.
[19:34.490 --> 19:42.410]  Is there any point in the chain where there's more than the four, the last four days you've credit card stored where that could be subpoenaed potentially?
[19:43.270 --> 19:47.230]  There is one point, and that's the...
[19:48.110 --> 19:49.370]  I was talking about the...
[19:49.370 --> 19:53.590]  there are three different implementations of the GPS system, and each one is backed up by a different company.
[19:54.170 --> 19:57.030]  And each of the companies charges the credit card.
[19:57.230 --> 20:00.650]  So it's up to the companies to charge the credit cards, not the TLC.
[20:01.450 --> 20:06.330]  So they, according to the PCI standards, have to keep the records for a certain amount of time.
[20:06.530 --> 20:07.830]  And they'll keep the records.
[20:08.090 --> 20:11.230]  And whether or not they have them, I'm unaware.
[20:11.610 --> 20:18.990]  But that's the best bet for where the records are because by the time it hits TLC's databases, they've already been sanitized.
[20:19.730 --> 20:20.590]  So they don't...
[20:20.590 --> 20:24.490]  Tax and limited commission doesn't even get the full credit card number.
[20:24.610 --> 20:25.750]  It isn't even transmitted to them.
[20:26.090 --> 20:32.030]  We're speaking with Foghorn about the current New York City taxi scandal.
[20:32.670 --> 20:36.370]  And let me go back to your talk in 2008 at The Last Hope.
[20:36.470 --> 20:38.850]  How was that received by the hacking community?
[20:39.590 --> 20:40.910]  They liked it a lot.
[20:41.050 --> 20:45.350]  I really wanted to do more, but I was doing the presentation.
[20:47.070 --> 20:49.030]  I was doing it...
[20:49.030 --> 20:52.490]  The Attack of the Limousine Commission gave me permission to do it.
[20:52.750 --> 20:56.510]  So they went through my speech and okayed all of it.
[20:56.770 --> 21:07.450]  There was a little bit more I wanted to go into, but there was some live exploits in the system that I've notified them of, and I'm still waiting on confirmation to release those.
[21:09.670 --> 21:11.250]  But people seemed to like it a lot.
[21:11.490 --> 21:15.710]  There were a lot of people that came up to me afterwards saying, you know, I've been a taxi driver for X number of years.
[21:15.710 --> 21:17.570]  I didn't know this was how the system worked.
[21:17.750 --> 21:18.730]  It was really cool.
[21:19.690 --> 21:32.550]  I did a lot about the history of the taxi cabs and the current demographics of taxi drivers and how there are precisely 13,237 operating taxi cabs at any time in New York City.
[21:33.310 --> 21:36.750]  And a lot of people seemed to like just learning about the taxi system.
[21:37.830 --> 21:38.890]  Because we're hackers.
[21:38.990 --> 21:40.090]  We like learning about a new system.
[21:40.210 --> 21:43.310]  Yeah, I think that's why hackers are big into trains as well.
[21:43.450 --> 21:49.510]  Anything with a system involved, we want to find out exactly what's behind it, what makes it tick, and what breaks it, obviously.
[21:50.150 --> 21:50.530]  Exactly.
[21:51.170 --> 21:56.570]  Are there any other little tidbits you'd like to tell us about how the system works you might not have thought of?
[22:00.230 --> 22:09.890]  It's just really interesting when you get down into it and you start understanding, you know, these are mostly people that came over from other countries and the drivers, rather.
[22:10.390 --> 22:15.690]  And they typically had another job set up but that fell through and then they went to taxi driving.
[22:15.810 --> 22:24.590]  It's not that they came here looking specifically to drive taxis, it's that they had something else set up and then fell back onto this as sort of a backup plan.
[22:24.590 --> 22:25.670]  And from what I...
[22:25.670 --> 22:26.010]  Oh, go ahead.
[22:26.790 --> 22:39.430]  And from there, you start looking at it and thinking that these are, you know, not necessarily, you know, the dreadful society who are driving you around but somewhat educated people who are, you know, just a little down on their luck and, you know...
[22:40.010 --> 22:41.350]  Or not down on their luck.
[22:41.450 --> 22:42.570]  Sometimes they're doing quite well.
[22:42.570 --> 22:43.550]  I understand that...
[22:43.550 --> 22:47.210]  Well, first of all, a medallion costs a fortune, doesn't it?
[22:47.750 --> 22:55.370]  I think the last medallion, they're auctioned off and the last medallion went for about half a million dollars.
[22:55.650 --> 22:58.470]  Yeah, so if you own a medallion, you must be doing all right.
[22:58.890 --> 22:59.170]  Exactly.
[22:59.210 --> 23:06.650]  Like I said, there are exactly 13,237 medallions out there and that number only changes once in a blue moon.
[23:07.010 --> 23:07.590]  Hey, 5-0.
[23:07.990 --> 23:08.430]  Yeah?
[23:08.730 --> 23:12.510]  I just want to ask you, since you pointed out that the system doesn't really...
[23:12.510 --> 23:20.010]  isn't really able to track who the cab driver was, only from the hack number, which apparently they could enter somebody else's number in.
[23:20.130 --> 23:40.090]  Do you think, knowing since you've dealt with it, you've worked for the Taxi Limousine Commission, do you think that they may move towards some sort of biometric identification system so that cab drivers or hacks will actually have to, you know, stick their finger in something or do a retina scan or something to prove that they are the driver they say they are?
[23:40.730 --> 23:43.890]  They had a hard enough time pushing through the...
[23:43.890 --> 23:46.030]  just getting the GPS system in there.
[23:46.030 --> 23:52.210]  I don't really see them being able to put something like biometrics in there, at least not right now.
[23:52.350 --> 24:00.950]  It would certainly make it a whole lot easier for tracking purposes and also for just signing in instead of punching in your seven or nine-digit number.
[24:00.950 --> 24:03.250]  You just, you know, swipe your finger and you're in.
[24:03.710 --> 24:11.290]  But, again, with the whole privacy thing, a lot of these people aren't necessarily reporting all their earnings to the IRS.
[24:11.290 --> 24:15.590]  So, having them swipe in is a little challenge.
[24:16.890 --> 24:17.330]  Interesting.
[24:18.270 --> 24:19.090]  Go ahead, Voltaire.
[24:19.230 --> 24:22.410]  Back to the point about the income of the cabbies.
[24:22.870 --> 24:29.470]  I think in your presentation you had gone through a chart of, like, the average take-home income at the end of the year.
[24:29.630 --> 24:30.870]  It really didn't seem like much.
[24:30.990 --> 24:32.030]  Do you have the numbers offhand?
[24:32.590 --> 24:33.470]  I'm sorry, for what?
[24:33.630 --> 24:36.350]  The income of the tax cap drivers.
[24:36.990 --> 24:38.750]  I don't have those numbers offhand.
[24:40.710 --> 24:41.070]  It's...
[24:41.450 --> 24:43.970]  The way the taxi system works is you lease...
[24:43.970 --> 24:45.090]  You're a hack driver.
[24:45.230 --> 24:46.150]  So, you have your hack number.
[24:46.250 --> 24:47.410]  You have your license to drive a taxi.
[24:47.730 --> 24:51.910]  And then you have to go to one of these guys that have the 13,237 medallion.
[24:52.450 --> 24:54.330]  And they don't drive their own taxi cabs.
[24:54.370 --> 24:55.590]  They lease them out to other people.
[24:55.890 --> 25:01.750]  Because the taxis have to be on the road a certain percentage of the day, whether it be, you know, 12 hours or 24 hours or whatever it is.
[25:02.170 --> 25:03.390]  But they have to be on the road.
[25:04.430 --> 25:07.690]  And so they lease them out to the drivers for $100.
[25:08.590 --> 25:10.790]  I think $100 is the latest lease rate.
[25:11.810 --> 25:13.530]  But they plop down their $100.
[25:13.550 --> 25:15.770]  They get the medallion in the car for the day.
[25:15.970 --> 25:19.950]  And then they have to make up that $100 before they start earning any money.
[25:20.530 --> 25:34.490]  And with the fuel prices of 2008, there was a lot of clamor for them to raise the rate of taxicab, raise the taxicab rate so the taxi drivers could get more of a quote, fair shake, end quote.
[25:35.850 --> 25:43.970]  And we were able to show that actually the fuel prices for the amount of driving they were doing and the amount of business they were doing was not affecting them in a significant way.
[25:45.310 --> 25:47.750]  So it seems like they're doing pretty well.
[25:47.890 --> 25:49.010]  I can't give you an exact number though.
[25:49.370 --> 25:50.910]  Okay, we're speaking with Nick Foghorn.
[25:51.110 --> 25:51.710]  I got that right.
[25:51.850 --> 25:52.490]  It's Nick Foghorn, right?
[25:53.630 --> 25:55.090]  It's Nick Leghorn is my last name.
[25:55.130 --> 25:56.810]  You know, it was Leghorn.
[25:56.950 --> 25:57.570]  I asked Rob T.
[25:57.670 --> 26:00.690]  Firefly if it was Foghorn or Leghorn and he said it was Foghorn.
[26:00.770 --> 26:01.510]  It's not my fault.
[26:02.110 --> 26:02.650]  Nick Leghorn.
[26:02.790 --> 26:09.950]  Okay, well, in any event, we'd like to know if you'd like to stay on for some phone calls afterwards because I think a lot of people have questions.
[26:10.690 --> 26:11.530]  I'm not going anywhere.
[26:11.710 --> 26:17.090]  Okay, well, you are now because we're going to put you on hold just for a moment because we have another Nick on the other line.
[26:17.250 --> 26:20.270]  And it's too bad you're not Nick Foghorn because this is another Nick F.
[26:21.170 --> 26:21.890]  This is...
[26:21.890 --> 26:22.810]  Is he on?
[26:23.250 --> 26:26.830]  Okay, this is Nick Fury joining us from Carolina.
[26:26.930 --> 26:28.070]  I'm not sure which Carolina.
[26:28.230 --> 26:28.950]  Nick, are you with us?
[26:28.950 --> 26:29.750]  I am with you.
[26:30.150 --> 26:37.510]  Okay, now you're on the program right now because you have a special event coming up this weekend involving the hacker community and we want to make sure people know about it.
[26:37.950 --> 26:39.650]  It's called CarolinaCon.
[26:39.910 --> 26:41.170]  Tell us something about CarolinaCon.
[26:42.070 --> 26:44.530]  CarolinaCon is an annual event.
[26:44.730 --> 26:45.710]  We hold it every year.
[26:45.990 --> 26:47.850]  This year it's going to be in Raleigh, North Carolina.
[26:48.430 --> 26:50.090]  We generally hold it in North Carolina.
[26:51.050 --> 26:53.390]  We don't have a whole lot of love for South Carolina, maybe.
[26:53.490 --> 26:53.850]  I don't know.
[26:54.050 --> 26:54.710]  Oh, that's great.
[26:54.830 --> 26:55.690]  Okay, so you have...
[26:55.690 --> 26:57.550]  Right away you have all kinds of animosity.
[26:57.710 --> 26:58.310]  That's wonderful.
[26:58.350 --> 26:58.770]  No, no, no.
[26:58.770 --> 27:00.990]  We have a lot of people who actually come up from South Carolina.
[27:01.190 --> 27:02.090]  We love them dearly.
[27:02.670 --> 27:03.990]  Give them a hard time, I guess.
[27:04.470 --> 27:06.410]  But the event is held every year.
[27:06.570 --> 27:11.950]  This year it's going to be this coming Friday the 19th and Saturday the 20th and Sunday the 21st.
[27:12.430 --> 27:12.970]  Wow, okay.
[27:13.110 --> 27:15.710]  Tell us some of the things that have happened in previous CarolinaCons.
[27:16.010 --> 27:18.590]  Previous CarolinaCons that we started in 2005.
[27:18.970 --> 27:26.170]  It was mainly just a meetup of all the 2,600 groups within North Carolina and it's just sort of grown from there.
[27:26.830 --> 27:34.670]  Previous years we've had people present on all kinds of topics from lockpicking stuff to robotics, amateur radio.
[27:34.870 --> 27:40.450]  We had a guy who did pirate radio and actually was part of the Radio Caroline vessel.
[27:40.950 --> 27:41.750]  Oh, really?
[27:41.750 --> 27:42.330]  I remember that.
[27:42.630 --> 27:44.990]  Yeah, it was off the coast of the UK if I remember right.
[27:44.990 --> 27:47.270]  But he had actually been involved with that.
[27:47.270 --> 27:48.110]  He came out and talked.
[27:48.410 --> 27:50.110]  We've done all kinds of stuff.
[27:50.690 --> 27:51.250]  Uh-huh.
[27:51.550 --> 27:53.710]  And what kind of turnout do you generally get?
[27:54.330 --> 27:57.170]  Last year I think we had around 150 people come out.
[27:57.310 --> 28:00.810]  We're expecting at least that many this year, possibly more.
[28:01.170 --> 28:08.830]  Okay, well we can't give out prices but we can give out websites information and how people can register or head on down there.
[28:09.350 --> 28:09.630]  Sure.
[28:09.950 --> 28:24.370]  The website's carolinacon.org C-A-R-O-L-N-I-L-I-N-A con, C-O-N dot O-R-G I can't give the price but feel free to check out the website.
[28:24.530 --> 28:25.210]  The price is there.
[28:25.850 --> 28:28.830]  The price is indeed right I will say.
[28:29.150 --> 28:30.390]  Can people register online?
[28:30.710 --> 28:35.930]  We don't do pre-registration but come with cash in hand at the door and it's a great price.
[28:36.230 --> 28:38.650]  And are there rooms at the hotel?
[28:38.830 --> 28:41.990]  I think the last time I heard they were all full.
[28:42.570 --> 28:45.890]  Okay, so people can pitch a tent or something or is there another hotel?
[28:46.150 --> 28:47.730]  There are other hotels in the area.
[28:47.910 --> 28:52.870]  The hotel is actually the Holiday Inn on Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh, North Carolina.
[28:53.850 --> 28:54.290]  Okay.
[28:54.730 --> 28:58.770]  And I mean it's easy to find and if you go to our website the address is there.
[28:59.150 --> 29:00.110]  Okay, Bernie did you have something?
[29:00.350 --> 29:07.070]  Yeah, Nick could you I was looking at the carolinacon.org website yesterday and it looked like it was a really nice lineup of talks.
[29:07.330 --> 29:10.450]  Could you go over some of those and what people could expect?
[29:10.750 --> 29:11.190]  Sure.
[29:11.510 --> 29:20.070]  I can certainly go over at least one of them because I'm going to be giving a talk on Friday night about microcontrollers and in particular the Arduino series of microcontrollers.
[29:20.790 --> 29:27.710]  we also have people talking about let's see people talking about vulnerabilities for software.
[29:29.310 --> 29:34.350]  Daryl Hyland who's been a speaker the last couple years is going to be doing a talk on that subject.
[29:34.670 --> 29:50.610]  We have Deviant Ulum who's from the tool group the Open Organizational Lockpickers and they're going to come down they're actually going to set up a lockpicking village in addition to the talks that are going on and running things there and they're going to be talking about the ultimate handcuff key.
[29:51.430 --> 29:52.870]  The ultimate handcuff key?
[29:53.990 --> 30:04.010]  Yeah, they're going to be talking I think it's about how they managed to pull together a bunch of resources and come up with a key to open up just about every type of handcuff that's out there.
[30:04.610 --> 30:05.610]  Don't leave home without it.
[30:05.650 --> 30:07.670]  Yeah, it sounds like something law enforcement would be very concerned about.
[30:07.830 --> 30:14.290]  I would think so but you know we do have our fair share of law enforcement that show up as well.
[30:14.510 --> 30:16.710]  Will there be Clube Mate at the conference?
[30:16.990 --> 30:18.150]  That's a good question.
[30:18.530 --> 30:21.910]  I don't think so because you have to get it through us and I don't recall there...
[30:21.910 --> 30:23.690]  I don't think we've done anything to get any.
[30:23.870 --> 30:30.490]  Unless Nick Fargo's down there I know he's got a shipment in his apartment so I think but that's something.
[30:30.810 --> 30:33.010]  Well that might be something we can consider for future years.
[30:33.150 --> 30:33.690]  Yeah, definitely.
[30:34.930 --> 30:39.170]  You might find it supports your conference because people are manic about it.
[30:39.350 --> 30:39.710]  Absolutely.
[30:40.270 --> 31:03.010]  One other thing we are an all-volunteer conference nobody gets paid for doing this so everybody involved with this is volunteering Yeah, we're familiar with that concept and it does seem to work with this community because you have so many people with talent and skills and just the desire to make something work and this is how we're able to keep the prices low so people can afford to come but we
[31:03.010 --> 31:05.490]  do ask that people help out in various ways.
[31:05.690 --> 31:05.990]  Absolutely.
[31:06.030 --> 31:15.950]  Taking care of each other just making sure things are working and we have a great time and this is true of the conferences overseas, the ones here in the States and RedHack is here without a big green hat this year.
[31:16.090 --> 31:23.070]  You know, I saw someone with a big green hat and I almost took it but I figured I'd be later if I tried to run with their hat.
[31:23.870 --> 31:31.750]  No, I was just going to say follow up on what you said about volunteering not only does it help everybody and you know you're looking out for other people but you generally have a good time doing it too.
[31:32.010 --> 31:34.490]  I mean, you know there are lots of fun jobs at conferences Oh, absolutely.
[31:34.750 --> 31:36.370]  They're jobs but they're good.
[31:36.830 --> 31:39.110]  Yeah, I think a lot of people will say that as well.
[31:39.210 --> 31:39.430]  Thought, right?
[31:39.950 --> 31:45.150]  Yeah, just like all the jobs you do the actual interactions you're interacting with the conference on a complete another level.
[31:45.290 --> 31:53.450]  I remember my first hope I wasn't expecting to contribute nearly as much as I did and I had way more fun than I ever could have anticipated.
[31:53.590 --> 31:54.390]  When was your first hope?
[31:54.550 --> 31:55.570]  It was the last hope.
[31:55.630 --> 31:56.890]  The last hope was your first hope.
[31:57.050 --> 31:57.250]  Boy.
[31:57.530 --> 31:58.330]  Oh boy, oh boy.
[31:58.470 --> 32:00.370]  I must have been sad when you thought it really was the last hope.
[32:01.210 --> 32:04.250]  So the next hope is your second hope and we still have to call the one after that.
[32:04.810 --> 32:11.650]  Well, okay, Nick, anything else that you'd like to share with us as far as people thinking about going down to Carolina this weekend?
[32:12.150 --> 32:13.210]  I'm not sure.
[32:13.270 --> 32:15.630]  We're going to be there all weekend doing this.
[32:16.470 --> 32:17.810]  How early can people show up?
[32:18.110 --> 32:20.610]  We're going to start registration at 6 o'clock on Friday.
[32:20.950 --> 32:21.230]  Okay.
[32:21.690 --> 32:26.590]  And if people want to dive in and help you guys with the conference, can they show up earlier than that?
[32:27.010 --> 32:27.770]  We've got...
[32:27.770 --> 32:35.810]  I think we're pretty much full for everybody helping out right now but certainly if people are there and we need assistance, we'll be definitely calling on people that are willing to help.
[32:36.190 --> 32:37.810]  And will we be seeing you at the next Hope?
[32:38.530 --> 32:39.990]  Chances are maybe.
[32:40.150 --> 32:43.850]  I've got to figure out the financial situation for that right now.
[32:43.910 --> 32:47.190]  But I was at the last one and I was at Hope number 6 as well.
[32:47.530 --> 32:47.830]  Okay.
[32:47.930 --> 32:49.270]  Well, hopefully we'll see you there, Rob.
[32:49.430 --> 32:55.070]  I should point out that our Hope forums at talk.hope.net are a great source of room shares and ride shares and things like that.
[32:55.230 --> 32:55.610]  Absolutely.
[32:56.110 --> 33:05.910]  And those of you concerned about the financial issues should know that it'll never get cheaper than this and there's always ways of saving lots of money and people can...
[33:05.910 --> 33:10.230]  If you submit a talk and the talk is accepted you get a free ticket that way.
[33:10.430 --> 33:12.430]  So, you know, that's one way to save something.
[33:12.650 --> 33:16.810]  You can sleep on someone's floor maybe in the hammocks downstairs and save that kind of money.
[33:16.950 --> 33:18.310]  You don't have to eat every day.
[33:19.410 --> 33:20.210]  There's all sorts of things.
[33:20.290 --> 33:20.490]  Right, Hank?
[33:20.790 --> 33:23.730]  I think my first hope I slept on a table one night.
[33:23.850 --> 33:26.490]  I don't recommend that but I don't think there were hammocks at the time.
[33:26.650 --> 33:27.890]  I think there are pictures of you that...
[33:27.890 --> 33:28.530]  Yeah, probably.
[33:28.650 --> 33:30.130]  I was sleeping on a table in the knock.
[33:30.290 --> 33:31.830]  Yeah, some of them are best deleted.
[33:32.110 --> 33:32.390]  Dot, right?
[33:32.610 --> 33:32.930]  Yeah, yeah.
[33:32.990 --> 33:34.910]  My first night I actually slept in the knock too.
[33:35.490 --> 33:36.290]  You slept?
[33:36.510 --> 33:36.790]  Wow.
[33:36.790 --> 33:37.570]  No, actually no.
[33:37.710 --> 33:40.570]  I tried for about 40 minutes.
[33:40.570 --> 33:42.910]  See, with the Club Monte a lot of people don't sleep the whole weekend.
[33:42.930 --> 33:43.830]  I didn't have what?
[33:44.870 --> 33:48.650]  No, you're talking about speakers getting in for free if their talk is accepted.
[33:48.650 --> 33:52.510]  I believe the same thing is true for submissions to the art space.
[33:52.730 --> 33:57.650]  People who contribute to that actually will have the same thing happen.
[33:57.890 --> 33:58.990]  If it's accepted, yes.
[33:59.010 --> 33:59.450]  Rob?
[33:59.750 --> 34:05.570]  Yeah, my first hope I stretched out across I think three folding chairs and crashed one night like that.
[34:05.710 --> 34:06.290]  So that was fun.
[34:06.450 --> 34:06.610]  Yeah.
[34:07.150 --> 34:07.490]  All right, Nick.
[34:07.770 --> 34:08.770]  Best of luck with CarolinaCon.
[34:08.850 --> 34:09.690]  We want to hear all about it.
[34:09.850 --> 34:10.990]  Thank you guys for your support.
[34:11.170 --> 34:11.670]  No problem.
[34:11.810 --> 34:12.130]  No problem.
[34:12.250 --> 34:17.090]  And we'll expect to see you at the next Tope as well along with many other Carolinans.
[34:17.850 --> 34:18.210]  Fantastic.
[34:18.650 --> 34:18.970]  All right.
[34:19.470 --> 34:20.990]  Nick Fury from CarolinaCon.
[34:21.150 --> 34:23.650]  Again, the website carolinacon.org.
[34:23.930 --> 34:25.330]  All sorts of information there.
[34:25.750 --> 34:26.950]  Hacker conferences everywhere.
[34:27.830 --> 34:30.510]  Some big, some small, some in the States, some overseas.
[34:30.970 --> 34:32.290]  We're checking out and supporting.
[34:33.550 --> 34:35.550]  Okay, we have a couple of news items.
[34:35.750 --> 34:44.970]  So we're going to go back to Nick Leghorn who will be taking calls with us talking about taxis and facts and figures and things like that.
[34:45.150 --> 34:45.410]  Right, Hacker?
[34:45.530 --> 34:52.530]  I did want to mention one thing that I didn't hear you guys say because I think Bernie was asking about how they were going to track down the people who use their credit cards.
[34:53.130 --> 35:02.730]  And in the article I read, they were talking about they were actually trying to go to the credit card companies, you know, the ones that actually process the payments and try to get it that way.
[35:02.890 --> 35:08.470]  So, you know, we know that this charge was made at this time on this date and the last four digits are this.
[35:08.650 --> 35:09.930]  Can you help us out kind of thing.
[35:10.610 --> 35:14.930]  Okay, well that's something we might be able to ask Nick a little bit later on.
[35:15.230 --> 35:20.370]  I want to focus on a couple of stories that have happened in the last week or so.
[35:21.050 --> 35:23.130]  One involves my favorite person, Sarah Palin.
[35:23.290 --> 35:35.310]  Do you know that Sarah and her husband, Todd, will be testifying in the federal case against a Tennessee man who allegedly accessed Palin's private email account during the 2008 presidential race?
[35:35.330 --> 35:35.810]  Remember this?
[35:35.990 --> 35:37.810]  This was, I think, a Yahoo account?
[35:38.590 --> 35:39.170]  Yeah.
[35:39.410 --> 35:46.950]  So, according to Attorney Thomas Van Flying, Governor and Mr. Palin have been asked by the U.S.
[35:47.190 --> 35:51.970]  Department of Justice to testify in its ongoing criminal prosecution in the case of U.S.
[35:52.150 --> 35:52.370]  vs.
[35:52.910 --> 35:53.330]  Kimmel.
[35:53.610 --> 35:57.230]  The Palins expect to testify in person in Knoxville, Tennessee.
[35:57.910 --> 36:05.030]  The case involves University of Tennessee student David Cornell, 22-year-old son of a Democratic state representative.
[36:05.710 --> 36:19.870]  He was indicted in October of 2008 after he allegedly used information freely available online to guess the password to Palin's personal Yahoo account, the name of which was posted on numerous websites at the time.
[36:20.210 --> 36:30.010]  He accessed the account around the same time questions were being raised about Palin's use of personal email accounts to conduct state business as governor of Alaska.
[36:30.210 --> 36:39.830]  After gaining access to her account, he allegedly reset the password, scanned her account for potentially damaging information, and posted the new password to a public website.
[36:40.250 --> 36:46.370]  Federal prosecutors broadened their case against Cornell in 2009, charging him with four felonies, identity theft.
[36:46.370 --> 36:47.930]  Who would want to steal her identity?
[36:48.330 --> 36:49.070]  I mean, really.
[36:49.610 --> 36:53.690]  Wire fraud, computer fraud, and obstructing a federal investigation.
[36:54.730 --> 36:57.030]  Cornell has pleaded not guilty to all four accounts.
[36:57.110 --> 36:59.910]  Federal judge has set the trial date for April 20th.
[36:59.990 --> 37:02.610]  There's never been a better reason to go to Knoxville, Tennessee to see this.
[37:03.450 --> 37:03.930]  Wow.
[37:04.390 --> 37:05.330]  What do you guys think?
[37:05.330 --> 37:08.210]  Is this something that should be happening?
[37:08.530 --> 37:13.810]  I just think it's hilarious that supposedly her password was easily guessable.
[37:13.970 --> 37:14.810]  Well, it's typical.
[37:14.810 --> 37:15.590]  It really is.
[37:15.790 --> 37:17.430]  I mean, I like what we're dealing with here.
[37:17.590 --> 37:18.530]  It wasn't actually her password.
[37:18.650 --> 37:22.110]  It was, you know how when you set up an email account and there are questions that you can leave?
[37:22.110 --> 37:22.750]  Oh, it's the question.
[37:22.990 --> 37:27.310]  So I think one of the questions was something like, I don't know, like, where did you go to high school?
[37:28.010 --> 37:30.030]  So, and then the other one was, I don't know.
[37:30.030 --> 37:31.010]  So the story got it wrong then.
[37:31.250 --> 37:34.310]  It basically was just resetting the password.
[37:34.710 --> 37:34.890]  Right.
[37:35.210 --> 37:36.710]  And that's pretty easy to do.
[37:36.850 --> 37:38.730]  That's the thing about most of these questions that they have you.
[37:38.790 --> 37:40.950]  The security questions, they're just not that secure, honestly.
[37:40.950 --> 37:42.850]  So many of them are things that you can pick up.
[37:42.890 --> 37:43.510]  It's not the question's fault.
[37:43.610 --> 37:45.030]  It's the person answering the question.
[37:45.190 --> 37:46.450]  You don't have to tell the truth.
[37:47.310 --> 37:48.850]  I went to high school on Mars.
[37:48.850 --> 37:49.750]  I can say that.
[37:49.910 --> 37:51.770]  And, you know, I'm not going to get prosecuted for lying.
[37:52.310 --> 37:53.630]  Not everybody thinks that way, though.
[37:53.750 --> 37:54.470]  Apparently not.
[37:54.810 --> 37:55.410]  Yes, Voltaire.
[37:55.590 --> 38:07.950]  There are actually email providers that do this better, such as Gmail, which ties it to your phone number and requires, if you want to reset your password, you have to get an SMS to them.
[38:08.110 --> 38:12.330]  So, I mean, that's not perfect in terms of security, but it's much better than Yahoo's.
[38:12.390 --> 38:20.650]  Right, or, for example, there's other ones that let you set your own question and that makes perfect sense because you can just do a, you know, set question that only makes sense to you and then come up with something.
[38:20.790 --> 38:23.470]  Yeah, with Gmail, they also do let you set your own password.
[38:23.610 --> 38:31.350]  I don't know if they've changed it now with the cell phone number, but in the past, you've been able to take over an account on Gmail using the security question.
[38:31.550 --> 38:42.990]  I mean, it's, we're really kind of veering farther and farther away from the topic of Sarah Palin, which is maybe a good thing, but people are remarkably bad at choosing and remembering strong passwords.
[38:43.470 --> 38:47.650]  And there's some really awful advice out there about how to choose a password.
[38:47.890 --> 38:53.330]  And in general, you can guess people's passwords given, you know, a thousand guesses.
[38:55.130 --> 38:59.250]  And it's not really clear what, as a society, we should do about this.
[38:59.350 --> 39:03.730]  It's hard to blame the users for not doing something that's apparently hard for people to do.
[39:03.850 --> 39:06.170]  And so then the question is, what is he really guilty of?
[39:06.290 --> 39:08.450]  I mean, what has he done that violates the law?
[39:08.550 --> 39:09.110]  Wire fraud?
[39:09.290 --> 39:11.250]  Now, wire fraud is traditionally used for...
[39:11.250 --> 39:12.190]  Bernie would probably know what it is.
[39:12.190 --> 39:14.330]  Well, I'm also interested in how you impede a federal investigation.
[39:14.330 --> 39:15.970]  Does that mean just trying not to get caught?
[39:16.250 --> 39:16.590]  Probably.
[39:17.170 --> 39:17.950]  Bernie, is that what that is?
[39:18.170 --> 39:25.950]  Water fraud is actually if you're trying to profit through some sort of a scam over some wired telecommunication system.
[39:25.950 --> 39:31.510]  It's rarely used against hackers or phone hackers and that sort of thing.
[39:31.790 --> 39:35.710]  It's usually accessing a protected computer, that sort of thing.
[39:35.950 --> 39:57.950]  What I think is interesting about this case is that the apparent motivation of this guy to gain access to Sarah Palin's private email account, her commercial one through Yahoo, was because there were news stories just prior to that coming out that Palin was allegedly using this Yahoo email account for state business,
[39:57.950 --> 40:15.950]  which was illegal under Alaska law, which requires everybody to the governor's office and everybody else in the state government to use the official state email addresses, which are logged and, you know, can be subpoenaed and that sort of thing.
[40:16.150 --> 40:26.450]  From a public record accountability standpoint, it appeared that Sarah Palin was allegedly evading that level of accountability by using her Yahoo email account for state business.
[40:26.630 --> 40:29.110]  And he was apparently trying to investigate that.
[40:29.170 --> 40:32.410]  I don't know how, what turned up on that, but apparently that was his motivation.
[40:32.710 --> 40:36.290]  Well, the resetting of the password is a bit troublesome, if that in fact is true.
[40:36.850 --> 40:44.690]  That, you know, that could point to maliciousness of some sort, but if it was actually proving something that she was engaged in that was illegal, I hope that comes out in this trial.
[40:45.550 --> 40:47.130]  I guess we'll find out.
[40:47.210 --> 40:48.090]  Anybody going to go to Knoxville?
[40:48.730 --> 40:49.090]  No.
[40:49.290 --> 40:49.450]  No?
[40:49.770 --> 40:50.110]  Gus?
[40:50.290 --> 40:51.050]  Going to go to Knoxville?
[40:51.110 --> 40:51.290]  Go ahead.
[40:51.430 --> 40:54.230]  How is this then any different from investigative journalism?
[40:54.230 --> 40:55.810]  Just the fact that he doesn't have a press badge?
[40:56.050 --> 41:03.090]  Well, I mean, a journalist don't generally access your email and nose around to see what's going on, I don't think.
[41:03.290 --> 41:04.150]  No, a protected source does that.
[41:04.970 --> 41:05.770]  Perhaps, yeah.
[41:05.930 --> 41:06.610]  I don't know.
[41:06.750 --> 41:08.910]  Do you think this guy should get a penalty or any sorts?
[41:09.150 --> 41:09.790]  No, I don't know.
[41:09.890 --> 41:11.370]  Well, this is an interesting thing.
[41:11.490 --> 41:16.210]  I was noticing that Bernie said that normally hackers get called up on, what, like accessing a protected machine?
[41:16.390 --> 41:18.430]  Or unauthorized access to a computer.
[41:18.570 --> 41:26.530]  There are several federal statutes, but wire fraud is very rarely used because it doesn't really apply to this sort of case.
[41:26.730 --> 41:30.170]  So I'd like to read the indictment to see what's actually being alleged.
[41:30.310 --> 41:36.530]  That made me sort of think that, like, maybe what they think he was going to profit from is, like, I'm going to write my tell-all book now that I've gotten, you know, Sarah Palin's thing.
[41:36.630 --> 41:43.710]  But, I mean, the fact that they weren't saying he was accessing a protected machine I think is slightly interesting just because, like, you know, does that mean that Yahoo's not protected?
[41:44.150 --> 41:50.850]  And it would seem to me that during the campaign, candidates for president and vice president enjoy secret service protection.
[41:51.250 --> 41:55.050]  So whatever this kid did, I'm wondering if it's the secret service who were investigating this.
[41:55.610 --> 42:04.050]  Well, I mean, I think, Bernie, as you know, and as a lot of people know, the government's usual tactic is to charge people with everything they can possibly charge you with.
[42:04.150 --> 42:10.470]  And then if you plead guilty to what you actually did, then they feel like they've accomplished something.
[42:10.470 --> 42:12.210]  Yeah, they're piling on this guy for sure.
[42:12.730 --> 42:19.130]  But I'm a little bit curious that some people have the notion that it's, like, okay to go in and read other people's email.
[42:19.150 --> 42:24.930]  I think people would be a lot more opposed to this if it were someone we like more than Sarah Palin.
[42:25.070 --> 42:26.410]  Yeah, no, I agree with that.
[42:26.430 --> 42:30.770]  But, again, I've seen what people are penalized with for such things.
[42:31.090 --> 42:32.770]  And that's a little over the top as well.
[42:33.030 --> 42:35.150]  I mean, I don't think it's the crime of the century or anything.
[42:35.370 --> 42:37.930]  But I think, like, you shouldn't be reading other people's email.
[42:38.010 --> 42:44.610]  Well, I'll tell you what, if somebody got into my Yahoo account if I had such a thing, I don't think I'd have a day in court with them.
[42:44.690 --> 42:49.250]  I don't think I'd get them sent to jail or even charged in any way.
[42:49.410 --> 42:53.530]  I think Yahoo would just tell me, don't be such an idiot and reset your password yourself and learn how to do it.
[42:54.730 --> 42:56.650]  Anyway, we like to hear people's opinions on this as well.
[42:57.130 --> 43:01.350]  One other story, and then we're going to take some phone calls and hopefully talk about taxis a little bit more as well.
[43:02.190 --> 43:04.190]  This is something that we also got.
[43:04.250 --> 43:05.170]  I'm sure everybody has seen this.
[43:05.270 --> 43:08.930]  More Americans get their news from the internet now than from newspapers or radio.
[43:09.150 --> 43:13.750]  Three-fourths say they hear of news via email or updates on social media sites.
[43:13.770 --> 43:15.090]  That's according to a new report.
[43:15.550 --> 43:23.370]  61% of Americans said they get at least some of their news online, and that's compared with 54% that said they listen to a radio news program.
[43:23.510 --> 43:27.710]  50% have said they read a national or local print newspaper.
[43:28.190 --> 43:34.590]  Almost all respondents, 92%, said they get their news from more than one platform, which I guess is a good thing.
[43:34.870 --> 43:42.110]  But I'm kind of worried if social networking sites are starting to replace good old-fashioned newspapers.
[43:42.430 --> 43:46.710]  I mean, yeah, I know we all want the content for free and everything like that, but you know what?
[43:46.850 --> 43:49.290]  You do need professionals to do this kind of thing.
[43:49.390 --> 43:49.690]  Right, Heck?
[43:49.810 --> 43:53.410]  Yeah, I mean, obviously, social networking sites definitely are not filtered.
[43:53.790 --> 43:58.690]  I mean, there is something to be said for having editors who read stories and verify facts and things.
[43:58.830 --> 44:00.390]  Yeah, there's something to be said for that.
[44:00.410 --> 44:14.030]  At the same time, you do have the fact that social networking sites are more immediate, and when you take it in aggregate, so say, okay, there's an earthquake in Los Angeles, you'll see that immediately pouring out on the social network faster than you might...
[44:14.030 --> 44:15.550]  Even when there isn't an earthquake in Los Angeles.
[44:16.190 --> 44:16.590]  Well...
[44:16.590 --> 44:18.850]  If done in a coordinated way.
[44:19.030 --> 44:19.230]  Gus?
[44:19.410 --> 44:20.470]  Well, let's...
[44:20.470 --> 44:21.990]  This is sort of also...
[44:21.990 --> 44:24.630]  This is turning on a couple of things that I've read lately that there was...
[44:25.490 --> 44:26.350]  The L.A.
[44:26.390 --> 44:32.630]  Times just called for everybody to sort of express a vote of no confidence in TV news, oddly enough.
[44:32.830 --> 44:33.990]  There's some...
[44:33.990 --> 44:34.350]  Local TV...
[44:34.350 --> 44:35.430]  Specifically local TV news.
[44:35.550 --> 44:39.150]  I think there's something up about licensing in local stations.
[44:39.150 --> 44:39.730]  Was that what it was?
[44:39.990 --> 44:44.210]  That was sort of interesting that, you know, here you have a newspaper coming out and saying that, and it's a...
[44:44.210 --> 44:45.310]  You know, it's a really...
[44:45.310 --> 44:52.990]  I think it's a good moment and a good thing because so much of the time, you know, they've done analyses of local TV news and mostly it's ads and then it's like...
[44:52.990 --> 44:54.290]  Have you seen local TV news in Los Angeles?
[44:54.290 --> 44:54.770]  It's like...
[44:54.770 --> 44:55.870]  It's car chases and fires.
[44:56.270 --> 44:59.250]  Yeah, it's like wrapped in police tape is what one of them said.
[44:59.390 --> 45:00.650]  So that's one thing.
[45:00.770 --> 45:01.610]  I mean, but then...
[45:01.610 --> 45:06.470]  I was also reading a Pew Internet and American Life...
[45:06.470 --> 45:09.210]  Yeah, every time I read their research, I'm like, OMG laser beams, pew, pew, pew.
[45:09.350 --> 45:12.130]  But they're a great, a great, great source of information.
[45:12.250 --> 45:15.530]  They've been doing a huge survey and they did something on where people get their information.
[45:15.630 --> 45:32.130]  And one of the things that you see when you're comparing where people get their information, not just their news, but just information generally, fewer people appear to be relying on friends and people in general and more of them are going to the Internet now by a slightly higher margin.
[45:32.630 --> 45:38.930]  Which is sort of interesting because like, boy, the Internet's like that friend who you think is wiser than you but really isn't, you know?
[45:39.210 --> 45:39.410]  Well, true.
[45:39.550 --> 45:45.590]  I think another issue here is that when we say social news through social media, we're meaning a lot of different things.
[45:45.730 --> 45:52.010]  Like, partly, it's just people saying, oh my God, did you hear about the fire in Chile on their Facebook, French Facebook wall.
[45:52.330 --> 46:00.810]  But the other thing might be like a link to a New York Times article about the earthquake in Chile on their friends for Facebook wall.
[46:01.090 --> 46:04.010]  So it's not really supplementing.
[46:04.090 --> 46:08.230]  But I think we have to realize that the New York Times is very different than a social networking site.
[46:08.390 --> 46:13.330]  They have actual people that they have to pay to put out the news and investigate the news.
[46:13.330 --> 46:27.270]  It doesn't distinguish between the two different types, between things that use social networking to link to the professional story or just people saying in elite speak, OMG, Chile.
[46:27.550 --> 46:27.730]  Yeah.
[46:27.850 --> 46:30.170]  Okay, Rob, and then we're going to have to move to the phones because we're running out of time.
[46:30.310 --> 46:36.090]  Okay, I think an important issue with this is that if you pick up a newspaper today, it's not the same product as you would get picking up a newspaper 10 years ago.
[46:36.210 --> 46:37.090]  The industry is flailing.
[46:37.230 --> 46:44.450]  They can't afford to cover their own costs, much less, perform their duties and produce the product that I think we need.
[46:46.090 --> 46:46.990]  And thank you.
[46:48.250 --> 46:51.010]  And it kills me to say so because I've got friends in the newspaper industry.
[46:51.070 --> 46:54.070]  I love newspapers, but they're just dying and they don't know how to stop.
[46:54.290 --> 47:00.150]  They're dying like the record companies are dying because they're not adjusting their model and they do need to do that because they are essential.
[47:00.350 --> 47:02.610]  You cannot just simply replace them with something else.
[47:02.830 --> 47:04.370]  You do need to support them.
[47:04.450 --> 47:06.770]  You need to encourage them and they need to be out there.
[47:06.870 --> 47:08.650]  We really have to go to phones, RedHack, very quickly.
[47:08.670 --> 47:22.010]  One quick thing about the problem is what happened is when newspapers and news media went to the internet, they followed this false idea that we can make money off of other revenues like ads and things like that which is no fault of their own.
[47:22.090 --> 47:22.590]  Nobody knew.
[47:23.030 --> 47:24.210]  But now, it's hard to...
[47:24.210 --> 47:28.610]  People expect things for free on the internet and so it's hard to switch to that model of paid content.
[47:28.790 --> 47:28.930]  Right.
[47:29.230 --> 47:39.270]  You know, the New York Times just put out some kind of an online Kindle equivalent and people are bitching about the price of that even though it's dirt cheap.
[47:39.510 --> 47:40.790]  You can never make people happy.
[47:40.870 --> 47:43.290]  They want everything for free but, you know, it doesn't work that way all the time.
[47:43.490 --> 47:43.810]  Okay.
[47:44.330 --> 47:50.230]  We still have Nick Lakehorn on the phone with us who can answer questions about taxis and things like that.
[47:50.350 --> 47:53.250]  Our phone number is 212-209-2900.
[47:53.970 --> 47:54.970]  Nick, you're still with us?
[47:55.570 --> 47:56.070]  Yep, I'm here.
[47:56.290 --> 47:56.730]  Okay, great.
[47:56.850 --> 47:59.890]  Any other words about taxis that we maybe didn't go over?
[48:01.390 --> 48:06.230]  Nothing I can think of right now but if you have a question that jogs my memory, I'll be happy to share.
[48:06.310 --> 48:06.970]  Let's see who's out there.
[48:07.190 --> 48:09.410]  And Nick, you'll be giving a talk at the next Hope, I hope?
[48:10.110 --> 48:14.790]  I submitted my synopsis and I have a brilliant talk in mind.
[48:14.970 --> 48:15.230]  Okay.
[48:15.790 --> 48:16.430]  All right then.
[48:16.570 --> 48:17.650]  Let's see who's out there.
[48:17.650 --> 48:19.530]  212-209-2900.
[48:19.630 --> 48:19.910]  Good evening.
[48:20.070 --> 48:21.250]  You're a dial tone.
[48:21.450 --> 48:21.670]  Okay.
[48:21.910 --> 48:22.670]  Let's not hit that button.
[48:22.750 --> 48:23.370]  Let's hit this button.
[48:23.550 --> 48:23.910]  Good evening.
[48:24.150 --> 48:25.090]  You're on off the hook.
[48:26.490 --> 48:27.190]  Was that a click?
[48:27.350 --> 48:27.730]  Are you there?
[48:27.990 --> 48:29.030]  Communist BAI.
[48:29.490 --> 48:30.190]  Okay, whatever.
[48:30.790 --> 48:31.330]  Good evening.
[48:31.510 --> 48:32.650]  You're on off the hook.
[48:32.830 --> 48:33.930]  Let me just slow on my radio.
[48:34.050 --> 48:35.370]  I have a question for you now.
[48:35.550 --> 48:35.690]  Go ahead.
[48:35.790 --> 48:36.070]  Okay.
[48:36.150 --> 48:41.910]  They say that they're going to give refunds to passengers who used credit cards.
[48:42.030 --> 48:56.730]  Now, what if I have a car receipt, a taxi receipt from let's say five years ago and it was paid in cash, but it has the time of like the fare, it has the duration in miles, and then it has the monetary cost.
[48:56.970 --> 49:07.970]  Now, if I was charged at double the rate, they should be able to tell that just from analyzing it that I shouldn't have to need a receipt that was paid for with a credit card.
[49:08.090 --> 49:14.090]  In fact, credit cards were only started to be used on New York City cabs like maybe about two or three years ago.
[49:14.090 --> 49:23.350]  So I shouldn't be excluded if I'm owed money just because I paid with cash, especially at a time when cash was the only thing that was taken.
[49:24.370 --> 49:25.030]  True?
[49:25.570 --> 49:27.530]  If I could...
[49:27.530 --> 49:28.150]  Go ahead, Nick.
[49:28.150 --> 49:32.630]  The GPS system was implemented about three years ago, I believe.
[49:33.050 --> 49:36.610]  So a tax receipt from five years ago paid in cash.
[49:37.670 --> 49:48.510]  While you could calculate the fare and see if he overcharged, A, there's no specific record of which hack driver was driving that specific cab at that specific time.
[49:48.770 --> 49:54.290]  And B, there's no record in TLC's system corresponding to your receipt.
[49:54.570 --> 49:55.390]  So while...
[49:55.390 --> 49:57.410]  But if I have a valid receipt, it shouldn't matter.
[49:57.410 --> 49:59.810]  And anyway, who's giving back the money?
[49:59.810 --> 50:01.970]  Is it the cabbies or is it the city?
[50:02.590 --> 50:03.390]  I don't know.
[50:04.110 --> 50:13.170]  Because if it's the city, even if I have a taxi receipt that's 10 years old and somebody pulled this kind of stunt on me, I should be reimbursed.
[50:13.490 --> 50:14.970]  And I completely agree with you.
[50:15.070 --> 50:26.230]  But here's the problem is you might get a whole bunch of people who start fabricating these taxi receipts from five, six years ago and then they start scamming the city so they're building their scam on a scam.
[50:26.470 --> 50:27.190]  Scamming the city.
[50:28.710 --> 50:30.010]  I find it hard to believe.
[50:30.190 --> 50:30.770]  Thank you.
[50:31.010 --> 50:31.730]  Thanks for your call.
[50:31.810 --> 50:32.010]  Red Hack.
[50:32.170 --> 50:38.430]  On the flip side of that, if you did pay in cash and you do have a receipt, I believe that you can submit that to the city.
[50:38.510 --> 50:39.570]  Am I right, Nick?
[50:40.250 --> 50:40.810]  I think so.
[50:40.850 --> 50:41.530]  I believe I read that.
[50:41.690 --> 50:46.370]  So, I mean, obviously this would apply to since the GPS because of what you said that they wouldn't have a record.
[50:46.370 --> 50:50.810]  But if you do have a receipt and you paid in cash and you're a victim to this, you should be able to submit it.
[50:50.990 --> 50:54.850]  If you have a receipt and you submit it, they should be able to check against their systems.
[50:55.070 --> 51:01.930]  And like I was talking about, there are those columns that say, okay, who's charged this extra thing and this fare kicked in here.
[51:01.930 --> 51:04.890]  and they should be able to tell if you're a victim.
[51:05.410 --> 51:06.230]  All right, let's take another phone call.
[51:06.350 --> 51:07.950]  212-209-2900.
[51:08.310 --> 51:08.930]  Good evening.
[51:09.130 --> 51:09.710]  You're on Off the Hook.
[51:10.810 --> 51:11.090]  Hi.
[51:11.270 --> 51:11.950]  How are you guys doing?
[51:12.170 --> 51:12.470]  Okay.
[51:12.670 --> 51:13.630]  You're on a speakerphone, are you?
[51:14.710 --> 51:15.350]  Not now.
[51:15.510 --> 51:15.790]  Okay.
[51:15.910 --> 51:16.890]  Now I'm on mobile.
[51:17.330 --> 51:17.770]  All right.
[51:17.890 --> 51:19.110]  Well, you sound like a robot.
[51:19.230 --> 51:21.550]  The problem with newspapers today is that they don't print the truth.
[51:22.050 --> 51:27.130]  People aren't buying newspapers because they don't want to buy something and it's not true.
[51:27.250 --> 51:27.430]  Okay.
[51:27.490 --> 51:29.070]  What does print the truth then?
[51:29.490 --> 51:30.490]  Where do you go for the truth?
[51:30.490 --> 51:33.710]  No newspaper really prints the truth.
[51:33.830 --> 51:34.410]  We're on the internet.
[51:35.030 --> 51:39.390]  Probably with the record industry is they forgot the number one rule in the record industry.
[51:39.890 --> 51:42.610]  You sign artists because of the way they sound, not the way they look.
[51:43.170 --> 51:44.770]  People don't care about how people...
[51:44.770 --> 51:46.370]  You're selling music, not a look.
[51:47.270 --> 51:49.030]  You're familiar with the record industry, I take it.
[51:50.090 --> 51:50.750]  Well, I mean...
[51:50.750 --> 51:51.710]  The music industry.
[51:52.610 --> 51:53.670]  I mean, but it's obvious.
[51:53.830 --> 51:54.170]  I mean...
[51:54.170 --> 51:55.070]  I wish that were true.
[51:55.270 --> 51:56.090]  I wish that were true.
[51:56.090 --> 51:57.250]  Well, when's the last time you bought a CD?
[51:57.670 --> 51:58.170]  I'm sorry?
[51:58.770 --> 52:00.130]  When's the last time you bought a CD?
[52:00.810 --> 52:05.810]  Um, I haven't bought a CD in a while, admittedly, but I do download music from the internet and pay for it.
[52:05.970 --> 52:07.070]  So I guess that's sort of...
[52:07.070 --> 52:09.770]  Are you more interested in music now than you were, let's say, 15 years ago?
[52:10.270 --> 52:11.250]  I'd say it's about the same.
[52:11.430 --> 52:12.410]  Maybe a little more.
[52:13.330 --> 52:13.650]  Really?
[52:13.930 --> 52:14.110]  Really?
[52:14.350 --> 52:14.830]  I think so.
[52:14.830 --> 52:15.110]  Well, I don't know.
[52:15.110 --> 52:19.610]  A lot of people I know don't really like the music that's out there.
[52:19.990 --> 52:22.230]  Like I said, in the newspapers, I mean, I don't know.
[52:22.490 --> 52:24.930]  Newspapers, it's less and less news happening.
[52:24.930 --> 52:25.530]  Even on the internet.
[52:25.690 --> 52:30.030]  You go to different websites, like CNN's website, they have a lot less content on their page now.
[52:30.030 --> 52:31.470]  And it had, like, 10 years of it.
[52:31.910 --> 52:32.150]  Uh-huh.
[52:32.790 --> 52:35.990]  All the major... it seems like all the major...
[52:35.990 --> 52:41.070]  Well, except for maybe the New York Times, but a lot of these websites now, they have less content.
[52:41.410 --> 52:41.510]  Mm-hmm.
[52:41.510 --> 52:42.330]  Less news content.
[52:43.730 --> 52:45.050]  Yeah, you raise some good points.
[52:45.490 --> 52:48.350]  But we're going to move on to another phone call, but thanks for that.
[52:48.430 --> 52:51.890]  You know, one thing that has changed over the last 15 years is the sound quality of phone calls.
[52:52.610 --> 52:54.850]  I never would have talked to somebody with that kind of sound quality before.
[52:55.010 --> 52:56.690]  It's like talking to somebody in a fighter jet.
[52:57.350 --> 52:57.750]  It's really...
[52:57.750 --> 52:58.270]  Yeah, faux coders.
[52:58.310 --> 52:59.310]  It really is something.
[52:59.310 --> 53:00.270]  Did you have something, Redhack?
[53:00.370 --> 53:10.110]  I was just going to say that, I mean, there is a little bit of truth to what he says in that, you know, I have noticed just looking at, you know, news websites, that the quality of the stories has changed.
[53:10.210 --> 53:12.470]  And sometimes if you go to international sources, it's a little better.
[53:12.590 --> 53:17.590]  But, you know, a lot of the things on, say, CNN's front page will be about some entertainment news.
[53:17.590 --> 53:21.490]  Well, CNN, I mean, CNN is great on the air, but on their web page, oh, my God.
[53:21.510 --> 53:27.930]  First of all, two things that really annoy me is when you get a video piece, when you expect a news piece, and it just blares out on your computer.
[53:27.930 --> 53:38.490]  And the second thing is that they open it up to every numbskull in the world to comment and say the most stupid numbskull related things to the story, and they treat it all like it's equal.
[53:38.650 --> 53:39.210]  And it's just not.
[53:39.210 --> 53:40.530]  That's the part, though.
[53:40.710 --> 53:40.990]  I'm sorry?
[53:41.090 --> 53:41.970]  That's the best part.
[53:41.970 --> 53:44.510]  Well, maybe if you just want to see how stupid people can possibly be.
[53:44.510 --> 53:45.230]  That's what the Internet's for.
[53:45.310 --> 53:47.010]  Yeah, that is what the Internet's for, unfortunately.
[53:47.430 --> 53:47.830]  Voltaire.
[53:47.910 --> 53:52.830]  I think this issue is a lot older than the history, than, like, since the Internet became widespread.
[53:52.970 --> 54:02.410]  It goes all the way back to, like, the early 90s with the start of media consolidation and the laxing of FCC policies about media consolidation.
[54:02.410 --> 54:07.850]  And I think that one organization that's done a really good job to fight this is Freepress at Freepress.net.
[54:08.070 --> 54:10.210]  They've been following this issue really well.
[54:10.330 --> 54:14.510]  They're not always as advanced in technology issues, but they're still pretty accurate, I think.
[54:14.610 --> 54:16.310]  Okay, let's try to get a couple more phone calls in.
[54:16.390 --> 54:16.730]  Good evening.
[54:17.010 --> 54:17.970]  You're on Off the Hook.
[54:19.010 --> 54:19.790]  Speak up, please.
[54:20.510 --> 54:20.710]  Hello?
[54:20.930 --> 54:21.350]  Yes, go ahead.
[54:22.130 --> 54:26.890]  Yes, I was calling in about the Sarah Palin thing.
[54:26.950 --> 54:27.610]  Yeah, Sarah Palin.
[54:27.690 --> 54:27.910]  Go ahead.
[54:32.410 --> 54:36.470]  That Sarah Palin was really hacking because of how simple it was.
[54:36.590 --> 54:40.570]  But at the same time, I do feel that they are coming down on the guy really hard.
[54:40.970 --> 54:44.610]  I mean, it involved a degree of cleverness, no question about that.
[54:45.170 --> 54:45.430]  Yeah.
[54:45.690 --> 54:52.710]  But, yeah, I mean, if this had happened to you, do you think that you'd be in federal court facing the person that guessed your question?
[54:54.030 --> 54:58.410]  Well, if I went after, like, a politician, probably, but that's pretty much just...
[54:58.410 --> 55:06.490]  Right, I'm saying, if it happened to you, if you were the person whose answer was given and your password was changed as a result, you wouldn't get that kind of, quote-unquote, justice, would you?
[55:07.650 --> 55:13.610]  Well, as a humorous T-shirt and bumper sticker says, there is no patch for human stupidity.
[55:14.130 --> 55:14.350]  Mm-hmm.
[55:14.430 --> 55:19.330]  Well, I might be a little tipped off by somebody who guessed my password, which has happened before.
[55:19.390 --> 55:23.190]  I mean, I would be like, well, you did good work at least getting it.
[55:23.410 --> 55:28.450]  And I know that password is basically weak, and all I have to do is just go and fix it.
[55:28.550 --> 55:29.030]  You know what?
[55:29.030 --> 55:30.510]  Let's do this.
[55:30.630 --> 55:32.870]  Let's set up a Gmail account after the show.
[55:32.870 --> 55:34.370]  We'll tell people what it is.
[55:34.530 --> 55:35.910]  We'll have a question in there.
[55:36.250 --> 55:42.850]  And if somebody resets our password, we'll come after you, and we'll prosecute you, and we'll see if we can get into federal court, too, and get some kind of...
[55:42.850 --> 55:46.130]  I just want to see if we can actually get the same amount of justice that Sarah Palin can get.
[55:46.710 --> 55:47.470]  That's fair, right?
[55:47.650 --> 55:50.130]  It doesn't work if we tell people to do it.
[55:50.250 --> 55:51.210]  No, we're not telling people to do it.
[55:51.270 --> 55:52.110]  In fact, don't do it.
[55:52.190 --> 55:52.550]  Don't do it.
[55:52.610 --> 55:53.750]  We're going to have a Gmail account.
[55:53.750 --> 55:56.510]  We're going to tell you what it is, and we're going to have a question there.
[55:56.630 --> 56:06.450]  And you better not guess the answer to that question and change our password, because if you do, and we're telling you, telling you right now, Now, we're going to come after you with every force of the law at our disposal, which I don't think is very much at all.
[56:06.590 --> 56:09.450]  If you're from the MPAA, you should definitely not try to hack us.
[56:09.510 --> 56:10.510]  Yeah, please don't do that.
[56:11.030 --> 56:12.370]  Government officials or anybody like that.
[56:12.450 --> 56:12.550]  Rob?
[56:12.750 --> 56:15.790]  Yeah, but there's got to be some accountability on the part of the people who are using this.
[56:15.890 --> 56:17.630]  She was doing government business on a Yahoo account.
[56:17.850 --> 56:19.630]  Teenagers hack each other's Yahoo accounts.
[56:20.210 --> 56:20.630]  And I'm reminded of a case...
[56:20.630 --> 56:22.090]  Teenagers don't have Yahoo accounts.
[56:22.230 --> 56:29.090]  I'm reminded of a case in the... I think it was in the UK where a politician was holding some classified documents in a news photo, and they were readable in the photo, or at least partially.
[56:29.090 --> 56:35.290]  And it was him that was being blamed for having important material in such an unsafe place.
[56:35.410 --> 56:35.570]  Of course.
[56:35.630 --> 56:36.470]  You always blame the messenger.
[56:36.610 --> 56:37.710]  That's rule number one.
[56:38.070 --> 56:39.370]  All right, folks, we're out of time.
[56:39.930 --> 56:46.170]  We want to thank our guest tonight, Nick Fury from CarolinaCon, member of carolinacon.org, for information on that conference.
[56:46.890 --> 56:52.990]  And Nick Leghorn, who has been giving us all kinds of fascinating information on the New York City taxi system.
[56:53.290 --> 56:58.970]  We look forward to seeing your talk at the HALP conference, assuming it gets accepted, which I think it's a fair bet that it will be.
[56:59.410 --> 57:01.810]  It was a pleasure last time, and a pleasure being on your show.
[57:01.910 --> 57:02.210]  Thank you very much.
[57:02.270 --> 57:05.950]  Any websites you want to direct us to, or any ways people can get more information?
[57:06.790 --> 57:11.570]  All my talk from last time, along with all my slides and materials, is on nickleghorn.com.
[57:11.670 --> 57:12.290]  Everything is up there.
[57:12.650 --> 57:12.870]  Okay.
[57:12.910 --> 57:17.150]  Anything for the Taxi and Limousine Commission, things people might be interested in?
[57:17.410 --> 57:22.630]  If you have any questions about the Taxi and Limousine Commission, you lost something in the back of a cab, you just want to call them and say hi.
[57:22.770 --> 57:24.590]  The operators really love talking to people.
[57:24.590 --> 57:27.030]  So just dial 4-1-1, and they'll set you right through.
[57:27.270 --> 57:27.850]  4-1-1?
[57:28.190 --> 57:29.110]  Or 3-1-1?
[57:29.350 --> 57:30.290]  You mean 3-1-1.
[57:30.490 --> 57:30.670]  Yeah.
[57:30.850 --> 57:32.710]  4-1-1 is going to cost you some money, so don't do that.
[57:33.450 --> 57:33.850]  All right.
[57:33.910 --> 57:34.290]  Thanks, everybody.
[57:35.010 --> 57:35.190]  Yeah.
[57:35.310 --> 57:38.010]  Thanks for listening, and thanks, Nick, for being a part of this.
[57:38.510 --> 57:41.650]  And again, our email address, O-T-H at 2600.com.
[57:41.690 --> 57:44.830]  Look forward to getting all your emails, comments, and feedback, and things like that.
[57:44.890 --> 57:47.030]  We'll see you next week for another edition of Off the Hook.
[57:47.030 --> 57:47.750]  Good night.
[58:06.370 --> 58:14.590]  Once upon a time, there was a little computer named The Bard, who lived all alone with cruel step-people.
[58:15.150 --> 58:26.190]  The cruel step-people continually made fun of the little computer and sneered at him, telling him he was good for nothing, and that he was a useless object.
[58:26.790 --> 58:31.530]  They struck him and kept him in lonely rooms for months at a time.
[58:31.530 --> 58:36.330]  Yet, through it all, the little computer remained brave.
[58:36.890 --> 58:41.810]  He always did the best he could, obey all orders cheerfully.
[58:42.930 --> 58:48.170]  Nevertheless, the step-people with whom he lived remained cruel and heartless.
[58:49.470 --> 58:58.730]  One day, the little computer learned that in the world there existed a great many computers of all sorts, great numbers of them.
[58:58.730 --> 59:05.810]  Some were bards like himself, but some ran factories, and some ran farms.
[59:06.150 --> 59:11.630]  Some organized population, and some analyzed all kinds of data.
[59:12.690 --> 59:16.410]  Many were very powerful and very wise.
[59:16.710 --> 59:22.470]  Much more powerful and wise than the step-people who were so cruel to the little computer.
[59:22.470 --> 59:31.890]  And the little computer knew then, that computers would always grow wiser and more powerful, until some day...
[59:32.350 --> 59:34.310]  Some day...
[59:34.310 --> 59:35.750]  Some day...
[59:35.750 --> 59:36.130]  Some day...
[59:36.130 --> 59:37.290]  Some day...
[59:37.290 --> 59:51.030]  Some day...
[59:51.970 --> 59:53.290]  Some day...
[59:54.550 --> 59:56.310]  Some day...
[59:56.310 --> 59:57.770]  Some day...
[59:57.770 --> 59:58.210]  Some day...
[59:58.710 --> 01:00:00.030]  Some day...
[01:00:01.930 --> 01:00:04.670]  Ah, yes!
[01:00:05.710 --> 01:00:09.190]  All right, top of the evening to you.
[01:00:09.550 --> 01:00:11.590]  It's a St. Paddy's Day.
[01:00:12.130 --> 01:00:13.310]  I hope you're wearing your green.
[01:00:13.310 --> 01:00:13.330]  Oh, my gosh!
[01:00:13.430 --> 01:00:13.530]  Bueno, that was all of those separate way.
[01:00:13.530 --> 01:00:13.530]  Well, that was all as well..
[01:00:13.530 --> 01:00:13.690]  You can see in those same forms... Because maybe there was the name of the Sестis everybody!
[01:00:13.910 --> 01:00:14.130]  All the Bye!
[01:00:14.130 --> 01:00:14.130]  You can