[00:32.170 --> 00:35.630]  And you're listening to radio station WBAI New York.
[00:35.790 --> 00:36.610]  The time is 7 o'clock.
[00:37.150 --> 00:39.530]  That means it's time for Off the Hook.
[00:44.800 --> 00:46.740]  The telephone keeps ringing.
[00:47.060 --> 00:49.260]  So I ripped it off the wall.
[00:50.240 --> 00:52.240]  I cut myself while shaving.
[00:52.840 --> 00:54.760]  Now I can't make a call.
[00:55.420 --> 00:57.480]  We couldn't get much worse.
[00:59.700 --> 01:00.120]  I hope they would.
[01:01.220 --> 01:03.040]  But the best expect the worst.
[01:03.640 --> 01:05.520]  I hope that's understood.
[02:31.910 --> 02:33.590]  And very good evening to everybody.
[02:33.750 --> 02:34.930]  The program is Off the Hook.
[02:35.110 --> 02:37.270]  Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
[02:37.270 --> 02:39.610]  Joined tonight by Mike.
[02:39.970 --> 02:40.350]  Hello.
[02:40.890 --> 02:41.350]  Red Hack.
[02:41.650 --> 02:41.970]  Hello.
[02:42.370 --> 02:42.850]  Rob T.
[02:43.050 --> 02:43.450]  Firefly.
[02:43.750 --> 02:44.170]  Good evening.
[02:44.470 --> 02:44.770]  Jim.
[02:45.110 --> 02:45.270]  Hello.
[02:46.090 --> 02:48.550]  And down in Philadelphia, we do not have Bernie S.
[02:48.650 --> 02:48.790]  tonight.
[02:48.890 --> 02:49.250]  Bernie S.
[02:49.290 --> 02:50.250]  is out tonight.
[02:50.510 --> 02:52.330]  But do we have Mr. Squeal?
[02:52.870 --> 02:53.630]  Yeah, we do.
[02:53.830 --> 02:55.430]  We do have Mr. Squeal still here.
[02:55.890 --> 03:03.030]  Okay, you know, we're going to get to the bottom of this tonight because I was listening to Hugh Hamilton earlier and he did not have Mr. Squeal as a guest when he was talking to people on the phone.
[03:03.190 --> 03:05.070]  And then Robert Knight did.
[03:05.230 --> 03:06.830]  So I don't... we got to troubleshoot this.
[03:07.170 --> 03:08.370]  Was he using a different studio?
[03:08.630 --> 03:11.250]  No, he's using the same studio, same engineer, same everything.
[03:11.510 --> 03:13.250]  So something's up.
[03:13.430 --> 03:15.810]  We're trying to figure out the source of this.
[03:15.950 --> 03:17.730]  Maybe he was holding a cell phone up to a microphone.
[03:18.170 --> 03:18.490]  Maybe.
[03:18.550 --> 03:25.070]  But, you know, I notice if I have the vibe... maybe the person on the phone has to talk louder because you can barely hear it now.
[03:25.110 --> 03:27.530]  And then if you turn it way up, obviously you hear more of it.
[03:28.370 --> 03:30.870]  So I think maybe it's dependent on how loud the person talks.
[03:31.110 --> 03:32.530]  We have no one on the phone right now.
[03:32.610 --> 03:33.970]  So we could just turn it down.
[03:33.970 --> 03:34.870]  We could turn it down.
[03:35.010 --> 03:35.490]  We could do that.
[03:35.590 --> 03:36.230]  But that would be wrong.
[03:36.610 --> 03:37.930]  Then we'd forget that this was here.
[03:39.070 --> 03:40.790]  I'm perfectly... We have to remember that this is here.
[03:40.850 --> 03:42.990]  I'm perfectly excited to forget that that's there.
[03:43.170 --> 03:44.990]  You know, it's like listening to shortwave radio.
[03:45.310 --> 03:46.650]  It's going back to the old days.
[03:46.830 --> 03:48.470]  Except we're... I'm in the same room as you.
[03:48.650 --> 03:49.610]  No, I found...
[03:49.610 --> 03:53.730]  And our audience is not, but they're listening to FM radio or the internet or something.
[03:53.730 --> 03:55.890]  I like to think we're all in the same virtual room together.
[03:56.450 --> 03:57.490]  And we can't get out.
[03:57.950 --> 04:02.370]  But, you know, I found all these old tapes of shortwave radio that I recorded back in the 80s and 90s.
[04:02.370 --> 04:04.190]  And really, it was a different world back then.
[04:04.550 --> 04:08.230]  Listening to interval signals and the news from Radio Moscow and things like that.
[04:08.350 --> 04:09.330]  And I don't know.
[04:09.410 --> 04:11.590]  I haven't listened to shortwave in a while, but I don't think it's like that anymore.
[04:11.750 --> 04:14.350]  Now with the internet, everybody gets their news instantly online.
[04:15.210 --> 04:21.430]  And the mystique is kind of gone where you're listening to this distant broadcast and hearing foreign languages everywhere.
[04:21.490 --> 04:25.570]  Now it's all religion and a lot of infomercials and things like that.
[04:25.570 --> 04:26.030]  It's awful.
[04:27.350 --> 04:27.710]  Wait.
[04:27.990 --> 04:28.090]  What?
[04:28.170 --> 04:30.950]  Seems like a poor place to put infomercials if nobody's tuning in.
[04:30.950 --> 04:33.110]  Actually, I don't know about the infomercials, but I'm pretty sure...
[04:33.730 --> 04:34.090]  Infomercial...
[04:34.090 --> 04:37.110]  Who watches late night television and watches those infomercials?
[04:37.150 --> 04:37.710]  Who does that?
[04:37.930 --> 04:39.510]  They just stick them everywhere they can.
[04:40.430 --> 04:40.610]  Yeah.
[04:41.090 --> 04:45.570]  I mean, does anyone else remember fondly when TV stations used to sign off the air and there was a test pattern or static?
[04:45.570 --> 04:47.670]  I prefer that to infomercials.
[04:47.750 --> 04:48.410]  I think it was...
[04:48.410 --> 04:49.390]  Those were the good old days.
[04:49.510 --> 04:52.310]  Every television I've ever seen does come with an off button, though.
[04:52.510 --> 04:52.790]  I know.
[04:52.870 --> 04:53.070]  I know.
[04:53.150 --> 04:53.490]  And a plug.
[04:53.610 --> 04:57.210]  And if it doesn't, you can get a TV Be Gone and make your own.
[04:57.210 --> 05:02.310]  But how would you sell the latest technology in lawn trimming otherwise if you didn't have that time?
[05:02.410 --> 05:04.630]  I don't know the latest technology in lawn trimming.
[05:05.470 --> 05:06.950]  Haven't trimmed my lawn in ages.
[05:08.090 --> 05:08.550]  Okay.
[05:08.690 --> 05:08.970]  This...
[05:08.970 --> 05:11.270]  I like to think this is the week where we get things done.
[05:11.790 --> 05:16.090]  And we've gotten a lot done already, good and bad.
[05:16.390 --> 05:17.590]  Well, let's start with the weekend.
[05:17.830 --> 05:23.690]  We basically had our second sale of tickets for help number nine.
[05:23.690 --> 05:24.270]  Those are gone.
[05:24.910 --> 05:30.890]  So now we're getting ready for the regular pre-registration, which will go online sometime next year at the regular price.
[05:31.550 --> 05:33.990]  So it's great to see a lot of people into the spirit already.
[05:33.990 --> 05:38.510]  Before we even announced anything, before we even have a website online, and that'll be going up pretty soon.
[05:39.650 --> 05:42.250]  And Redhack, I know you're involved in the whole ticket process.
[05:42.470 --> 05:43.770]  And that's a challenge, isn't it?
[05:44.190 --> 05:44.370]  Yeah.
[05:44.630 --> 05:44.750]  Yeah.
[05:44.850 --> 05:48.010]  Got to get the system up and running again, get people their tickets.
[05:48.830 --> 05:52.090]  Obviously, anyone who's bought their ticket so far, they're not going to have it yet.
[05:52.090 --> 05:53.950]  They'll get it sometime early next year.
[05:54.110 --> 05:55.070]  You'll get it via email.
[05:55.370 --> 05:56.270]  Yeah, you'll get it via email.
[05:56.490 --> 05:57.490]  That's the easiest way.
[05:58.890 --> 06:02.210]  Hopefully next year, last year, we basically told everyone they had to print their tickets.
[06:02.330 --> 06:03.870]  Hopefully this time that won't be necessary.
[06:03.870 --> 06:07.250]  If you bring it on your phone, we'll be able to scan it anyway.
[06:07.510 --> 06:07.790]  So...
[06:07.790 --> 06:08.430]  We'll save a tree.
[06:08.670 --> 06:09.070]  Yeah.
[06:10.130 --> 06:13.250]  Well, also because last time, a lot of people brought their phones anyway.
[06:13.670 --> 06:14.490]  And it was odd.
[06:14.650 --> 06:22.170]  The scanners we used, interestingly enough, they didn't work on most phones, but they worked on phones that had organic LED displays.
[06:22.370 --> 06:22.870]  I don't know why.
[06:23.210 --> 06:24.450]  Those were the only ones that worked.
[06:24.590 --> 06:27.330]  Maybe the way that they project the light is different.
[06:27.550 --> 06:28.090]  We have...
[06:28.090 --> 06:32.930]  Not to toot our own horn too much, but we have a very efficient ticket system.
[06:33.050 --> 06:38.430]  Even before the advances that you've introduced, we haven't had very long lines.
[06:38.530 --> 06:42.130]  I've been to other conferences, and I love the Chaos Congress.
[06:42.470 --> 06:43.530]  Not going this year.
[06:43.530 --> 06:46.070]  Unfortunately, because of the Euro situation, I can't go.
[06:47.250 --> 06:48.570]  But usually I do go.
[06:49.710 --> 06:51.390]  And there's always these long lines.
[06:51.870 --> 06:52.210]  Yeah.
[06:52.310 --> 06:56.010]  The only time we see long lines at Hope is the very first day in the morning.
[06:56.270 --> 06:58.310]  And by long lines, I mean people waiting for hours.
[06:58.490 --> 06:59.250]  Yeah, no, that doesn't happen.
[06:59.450 --> 06:59.810]  Outside.
[06:59.990 --> 07:00.830]  Not complaining.
[07:01.150 --> 07:01.650]  Or at least not normally.
[07:01.650 --> 07:07.570]  Well, you know, they have to handwrite receipts in accordance with the provisions of the German tax code, and it's time consuming.
[07:08.150 --> 07:08.510]  Yes.
[07:08.670 --> 07:08.850]  Rob?
[07:08.990 --> 07:09.190]  Yes.
[07:09.270 --> 07:11.230]  But when we have long lines, they're moving still.
[07:11.450 --> 07:12.870]  It's just people keep getting on the end of it.
[07:13.070 --> 07:13.210]  Yeah.
[07:13.530 --> 07:15.030]  Yeah, they insist on doing that.
[07:16.130 --> 07:18.050]  And it goes fairly quickly.
[07:18.570 --> 07:21.530]  So anyway, we went through that over the weekend.
[07:22.410 --> 07:26.590]  And now we're ready to actually start planning the conference in earnest.
[07:26.690 --> 07:31.150]  We also put up the videos from Beyond Hope on Blip TV, and those look so good.
[07:31.150 --> 07:34.570]  I was having them on in the background throughout the weekend.
[07:34.850 --> 07:38.970]  And just going back down memory lane, you can see them too.
[07:39.070 --> 07:42.830]  If you go to blip.tv slash 2600 magazine, you can now see two conferences.
[07:42.830 --> 07:48.310]  The first Hackers on Planet Earth conference, Hope 1994, and Beyond Hope in 1997.
[07:48.610 --> 07:54.030]  And what we're going to try and do is put a different conference up every month until we actually are at Hope No.
[07:54.090 --> 07:55.990]  9 in July of next year.
[07:56.530 --> 07:57.790]  And that's a lot of history.
[07:57.970 --> 07:59.790]  So many things were said and done.
[07:59.890 --> 08:04.730]  And it was really cool just looking at the videos, seeing the different websites that were available back in 1997.
[08:04.950 --> 08:13.990]  People were talking about, during the keynote that Brock Meeks gave, talking about the commercialization of the Internet as something that was about to happen.
[08:13.990 --> 08:22.010]  Not something that had already happened, but is this a good thing, this apparent movement that the net is going towards where corporations are now getting involved?
[08:22.490 --> 08:26.030]  And just the different opinions as to whether or not that was a good thing.
[08:26.110 --> 08:28.710]  Of course, now it's all done.
[08:28.850 --> 08:29.390]  It's all said.
[08:29.610 --> 08:32.730]  That's where a lot of the commercialism is on the Internet.
[08:32.970 --> 08:33.350]  Yeah.
[08:33.390 --> 08:37.510]  And just in case any time travelers from 1997 are listening, it's not a good thing.
[08:38.090 --> 08:38.990]  No, no.
[08:39.250 --> 08:39.470]  Spoiler.
[08:44.030 --> 08:52.930]  The new Club Mate shipment, now that's a side story to that, I basically had an industrial accident while we were having this delivery.
[08:52.970 --> 08:54.070]  It was supposed to be delivered on Friday.
[08:55.110 --> 08:56.470]  We've been out of the stuff.
[08:56.670 --> 08:58.450]  This is the energy drink that comes from Germany.
[08:58.650 --> 09:01.770]  And somehow we wound up being the main distributors of it.
[09:02.450 --> 09:06.230]  And they come in these giant pallets of 800 bottles each.
[09:06.610 --> 09:13.590]  A pallet is basically, I guess, a piece of wood that supports huge amounts of weight.
[09:13.590 --> 09:15.090]  Is that a good way of describing it?
[09:15.310 --> 09:15.530]  Yeah.
[09:15.830 --> 09:16.110]  All right.
[09:16.350 --> 09:17.070]  Well, guess what?
[09:17.130 --> 09:18.370]  They don't come on pieces of wood anymore.
[09:18.370 --> 09:21.490]  They come in some crazy recycled material that cannot support the weight.
[09:21.810 --> 09:25.450]  And that made it extremely difficult to unload off the truck.
[09:25.950 --> 09:31.050]  And somehow I got corralled into helping unload the stuff.
[09:32.270 --> 09:37.230]  And I wound up piloting a pallet jack, which is something that you use to move pallets with.
[09:37.370 --> 09:40.950]  This pallet jack could not support the pallet that couldn't support the bottles.
[09:41.430 --> 09:43.550]  And it was very lopsided, very scary.
[09:43.550 --> 09:45.050]  We had to go down this little hill.
[09:45.230 --> 09:49.690]  And I was basically concentrating on not having 800 bottles fall on top of me.
[09:49.770 --> 09:50.730]  That wouldn't have been very good.
[09:50.850 --> 09:53.950]  But in so doing, I was pulling backwards.
[09:54.150 --> 09:56.290]  In so doing, I wasn't able to move my feet fast enough.
[09:56.630 --> 10:01.470]  And my foot got run over by a pallet of 800 bottles of Club Mate.
[10:02.150 --> 10:02.890]  Winter edition.
[10:03.790 --> 10:04.150]  Winter edition.
[10:04.150 --> 10:04.250]  Yes.
[10:04.870 --> 10:07.670]  This is one way for winter edition to make its debut into this country.
[10:08.390 --> 10:09.350]  Right over my foot.
[10:09.490 --> 10:10.630]  And I cannot believe it.
[10:10.710 --> 10:11.510]  I looked it up later.
[10:11.630 --> 10:13.610]  A couple of days later when I felt like looking it up.
[10:13.690 --> 10:15.710]  I said, how heavy was that exactly?
[10:15.850 --> 10:18.190]  And it turns out it's 1,700 pounds.
[10:18.830 --> 10:20.190]  And I believe a ton is what?
[10:20.250 --> 10:21.050]  2,000 pounds?
[10:21.370 --> 10:21.610]  Yeah.
[10:21.870 --> 10:24.990]  Or 2,200 pounds, depending on which one you subscribe to.
[10:24.990 --> 10:25.550]  A U.S.
[10:25.830 --> 10:28.210]  ton is 2,000 pounds.
[10:29.270 --> 10:31.910]  An SI pound is 1,000 kilos, which is 2,200.
[10:31.910 --> 10:32.470]  Why do they make different ones?
[10:32.610 --> 10:32.930]  I don't know.
[10:33.030 --> 10:33.810]  At least give it a different name.
[10:33.810 --> 10:36.950]  No, it's 1,000 kilograms, which is a much more sensible unit.
[10:36.950 --> 10:38.690]  Yeah, once 2,200 and once 2,000.
[10:38.850 --> 10:39.370]  It should be...
[10:39.370 --> 10:39.570]  All right.
[10:39.650 --> 10:39.990]  Whatever.
[10:40.130 --> 10:40.750]  It's another...
[10:40.750 --> 10:41.210]  I agree.
[10:41.210 --> 10:42.630]  We should get rid of the U.S.
[10:42.870 --> 10:44.550]  system, but it's not going to happen tonight.
[10:45.130 --> 10:45.350]  Yeah.
[10:45.550 --> 10:52.270]  Well, anyway, so I can say legally, I think, that I was run over by a ton of material on my foot.
[10:52.450 --> 10:53.970]  And boy, that hurt pretty good.
[10:54.990 --> 10:57.330]  Shoe saved me because it was able to absorb most of the weight.
[10:57.350 --> 10:59.610]  It was a good heavy-duty shoe.
[10:59.790 --> 11:01.690]  But wow, that was...
[11:01.690 --> 11:02.630]  I'm not doing that anymore.
[11:02.850 --> 11:04.790]  Add that to the list of things I cannot do.
[11:05.710 --> 11:07.150]  I've learned lots of things.
[11:07.190 --> 11:09.590]  I can't corral horses.
[11:09.930 --> 11:11.910]  I cannot fly a commercial airliner.
[11:12.570 --> 11:16.930]  Various things I have learned very quickly that I am not capable of doing.
[11:17.170 --> 11:23.590]  And unloading things, giant pallets of large objects, no, I can't do that either.
[11:23.990 --> 11:27.650]  But now people will be able to own one of the bottles that ran over Emmanuel Goldstein's foot.
[11:27.790 --> 11:30.790]  Well, when we feel like, yeah, getting back to that.
[11:30.910 --> 11:32.970]  Right now, I don't want to think about any of that stuff.
[11:33.070 --> 11:35.030]  But yeah, it'll probably be later in the week that we'll make that available.
[11:35.250 --> 11:35.750]  Two questions.
[11:36.210 --> 11:39.570]  Firstly, did you get to reset the sign of days since accidents?
[11:40.990 --> 11:44.650]  We never had that sign, but I guess now it's time to get one.
[11:44.650 --> 11:50.170]  And the other question was, I assume that the jacket self ran over your foot.
[11:50.310 --> 11:51.970]  Which way was the pallet leaning?
[11:52.110 --> 11:53.150]  Away from you or towards you?
[11:53.170 --> 11:55.130]  You know, I didn't really look at it that carefully.
[11:55.430 --> 11:59.410]  It was definitely leaning towards me, which is why I was so anxious of getting out of its way.
[11:59.930 --> 12:03.970]  But what happened was the whole thing was coming at me, and I think it just clipped my foot.
[12:04.310 --> 12:09.090]  I was backpedaling, and I don't know how I got out from underneath it, but fortunately I did.
[12:09.930 --> 12:13.990]  And today really is the first day I can actually walk again without pain.
[12:14.110 --> 12:24.590]  Because if the pallet itself had been leaning towards the other side of the jack, then the side that ran you over, that would have offset the center balance, which would have made it not as heavy on your foot.
[12:24.930 --> 12:25.790]  I'm not saying...
[12:25.790 --> 12:29.230]  I sure wish you were there to give me these calculations while the thing is hurtling towards me.
[12:29.350 --> 12:33.070]  I'm just saying that maybe that's part of the reason why your foot wasn't hurt.
[12:33.130 --> 12:48.750]  Just never let it be said that we don't put our asses on the line for everybody out there for one thing or another, whether it's ticket sales, which can be just as dangerous, or moving one-ton pallets back and forth, or publishing what it is that we really think.
[12:48.750 --> 12:49.850]  That's the most dangerous of all.
[12:50.110 --> 12:51.870]  And of course, doing this radio show.
[12:52.070 --> 12:55.030]  A lot of people think that's quite dangerous too.
[12:55.630 --> 12:58.350]  Okay, so we do have a lot of relevant things to talk about.
[12:58.430 --> 13:05.290]  But also on the subject of getting things done, I have to say that we have made significant progress in the premium department.
[13:05.290 --> 13:08.130]  We've been getting all kinds of information from the radio station.
[13:08.250 --> 13:10.610]  I think we have everything we need right now.
[13:10.770 --> 13:17.590]  Those of you poor souls who pledged for Tesla things, well over a year ago, we finally have your names and addresses.
[13:17.850 --> 13:18.890]  Those will be going out.
[13:19.030 --> 13:19.610]  We have it now.
[13:19.690 --> 13:21.150]  There's nothing stopping us from mailing that out.
[13:21.910 --> 13:26.810]  We have the number of calendars we're supposed to bring to the station, and we're going to get that done.
[13:27.570 --> 13:30.190]  And pretty much, we'll be caught up up until fall.
[13:30.330 --> 13:34.790]  And I think by next week at this time, everybody should have everything that they asked for.
[13:34.790 --> 13:37.110]  So you'll be able to give it for the holidays.
[13:37.730 --> 13:40.810]  I'd like to think that, depending on when you define the holidays as being.
[13:41.190 --> 13:43.590]  We do have one mystery that we'd like to solve.
[13:43.850 --> 13:48.210]  We sent a package to one of our listeners in Belgium.
[13:49.090 --> 13:51.950]  His first name is Vicente, V-I-C-E-N-T-E.
[13:52.070 --> 13:53.610]  Now, it came back.
[13:53.770 --> 13:54.290]  It came back.
[13:54.290 --> 13:55.710]  And we don't know how to find you.
[13:55.710 --> 14:01.550]  So if you're Vicente and you're in Belgium, please write to us, O-T-H-at-2600.com.
[14:01.950 --> 14:10.070]  And we will send you, we'll resend you that package, which is very expensive, by the way, to send out there.
[14:10.450 --> 14:13.910]  But we'll send it again, because somebody must have written something down wrong.
[14:13.930 --> 14:16.950]  What bit of information do they need to prove their identity?
[14:16.990 --> 14:18.950]  Because otherwise, we may get a lot of emails.
[14:18.950 --> 14:19.430]  Well, you know what?
[14:19.470 --> 14:20.450]  I haven't said his last name.
[14:20.450 --> 14:21.250]  He's got a match.
[14:22.370 --> 14:27.710]  He's going to, I assume it's a he, he's going to say what it is that he pledged for, when he pledged, things like that.
[14:27.790 --> 14:28.910]  We have all kinds of ways of checking.
[14:29.250 --> 14:33.530]  I'm just basically letting Vicente know what to say in the email.
[14:33.730 --> 14:33.950]  Yeah.
[14:34.090 --> 14:36.230]  Well, once we're in touch, we can have all kinds of communication.
[14:36.550 --> 14:36.610]  Well, that's true.
[14:36.630 --> 14:37.490]  I think he can handle it.
[14:37.510 --> 14:38.910]  But the thing is, maybe he's listening.
[14:39.050 --> 14:41.730]  If he's not listening, then somebody needs to get a hold of him.
[14:41.950 --> 14:47.190]  So if you know any Vicente in Belgium, please track him down and ask, are you an off-the-hook listener?
[14:48.530 --> 14:50.350]  And we're going to find you one way or another.
[14:50.490 --> 14:51.250]  We're going to track you down.
[14:51.430 --> 14:51.710]  Sorry?
[14:51.910 --> 14:52.990]  It doesn't seem like a Belgian name.
[14:53.210 --> 14:54.550]  Well, maybe he's, I don't know.
[14:54.630 --> 14:55.970]  Maybe he came from someplace else.
[14:56.510 --> 14:58.450]  Who are we to define what a Belgian name is?
[14:58.590 --> 15:00.690]  Could be a part of the EU in Brussels.
[15:01.010 --> 15:03.290]  What are you saying about they have a new leader now in Belgium?
[15:04.490 --> 15:05.170]  Brussels, Belgium.
[15:05.390 --> 15:07.550]  Belgium has a prime minister for the first time in years.
[15:07.590 --> 15:08.070]  Only Brussels?
[15:08.350 --> 15:09.430]  The whole country, Belgium.
[15:09.650 --> 15:10.350]  But you said Brussels.
[15:10.430 --> 15:11.130]  Well, he's in Brussels.
[15:11.370 --> 15:14.290]  That's the kind of separatist feeling that we're trying to get away from here.
[15:14.910 --> 15:16.790]  Brussels is part of Belgium and it's one country.
[15:16.790 --> 15:18.030]  I did make a mistake.
[15:18.270 --> 15:23.730]  He's in, the seat of Belgian government is in Brussels, but he's the prime minister for the whole country.
[15:23.850 --> 15:24.910]  And he's sitting in that seat right now.
[15:25.210 --> 15:26.370]  Well, he might be asleep.
[15:26.370 --> 15:27.370]  He's allowed to do that.
[15:27.390 --> 15:27.990]  It's about two in the morning or something.
[15:28.530 --> 15:28.930]  All right.
[15:28.970 --> 15:29.410]  Well, that's good.
[15:29.530 --> 15:30.530]  Hopefully, it'll stay one country.
[15:30.670 --> 15:31.790]  Or, you know, it could be two countries.
[15:32.330 --> 15:32.650]  Three.
[15:32.810 --> 15:33.170]  Who knows?
[15:33.390 --> 15:36.150]  Add to the list of countries I have to go to if they split into two.
[15:36.150 --> 15:37.730]  He likes to wear bow ties.
[15:38.470 --> 15:38.870]  Yeah.
[15:39.050 --> 15:40.470]  That's kind of strange, I guess.
[15:41.230 --> 15:41.690]  All right.
[15:41.730 --> 15:45.730]  So, I think that pretty much catches us up on premium issues, which is great news.
[15:46.130 --> 15:50.270]  People at BAI really working hard to keep everybody happy.
[15:51.030 --> 15:52.890]  And so are we here off the hook.
[15:53.570 --> 15:54.030]  All right.
[15:54.090 --> 15:58.170]  So, we have some issues to talk about, some real issues to talk about.
[15:58.810 --> 16:02.970]  I think the first one we should really get into is this whole SOPA business.
[16:03.550 --> 16:06.330]  And that comes to a head tomorrow.
[16:06.610 --> 16:07.450]  Tomorrow is the vote, right?
[16:07.830 --> 16:13.970]  Tomorrow is the vote of the committee in the House, which will either approve or reject it.
[16:14.070 --> 16:16.490]  And then it goes to the full Congress for a vote.
[16:16.630 --> 16:22.210]  But I guess the people who are strategizing around this feel like now's the time to stop it.
[16:22.490 --> 16:23.110]  Now, okay.
[16:23.130 --> 16:23.550]  I'm going to read.
[16:23.550 --> 16:29.690]  This came from Cory Doctorow over at Boing Boing, who got this from Tiffany from American Censorship.
[16:29.830 --> 16:31.050]  Boy, she spells her name weird.
[16:31.410 --> 16:32.870]  T-I-F-F-I-N-I-Y.
[16:33.550 --> 16:33.810]  Interesting.
[16:34.110 --> 16:34.330]  But anyway.
[16:34.790 --> 16:35.350]  Yeah.
[16:35.430 --> 16:36.290]  American Censorship.
[16:36.550 --> 16:38.610]  She basically says, tomorrow the U.S.
[16:38.890 --> 16:41.630]  government will vote to have broad powers to block any site.
[16:43.210 --> 16:46.230]  SOPA would not only hurt free speech.
[16:46.670 --> 16:47.850]  What does SOPA stand for?
[16:48.110 --> 16:51.210]  The Stop Online Piracy Act.
[16:51.390 --> 16:52.650]  Stop Online Piracy Act.
[16:52.750 --> 16:52.910]  Okay.
[16:53.910 --> 16:57.790]  I keep wanting to call it the Stop Online Privacy Act because that's what it will do.
[16:57.810 --> 16:58.970]  But it's not the official name.
[16:59.070 --> 16:59.330]  But wait.
[16:59.530 --> 17:01.910]  Wouldn't that be what you want to say if you want to stop it, too?
[17:02.050 --> 17:03.150]  It's an online piracy act.
[17:03.190 --> 17:03.870]  You want to stop it.
[17:03.990 --> 17:07.530]  So wouldn't we support stopping the Online Piracy Act?
[17:07.610 --> 17:07.910]  I don't know.
[17:09.950 --> 17:10.710]  Whatever you say.
[17:10.950 --> 17:11.110]  Yeah.
[17:11.370 --> 17:12.070]  It's all right.
[17:12.270 --> 17:12.490]  No, no.
[17:12.530 --> 17:13.190]  We don't support it.
[17:13.270 --> 17:13.810]  We're against it.
[17:13.910 --> 17:14.750]  Don't confuse people.
[17:14.930 --> 17:15.250]  All right.
[17:15.450 --> 17:15.870]  But how would...
[17:15.870 --> 17:16.010]  Okay.
[17:26.210 --> 17:27.450]  Stop Online Piracy.
[17:27.490 --> 17:29.850]  And, of course, piracy is defined by the beholder.
[17:30.590 --> 17:32.630]  This would not only hurt free speech.
[17:32.710 --> 17:36.830]  It will choke off the internet workforce and its readers by taking down entire websites.
[17:37.550 --> 17:38.670]  Today is the only day.
[17:38.890 --> 17:39.930]  I mean, today, Wednesday.
[17:40.090 --> 17:42.210]  The only day we have left to have our voices heard.
[17:42.210 --> 17:48.310]  So we're going to have to discuss, okay, since today is over, pretty much, how do we make our voices heard?
[17:48.470 --> 17:49.290]  We'll talk about that.
[17:49.750 --> 17:51.230]  It's time to pull out all stops.
[17:51.430 --> 17:53.450]  Please make a call right now to protest censorship.
[17:53.650 --> 17:54.350]  Your call matters.
[17:54.610 --> 17:56.930]  If you don't call, SOPA will pass.
[17:56.950 --> 18:04.090]  If there is one call per minute into every one of our representatives, we have a chance of stalling SOPA enough so it dies for quite some time.
[18:04.090 --> 18:06.530]  I think we can easily handle more than one per minute.
[18:07.070 --> 18:11.530]  Please call Congress now and tell them you oppose internet censorship and stifling the internet.
[18:11.530 --> 18:14.370]  If you own a site, you're in the best position to spread the word.
[18:14.590 --> 18:18.430]  Please post this call widget that they attached.
[18:18.590 --> 18:21.990]  If we're really going to stop SOPA, we need you to get involved.
[18:21.990 --> 18:29.590]  If you write emails or have a blog or if you post a Facebook to a major radio show in New York City, Twitter, Tumblr, tell everyone by blacking out your text here.
[18:29.770 --> 18:30.670]  It's super easy.
[18:31.130 --> 18:40.990]  SOPA kills jobs that we need right now and blocks sites to Americans for the purpose of serving copyright in vague and overbroad ways in ways that are not even well agreed on by academics in the field.
[18:40.990 --> 18:42.230]  Okay, I'm curious about this.
[18:42.310 --> 18:43.570]  How does it kill jobs?
[18:43.850 --> 18:44.470]  That's interesting.
[18:44.610 --> 18:45.370]  I haven't heard that before.
[18:46.770 --> 18:50.430]  Well, by preventing people from doing their work on the internet.
[18:50.730 --> 18:51.030]  Okay.
[18:51.870 --> 18:52.410]  I guess.
[18:52.410 --> 18:53.310]  Their creative work.
[18:53.510 --> 18:53.710]  Uh-huh.
[18:54.090 --> 18:56.950]  Well, what this, I guess, does...
[18:56.950 --> 18:59.410]  Well, first of all, what will this allow to have happened?
[18:59.510 --> 19:07.550]  Right now, we've seen ICE go out and shut down websites and put their little banner on saying this site has been seized by Department of Homeland Security.
[19:07.810 --> 19:09.510]  Yeah, let's talk about that more in a bit, too.
[19:09.510 --> 19:11.730]  Well, is that not the same thing as this?
[19:11.890 --> 19:12.930]  And if not, how is it different?
[19:13.110 --> 19:14.610]  It's going to enhance their powers to do that.
[19:14.690 --> 19:18.570]  They're going to be able to use it against domestic websites in addition to foreign ones.
[19:20.050 --> 19:31.190]  And there's going to be all kinds of new regulations where instead of the government doing it, private entities are going to be forced to do it, which is kind of creepy.
[19:31.490 --> 19:32.170]  Okay, really?
[19:32.310 --> 19:32.870]  That's interesting.
[19:33.330 --> 19:33.570]  All right.
[19:33.710 --> 19:42.470]  So somebody who runs an ISP, say, for instance, would have to turn off a site because the government says, we think that they're up to something.
[19:44.070 --> 19:44.870]  Not the government.
[19:45.010 --> 19:49.350]  If it was the government, then you could have a court process and be sort of okay with it.
[19:49.350 --> 19:57.990]  But what's especially dangerous here is it's putting this power in the hands of private entities, the recording industry and the movie industry in particular.
[19:57.990 --> 20:06.790]  But really, anyone who's ever written anything and holds a copyright in it would have the power to shut down all kinds of content.
[20:06.990 --> 20:13.870]  What I don't get is, don't they have this power already to go after people that are supposedly violating their copyright rules?
[20:13.870 --> 20:14.270]  Yeah, they do.
[20:14.270 --> 20:17.830]  I mean, every other video on YouTube seems to be taken down by somebody.
[20:18.350 --> 20:20.530]  Yeah, a lot of the times fraudulently.
[20:20.890 --> 20:29.050]  But the copyright industries are claiming that it's not enough, despite the fact that I haven't heard any rumors of Viacom going out of business.
[20:29.050 --> 20:30.430]  They claim that they might one day.
[20:31.250 --> 20:36.970]  And they need more power to shut down the internet in order to prevent that horrible fate.
[20:37.130 --> 20:40.250]  Well, here's another view, or the same view from another person.
[20:40.250 --> 20:49.350]  And Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales wants to blank out all pages of the online encyclopedia to oppose the pending SOPA anti-piracy bill in the U.S.
[20:49.910 --> 20:59.870]  Wales, who has asked the Wikipedia community for input on the idea, fears the bill could seriously hurt the internet and thinks that blanking out Wikipedia will send a strong message to lawmakers.
[21:00.730 --> 21:06.990]  Now, of course, tomorrow, the Senate's House Judiciary Committee will vote on the Stop Online Piracy Act known as SOPA.
[21:06.990 --> 21:14.690]  Supporters of the bill say it's needed to safeguard the interest of rights holders who claim their businesses are threatened by online piracy.
[21:14.990 --> 21:23.490]  Those opposing are worried that the unprecedented censorship tools it introduces will take out many websites on baseless or faulty claims of copyright infringement.
[21:23.870 --> 21:27.050]  Now, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales belongs to the latter group.
[21:27.270 --> 21:34.790]  And behind the scenes, he is mulling plans to blank out all Wikipedia pages in a protest against the pending SOPA bill.
[21:34.790 --> 21:39.230]  On Saturday, he posted a message on his user page asking the community for input on the idea.
[21:39.750 --> 21:47.350]  He explains that the idea of a self-censorship protest is inspired by a campaign the Italian Wikipedia community ran earlier this year.
[21:47.770 --> 21:58.130]  A few months ago, the Italian Wikipedia community made a decision to blank all of Italian Wikipedia for a short period in order to protest a law which would infringe on their editorial independence.
[21:58.330 --> 22:01.510]  The Italian parliament backed down immediately, he said.
[22:02.270 --> 22:10.970]  Now, as Wikipedians may or may not be aware, a much worse law going under the misleading title of Stop Online Piracy Act is working its way through the Senate on a bit of a fast track.
[22:11.290 --> 22:16.970]  I may be attending a meeting at the White House on Monday, along with executives from many other top internet firms, he says.
[22:17.250 --> 22:21.470]  And I thought this would be a good time to take a quick reading of the community feeling on this issue.
[22:21.730 --> 22:29.110]  By blanking out one of the most visited sites on the internet, the Wikipedia founder believes the community can send a strong message to their representatives in Washington.
[22:29.330 --> 22:34.090]  With billions of page views a month, a Wikipedia protest will definitely be noticed.
[22:34.550 --> 22:41.110]  My own view is that a community strike was very powerful and successful in Italy, and could be even more powerful in this case, he says.
[22:41.330 --> 22:46.830]  Now, the response from Wikipedia users to Wales' plan has been overwhelmingly supportive.
[22:46.830 --> 22:53.090]  However, several users also placed critical notes and wondered whether Wikipedia is the right platform for a political protest.
[22:53.470 --> 22:55.830]  I oppose the legislation, but that's a political view.
[22:55.990 --> 23:00.670]  I don't ever want Wikipedia to take a political view, no matter how much I agree with it, said one person.
[23:01.110 --> 23:07.970]  Others think that blanking out entire pages might not be an ideal solution and call for alternative forms of protest, such as displaying a black background.
[23:08.590 --> 23:13.390]  In an update recently, Wales responds to some of the points raised in response to the idea.
[23:13.510 --> 23:20.050]  However, he still stands behind the blanking out protest and says that's the something has to be done quickly before the bill is rammed through in Washington.
[23:20.350 --> 23:22.770]  Time is not on our side here, he said.
[23:22.870 --> 23:24.570]  And that article came from Torrent Freak.
[23:25.290 --> 23:36.390]  You know, I got to say, in response to the person who says Wikipedia should never take a political view, the question is, will this legislation, if it passes, affect people who use Wikipedia?
[23:36.510 --> 23:37.470]  And the answer is yes.
[23:37.870 --> 23:42.170]  Therefore, you're being forced into a political landscape right there.
[23:42.170 --> 23:44.150]  So you do need to respond to that.
[23:44.150 --> 23:47.990]  Otherwise, you're going to be controlled by all kinds of people that don't have your interest at heart.
[23:48.810 --> 23:51.230]  What do you guys think about the idea of blanking it out?
[23:51.930 --> 23:59.970]  I think Wikipedia as a community, the high-level Wikipedia users all know that the site is constantly fighting tooth and nail to stay on the right side of copyright law.
[24:01.110 --> 24:07.430]  And I think that's an issue that really pervades to every level of Wikipedia, whether you're a casual user or a heavy-duty one.
[24:07.430 --> 24:15.610]  So I think for the site, I don't think it would be Wikipedia taking a political view so much as acting in its own self-preservation, pretty much.
[24:15.770 --> 24:17.730]  Yeah, because Wikipedia is an amazing place.
[24:17.870 --> 24:21.110]  It is to wander around, learn things, get information.
[24:21.110 --> 24:23.930]  You can find out any kind of fact or figure almost instantly.
[24:24.530 --> 24:37.210]  And yeah, you know, I would hate to not have it for a day, but I would hate a lot more to have it screwed up by somebody who doesn't understand the value of something like that and seeks to over-regulate or constrict it.
[24:37.350 --> 24:39.050]  So it's a worthy sacrifice.
[24:39.050 --> 24:42.870]  And the thing is, it will get people's attention who do not already know about this.
[24:43.250 --> 24:44.790]  Sometimes you have to take action.
[24:44.810 --> 24:54.010]  As we've learned with Occupy Wall Street, you have to get in people's faces to get something into the newspapers, to get it into the mass media and into everyone's living room.
[24:54.290 --> 24:57.910]  Also, Wikipedia is, as they said, one of the most visited sites on the internet.
[24:57.910 --> 25:05.010]  So that gives them, I think, sort of a certain responsibility to try to preserve the environment in which they thrive.
[25:05.190 --> 25:08.630]  Now, can you imagine, can you imagine if Google did the same thing?
[25:09.050 --> 25:10.810]  Can you imagine a day without Google?
[25:10.910 --> 25:11.530]  What would happen?
[25:11.850 --> 25:15.650]  Everything, everything related to Google, just let's take it off for a day just to make a point.
[25:15.770 --> 25:20.310]  No Gmail, no Google Earth, no search engine, nothing.
[25:21.150 --> 25:22.070]  That would be something.
[25:22.070 --> 25:30.890]  That way, it might scare people to realize how much is controlled by them, but it would definitely get on every front page in the world, I think.
[25:31.510 --> 25:33.150]  That's if something really matters.
[25:33.410 --> 25:34.310]  You have to do that.
[25:34.350 --> 25:35.990]  If you have a voice, you need to use the voice.
[25:36.350 --> 25:42.070]  And I think that's where a lot of people have problems with celebrities speaking out on issues.
[25:42.390 --> 25:47.790]  Well, if you have an ability to say something, I think you have an obligation to say something if it matters to you.
[25:48.050 --> 25:51.550]  And in this particular case, yeah, I think they have the opportunity to do this.
[25:51.550 --> 25:53.330]  It's not something they're going to get very often.
[25:53.490 --> 25:57.290]  They're not going to have the chance to speak out before something has actually passed.
[25:57.490 --> 25:58.670]  So I support it.
[25:58.730 --> 25:59.250]  I hope they do it.
[25:59.390 --> 26:04.710]  I do hope they get rid of those banners on the front, though, that always have somebody's face telling you to do something.
[26:04.730 --> 26:05.470]  That's annoying.
[26:06.310 --> 26:10.890]  And I just wish I could turn it off and maybe just read it every now and then.
[26:11.430 --> 26:12.410]  But other than that...
[26:12.410 --> 26:15.170]  Okay, so SOPA tomorrow is going to be voted on.
[26:15.290 --> 26:16.110]  What happens after that?
[26:16.250 --> 26:17.510]  I mean, is it a done deal?
[26:17.670 --> 26:19.770]  Well, if the thing fails, then it fails.
[26:19.770 --> 26:23.470]  If it passes, then, as we said before, it goes to the whole House for a vote.
[26:23.630 --> 26:27.330]  And your calls to your representative will really matter then.
[26:27.670 --> 26:29.630]  And then there's so...
[26:29.630 --> 26:33.710]  As people know, of course, the bill has to pass both in the House and in the Senate.
[26:33.870 --> 26:40.010]  And there's one senator, Senator Wyden of Oregon, who's really taking a stand against...
[26:40.010 --> 26:41.510]  It's called SOPA in the House.
[26:41.610 --> 26:44.210]  And the same bill is called Protect IP in the Senate.
[26:44.570 --> 26:46.430]  He's really taking a stand against it.
[26:46.430 --> 26:48.130]  He's promised to filibuster it.
[26:48.330 --> 26:55.470]  So if you want your name to be read on the floor of the Senate by Senator Wyden, there's a petition you can sign for that to happen.
[26:56.330 --> 26:56.650]  But...
[26:56.650 --> 26:58.930]  Wait, how's he going to do that if a million people sign a petition?
[26:59.010 --> 26:59.990]  He's going to read everybody's name?
[26:59.990 --> 27:00.590]  That's the point.
[27:00.770 --> 27:02.170]  That's how filibusters work, yeah.
[27:02.350 --> 27:03.270]  Yeah, but he'll never make it.
[27:03.410 --> 27:03.750]  All right.
[27:03.810 --> 27:05.110]  Well, it's worth a try anyway.
[27:05.330 --> 27:05.430]  Well, good.
[27:05.710 --> 27:06.030]  Let's...
[27:06.030 --> 27:10.530]  I mean, this should be the best thing that happens is we tire Senator Wyden out because so many people...
[27:10.530 --> 27:11.010]  He's on our side.
[27:11.110 --> 27:13.230]  Poor guy's going to wind up in the hospital trying to read all these names.
[27:13.250 --> 27:15.370]  You don't wind up in the hospital from reading names.
[27:15.370 --> 27:15.950]  Have you ever...
[27:15.950 --> 27:16.830]  Okay, whatever.
[27:17.090 --> 27:17.710]  But okay, fine.
[27:17.830 --> 27:18.650]  Whatever it takes.
[27:19.110 --> 27:20.290]  We're playing hardball now.
[27:20.510 --> 27:31.530]  But yeah, so if it passes tomorrow, then it's especially urgent to call your representatives because right now, the only people who are voting on it are the people who are in that committee, which I don't believe includes anyone from New York right now.
[27:32.170 --> 27:36.210]  But after that, it'll be up for the vote in the entire House.
[27:36.210 --> 27:39.410]  Do we know who introduced this ill-fated legislation in the first place?
[27:39.610 --> 27:40.890]  The motion picture industry?
[27:41.090 --> 27:42.190]  No, I mean, who in Congress?
[27:42.190 --> 27:44.590]  I assume they don't have a seat in Congress, like, legally.
[27:44.590 --> 27:45.750]  That's a big assumption.
[27:46.850 --> 27:50.950]  Yeah, MPAA in parentheses, Democrat or Republican from Washington, D.C.?
[27:50.950 --> 27:51.030]  Republican.
[27:51.630 --> 27:52.070]  Both.
[27:52.410 --> 27:53.710]  Both parties, actually.
[27:53.830 --> 27:53.850]  It is both.
[27:53.930 --> 27:55.830]  It really is at this point.
[27:55.930 --> 27:57.250]  I mean, it has sponsors from both sides.
[27:57.810 --> 27:58.250]  Okay.
[27:58.530 --> 28:01.010]  Does anybody know of a website we can keep updated on this?
[28:01.630 --> 28:02.510]  AmericanCensorship.org.
[28:02.630 --> 28:02.850]  Okay.
[28:03.270 --> 28:12.130]  And I like that it's called the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act when the one thing that this won't do is stop online piracy in any way, shape, or form.
[28:12.130 --> 28:13.790]  Isn't this another form of online piracy?
[28:14.030 --> 28:17.730]  I mean, they're hijacking websites and basically intimidating people.
[28:18.030 --> 28:19.430]  How else do you define piracy?
[28:19.610 --> 28:22.830]  Do you have the story about the website?
[28:22.830 --> 28:26.490]  There was a website that got its domain name taken and just recently got it back.
[28:26.870 --> 28:27.990]  I don't have that story.
[28:27.990 --> 28:29.490]  It's some really weird URL.
[28:29.490 --> 28:30.630]  It's got a number in it.
[28:30.810 --> 28:31.870]  It's a music reviewer.
[28:31.930 --> 28:32.830]  It's a music reviewer.
[28:32.910 --> 28:41.170]  And he or she or whoever runs it was posting music that was sent to the website by the label saying, hey, post this.
[28:41.570 --> 28:42.870]  And it's a foreign website.
[28:42.870 --> 28:44.950]  It took them a year to get their domain name back.
[28:45.090 --> 28:45.450]  Incredible.
[28:45.750 --> 28:49.470]  What I understand is, why wasn't that in the news for that year?
[28:49.610 --> 28:51.170]  Why wasn't this a big deal?
[28:51.170 --> 28:53.110]  We found out about it after it was returned.
[28:53.370 --> 28:55.030]  But that should have been the rallying cry.
[28:55.230 --> 28:58.070]  You know, it's an example of how we got to push things into the headlines.
[28:58.930 --> 29:00.210]  So that's great that it happens.
[29:00.330 --> 29:04.110]  Probably 100 more stories of things like that that need to be publicized as well.
[29:04.890 --> 29:05.450]  Go ahead, Rob.
[29:05.590 --> 29:12.070]  Also, if anyone's listening who has had this happen to them, if you've had your domain seized, please get in touch with us, OTH at 2600.com.
[29:12.350 --> 29:14.010]  And let us know what it was like on your end.
[29:14.250 --> 29:14.810]  Yes, definitely.
[29:15.170 --> 29:21.050]  Okay, let's move on to this whole carrier IQ business, because that's been in the news too over the last few weeks.
[29:21.170 --> 29:23.130]  We reported on this several weeks ago.
[29:23.690 --> 29:29.230]  Carrier IQ is apparently some kind of an application that is put on people's smartphones.
[29:30.090 --> 29:38.110]  And the accusation was that this was monitoring things like keystrokes and SMS messages and things like that.
[29:38.570 --> 29:50.150]  A bunch of people are saying, no, that's not true, that carrier IQ is getting a raw deal here, that this is something that's simply on every phone to analyze, basically performance and things like that.
[29:50.770 --> 29:54.170]  And other people are saying, well, there's more to it than that.
[29:54.510 --> 30:05.010]  I think, you know, one thing we need to learn from this, the reason this really got into the news was because of carrier IQ's reaction when somebody did make the accusation.
[30:05.150 --> 30:07.110]  They sent out a cease and desist letter.
[30:07.350 --> 30:08.730]  They tried to intimidate the person.
[30:09.290 --> 30:16.270]  The Electronic Frontier Foundation jumped on top of it and forced them to drop what was known as an empty legal threat.
[30:16.490 --> 30:21.730]  And I think their image was completely and forever tarnished because of that action that they took.
[30:22.170 --> 30:27.150]  So it sort of becomes beside the point as to whether or not this software does what the person said.
[30:27.350 --> 30:32.250]  It's how you respond to that criticism that will determine what people think of you.
[30:32.250 --> 30:44.470]  So I think that their reaction was poor, but also I think that a lot of the backlash was because this was software that was installed by the phone manufacturers without people's knowledge.
[30:44.630 --> 30:45.970]  So they didn't know that this was on there.
[30:46.190 --> 30:49.630]  Now, obviously, there's a lot on your phone that you don't know about that's doing all kinds of things in the background.
[30:49.630 --> 30:54.190]  But this happened to appear to be very invasive in terms of what it was doing.
[30:54.190 --> 31:00.530]  In terms of what the Carrier IQ company has said anyway, is that, you know, yes, it's...
[31:00.530 --> 31:06.650]  They basically compared it to, I think, a net where the not important stuff kind of goes through the net and only the...
[31:06.650 --> 31:07.250]  I don't know.
[31:07.370 --> 31:16.310]  The point is that it had to listen to keystrokes, for example, because it was looking for you typing in something if you were an engineer to get into a debug mode.
[31:16.330 --> 31:19.250]  So it wasn't actually recording or transmitting the keystrokes anywhere.
[31:19.250 --> 31:22.890]  It was just monitoring key presses for these, you know, specific codes.
[31:24.190 --> 31:24.810]  Things like that.
[31:24.950 --> 31:35.270]  You know, it was getting the SMS data, but it wasn't actually sending the SMS contents anywhere, but it needed to get the whole data in order to extract whatever relevant analytics out of it.
[31:35.350 --> 31:40.890]  Well, as a cell phone user, as a smartphone user, do you think this is something that people should be able to opt into?
[31:41.550 --> 31:41.810]  Yeah.
[31:42.330 --> 31:51.590]  So in a lot of cases, what happens, and even with the phone that was used in this example by the researcher, was it had a thing that said, you know, opt in.
[31:51.590 --> 31:57.890]  At the very beginning when they set it up, saying, you know, sending us, will you opt in to send us crash reports and other statistics on your phone?
[31:58.370 --> 32:00.910]  And he didn't check that, and then this thing was still running there.
[32:01.050 --> 32:06.430]  So, you know, perhaps this should have been something that was toggled by that opt-in, opt-out mechanism.
[32:07.990 --> 32:08.310]  Yeah.
[32:08.490 --> 32:16.410]  I mean, like I said, the problem was, you know, for people, I think mostly was the fact that this was there, and they didn't know about it, and they didn't have any control over it.
[32:21.590 --> 32:25.810]  They didn't check boxes they should and shouldn't check in order to maximally preserve their privacy.
[32:26.010 --> 32:34.690]  And I think that this confusion is intentional on the part of the people who make this sort of software, because they don't want you to check the boxes that will, you know, preserve your privacy.
[32:35.230 --> 32:38.670]  And so they make it hard to do, and in some cases impossible to do.
[32:39.730 --> 32:43.490]  And people just don't know what's going on on the device they carry around.
[32:43.670 --> 32:49.650]  I mean, my phone is in my pocket probably, you know, whatever hours of the day I'm outside my apartment.
[32:50.590 --> 32:52.070]  It knows everything about me.
[32:52.210 --> 32:55.210]  I want to know who it's talking to, and I have no way to learn that.
[32:55.870 --> 32:56.230]  Yeah.
[32:57.070 --> 33:04.150]  I think full disclosure is really the only way to go in this day and age, and they need to be very open as to what is on your phone and what it's doing.
[33:04.310 --> 33:14.210]  I remember now, I misspoke, the SMS contents were looked at because there are certain messages sent by the carrier that were to be interpreted, you know, as commands from the carrier to this software.
[33:14.370 --> 33:15.290]  That's why they had to look at the contents.
[33:15.290 --> 33:16.070]  Now, what do you make of this?
[33:16.210 --> 33:17.870]  This appeared on BoingBone a couple of days ago.
[33:17.950 --> 33:27.550]  The FBI disclosed this weekend that data gathered by carrier IQ software is used by it for, quote, law enforcement purposes, unquote, but refused to give details of how it has done so.
[33:27.750 --> 33:31.310]  This was in response to a Freedom of Information Act that was filed recently.
[33:31.730 --> 33:38.590]  The FBI said that it held relevant records, but that the release could interfere with pending or prospective law enforcement proceedings.
[33:38.910 --> 33:46.370]  So is this something that's just a standard run-of-the-mill response from the FBI, or is there more to carrier IQ than we've been led to believe?
[33:46.370 --> 33:52.130]  Well, it's totally run-of-the-mill for the FBI to evade the law, the FOIA law in particular.
[33:52.950 --> 33:55.970]  So to say it's run-of-the-mill doesn't mean it's acceptable.
[33:56.270 --> 33:56.410]  Yeah.
[33:56.430 --> 34:01.670]  So, I mean, one thing you could think that they could use it is to track your location, but your cell provider could do that anyway.
[34:02.070 --> 34:10.730]  But because now it's software that's running on the phone, you know, given the permissions that it has, it could be used to look at what you're doing on your phone.
[34:10.850 --> 34:11.150]  It could.
[34:11.210 --> 34:11.950]  I'm not saying it is.
[34:12.030 --> 34:13.170]  I'm not saying that's what they use it for.
[34:13.990 --> 34:18.790]  But, you know, it gives you more access than just you would have as a cell phone provider.
[34:19.230 --> 34:22.890]  Although, I suppose the cell phone carrier would be able to see text messages and such coming in.
[34:23.110 --> 34:26.610]  It's kind of... I mean, it kind of... How much would it actually enhance their abilities?
[34:26.670 --> 34:27.310]  I don't know.
[34:28.050 --> 34:36.130]  Well, look, if the FBI believed that this thing was totally useless to their work, then they wouldn't have anything to keep secret.
[34:36.350 --> 34:37.730]  So that's a partial answer.
[34:37.730 --> 34:37.730]  Sure.
[34:38.090 --> 34:46.050]  But if you ask the FBI for just a random name, do you have any information on this that runs on people's cell phones, would they respond in the same way?
[34:46.150 --> 34:52.090]  Or did they recognize carrier IQ and say, yeah, we have something involving them, and we're not going to tell you what it is?
[34:52.170 --> 35:01.510]  So if you sent a letter to the FBI being like, hey, we want to know how you're using 2600 brand software to investigate people.
[35:01.650 --> 35:02.450]  Don't say 2600.
[35:02.550 --> 35:03.930]  That sets off bells no matter what you say.
[35:03.930 --> 35:05.130]  Yeah, well, some other brand.
[35:05.790 --> 35:07.790]  That is a brand, but that they don't use.
[35:08.030 --> 35:13.290]  Then they are legally obligated to reply, no, we have no records, no responsive records.
[35:14.610 --> 35:17.730]  Not, we have responsive records, but we're keeping them from you.
[35:17.910 --> 35:18.130]  Okay.
[35:18.750 --> 35:22.190]  Well, obviously, a lot more has yet to be said on this story.
[35:22.350 --> 35:25.510]  I mean, the caveat, of course, is that they're the FBI, so they'll lie to you if they feel like it.
[35:25.650 --> 35:27.690]  But that's what they're supposed to do.
[35:27.690 --> 35:29.890]  How do people remove this from their phone if they really want to?
[35:30.310 --> 35:31.170]  Are there websites?
[35:32.250 --> 35:35.870]  It can be tricky, because some of it is baked into the phones at very low levels.
[35:36.070 --> 35:39.230]  Yeah, I think to remove it, your phone has to be rooted, probably.
[35:39.470 --> 35:41.690]  If you don't have a smartphone, you don't have this on your phone, right?
[35:42.590 --> 35:48.150]  Well, I mean, your carrier has other means of doing this kind of analysis, but it's not...
[35:48.750 --> 35:56.790]  I think the difference is that the amount of data that people have on smartphones is much different, and it's a much higher level of data.
[35:56.790 --> 35:58.610]  That's a lot of data people keep on their smartphones.
[35:58.910 --> 36:00.550]  So I think that's the biggest issue.
[36:00.670 --> 36:02.310]  I mean, this kind of software...
[36:02.310 --> 36:03.630]  I mean, they're allowed to do this legally, right?
[36:03.710 --> 36:11.790]  The phone companies are allowed to do quality of service tests, and so this software, I'm sure, exists on all kinds of hands.
[36:11.930 --> 36:15.890]  It's not Carrier IQ, but this kind of software that does analytics for the phone company.
[36:16.170 --> 36:21.810]  It's just a matter of how powerful smartphones are and how much stuff you have on them that makes it a little scarier.
[36:21.810 --> 36:24.330]  It's something to think about whenever you use your phones.
[36:24.510 --> 36:27.750]  Okay, I wanted to touch upon a couple of these stories last week.
[36:27.830 --> 36:30.190]  We ran out of time, but they both involve Facebook.
[36:30.870 --> 36:33.090]  And there was yet another glitch.
[36:33.090 --> 36:35.570]  It was described as a bug in some new computer code.
[36:35.910 --> 36:39.750]  Briefly allowed Facebook users to snoop on the private pictures of other members.
[36:40.190 --> 36:47.250]  The glitch, which Facebook discovered last Tuesday, was part of the site's tool that, get this, lets users report offensive contents.
[36:47.250 --> 36:59.390]  So clicking on a user's profile picture, then reporting it to Facebook as containing nudity or other inappropriate content, was then prompting Facebook to show other photos from that user's account and ask whether they too were offensive.
[36:59.830 --> 37:04.490]  So the images were showing up regardless of the user's privacy settings.
[37:04.990 --> 37:07.050]  Well, they soon realized that that's a mistake.
[37:07.170 --> 37:08.390]  We shouldn't be allowing that.
[37:08.490 --> 37:12.690]  But I got to say, whenever you put anything up on Facebook, do you really believe it's private?
[37:13.190 --> 37:14.370]  You know, I have trouble.
[37:14.370 --> 37:15.630]  Is nudity forbidden on Facebook?
[37:15.630 --> 37:16.490]  I think it might be.
[37:16.670 --> 37:16.950]  I don't know.
[37:17.050 --> 37:17.450]  I haven't tried.
[37:17.610 --> 37:20.050]  But I think pretty much they have...
[37:20.050 --> 37:23.910]  Yeah, you need to go on to the other Facebook, the adult-oriented one.
[37:24.830 --> 37:25.410]  And then...
[37:25.410 --> 37:32.330]  That's a matter of, you know, leaving the level at which you check access control too high, right?
[37:32.350 --> 37:39.930]  If it was on the picture level, and that was handled by either, you know, they have some back end that gives you the user's pictures, right?
[37:40.090 --> 37:43.770]  And so then you have to be within a certain access control to get those pictures.
[37:43.770 --> 37:44.450]  That would be good.
[37:44.510 --> 37:54.470]  But because they left it to probably the highest level, okay, here's the app that's looking for offensive photos, and it's just pulling that user's photos and not doing the right authorization, then that's where the problems occur.
[37:54.630 --> 37:55.970]  Well, now, I'm curious about this.
[37:56.030 --> 38:02.570]  If you did have nudity or whatever on Facebook, and it was set to the highest privacy levels, supposedly it's private.
[38:02.570 --> 38:03.690]  Who's going to find it then?
[38:04.210 --> 38:05.710]  Is Facebook going to take those down?
[38:05.790 --> 38:08.910]  If they do, doesn't that mean that they're snooping around at people's private photos?
[38:08.910 --> 38:14.730]  I think they probably work on a reporting model where other users have to report it.
[38:14.810 --> 38:16.810]  So if you're the only one who can see it, probably not.
[38:17.670 --> 38:21.110]  But then again, they could analyze it and say how much flesh tone is in this photo.
[38:21.630 --> 38:22.610]  Can you set...
[38:22.610 --> 38:29.930]  I don't use Facebook very often, but can you set certain photos to be private and other photos not to be private on your Facebook account?
[38:30.990 --> 38:32.110]  Does that have to be one or the other?
[38:32.370 --> 38:34.090]  I'm not sure about the...
[38:34.090 --> 38:35.670]  I think you can do it on an album level.
[38:35.670 --> 38:39.410]  I don't know about the specific photo, if it's granular.
[38:39.550 --> 38:40.910]  Okay, well, here's a project for our listeners.
[38:41.090 --> 38:55.910]  Now, if you can do the former, that is, have certain folders be very private and other photos not be private, make a photo of explicit nudity of whatever you feel like doing and see if that gets taken down, even though you're the only person who can see it.
[38:55.990 --> 38:58.650]  If you're not able to do it that way, then make a whole other account.
[38:59.130 --> 39:04.190]  Keep that account just to yourself and put all the nude photos there and see if that gets taken down.
[39:04.190 --> 39:06.170]  That way we know Facebook is looking around.
[39:06.430 --> 39:15.650]  I did discover this one trick to keep a photo that you don't want leaking out of your control completely private, and that's called not uploading it to the internet.
[39:16.050 --> 39:16.190]  Yeah.
[39:17.030 --> 39:17.830]  Hmm, hadn't thought of that.
[39:17.950 --> 39:18.070]  Yeah.
[39:18.190 --> 39:18.530]  Good one.
[39:18.630 --> 39:19.510]  Really, really revolutionary.
[39:19.710 --> 39:24.570]  The other Facebook story from last week involves NYPD, New York's finest.
[39:24.590 --> 39:28.210]  Yeah, they were calling people animals and savages.
[39:28.210 --> 39:31.590]  One comment said, drop a bomb and wipe them all out.
[39:31.790 --> 39:42.830]  They were talking about the West Indian Day Parade, West Indian American Day Parade in Brooklyn, which apparently the NYPD really, really hates.
[39:43.410 --> 39:56.770]  And they had a Facebook group that basically involved a whole lot of cops that were talking about how much they hated not only being on duty, but they hated the people that participated in this.
[39:57.150 --> 40:00.730]  And they referred to them in all kinds of horrible manners.
[40:00.990 --> 40:07.790]  Let them kill each other, wrote one of the Facebook members who posted comments under a name that matched that of a police officer.
[40:08.610 --> 40:18.610]  Another commenter, who's named Nick Virgilio, who happens to be a NYPD officer as well, said filth at describing the people.
[40:19.070 --> 40:21.490]  Someone else said, it's not racist if it's true.
[40:22.270 --> 40:27.890]  And of course, they were spurred on by civilian reporters, other city workers, including members of the fire department.
[40:28.490 --> 40:34.090]  Now, of course, a lot of the people that were matched with NYPD officers are saying, well, it wasn't me.
[40:34.230 --> 40:37.270]  Somebody hacked my account and posted under my name and it wasn't me.
[40:37.270 --> 40:38.050]  I didn't say that.
[40:38.210 --> 40:41.170]  Of course, they're only saying that now that it's become known.
[40:42.090 --> 40:55.130]  Now, the thing is, what's interesting about this, this Facebook group apparently existed for quite a while and it wasn't even known to the public until there was a trial that made reference to it.
[40:55.170 --> 41:02.170]  A completely unrelated trial made reference to this and that's how the media got a hold of this Facebook group, which has since been taken down.
[41:03.210 --> 41:09.610]  It shows that people really don't think about what they're posting, but also really really opens eyes about the attitude of NYPD.
[41:10.090 --> 41:14.830]  Not that many of us have to have our eyes open on that, but wow, this is something.
[41:14.970 --> 41:16.230]  And, you know, it's not the only forum.
[41:16.350 --> 41:26.490]  There are other forums out there with cops going back and forth talking about how much they hate civilians and certain races and things like that and really makes you wonder what's going on out there.
[41:27.310 --> 41:28.930]  So something to be aware of.
[41:29.030 --> 41:31.510]  If anybody has more information on that, please write to us, share with us.
[41:31.510 --> 41:35.850]  I know there are other places where you can find out things like this and people should know.
[41:36.470 --> 41:37.010]  All right.
[41:37.090 --> 41:38.050]  Something else people should know about.
[41:38.530 --> 41:40.950]  This is really a crazy story.
[41:41.830 --> 41:48.430]  We talk about 9-1-1 and emergency response and things that we expect.
[41:48.870 --> 41:51.330]  Well, in Tennessee, you don't know what to expect.
[41:51.570 --> 41:55.930]  A Tennessee couple helplessly watched their home burn to the ground along with all their possessions.
[41:56.490 --> 41:56.790]  Why?
[41:56.970 --> 42:01.130]  Because they didn't pay a $75 annual fee to the local fire department.
[42:01.790 --> 42:02.390]  Yeah.
[42:02.750 --> 42:07.550]  Vicki Bell called 9-1-1 when her mobile home in Obeon County caught fire.
[42:07.990 --> 42:12.470]  Firefighters arrived on the scene, but as the fire raged, they simply stood by and did nothing.
[42:14.750 --> 42:17.770]  Basically, South Fulton Mayor David Crocker.
[42:18.190 --> 42:19.630]  Write down this name, folks.
[42:19.870 --> 42:24.670]  South Fulton Mayor David Crocker, South Fulton, Tennessee, said...
[42:24.670 --> 42:31.370]  He defended the fire department, said if firefighters responded to non-subscribers, no one would have an incentive to pay the fee.
[42:32.150 --> 42:39.430]  Residents in the city of South Fulton receive the service automatically, but it is not extended to those living in the greater county-wide area.
[42:39.670 --> 42:45.550]  There's no way to go to every fire and keep up the manpower, the equipment, and just the funding for the fire department.
[42:46.010 --> 43:00.190]  The South Fulton policy produced precisely the same nightmare scenario last year when homeowner Gene Krennic, who had likewise failed to pay the $75 annual fee, saw his house engulfed by flames as South Fulton firefighters watched close by.
[43:01.110 --> 43:06.510]  For his part, Mayor Crocker stressed that the city's firefighters will help people in danger, even those who haven't paid the fee.
[43:06.830 --> 43:07.270]  How nice.
[43:07.750 --> 43:11.970]  After the last situation, I would hope that everybody would be well aware of the fees.
[43:12.670 --> 43:15.730]  I mean, I could not make this up.
[43:15.870 --> 43:18.170]  I can't believe there are people walking around like this.
[43:18.170 --> 43:28.050]  Because everybody in that fire department should be immediately fired and held accountable for this because their job is to put out fires and to stand by and just watch something burn down.
[43:28.250 --> 43:31.390]  First of all, why were you even there in the first place?
[43:31.390 --> 43:33.470]  It must cost something to bring these people out there.
[43:33.650 --> 43:40.570]  Hey, as long as you're there, you got the fire truck, why not put the fire out and send the person a bill later if you really need to do that.
[43:40.570 --> 43:48.750]  But wow, this is the height of arrogance and incompetence and ugh, words fail me on this.
[43:48.870 --> 43:56.430]  I mean, so this used to be the standard model in the United States, but it was discovered that it's sort of foolish to have all these fires blazing all the time.
[43:56.650 --> 43:56.870]  Yeah.
[43:57.010 --> 44:09.850]  So what we did in the civilized parts of the country is we socialized the fire departments and we made them covered by our taxes so that they'll respond to any fire, subscriber or not, because there's no such thing as a subscriber anymore.
[44:10.330 --> 44:11.690]  And it works great.
[44:11.830 --> 44:18.490]  That's why New York City doesn't like burn up every time there's a fire because they can't put out the fire in one building and then it spreads to the next.
[44:18.630 --> 44:21.170]  No, they just put out the fire when it first starts.
[44:21.610 --> 44:27.290]  And I think this is a great model and this county in question should adopt it as well.
[44:28.070 --> 44:28.470]  Unbelievable.
[44:30.190 --> 44:30.590]  Okay.
[44:30.770 --> 44:33.450]  And our final story of the night and then we'll take some phone calls.
[44:33.530 --> 44:35.110]  And I guess this one will get the phone calls coming in.
[44:35.110 --> 44:37.830]  And our phone number, by the way, 212-209-2900.
[44:38.310 --> 44:49.030]  The National Transportation Safety Board said yesterday it had voted to recommend the ban on the use of mobile devices by drivers, citing what it said were the risks of distracted driving.
[44:49.830 --> 44:57.650]  Now, the recommended ban applies to everything, including hands-free devices, which goes further than any state law to date.
[44:57.990 --> 45:06.850]  The agency says it's recommending that drivers be allowed to use their phones for emergency purposes, no call, no text, no update is worth a human life.
[45:07.210 --> 45:09.250]  And, you know, I agree with this.
[45:09.390 --> 45:15.530]  I really do agree that if you're going to ban cell phones, don't just ban the ones that you hold with your hand.
[45:15.670 --> 45:18.390]  You have to ban the hands-free ones too.
[45:18.630 --> 45:28.550]  I've long maintained that those are just as distracting, sometimes more distracting, because people have to fumble with headphones and all kinds of other devices to get it to work properly.
[45:29.250 --> 45:37.790]  But I do think, overall, this shows just how pathetic we've become, where we have to have everything legislated that is common sense.
[45:38.090 --> 45:47.310]  Wait, if it's such common sense, then how come people I know, some of the people maybe in this room, don't stop using their cell phones while driving?
[45:47.510 --> 45:53.010]  Because common sense means that you evaluate a situation as it's happening and say, is this safe?
[45:53.010 --> 45:53.930]  Is this not safe?
[45:54.130 --> 45:56.170]  And there are different circumstances.
[45:57.110 --> 46:00.230]  You could be tuning a radio and be completely distracted by that.
[46:00.370 --> 46:03.710]  You could be yelling at your kids in the back seat, be completely distracted by that.
[46:03.810 --> 46:04.950]  Neither of those things is illegal.
[46:05.290 --> 46:08.590]  But if you aren't careful, it will become very, very dangerous.
[46:09.010 --> 46:18.910]  And the flip side of that is that it's perfectly okay to talk on a cell phone and not get distracted, just as it's okay to listen to a record or have a conversation or something like that.
[46:19.170 --> 46:21.690]  There are people who cannot handle doing two things at once.
[46:21.830 --> 46:22.030]  Fine.
[46:22.290 --> 46:25.030]  But I think there are way too many bad drivers on the road.
[46:25.210 --> 46:27.370]  And that's the issue we have to deal with.
[46:27.530 --> 46:29.810]  I've never had a problem on a cell phone.
[46:29.950 --> 46:33.310]  I've dropped my cell phone when something commands my attention.
[46:33.890 --> 46:38.710]  I think texting is ridiculous because you have to look at the screen.
[46:38.870 --> 46:42.210]  I think people with smartphones, they're doing way too much on their phones while they're driving.
[46:42.350 --> 46:43.630]  They're checking email and things like that.
[46:43.750 --> 46:44.330]  That's insane.
[46:44.650 --> 46:46.970]  Twittering and Foursquaring while you're driving.
[46:47.210 --> 46:57.210]  But if you can text without looking at your screen, which is possible on one of the old style phones, how is that different than anything else that you're doing while you're driving?
[46:58.130 --> 47:02.470]  So the studies show that people are incredibly bad at estimating these sorts of risks.
[47:02.630 --> 47:04.910]  People believe that they're paying attention to the road.
[47:05.310 --> 47:08.530]  And they do studies, so we don't have to guess.
[47:08.530 --> 47:12.170]  It turns out that they're just like staring at the center of the road.
[47:12.270 --> 47:13.450]  So their eyes are still on the road.
[47:13.550 --> 47:19.250]  But they're missing everything in the peripheral vision that they're not missing when they're not on the phone.
[47:19.410 --> 47:21.910]  And it turns out that this causes deaths.
[47:22.510 --> 47:29.110]  And so, again, the United States and the rest of the civilized worlds, the roads are a public good.
[47:29.310 --> 47:31.790]  They're created for the benefit of everybody.
[47:32.210 --> 47:39.150]  And the other part of the bargain is that you have to use them in a manner that minimizes the risk to other people.
[47:39.270 --> 47:42.010]  This is why we have laws requiring you to have headlights.
[47:42.030 --> 47:44.110]  It's why we have laws against drunk driving.
[47:44.230 --> 47:49.950]  Because people who are drunk think they're capable of driving, but it turns out they're not.
[47:50.090 --> 47:51.470]  Yeah, but they're impaired.
[47:51.850 --> 48:01.450]  And it turns out that studies show that operating a cell phone is just as dangerous to the other road users as driving drunk is.
[48:01.830 --> 48:03.670]  And people just don't believe it.
[48:03.810 --> 48:08.310]  So it's clear that the self-regulation solution isn't working.
[48:08.610 --> 48:14.470]  If the self-regulation solution worked, then we wouldn't have people dying from cell phone use.
[48:15.010 --> 48:16.670]  So we need to try something else.
[48:16.670 --> 48:18.730]  And I think the NTSB is onto something here.
[48:18.750 --> 48:24.970]  Yeah, I think the problem is that way too many people assume they have the right to drive cars when they really should not be behind a wheel in the first place.
[48:25.110 --> 48:30.450]  There are way too many overly intimidating vehicles out there driving way too fast, not even staying on the right side of the road.
[48:30.450 --> 48:32.670]  And nobody does anything about that.
[48:32.990 --> 48:39.770]  That's the problem that whether people are on cell phones or not, it'll add to people like that, that simply don't know the rules in the first place.
[48:40.110 --> 48:48.130]  But a good driver is going to know what decision to make, what common sense is, and won't do something that's a risk.
[48:48.250 --> 48:53.590]  I think at some point we have to act like grownups and not have everything told to us what we can and cannot do.
[48:53.850 --> 48:57.630]  It's really, we don't know how to react otherwise.
[48:57.630 --> 48:59.170]  We don't know how to make our own decisions.
[48:59.490 --> 49:00.770]  I think you're missing the point of it.
[49:00.890 --> 49:12.350]  If the, if the study shows that people who are using their cell phones are distracted to the point of being similar to a drunk driver, whether or not you say, well, they're probably not, you know, the study showed that they are.
[49:12.510 --> 49:14.130]  Yeah, but you can say the studies show as much as you want.
[49:14.310 --> 49:15.250]  What are these studies?
[49:15.390 --> 49:16.470]  How do they study people?
[49:17.090 --> 49:18.570]  It's not the same as driving drunk.
[49:18.670 --> 49:23.210]  When you're driving drunk, you are not, you don't have the same reactions.
[49:23.330 --> 49:24.890]  That's, that's proven on many different levels.
[49:25.050 --> 49:25.390]  Right.
[49:25.390 --> 49:27.850]  And if you're distracted by something, you don't have the same reactions either.
[49:28.010 --> 49:29.250]  What if you're not distracted?
[49:29.430 --> 49:36.310]  What if it can be proven that you're not distracted by having a, do you think you're distracted by having a conversation in the car with somebody, with a fellow passenger?
[49:36.530 --> 49:39.650]  I maintain you're as distracted as if you're on a phone.
[49:39.770 --> 49:41.350]  So that's an interesting hypothesis.
[49:41.730 --> 49:42.290]  And the way to find out...
[49:42.290 --> 49:43.490]  Have they done a study about that?
[49:43.610 --> 49:50.830]  The way to find out if it's true or not is to do a study to show, see, all right, let's take two sets of people.
[49:50.990 --> 49:53.350]  One of them's having a conversation with people in the car with them.
[49:53.610 --> 50:04.690]  The other one's having a conversation with someone on the And it turns out that the people on the conversation, on the cell phone, get into more crashes than the people talking to someone in the car with them.
[50:05.370 --> 50:06.430]  But there's no such study.
[50:06.490 --> 50:07.550]  They've never done a study like that.
[50:07.610 --> 50:08.150]  I'll send it to you.
[50:08.970 --> 50:09.930]  I'd like to see that.
[50:10.070 --> 50:17.150]  I'd like to see studies about the person driving the SUV who's yelling at their kid in the back, turned around, facing the other way while still moving forward at 40 miles an hour.
[50:17.190 --> 50:18.450]  I saw that the other day.
[50:18.650 --> 50:19.630]  That's not even illegal.
[50:19.750 --> 50:21.090]  And that's bad as well.
[50:21.250 --> 50:24.470]  But just because that's bad doesn't make something else not bad.
[50:24.470 --> 50:27.390]  No, but I'm saying it's an issue of common sense.
[50:27.630 --> 50:32.230]  It is possible to have a conversation on a cell phone, safely, while driving.
[50:32.510 --> 50:35.530]  To say that that's impossible, I think misses the point.
[50:35.670 --> 50:37.910]  I think that just basically assumes that we're all incompetent.
[50:37.970 --> 50:39.530]  We don't know how to make a decision on our own.
[50:40.070 --> 50:44.110]  And I think it's rather naive.
[50:44.330 --> 50:46.330]  I don't think that we're saying it's impossible.
[50:46.550 --> 50:48.950]  I think we're saying that statistically, it's not likely.
[50:50.450 --> 50:52.990]  Statistically, a lot of people don't drive well.
[50:53.130 --> 50:53.710]  That's the problem.
[50:53.710 --> 50:54.870]  We have to focus on that.
[50:55.070 --> 50:55.710]  Now, how about this?
[50:55.810 --> 50:56.210]  How about this?
[50:56.710 --> 50:58.210]  Everybody's got GPS in their cars now.
[50:58.330 --> 51:00.090]  I maintain GPS is a big distraction.
[51:00.250 --> 51:01.590]  Can we outlaw GPS in cars?
[51:01.770 --> 51:04.490]  Because really, lots of times you have to stare at that.
[51:04.610 --> 51:05.510]  You're not looking at the road.
[51:05.650 --> 51:07.750]  I've seen that happen more times than with cell phones.
[51:07.850 --> 51:08.870]  So what are we going to do about that?
[51:10.570 --> 51:14.030]  If we do a study and we show it's causing crashes, then we should ban it.
[51:14.030 --> 51:14.850]  Let's do a study.
[51:14.950 --> 51:16.230]  Let's do as many studies as we want.
[51:16.410 --> 51:19.790]  Let's also do a study on CB radios, which you have to hold with one hand.
[51:19.950 --> 51:22.810]  Let's do a study on cops talking on their two-way radios.
[51:22.810 --> 51:27.190]  There's all these exceptions that for some reason, people are allowed to do this.
[51:27.530 --> 51:30.750]  And for some reason, that's not considered unsafe.
[51:30.990 --> 51:32.790]  Well, it's just as unsafe, I maintain.
[51:33.390 --> 51:37.630]  And people like me who are not in the car, but are unprotected on the road are the ones who die.
[51:37.630 --> 51:40.150]  And that's, well, everybody dies, but the point is...
[51:40.150 --> 51:44.670]  No, the person in the car, if I was on a bike and you hit me, who would be more likely to be killed?
[51:44.790 --> 51:45.370]  Probably me.
[51:45.450 --> 51:49.870]  I'm saying everybody... Well, I'm also on a bike sometimes and also a pedestrian sometimes too.
[51:50.070 --> 51:50.270]  Sure.
[51:50.450 --> 51:54.750]  That's the point is, and I think it should be pointed out, both of you don't drive on a normal basis.
[51:55.330 --> 51:59.570]  I think it's something that if you're a driver, you know what your limits are.
[51:59.570 --> 52:02.190]  And you know what you feel is safe and what you're not.
[52:02.250 --> 52:07.790]  I'm not saying it's necessarily correct, but the, well, you're judging it from a non-driver perspective.
[52:07.870 --> 52:16.530]  I would love to live in a world where drivers did know their limitations, but they do polls, and the overwhelming majority of drivers believe that they are better than average.
[52:16.730 --> 52:23.150]  And of course, this is mathematically impossible, but everyone thinks they're a better than average driver, or substantially everyone.
[52:23.490 --> 52:26.450]  The reference for this is Tom Vanderbilt's book, Traffic.
[52:30.110 --> 52:34.050]  People don't seem to be able to judge their own limitations, and this is why crashes happen.
[52:34.190 --> 52:34.870]  Yeah, but it's easy to say that.
[52:34.950 --> 52:36.210]  You can say the same thing about bicyclists.
[52:36.290 --> 52:39.910]  You can say, well, they don't have a real sense as to what's safe and what's not safe.
[52:40.290 --> 52:45.410]  But it's rather presumptuous, I think, to assume that you know what's going through everybody's head.
[52:45.590 --> 52:46.630]  Rob, then we'll take some phone calls.
[52:46.890 --> 52:51.310]  In general, you're saying that we should trust the general public to have common sense.
[52:51.310 --> 52:52.690]  I know that sounds ridiculous.
[52:52.850 --> 52:59.110]  I know that, but because the general public are a bunch of morons, does that mean we all have to be treated like a bunch of morons?
[52:59.170 --> 53:02.010]  Unfortunately, in this society, that's becoming increasingly the case.
[53:02.150 --> 53:08.750]  And what that leads to is when people don't have a rule saying what you can do, they do the wrong thing because no one's watching over them.
[53:08.910 --> 53:11.730]  I think that's a very dangerous road to go down, no pun intended.
[53:12.230 --> 53:13.730]  All right, let's see if we can take a phone call.
[53:13.810 --> 53:17.190]  I know I'm going to get all kinds of criticism for this, but it's fun.
[53:17.610 --> 53:18.030]  Good evening.
[53:18.190 --> 53:20.690]  You're on the squealing line on Off The Hook.
[53:21.430 --> 53:24.570]  Hey, Emmanuel, I don't hear any of the squealing either.
[53:25.410 --> 53:26.910]  Oh, you're squealing pretty good now.
[53:27.110 --> 53:27.310]  On the internet.
[53:27.650 --> 53:29.610]  Yes, but you're the only ones who are hearing it.
[53:29.670 --> 53:32.010]  It's as clear as a bell on the actual line.
[53:32.050 --> 53:34.930]  Oh, I hear it on the radio all the time because I listen to the station in the day.
[53:34.990 --> 53:37.230]  But never mind, let's not talk about our imperfections here.
[53:37.270 --> 53:38.010]  What's on your mind?
[53:38.010 --> 53:41.810]  It is a shame that Bernie S is not on.
[53:42.030 --> 53:49.070]  Hey, about the SOPA, I was going to say, you came upon how are they eliminating jobs and you couldn't understand it.
[53:49.270 --> 53:51.050]  I have to disagree very much.
[53:52.810 --> 53:53.530]  Don't disagree.
[53:53.690 --> 53:54.330]  We just didn't know.
[53:54.430 --> 53:55.510]  Tell us, inform us.
[53:55.810 --> 53:56.050]  Okay.
[53:57.030 --> 53:59.170]  Much of our software is influenced.
[53:59.330 --> 54:09.490]  Do you think even like supposedly like the most free software, like the older versions, notice it's been changed, of Nero, which is like just plain old sound editing and stuff like that.
[54:10.010 --> 54:13.510]  Everything's obsessed with these lockout codes and stuff.
[54:13.670 --> 54:20.090]  And everybody's in these wars, mainly just to spy on each other.
[54:21.410 --> 54:28.430]  For instance, if you have Windows Media Player, it does a download every month.
[54:28.730 --> 54:31.690]  That's the slowest you can do, or every week or every day.
[54:32.490 --> 54:38.870]  If you go in, what is it called, Winamp, the alternate, it does exactly the same thing.
[54:38.990 --> 54:41.130]  But it goes and spies for its camp.
[54:41.130 --> 54:44.770]  If you get an editing program, it's always got a product key.
[54:45.250 --> 54:48.590]  And they always need updates and things like that.
[54:48.790 --> 54:55.170]  And one of the biggest killers of all was Microsoft.
[54:55.350 --> 55:00.970]  All these years, they were just obsessed with control and product codes and keys and spying.
[55:01.090 --> 55:08.190]  And today, you just switch, just switch between two two different types of Windows on your computer.
[55:08.930 --> 55:11.210]  If they pick it up, you'll see the difference, yes.
[55:11.510 --> 55:12.270]  Yeah, definitely.
[55:12.490 --> 55:14.850]  Listen, we're very short on time, so we have to move quickly.
[55:14.850 --> 55:17.850]  I do want to give other people a chance to call in and say what's on their minds.
[55:17.930 --> 55:18.170]  Good evening.
[55:18.310 --> 55:19.230]  You're on, off the hook.
[55:20.670 --> 55:21.830]  You're calling in with a comment?
[55:21.950 --> 55:22.290]  Speak up.
[55:22.510 --> 55:22.730]  Go ahead.
[55:23.850 --> 55:24.490]  Am I on right now?
[55:24.550 --> 55:25.090]  Yes, you're on.
[55:25.250 --> 55:25.410]  Quick.
[55:26.170 --> 55:27.030]  Okay, quickly.
[55:27.470 --> 55:32.670]  We need to get rid of every one of the people in the Senate and in the Congress.
[55:33.090 --> 55:34.330]  This is high treason.
[55:34.490 --> 55:35.870]  It's high treason against humanity.
[55:36.050 --> 55:41.750]  Everything they vote on, everything from the internet to the air, everything they've done is high treason.
[55:41.950 --> 55:44.310]  All right, we'll get the noxious gas ready and head down to DC.
[55:44.430 --> 55:44.690]  Good evening.
[55:44.810 --> 55:45.710]  You're on, off the hook.
[55:46.830 --> 55:47.470]  Speak up.
[55:47.610 --> 55:49.770]  Like a remark on the cell phone?
[55:49.970 --> 55:50.290]  Uh-huh.
[55:51.390 --> 55:53.890]  Yeah, I disagree with Emmanuel.
[55:54.110 --> 55:54.610]  I mean...
[55:54.610 --> 55:55.230]  Everybody does.
[55:55.330 --> 55:55.830]  Yes, go ahead.
[55:56.510 --> 55:57.230]  It's ridiculous.
[55:57.930 --> 56:00.090]  Well, it sounds like you're calling from a cell phone right now, in fact.
[56:01.550 --> 56:02.870]  Uh, yeah, but I pulled over.
[56:03.050 --> 56:03.970]  Okay, but you know what?
[56:04.070 --> 56:05.150]  Are you sitting in your car?
[56:05.910 --> 56:06.370]  Yes, I pulled over.
[56:06.370 --> 56:08.810]  You could still get a ticket for sitting in your car.
[56:08.990 --> 56:14.490]  The only time I ever got a ticket was when I wasn't moving, and I was calling somebody to say, hey, I'm going to be late because there's an accident.
[56:14.670 --> 56:20.590]  And the cop that was like handling the accident gave me a ticket for talking on my cell phone while I was driving, even though I wasn't moving, and it was his fault.
[56:21.110 --> 56:21.870]  Wow, really?
[56:22.070 --> 56:24.090]  Yeah, but regardless, that's beside the point.
[56:24.230 --> 56:25.750]  So tell us your opinion.
[56:26.890 --> 56:30.050]  Well, uh, you know, I think... Oh, am I on the air now?
[56:30.130 --> 56:31.570]  You're on the air right now, but you only have a minute.
[56:31.970 --> 56:33.230]  Sorry, I didn't realize that.
[56:33.370 --> 56:34.170]  I thought I was on hold.
[56:34.310 --> 56:34.530]  Okay.
[56:34.830 --> 56:35.470]  You know what?
[56:35.550 --> 56:40.310]  Uh, I disagree with you because if we live in a fantasy world, then that's great.
[56:40.410 --> 56:43.090]  That's a great way to treat everyone like adults.
[56:43.090 --> 56:49.390]  But the reality is that most people don't have the ability to drive and handle the phone.
[56:49.770 --> 56:51.870]  I think those people shouldn't be driving.
[56:52.050 --> 56:52.750]  That's my point.
[56:52.750 --> 56:54.710]  I think there are too many bad drivers out there.
[56:55.430 --> 56:57.950]  There are no aptitude tests for that.
[56:58.090 --> 57:05.630]  And there are no tests... You know, you can't regulate having children in the back seat and talking to your friends just while you're driving.
[57:05.630 --> 57:06.670]  That makes no sense.
[57:06.710 --> 57:08.470]  You know, you just gave me a good idea.
[57:08.610 --> 57:10.190]  Why not make that part of the driving test?
[57:10.310 --> 57:12.070]  Why not say, okay, you want a license?
[57:12.070 --> 57:12.790]  Here's a cell phone.
[57:12.870 --> 57:15.230]  Get on the phone and parallel park at the same time.
[57:15.370 --> 57:16.030]  Here are some kids.
[57:16.130 --> 57:17.350]  We're going to load them in the back seat.
[57:17.510 --> 57:18.290]  Deal with that.
[57:18.410 --> 57:21.930]  And somebody's going to argue with you while you're trying to, like, make this left turn.
[57:22.070 --> 57:24.610]  And if people can't handle that, they should not get licenses.
[57:24.830 --> 57:25.390]  How about that?
[57:26.210 --> 57:27.530]  Well, that's never going to happen.
[57:27.530 --> 57:28.290]  I know it's never going to happen.
[57:28.330 --> 57:34.130]  Well, there are also people who wouldn't have to handle that situation because they don't own a cell phone or they're not going to actually use one in the car.
[57:34.870 --> 57:35.910]  Yeah, but it's nice.
[57:36.150 --> 57:37.170]  So testing that...
[57:37.170 --> 57:39.070]  You'd be a better driver if you had to handle adversity.
[57:39.190 --> 57:39.510]  But you know what?
[57:39.530 --> 57:41.990]  We're going to continue this conversation because I'm sure it's going to be a lively one.
[57:42.250 --> 57:43.550]  We are out of time for tonight.
[57:43.770 --> 57:46.290]  Write to us, OTH at 2600.com.
[57:46.410 --> 57:49.330]  Feel free to tear me apart on my opinion here.
[57:49.450 --> 57:50.610]  It's great fun.
[57:50.890 --> 57:52.750]  We're going to go out with another Occupy song.
[57:52.890 --> 57:58.010]  I think we're going to be able to keep this up until at least the end of the year with different songs about occupying Wall Street and various other things.
[57:58.090 --> 57:59.510]  This one comes from Reese.
[57:59.810 --> 58:01.690]  We will see you next week.
[58:01.850 --> 58:02.830]  Same time, same place.
[58:02.950 --> 58:05.030]  Again, OTH at 2600.com.
[58:05.150 --> 58:05.330]  Good night.
[58:46.960 --> 58:50.000]  We'll be right back.
[58:50.000 --> 58:54.860]  We're wide awake, so open your eyes.
[58:55.080 --> 58:58.960]  O-C-C-U-P-Y, Occupy, Organized.
[58:59.280 --> 59:02.960]  O-C-C-U-P-Y, Occupy, Join the fight.
[59:03.220 --> 59:05.680]  The message declared in the fight.
[59:06.740 --> 59:09.640]  No one left behind.
[59:10.800 --> 59:11.800]  Shut it out!
[59:12.100 --> 59:14.000]  Hold up a sign.
[59:14.660 --> 59:19.460]  No one left behind, yeah.
[59:26.710 --> 59:33.030]  Feeling like your folks ignore this day asleep, a voice on the future, on the human race.
[59:33.130 --> 59:38.890]  Its members can participate, profit of our people, control of the mainstream media.
[59:39.250 --> 59:42.610]  Work together peacefully, a brand new assembly.
[59:43.090 --> 59:46.670]  99% held back, carrying the burden.
[59:47.130 --> 59:50.590]  1% in charge, without a hand to lend.
[59:50.870 --> 59:54.830]  Been a slip too long, now brought in size.
[59:54.830 --> 59:58.870]  We're wide awake, so open your eyes.
[59:59.070 --> 01:00:02.990]  O-C-C-U-P-Y, Occupy, Organized.
[01:00:03.330 --> 01:00:06.970]  O-C-C-U-P-Y, Occupy, Join the fight.
[01:00:07.250 --> 01:00:09.710]  The message declared in the fight.
[01:00:10.750 --> 01:00:13.810]  No one left behind.
[01:00:14.910 --> 01:00:15.830]  Shut it out!
[01:00:16.150 --> 01:00:18.050]  Hold up a sign.
[01:00:18.730 --> 01:00:22.830]  No one left behind, yeah.
[01:00:50.660 --> 01:00:55.020]  So here we are once again, trying to get it right, my friend.
[01:00:55.160 --> 01:00:57.080]  It's hard for you to hear my side.
[01:00:57.300 --> 01:00:58.820]  You're not willing to compromise.
[01:00:59.000 --> 01:01:00.600]  No justice, no peace.
[01:01:00.600 --> 01:01:02.600]  All pressure must cease.
[01:01:02.900 --> 01:01:06.780]  We just swore a better world, so listen to our words.
[01:01:07.120 --> 01:01:10.700]  99% held back, carrying the burden.
[01:01:11.200 --> 01:01:14.600]  1% in charge, without a hand to lend.
[01:01:14.860 --> 01:01:18.720]  Been a slip too long, now brought in size.
[01:01:19.240 --> 01:01:22.700]  We're wide awake, so open your eyes.
[01:01:22.700 --> 01:01:27.160]  O-C-C-U-P-Y, Occupy, Organized.
[01:01:27.340 --> 01:01:31.000]  O-C-C-U-P-Y, Occupy, Join the fight.
[01:01:31.260 --> 01:01:33.720]  The message declared in the fight.
[01:01:34.760 --> 01:01:38.020]  No one left behind.
[01:01:38.820 --> 01:01:39.920]  Shower it out!
[01:01:40.240 --> 01:01:42.140]  Hold up a sign.
[01:01:42.780 --> 01:01:43.860]  Shower it out!
[01:01:44.220 --> 01:01:46.100]  Hold up a sign.
[01:01:46.840 --> 01:01:47.920]  Shower it out!
[01:01:48.180 --> 01:01:54.100]  Hold up a sign.
[01:01:55.260 --> 01:01:59.600]  No one left behind, yeah.
[01:01:59.600 --> 01:02:00.720]  A little pause... and we are back.