[00:00.000 --> 00:07.420]  Yo, this is Michael Franti from Spirit, and you're listening to non, non, non-commercial radio in New York.
[00:08.620 --> 00:10.260]  WBAI is a place to turn to.
[00:10.800 --> 00:11.320]  Peace.
[00:11.460 --> 00:13.840]  Oh, my, oh, my God.
[00:14.500 --> 00:16.960]  And my mother got us living in suicide singing.
[00:17.220 --> 00:19.780]  Oh, my, oh, my God.
[00:20.120 --> 00:22.580]  And my mother got us living in genocide singing.
[00:22.860 --> 00:23.700]  Oh, my.
[00:25.440 --> 00:28.560]  And the time is just about 7 o'clock.
[00:29.120 --> 00:32.580]  It's time for another exciting edition of Off the Hook.
[00:33.180 --> 00:37.220]  And you are listening to WBAI 99.5 FM, New York.
[01:57.440 --> 01:59.120]  A very good evening to you.
[01:59.340 --> 02:00.580]  The show is Off the Hook.
[02:00.740 --> 02:01.100]  Rob T.
[02:01.240 --> 02:02.300]  Firefly here with you.
[02:02.720 --> 02:04.340]  I'm joined in the studio by Alex.
[02:04.680 --> 02:05.300]  Good evening.
[02:06.420 --> 02:09.280]  And I believe we have Bernie on the phone.
[02:09.380 --> 02:09.820]  Bernie, are you there?
[02:10.620 --> 02:11.960]  Yes, greetings from Pennsylvania.
[02:12.860 --> 02:13.300]  Excellent.
[02:13.600 --> 02:15.360]  Well, we've been away.
[02:15.400 --> 02:16.440]  It's been a few weeks.
[02:17.880 --> 02:21.260]  One or two things have happened during those few weeks, which you may be aware.
[02:21.940 --> 02:26.640]  Um, let's just jump right into where you were a couple of weeks ago, Bernie.
[02:27.700 --> 02:35.420]  Oh, well, I was in the Dutch countryside in the Netherlands at the OM 2013 conference.
[02:35.420 --> 02:38.180]  It's the Dutch hacker conference.
[02:38.300 --> 02:39.920]  It happens once every four years.
[02:40.720 --> 02:47.280]  And it was five days of amazing, amazingness.
[02:47.280 --> 02:49.140]  I think there were about 300 speakers.
[02:49.720 --> 02:52.400]  Uh, there were about 3,000 attendees.
[02:53.160 --> 02:55.020]  Uh, lots of workshops.
[02:55.460 --> 02:57.100]  Uh, a lot of networking.
[02:57.800 --> 03:01.940]  Uh, in the human and, uh, uh, technical sense.
[03:01.940 --> 03:03.120]  And it was a great time.
[03:03.320 --> 03:04.360]  It was really worth doing.
[03:05.220 --> 03:06.140]  And we were camping.
[03:06.900 --> 03:07.680]  You were camping?
[03:08.260 --> 03:11.540]  Yes, we were in tents, little tents that we had to bring and sleep in.
[03:12.260 --> 03:14.040]  And most of the days it did not rain.
[03:16.560 --> 03:19.440]  So what, what sort of, uh, what sort of other stuff was going on at this event?
[03:20.600 --> 03:29.040]  Well, um, there was, there was a lot of topical conversation going on about topics that are, uh, hot right now.
[03:29.260 --> 03:33.280]  About, uh, communications, privacy, surveillance, that sort of thing.
[03:33.540 --> 03:37.300]  Uh, there was a lot of building, making, uh, breaking.
[03:37.740 --> 03:41.740]  Um, there was a live teleconference we had with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks.
[03:42.060 --> 03:43.820]  Uh, there was a lot going on.
[03:43.980 --> 03:48.560]  Um, and it was, uh, stimulating to the point where you didn't want to sleep.
[03:48.560 --> 03:52.880]  You just wanted to stay up, uh, all day and all night socializing with people.
[03:53.400 --> 03:56.640]  And, uh, so it's, it's exhausting in that point.
[03:56.740 --> 04:05.220]  At some point I had to, uh, walk a couple of kilometers to a lake and swim, swim across a lake just to, uh, just to cool off from all the excitement.
[04:07.360 --> 04:13.080]  So you actually had to swim across a lake to, now, did, uh, did you have to swim across a lake to get anywhere in the conference?
[04:13.280 --> 04:16.080]  Like, was that a requirement you have to swim across this lake to get to that panel?
[04:16.080 --> 04:16.700]  That would have been great.
[04:18.560 --> 04:22.880]  Well, I went over to Sasha and Hanukkah's tent, our friend Sasha and Hanukkah, from the, from Amsterdam.
[04:23.440 --> 04:32.520]  I was hanging out there with, uh, with, uh, with Mark and Kyle and Emmanuel and Mike, uh, and other friends.
[04:32.860 --> 04:36.680]  And, uh, I said, I heard there's a lake over here and I wanted to take a swim.
[04:36.680 --> 04:42.160]  So I, uh, so I, uh, so I did, and it was, uh, good because it was very, very hot there and, uh, it was necessary.
[04:42.700 --> 04:45.180]  But in any case, uh, uh, enough about the swimming.
[04:45.420 --> 04:50.920]  There was just so much intellectual property or settled, so much, so much content at this conference.
[04:51.320 --> 04:55.040]  It was, it was, it had more content than any conference I've ever been to.
[04:55.200 --> 04:58.340]  There were about 300 speakers, uh, many, many panels.
[04:58.520 --> 05:02.800]  There were five tracks or, you know, tents where these things took place.
[05:03.580 --> 05:06.680]  And, uh, it was, uh, you know, I'm still getting over it.
[05:06.780 --> 05:07.820]  It was just so much information.
[05:07.820 --> 05:09.100]  It's like information overload.
[05:09.100 --> 05:20.120]  People can go to OM2013, that's O-H-M-2-0-1-3.org, to, uh, look at some of the videos that are being posted online of some of the talks and presentations.
[05:20.700 --> 05:27.800]  But, uh, uh, we'll be talking more about the content of that conference in the, uh, weeks and months ahead, I'm sure.
[05:28.440 --> 05:28.820]  Yeah.
[05:29.080 --> 05:31.640]  Um, now, have you been to this, uh, this event before?
[05:31.660 --> 05:32.580]  It's been going on for a while.
[05:33.340 --> 05:39.940]  Yeah, I think I've been to, uh, four of these, um, Dutch hacker conferences, which happen every four years.
[05:40.660 --> 05:42.220]  And, uh, I couldn't miss this one.
[05:42.300 --> 05:43.260]  I almost didn't make it.
[05:43.360 --> 05:45.780]  I bought my ticket, uh, five hours before they sold out.
[05:46.600 --> 05:47.840]  But, but I made it.
[05:48.300 --> 05:50.600]  And, uh, it was, uh, it was worth doing.
[05:50.720 --> 05:51.480]  I'm glad I did it.
[05:51.800 --> 05:57.140]  Um, so, anybody who feels like they missed it, uh, you're gonna have to wait four more years for the next one.
[05:57.680 --> 06:03.200]  But, you know, next July will be the, uh, uh, Hope X conference in New York City.
[06:03.380 --> 06:05.580]  So, that's, uh, the next best thing.
[06:06.060 --> 06:06.620]  Yes, indeed.
[06:06.880 --> 06:08.540]  Um, how has, uh, how has OM changed?
[06:08.560 --> 06:11.300]  How has it changed and grown in the way, in the time that, uh, you've been going to it?
[06:11.820 --> 06:13.000]  That's what, now, 16 years?
[06:13.660 --> 06:20.220]  Yeah, it seems to be a little more professionally run from a standpoint of, uh, uh, business sponsors.
[06:20.220 --> 06:25.860]  That was sort of a, a point of contention, uh, about sponsorship and, uh, the ethics of some of the sponsoring companies.
[06:26.040 --> 06:31.860]  So, that was, uh, uh, very, uh, uh, widely discussed at this conference.
[06:31.860 --> 06:34.100]  Uh, and that was good, that that was discussed.
[06:34.640 --> 06:41.700]  Um, it just seemed like, uh, there was, uh, from an infrastructure standpoint, they, uh, they really went all out.
[06:41.920 --> 06:47.960]  There was, uh, from the water, water infrastructure, uh, telecommunications infrastructure with a telephone system that was built.
[06:47.960 --> 07:01.580]  The, uh, the, uh, the networking, uh, I think it was a 50 gigabit per second, uh, connectivity to the internet, which is more connectivity than, than the entire continent of Africa was in this, uh, campsite with 3,000 hackers.
[07:02.140 --> 07:04.220]  So, uh, there was a lot going on.
[07:04.700 --> 07:05.660]  I'm sure there was.
[07:06.140 --> 07:10.300]  Well, um, and the website was ohm2013.org?
[07:10.600 --> 07:11.220]  That's right.
[07:11.260 --> 07:13.540]  To check out, uh, the fallout from the conference.
[07:14.020 --> 07:29.060]  Okay, uh, a lot of other stuff, uh, has been going on since we've gone, uh, there was a, uh, there was a statement today given by Bradley Manning, um, at his, at his, uh, at the sentencing part of his trial, um, during which he apologized for, uh, quote,
[07:29.140 --> 07:29.660]  hurting people.
[07:30.220 --> 07:31.900]  Um, I'll read part of it here.
[07:32.080 --> 07:34.900]  He says, he said, first, your honor, I want to start off with an apology.
[07:35.180 --> 07:36.800]  I am sorry that my actions hurt people.
[07:36.960 --> 07:38.340]  I'm sorry I hurt the United States.
[07:38.580 --> 07:43.420]  At the time of my decisions, as you know, I was dealing with a lot of issues, issues that are ongoing and continuing to affect me.
[07:43.540 --> 07:47.320]  Although a considerable difficulty in my life, these issues are not an excuse for my actions.
[07:47.540 --> 07:49.920]  I understood what I was doing and decisions I made.
[07:50.040 --> 07:52.660]  However, I did not fully appreciate the broader effects of my actions.
[07:53.020 --> 08:01.100]  Those factors are clear to me now through, through both self-reflection during my confinement in various forms and through the merits and sentencing testimony that I've seen here.
[08:01.480 --> 08:04.020]  I am sorry for the unintended consequences of my actions.
[08:04.220 --> 08:07.240]  When I made these decisions, I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people.
[08:07.920 --> 08:09.560]  And it sort of goes on like that.
[08:09.680 --> 08:14.840]  Now, Bernie, I know you had a particular feeling about the content of this statement.
[08:15.940 --> 08:17.220]  Well, yeah.
[08:17.600 --> 08:27.180]  When Bradley Manning apologizes and he says, quote, I'm sorry that my actions hurt people, I feel for him because I know he had to say that.
[08:28.120 --> 08:53.980]  If you recall, back when the documents that he now has admitted releasing to WikiLeaks, hundreds of thousands of classified documents, many, most of them State Department cables, and also some military communications, including a video of Reuters reporters being effectively murdered by U.S.
[08:54.280 --> 08:57.520]  soldiers, there was a hue and cry by the U.S.
[08:57.880 --> 09:02.560]  government that these documents would result in people being killed and hurt.
[09:03.200 --> 09:05.240]  But to this date, that has not happened.
[09:07.440 --> 09:14.980]  And I appreciate Bradley Manning's situation where you must show contrition at a sentencing hearing.
[09:16.360 --> 09:27.780]  But he had to be vague about it, because if he was pressed about what people he hurt and how he hurt them, I think he'd be hard-pressed to come up with an answer.
[09:28.840 --> 09:29.420]  The U.S.
[09:29.720 --> 09:38.140]  government has not been able to come up with an answer of who specifically he has hurt, even though they said that it would hurt people and result in people being killed, probably.
[09:39.360 --> 09:40.780]  So he had to say this.
[09:40.900 --> 09:44.160]  When you're in a sentencing hearing, you have to show contrition.
[09:45.920 --> 09:49.380]  It's what the judge wants to hear, and it's unfortunate that that happens sometimes.
[09:51.240 --> 09:54.140]  Yeah, Bernie, I completely agree with you on this point.
[09:55.500 --> 09:59.160]  And you read it, and I felt the same thing in my gut.
[09:59.320 --> 10:03.380]  You know, you really feel sad for this guy, because he's such a young person.
[10:03.640 --> 10:06.180]  I mean, in essence, he's still a child.
[10:06.320 --> 10:10.900]  And he mentions these issues that he's going through, and that he went through, and that he's continuing to work through.
[10:12.060 --> 10:21.720]  And the bits in the statement where he mentions that he hopes he can become a productive member of society and have a relationship with his family and his sister's family and children.
[10:22.040 --> 10:24.560]  You know, it's very, very powerful stuff.
[10:24.860 --> 10:27.580]  I think it was a well-crafted statement.
[10:27.880 --> 10:35.820]  I think the statements about the harm will hopefully have their intended effect in reducing his sentence.
[10:36.000 --> 10:38.520]  And I have to say, I completely agree with you.
[10:38.620 --> 10:40.980]  It's very difficult to pinpoint where the harm is here.
[10:41.900 --> 10:44.640]  But it's something necessary that he had to do.
[10:44.820 --> 10:57.020]  And again, I know I always go back to this, but if the sentence does come down and it's unduly harsh, there is a possibility of appealing to the Court of Criminal Appeals for the Army and then the U.S.
[10:57.120 --> 10:58.320]  Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.
[10:58.700 --> 11:04.100]  And the more contrition he has on record, the better off his appeal will stand in the long run.
[11:04.100 --> 11:07.100]  And so there's a lot of calculation going on here.
[11:07.180 --> 11:08.640]  And I think his lawyers did a good job.
[11:10.480 --> 11:11.040]  Yeah.
[11:11.300 --> 11:14.400]  So we'll definitely be following this as it continues to develop.
[11:15.640 --> 11:28.480]  Another big story that was pretty much everywhere today, and it was frightening a lot of people, was this story about Gmail and the fact that Google apparently announced that Gmail users have no expectation of privacy.
[11:28.980 --> 11:46.440]  Now, there are very sort of panic-tinged stories about this all over the net, but there's one which was written by Molly Wood at CNET, which seems a bit calmer, and it basically explains that, yeah, Google is saying that you don't have an expectation of privacy when you're using Gmail.
[11:47.140 --> 11:50.420]  That's part of their terms of service, that you accept when you use the service.
[11:50.980 --> 12:02.800]  What Google is also saying is that you knew you didn't have an expectation of privacy when you signed up, because when you signed up, you agreed to contextual advertising, to indexed searchable email, to spam filters, and other sorts of content filters.
[12:03.720 --> 12:06.760]  And those features necessarily involve automated scanning of email.
[12:07.540 --> 12:19.180]  And Google argues that the Electronic Communications Privacy Act specifically permits indexing in this and this sort of thing by email providers because it's necessary for them to continue to deliver you free web-based email.
[12:19.940 --> 12:25.740]  So the real story turns out to be not so much that you don't have an expectation of privacy when you use Gmail.
[12:25.940 --> 12:30.080]  The news is that anyone anywhere thought that they did have any expectation of privacy.
[12:32.460 --> 12:37.000]  So, really, what do you guys see as the fallout from this sort of thing?
[12:37.080 --> 12:39.800]  Do you see it catching on at all, or are people just going to...
[12:39.800 --> 12:44.340]  Well, I think, you know, this is a very interesting complaint against Google that was filed.
[12:44.460 --> 12:53.200]  I mean, the context of the complaint is that it is alleged that Google is violating state and federal wiretap laws by reading people's emails to serve these ads.
[12:53.400 --> 12:56.280]  Now, I think that's pretty crafty, but I think it's ultimately going to fail.
[12:56.280 --> 12:58.040]  Well, it's not going to survive this motion to dismiss.
[12:58.400 --> 13:11.500]  As a matter of fact, the law firm that filed this motion to dismiss on behalf of Google, which is Cooley, is actually located in the same building in which my prior law firm was also located in the Grace Building in Manhattan.
[13:11.900 --> 13:14.800]  So this is... I think it's exactly right.
[13:15.060 --> 13:17.380]  It's much to do about nothing here.
[13:17.380 --> 13:32.460]  So the argument that's really causing a stir is that, you know, Google was saying that, you know, aside from you knew what you were getting yourself into, the law actually doesn't provide any privacy protection to you in this context.
[13:32.760 --> 13:50.040]  Now, it goes back to the same doctrine that we have been bringing up, I think, for the last several months, even before the Snowden revelations, that there's this anachronistic common law doctrine that essentially says you do not have an expectation of privacy in records that you place into the possession of a third party.
[13:50.280 --> 13:58.180]  Now, what's interesting is this is the same doctrine that's used to justify surveillance by the National Security Agency on a massive scale.
[13:58.360 --> 13:59.900]  It's called the third party doctrine.
[14:00.080 --> 14:01.680]  It dates back to a case called Smith v.
[14:01.800 --> 14:04.980]  Maryland, which the Supreme Court decided way back in 1979.
[14:05.680 --> 14:07.200]  I was pretty young back then.
[14:07.640 --> 14:08.480]  Even I was.
[14:08.480 --> 14:13.920]  So, this case is very interesting because it's so...
[14:13.920 --> 14:17.220]  The facts of it are so distinguishable from what's happening here.
[14:17.340 --> 14:25.180]  So, this case dealt with the phone company for the government putting a pen register on the line of a single subscriber.
[14:25.850 --> 14:38.400]  And because the very nature of dialing numbers put a record of whom a customer was calling into the possession of a third party, that is to say the phone company, there could be no legitimate expectation of privacy in that particular record.
[14:38.480 --> 14:41.720]  Now, the facts here, however, are very, very different.
[14:42.140 --> 14:44.120]  Now, Smith involved one person...
[14:46.180 --> 14:47.960]  I think we just lost Bernie.
[14:48.000 --> 14:48.680]  I'll try getting him back.
[14:48.820 --> 14:49.080]  Okay.
[14:49.260 --> 14:50.160]  I'll keep going here then.
[14:50.980 --> 14:52.100]  Speaking of dial tones.
[14:52.260 --> 14:54.080]  So, the facts here are very relevant.
[14:54.200 --> 15:01.720]  So, Smith involved just one single person and one pen register collecting the so-called metadata of one person.
[15:01.980 --> 15:03.400]  Not 300 million people.
[15:03.620 --> 15:04.400]  Not the whole country.
[15:04.640 --> 15:10.140]  And that one person was already individually suspected of some kind of criminal wrongdoing.
[15:10.460 --> 15:18.840]  Now, to stretch this ruling to apply to tens of millions of users or the entire country is actually...
[15:18.840 --> 15:22.880]  Well, I mean, it's hard to say, but it's kind of nuts to do that.
[15:22.880 --> 15:24.260]  I mean, it's so implacable.
[15:24.380 --> 15:28.580]  And we heard General Alexander cite this case in front of...
[15:28.580 --> 15:31.000]  I think it was the Aspen Institute about two months ago.
[15:31.160 --> 15:32.520]  You can find the video on YouTube.
[15:32.760 --> 15:34.100]  It's somewhat interesting.
[15:34.380 --> 15:41.760]  So, this third-party doctrine, this is something that has been so deleterious to the right of privacy for several decades now.
[15:42.740 --> 15:55.500]  And it has been, I think, the cornerstone of the library, the books and records exception to the Patriot Act, to the Verizon surveillance that the NSA has been engaging in recently.
[15:56.500 --> 15:58.440]  But I think there's...
[15:58.440 --> 16:08.020]  Well, we really have to ask ourselves about the consequences here because the effect is this allows companies to mine our data and it allows the government to collect it.
[16:08.400 --> 16:11.080]  But on the other hand, it makes things very predictable.
[16:11.080 --> 16:12.560]  And predictability is good.
[16:12.680 --> 16:13.720]  It's good for users.
[16:13.720 --> 16:15.060]  It's good for companies.
[16:15.260 --> 16:16.260]  It's good for business.
[16:16.400 --> 16:17.160]  It's good for the government.
[16:17.300 --> 16:17.960]  It's good for the courts.
[16:18.280 --> 16:19.900]  So, what is the alternative?
[16:20.180 --> 16:36.080]  Do we need a sui generis rule, an individualized rule for every single circumstance where there could possibly be an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy based on the context, whatever context that person is in?
[16:36.240 --> 16:37.380]  I mean, that is...
[16:37.380 --> 16:39.080]  That's completely unworkable.
[16:39.080 --> 16:54.520]  So, I think in as much as it's very, very difficult to say that this particular rule hasn't harmed privacy, at least there's been a measure of predictability here.
[16:54.680 --> 17:05.480]  And I think, you know, I would love for the listeners to write us at OTH at 2600.com to give us some ideas about what is a workable alternative.
[17:05.480 --> 17:14.320]  Can we possibly have individualized rules for each individual account we have and whether or not we have a legitimate expectation of privacy?
[17:15.400 --> 17:19.940]  Because prior to this third-party doctrine, things were really context-based.
[17:19.940 --> 17:29.860]  When you go back to this Supreme Court case called CATS, which established the right to privacy and required for the first time in the government to get a warrant to invade somebody's privacy.
[17:30.780 --> 17:33.620]  So, it's a very, very interesting case here.
[17:33.980 --> 17:42.180]  I ultimately think that it will fail against Google, but there are very far-reaching implications for this third-party doctrine.
[17:44.220 --> 17:46.720]  And I'm fascinated to see how it turns out.
[17:46.940 --> 17:51.540]  I think, for better or for worse, you know, we should all keep watching.
[17:52.660 --> 17:56.820]  And I'm not sure if you've managed to get back on the air yet, Bernie, have you?
[17:58.280 --> 17:59.160]  I guess not.
[17:59.920 --> 18:14.200]  Well, in other news, going further on the legal topics, there has also been a very interesting cybersecurity resolution that the American Bar Association has promulgated on August 12th.
[18:14.700 --> 18:17.800]  This is really interesting because it pertains...
[18:17.800 --> 18:26.320]  And I know I sound like a complete law geek here, but this is about lawyers taking information security seriously.
[18:29.740 --> 18:35.180]  And I think it's about time, you know, for better or for worse.
[18:35.400 --> 18:45.300]  I mean, so what this resolution said was it basically called on federal, state, and local governments to pass strong laws preventing the unauthorized intrusion into lawyers' networks.
[18:45.300 --> 18:53.100]  Now, it's very interesting because I'm not sure why lawyers need a special law barring criminals from entering their networks.
[18:53.100 --> 18:54.160]  It's very strange.
[18:54.380 --> 19:07.720]  So, on the other hand, this also encouraged lawyers to keep up with material advancements in technology and to understand information security and to safeguard their clients' privacy, to safeguard their clients' records.
[19:08.060 --> 19:18.920]  Now, it's very strange to me that it required the ABA to step in to do something like this because confidentiality and the lawyer-client privilege has been held so sacrosanct in this country.
[19:19.120 --> 19:24.700]  And not only this country, but basically any country that is a common law country where the attorney-client privilege exists.
[19:24.980 --> 19:31.700]  It's something that is the hallmark of a legal profession that you can go and you can talk to a lawyer and you can make a statement to them in confidence.
[19:32.140 --> 19:34.200]  And that is inviolable.
[19:34.520 --> 19:41.840]  That lawyer cannot reveal that statement to any person, to any third party, no matter how many times they ask, no matter what legal process is used.
[19:41.840 --> 19:49.160]  Only the client can waive the lawyer-client privilege and can rescind that right to privacy.
[19:49.720 --> 20:00.100]  So, for lawyers to not take information security seriously seems really honestly quite negligent, to use the parlance of my fellow members of the bar here.
[20:00.740 --> 20:16.740]  But this also raises the issue that law firms, and big law firms in particular, have been the soft underbelly of the major companies and their clients for quite a long time.
[20:17.360 --> 20:21.760]  And that's something that a lot of law firms have really turned a blind eye to, is what it seems like.
[20:21.840 --> 20:27.520]  There are countless examples of law firms being targeted for information that pertains to their clients.
[20:28.100 --> 20:32.300]  Because law firms often don't take information security very, very seriously.
[20:32.300 --> 20:33.180]  It's not a priority.
[20:33.180 --> 20:34.100]  It's not in the budget.
[20:34.260 --> 20:35.580]  It's more about the billable hours.
[20:35.580 --> 20:38.260]  It's more about getting the clients and billing the matters.
[20:39.140 --> 20:40.960]  So, I think that this is really good.
[20:41.100 --> 20:49.380]  I think it's unfortunate that the American Bar Association doesn't necessarily have the teeth to enforce a regulation like this.
[20:51.760 --> 20:52.720]  But it's a start.
[20:52.800 --> 20:54.140]  I think it's a good start.
[20:54.280 --> 20:59.140]  And I think if it gets lawyers thinking about information security more seriously, then that can only benefit the legal profession.
[20:59.180 --> 21:00.380]  It can only benefit the clients.
[21:00.540 --> 21:03.700]  It can only benefit us.
[21:04.460 --> 21:08.820]  So, I think that we are ready to think we have someone else on the line.
[21:09.080 --> 21:09.480]  Okay.
[21:09.640 --> 21:12.420]  We should have Bernie back on the line and we should also have a guest.
[21:13.260 --> 21:13.660]  Hello.
[21:13.940 --> 21:15.900]  I believe we are speaking with Philip Zimmerman.
[21:16.060 --> 21:16.560]  Philip, are you there?
[21:17.680 --> 21:18.080]  Yes.
[21:18.200 --> 21:18.400]  Hi.
[21:19.000 --> 21:19.260]  Okay.
[21:19.380 --> 21:19.740]  I'm sorry.
[21:19.860 --> 21:21.780]  I'm speaking to you from a noisy environment.
[21:22.300 --> 21:22.700]  Okay.
[21:22.780 --> 21:23.400]  That's quite all right.
[21:23.900 --> 21:30.720]  Now, Philip Zimmerman is the creator of Pretty Good Privacy, PGP, the email encryption software package.
[21:34.100 --> 21:34.800]  Excuse me.
[21:35.000 --> 21:39.400]  He was also involved in Silent Circle, which is another consumer encryption solution.
[21:39.720 --> 21:54.760]  And along with LavaBit, who provided a secure email service which had to close down, which took it upon themselves to close down this past week, Silent Mail, the mail component of Silent Circle, also shut down.
[21:55.020 --> 21:59.720]  Now, Philip, could you talk to us very quickly about the background of this whole situation?
[22:01.300 --> 22:01.820]  Yes.
[22:01.820 --> 22:08.780]  My company, Silent Circle, has several secure communication services.
[22:09.200 --> 22:11.640]  One of them is secure phone calls.
[22:12.300 --> 22:20.080]  Another is secure text messaging, you know, short text messages with encrypted file attachments.
[22:20.940 --> 22:25.340]  And the third one is encrypted email.
[22:26.780 --> 22:39.440]  Of those three, we shut down our encrypted email because last week, LavaBits shut down their encrypted email service.
[22:40.180 --> 22:51.080]  And we decided to do the same because we thought that the reasons for them shutting down were...
[22:51.080 --> 23:03.440]  appeared to be that they got some secret communication from the government, probably a national security letter, asking them to turn over mail records for one of their customers.
[23:03.660 --> 23:08.740]  Hi, Phil, can I jump in and ask you a question about that?
[23:08.860 --> 23:09.440]  This is Alex.
[23:11.060 --> 23:25.560]  Is it accurate then to say or is it possible for you to say that you, at Silent Circle, in fact, did not receive a national security letter, a subpoena, a FISA warrant, or any other form of legal process?
[23:25.700 --> 23:29.080]  I can tell you unequivocally that we did not get any of those things.
[23:29.300 --> 23:29.800]  Thank you.
[23:31.020 --> 23:32.180]  That's very interesting.
[23:32.340 --> 23:35.040]  So this was a preemptive measure, is that right?
[23:35.560 --> 23:36.180]  That's right.
[23:36.200 --> 23:37.420]  This was a preemptive measure.
[23:39.220 --> 24:01.360]  We thought that we would be next and we've been talking about discontinuing our email service for some weeks and we've actually been talking about it the previous day quite a bit and saying we really need to accelerate our efforts to end this service.
[24:01.900 --> 24:08.040]  And then the Lava Bit episode occurred and we thought now's the right time.
[24:08.240 --> 24:09.100]  We've got to do it now.
[24:10.240 --> 24:11.600]  So we did it.
[24:12.060 --> 24:30.380]  Now, the reason why we did it to our email without affecting our other services is because you see, when we do phone calls, we do the encryption keys, the cryptographic keys are negotiated between the two mobile phones.
[24:31.060 --> 24:35.860]  And our servers are not, don't have the keys.
[24:36.360 --> 24:38.220]  The keys are not shared with the servers.
[24:38.480 --> 24:44.560]  And so we are not able to help anyone wiretap our secure phone calls.
[24:44.740 --> 24:47.260]  It's just architecturally not possible.
[24:47.980 --> 24:50.720]  The same is true for our silent text messages.
[24:51.600 --> 24:54.580]  We have instant text messaging that is encrypted.
[24:54.800 --> 24:59.360]  And we do the key negotiation between the two endpoints, between the two mobile devices.
[24:59.880 --> 25:02.260]  And again, we don't share the keys with the servers.
[25:03.460 --> 25:09.460]  But in the case of email, we do have encrypted
[25:13.260 --> 25:25.340]  and that was because we didn't have well, historically I've always used PGP for encrypted email, but we couldn't get a version of PGP that would run on a mobile phone.
[25:26.260 --> 25:32.700]  And so the only other solution that we had on hand was to get a version of PGP that
[25:43.260 --> 25:51.000]  or a court order, they could coerce us to hand over those keys and that would be bad for our customers.
[25:51.880 --> 26:01.180]  And so of the various services that we had for secure communications, the mail service, the encrypted mail service, was the least secure.
[26:01.960 --> 26:04.000]  And that's why we pulled the plug.
[26:05.080 --> 26:05.640]  Right.
[26:05.860 --> 26:23.420]  So effectively for normal sort of consumer web services or content services, your password or at least a hash of your password is stored on the server and they ostensibly can access your data whenever they need to and as a function of that give it to somebody else.
[26:23.900 --> 26:25.140]  But with something like...
[26:25.140 --> 26:27.380]  Well, it's a little more complicated than that.
[26:27.500 --> 26:30.740]  Our keys are PGP keys and they're stored on the server.
[26:30.920 --> 26:31.320]  Right.
[26:31.400 --> 26:35.260]  I'm speaking of other services that are the sort of standard types.
[26:35.920 --> 26:46.660]  Whereas a service like silent phone or silent text, you don't even have access to people's data yourself, let alone the ability to give it out to governmental agencies or anything like that.
[26:47.580 --> 27:01.340]  Now, when LavaBit shut their service down, which was a similar sort of service just for email, and silent mail followed, what sort of responses did you get back from the users or the community?
[27:02.640 --> 27:09.580]  Well, we did have a lot of users that were surprised and not that happy about losing their emails.
[27:09.880 --> 27:11.480]  I mean, we really, we wiped them out.
[27:11.600 --> 27:15.140]  We deleted them without warning, and there were no backups.
[27:18.080 --> 27:25.460]  And so, you know, we were, we regretted the pain we caused our server, our customers, rather.
[27:25.460 --> 27:38.940]  server, but I think that our customers also respect us for doing something as drastic as that because it shows our commitment to protecting their privacy.
[27:40.040 --> 27:53.000]  And so, they'll just switch to using silent text, our instant messaging service, for sending text messages and, and encrypted email, excuse me, encrypted file attachments.
[27:55.560 --> 28:01.860]  And, you know, that covers a lot of the usage, usage cases for email, but it's more secure.
[28:02.140 --> 28:05.520]  And in your company's Can you hear me, Phil?
[28:05.620 --> 28:07.100]  This is Bernie in Pennsylvania.
[28:07.440 --> 28:07.840]  Can you hear me?
[28:08.580 --> 28:09.060]  Yeah.
[28:09.700 --> 28:10.220]  Okay, great.
[28:10.280 --> 28:11.140]  I have a question for you.
[28:11.260 --> 28:14.180]  I assume the keys that were on your servers were destroyed.
[28:14.340 --> 28:14.740]  Is that correct?
[28:16.160 --> 28:16.960]  Say that again?
[28:17.220 --> 28:23.120]  I assume that the keys, the email keys that were on your servers are now destroyed.
[28:23.300 --> 28:23.580]  Is that right?
[28:25.820 --> 28:27.400]  I believe we got everything.
[28:27.800 --> 28:35.260]  We actually copied all of our employee email accounts to another disk, and then we totally wiped the disk.
[28:36.800 --> 28:39.380]  So everything was gone.
[28:40.360 --> 28:40.480]  Right.
[28:41.360 --> 29:06.280]  I wanted to ask you, I want to commend you and the other folks at Silent Circle for standing up and doing what's right in this case and also the folks at Lababit for taking a stand and just refusing to be compliant with being asked to be basically proxy spies for the U.S.
[29:06.380 --> 29:06.620]  government.
[29:09.040 --> 29:14.920]  But Silent Circle and Lababit are kind of small fry in the whole email product.
[29:14.920 --> 29:18.140]  Yeah, it is more difficult for a large company to do what we did.
[29:18.940 --> 29:40.040]  What do you think the results would be if a big company or even a consortium of companies like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo were the three biggest mail providers, if they temporarily shut down their email services in protest, do you think that would have the necessary political effect to influence Congress to really seriously look at what's going on?
[29:40.040 --> 29:40.860]  Well, that's an interesting question.
[29:41.140 --> 29:59.320]  I think that instead of shutting down their mail servers, it would be better for them to take a stand and try to resist these types of coercion in some other way to sort of take an I am Spartacus approach.
[30:01.980 --> 30:11.880]  If everybody stands up and resists this kind of coercion, then maybe we can see some changes.
[30:12.140 --> 30:13.140]  One can hope.
[30:13.840 --> 30:27.660]  In your company statement to your customers when you announced on your blog, which is silentcircle.wordpress.com that you were taking the step, you noted that email as we know it with SMTP, POP3, and IMAP cannot be secure.
[30:28.460 --> 30:31.420]  And silent mail was a good idea at the time and that time has passed.
[30:32.860 --> 30:42.660]  Basically, what you're saying is the whole way that the world does email right now cannot be secured in the way that you're securing it.
[30:42.760 --> 30:46.820]  Well, let's break that down into different parts here.
[30:47.380 --> 30:51.040]  If you use PGP, you can encrypt the message body.
[30:51.800 --> 30:53.980]  That means the mail header is still intact, though.
[30:54.360 --> 31:01.300]  The mail header says who the mail is from, who it's to, and the subject line and the timestamps on it.
[31:03.760 --> 31:09.900]  So, PGP encrypts the message body, and that's what I designed PGP to do 20 years ago.
[31:10.940 --> 31:19.740]  But, if you do that, you're still exposing the metadata, and metadata is really important these days.
[31:20.320 --> 31:25.200]  That's, you know, what a lot of this data collection is about, is about the metadata.
[31:25.740 --> 31:25.900]  Indeed.
[31:26.160 --> 31:33.260]  But in the case of a mail server, you know, if the government wants to come in and see the mail contents, they can ask for it.
[31:33.740 --> 31:43.120]  Now, if the mail contents are encrypted with PGP, and the key is not available anywhere on the server, then it's, you know, they're going to have a tough time with that.
[31:43.300 --> 31:45.760]  It's kind of a let them eat cybertext situation.
[31:47.380 --> 31:57.880]  But, we could not, we didn't have available to us a mail client that runs PGP.
[31:59.180 --> 32:04.380]  And so, we couldn't do PGP on the client, which is what you typically would do if you had a laptop computer.
[32:04.740 --> 32:08.160]  This is a mobile phone we're talking about, an iPhone or an Android phone.
[32:09.460 --> 32:14.460]  In that case, the only option we had to provide some
[32:18.680 --> 32:23.000]  partially secure encrypted email would be to do PGP on the server.
[32:23.880 --> 32:35.160]  and in that case, it's not only the metadata that would be exposed, it's also the message contents could be exposed by getting the keys.
[32:35.420 --> 32:40.840]  If the keys are on the server, the message contents can be decrypted if those keys are handed over to the government.
[32:44.410 --> 32:52.850]  So, when you say, is mail intrinsically unsafe or insecure, well, you could say it could be partially secure.
[32:53.070 --> 32:58.490]  And the message body could be encrypted if you're running PGP on the client.
[32:58.550 --> 33:07.330]  But, if you're running it on the server like we were doing, I would say it's not, you know, it's, it's not sufficiently secure.
[33:08.030 --> 33:08.470]  Right.
[33:08.650 --> 33:17.030]  And if you're concerned about the metadata, then no matter what you do with existing mail protocols, your metadata is going to be exposed.
[33:17.710 --> 33:26.590]  Well, we're speaking with Phil Zimmerman, creator of PGP, and one of the people behind Silent Circle, which shut down its silent mail service.
[33:27.290 --> 33:36.090]  Phil, this is Alex again, and I would just like to also echo the remarks of Bernie in offering you some kind of commendation on this.
[33:36.190 --> 33:43.330]  It's really highly unusual to see a company have a commitment to privacy that is paramount to profit.
[33:43.710 --> 33:55.490]  And I don't know if I'm sure I do, but when I say I speak for probably many, many of our listeners and offering you a commendation on that, it's pretty wonderful, and I think we're all honored to have you here today to speak to us.
[33:57.010 --> 34:05.530]  And on that point, I mean, this, you know, I also have to say I'm a Silent Circle user, and I think it's a pretty, really, I mean, just an amazing application.
[34:05.990 --> 34:07.770]  I use the text messaging all the time.
[34:08.030 --> 34:11.650]  I particularly love the burn function, where you can burn...
[34:11.650 --> 34:12.010]  Oh, yes.
[34:12.210 --> 34:13.390]  Oh, it's such a cool function.
[34:13.510 --> 34:18.510]  Could you, you know, can you explain that to our users for, you know, maybe the 10-second version of that?
[34:19.150 --> 34:22.190]  We have an auto destruct feature with text messages.
[34:22.530 --> 34:29.190]  So if you send a text message to someone, or you send a photograph to someone, or any other mail attachment...
[34:29.190 --> 34:30.250]  I'm sorry, did I say mail...
[34:30.250 --> 34:34.050]  I meant to say file attachment to the text message.
[34:34.290 --> 34:37.910]  You can make it disappear after some period of time.
[34:38.130 --> 34:45.610]  You could set a timer on it saying, make this self-destruct after 30 minutes, after they look at it.
[34:47.510 --> 34:50.510]  Or you could even claw it back after you send it.
[34:50.630 --> 34:52.930]  You could say, oops, I shouldn't have sent that.
[34:53.730 --> 34:55.530]  On second thought, I don't want to send it.
[34:56.350 --> 34:59.610]  And send another message saying to destroy the message.
[35:00.310 --> 35:01.610]  It's very, very cool stuff.
[35:01.810 --> 35:03.050]  Without waiting for the timeout.
[35:03.610 --> 35:07.950]  Yeah, it's the kind of application that Anthony Wiener wishes he had, probably.
[35:10.350 --> 35:10.770]  Exactly.
[35:11.370 --> 35:14.210]  Well, you know, going on to this, like I said, I'm a Silent Circle user.
[35:14.310 --> 35:19.570]  I think it's incredibly cool, and it's a great application, and I think a lot of our listeners should check it out.
[35:20.790 --> 35:25.210]  You know, there is a fee for it, but I think it's well worth the fee.
[35:25.870 --> 35:27.830]  Yeah, I'd like to say something about that fee.
[35:27.950 --> 35:28.190]  Please.
[35:29.030 --> 35:41.190]  We do charge a small amount of money for this, and some people ask me, well, why should I pay you for, you know, your phone calls when I can just get Skype for free?
[35:41.650 --> 35:45.210]  And my response to them is, go ahead and use Skype.
[35:45.990 --> 35:46.790]  That's what you want.
[35:47.050 --> 35:48.110]  Free is important to you.
[35:48.310 --> 35:49.270]  Go ahead and use Skype.
[35:49.370 --> 35:49.970]  You use Skype.
[35:50.190 --> 35:52.130]  You know, I don't even want to talk to those people.
[35:52.830 --> 35:53.770]  I don't blame you.
[35:53.850 --> 35:54.710]  I'm definitely not on Skype.
[35:55.150 --> 35:56.230]  That would be Microsoft Skype.
[35:56.230 --> 35:59.450]  For serious people who have a serious need for security.
[35:59.670 --> 36:02.090]  We are used by Navy SEALs.
[36:02.250 --> 36:05.450]  We're used by several U.S.
[36:05.590 --> 36:06.490]  intelligence agencies.
[36:06.490 --> 36:12.530]  We're used by Canadian Special Forces, British Special Forces.
[36:13.440 --> 36:22.810]  You know, we have two former SEAL team members in our company and three British SAS in our company.
[36:22.810 --> 36:24.890]  They're British Special Forces.
[36:26.710 --> 36:31.790]  And we have an office in London and we sell to the British government and we sell to a lot of other governments.
[36:32.810 --> 36:33.290]  Interesting.
[36:33.410 --> 36:41.830]  Did you have any difficulty with the ITAR regulations and exporting encryption when you were contemplating the formation of this company or setting up the business plan?
[36:41.830 --> 36:44.710]  No, those are a thing of the past.
[36:45.530 --> 36:48.330]  We fought that war in the 1990s and we won.
[36:49.050 --> 36:52.390]  Now, today, you can export strong cryptography.
[36:53.070 --> 36:53.510]  Excellent.
[36:53.670 --> 37:00.750]  If you have, you know, consumer encryption software and you want to export it, there's no issue with that.
[37:01.350 --> 37:03.010]  The law changed in 2000.
[37:03.810 --> 37:09.030]  Hey, Phil, you know, I know you wrote to PGP like more than 20 years ago.
[37:09.030 --> 37:17.250]  And back then, the power of a personal computer was probably considerably less than your average smartphone is today.
[37:17.610 --> 37:18.410]  Oh, yeah.
[37:18.790 --> 37:28.070]  Do you think anybody is working on a PGP client that will run on Android, iPhone, or other mobile phone operating systems?
[37:29.410 --> 37:33.470]  Well, I don't know of anybody who has anything right now.
[37:36.030 --> 37:53.470]  You know, we might consider doing a client-side email encryption approach, or we might try to find some other way to move email around without using the same protocols as a normal email.
[37:53.650 --> 38:01.250]  I think as we've learned time and again, it's exponential, the growth of the power of something like a phone just over five, ten years or so.
[38:01.410 --> 38:03.270]  So I don't think it's too...
[38:03.270 --> 38:08.510]  I don't think it's too much of a dream to consider the possibility of maybe doing a PGP-type encryption on a phone.
[38:08.630 --> 38:11.110]  This is not because of CPU limitations.
[38:11.110 --> 38:22.790]  It's just because it takes a lot of time and money to develop software for any platform, especially a different platform than what it already runs on.
[38:24.090 --> 38:29.630]  And Phil, can we talk a little bit more about the secure texting and the secure calling?
[38:29.890 --> 38:36.450]  You mentioned that the secure texting was end-to-end encrypted encrypted and therefore more secure than the secure mail.
[38:36.830 --> 38:53.170]  Now, do you have any fear that because these texts are end-to-end encrypted and a lot of them I think go through foreign communications networks, especially the calls, if I recall correctly, I believe all the calls are routed through Canada, if I'm not mistaken.
[38:53.530 --> 39:07.870]  Do you have any fear given that all these communications are encrypted and knowing what we know from the Snowden revelations that the NSA looks for encrypted communications specifically to retain and then crack, do you have any fear that your users would be specifically targeted?
[39:08.610 --> 39:16.010]  I'm not concerned about them cracking our encryption because if they could crack our encryption, they wouldn't allow the U.S.
[39:16.110 --> 39:17.690]  government to use it for their own purposes.
[39:18.270 --> 39:22.350]  Maybe SEALs would not be using it if the government knew how to crack it.
[39:24.010 --> 39:24.990]  That's a good point.
[39:25.190 --> 39:26.390]  That's definitely a good point.
[39:26.630 --> 39:29.270]  So, yeah, by necessary implication, it's uncrackable.
[39:31.210 --> 39:32.670]  I'm not going to...
[39:32.670 --> 39:37.810]  You know, serious, professional crypto people never use the word uncrackable.
[39:38.150 --> 39:41.490]  It's considered to be, you know, kind of...
[39:42.050 --> 39:44.070]  It's just a matter of making it very, very difficult.
[39:44.670 --> 39:48.790]  We like to say we believe it to be computationally infeasible.
[39:49.190 --> 39:49.670]  Okay.
[39:49.910 --> 39:51.870]  That's much more specific.
[39:52.250 --> 39:57.890]  Now, also, from a business perspective, you know, this is, like we said before, this is putting privacy over profits.
[39:58.350 --> 40:00.990]  So, I mean, how is this affecting Silent Circle?
[40:01.170 --> 40:08.950]  I mean, I had read some reports that you were considering moving from about 64 employees to about 100.
[40:08.950 --> 40:12.750]  Is this putting plans on hold inside Silent Circle?
[40:12.810 --> 40:15.910]  No, I think this is not going to...
[40:17.230 --> 40:18.550]  not going to be a bad thing.
[40:18.670 --> 40:22.730]  I think that the first thing you have to do is do a good job.
[40:22.730 --> 40:31.490]  And if you do a good job, people will appreciate it and we'll give you their business.
[40:33.230 --> 40:36.310]  We, you know, we do charge for this.
[40:37.310 --> 40:40.370]  In fact, our business model is part of our security model.
[40:40.690 --> 40:52.070]  Instead of giving it away for free, like Facebook, you know, it's been observed that if you're not paying for the product, then you are the product.
[40:53.190 --> 40:53.870]  Yes, indeed.
[40:53.870 --> 40:58.990]  You're not a Facebook customer, you're an asset that Facebook sells to advertisers.
[41:00.750 --> 41:01.830]  Same thing with Google.
[41:03.130 --> 41:07.430]  But we charge for it and that means we don't monetize customer data.
[41:07.870 --> 41:10.790]  Instead, we monetize your money when you give us your money.
[41:12.090 --> 41:15.370]  That seems like such a strange way of doing things on today's internet.
[41:15.550 --> 41:17.510]  It's so strange to find someone doing that.
[41:18.650 --> 41:20.210]  Yeah, all we want is your money.
[41:20.330 --> 41:21.750]  Just give us your money and nobody gets hurt.
[41:22.370 --> 41:22.770]  Excellent.
[41:22.930 --> 41:26.150]  On that note, I want to thank you very much for your time and for joining us.
[41:26.390 --> 41:31.310]  Phil Zimmerman, where can people reach you for further info on what you do?
[41:32.410 --> 41:35.650]  Well, check out our website, silentcircle.com.
[41:37.030 --> 41:37.830]  Silentcircle.com.
[41:41.450 --> 41:42.710]  It's a lot of fun.
[41:42.850 --> 41:45.570]  I'm having more fun than at any time in my career.
[41:45.910 --> 41:52.590]  And Phil, can you remind us one more time what the proper phraseology is for something that is not able to be decrypted?
[41:55.110 --> 41:57.650]  I prefer to say computationally infeasible.
[41:57.790 --> 41:58.650]  Computationally infeasible.
[41:58.770 --> 41:59.590]  We're going to have to remember that.
[41:59.650 --> 42:01.730]  And I'm sure our listeners are very interested in that.
[42:02.050 --> 42:03.010]  Thank you very much, Phil.
[42:03.090 --> 42:03.350]  Excellent.
[42:03.390 --> 42:03.850]  Thank you very much.
[42:04.190 --> 42:04.550]  Thanks, Phil.
[42:05.110 --> 42:05.430]  Sure.
[42:05.590 --> 42:06.070]  My pleasure.
[42:06.750 --> 42:07.150]  Bye-bye.
[42:08.110 --> 42:08.390]  Okay.
[42:09.130 --> 42:12.890]  That was Phil Zimmerman from PGP and Silent Circle.
[42:13.650 --> 42:19.250]  And really, look him up because he's done a lot of really fascinating things.
[42:20.590 --> 42:33.730]  Yes, and I got to say, Rob, that Phil is obviously an icon in our community and has fought the good fight in the crypto wars since the early 90s for us, for all of us.
[42:34.270 --> 42:39.430]  He's also, I don't know if anybody can look up his philzimmerman.com on his website.
[42:39.570 --> 42:40.750]  He's got a really interesting bio.
[42:40.950 --> 42:44.990]  He's got a long history as a peace activist, anti-nuclear activist.
[42:46.010 --> 42:48.130]  He's a really good guy.
[42:48.270 --> 42:57.630]  And we owe a lot to him and people like him who really care about individuals' privacy.
[42:57.850 --> 43:01.930]  Something also worth reading is on his website, he has his U.S.
[43:02.210 --> 43:08.250]  testimony back in 1996 as to why individuals need private communications.
[43:08.690 --> 43:11.290]  We probably don't have time to read it or play it here today.
[43:11.510 --> 43:26.230]  But it's more relevant today than it was when he read it to the Senate in 1996 as to why individuals, reporters, non-government NGOs, activists, need private electronic communications.
[43:27.810 --> 43:29.810]  He's done a lot for all of us and he's still doing it.
[43:30.210 --> 43:38.030]  So philzimmerman.com that's Zimmerman Z-I-M-M-E-R-M-A-N-N and there's a lot to look at.
[43:38.330 --> 43:41.450]  Okay, a lot of other stuff going on the past few weeks.
[43:43.270 --> 43:47.750]  There is a new toll-free area code coming soon.
[43:48.670 --> 43:50.230]  It's going to be 844.
[43:50.770 --> 44:00.630]  That's joining the ranks of 888, 877, 866, and 855 which are all toll-free number area codes in the United States.
[44:00.870 --> 44:24.210]  They're releasing 844 early because they're running out of numbers that quickly and I, for one, I'm a bit surprised that people are still buying toll-free numbers at such a rate because phone numbers were once the end-all and be-all of your public presence if you were an organization and business whatever and they're less and less so now that so much is done through other means of communication so
[44:25.370 --> 44:33.470]  it's a bit crazy crazy I think it was you, Bernie, that estimated it'll be about five years before there's no more eight blank-blank numbers left.
[44:34.430 --> 44:48.490]  Yeah, I mean, at the rate of the toll-free number adoption so far, extrapolating that, in about five years there will be no more toll-free numbers left free ones.
[44:48.590 --> 45:00.650]  I mean, I guess there'll be some that people will retire and you can grab them, but there won't, you know, it's going to be interesting, but as you say, the need for them has diminished because the cost of toll calls has dropped considerably.
[45:01.370 --> 45:09.750]  Virtually everyone with a mobile phone does not pay long-distance charges anyway, and it's so low to make a long-distance call.
[45:09.950 --> 45:18.670]  It's funny even to hear the term long-distance call because it used to be a big deal, you know, a long-distance call to San Francisco, it's going to be expensive.
[45:19.170 --> 45:21.630]  It just doesn't matter anymore because it's so inexpensive.
[45:22.270 --> 45:22.750]  Indeed.
[45:23.310 --> 45:25.090]  So we'll be keeping an eye on that.
[45:25.590 --> 45:38.110]  It's funny because people will probably still be scrambling to get the names of their trademarks in numbers that you spell out, but I think beyond that it's really hard for me to imagine that there's still this market, but apparently there is.
[45:39.810 --> 45:40.690]  Another story...
[45:40.690 --> 45:53.870]  I wanted to point out, Rob, too, that the 8XX area code, you know, 800-899-888-8777, 811 can't be used.
[45:54.030 --> 45:58.010]  Right, that's one of the short codes, like 911 or 511.
[45:58.350 --> 46:02.170]  It's dedicated to these call-before-you-dig services.
[46:02.450 --> 46:12.110]  Like, if you probably people, all the listeners are probably seeing a sign somewhere, hey, there's a telephone trunk cable or fiber-optic cable buried here, call before you dig, call 811.
[46:12.250 --> 46:13.290]  Our listeners should try this.
[46:13.410 --> 46:24.590]  Call 811 from your phone sometime and you'll hear this really interesting message and how you can find out if the location where you're planning on digging has a sensitive communications cable buried beneath.
[46:24.850 --> 46:30.230]  So, of course, if you're planning on digging any big holes, call 811 and straighten that all out first.
[46:31.150 --> 46:37.750]  Another story from this past week is the FCC has capped the cost of phone calls to prison inmates.
[46:39.210 --> 46:52.210]  A woman called Bethany Frazier said to the three leaders of the Federal Communications Commission, I would do anything and pay any amount to keep my children connected to their father, but on a monthly basis, these phone charges exceed grocery and electric bills combined.
[46:53.090 --> 46:54.230]  And the commission agreed.
[46:54.330 --> 47:03.330]  In a two-to-one vote, the regulators capped fees charged inmates for out-of-state calls, which in Pennsylvania, that's where the story is from, can currently add up to $11 for a 15-minute call from behind bars.
[47:04.050 --> 47:11.910]  So, these new rules set a limit of $0.25 a minute for collect calls, which currently costs $0.50 a minute in Pennsylvania, and $0.53 in the Allegheny County Jail.
[47:12.330 --> 47:20.130]  So, the FCC's ruling is lowering the average cost of a call to an inmate in Pennsylvania, at least, by nearly a third.
[47:21.070 --> 47:29.690]  Now, a lot of people don't know, Bernie, that there's a really exploitative system in place for people who want to contact people who are prison inmates.
[47:30.490 --> 47:31.410]  It's disgusting.
[47:31.890 --> 47:34.290]  I mean, it's really unconscionable and disgusting.
[47:34.290 --> 47:35.290]  I'll put it that way.
[47:37.550 --> 47:45.390]  What prison officials do, each institution negotiates with phone companies to...
[47:45.390 --> 47:50.930]  It's a completely backwards way of having a bidding process.
[47:51.690 --> 48:12.910]  They look for the highest bid, these prison institutions, and they ask the telcos, like, will you provide collect phone call services for our prisoners to call friends and loved ones, and we will award the bid to whoever kicks back a highest commission to us,
[48:12.910 --> 48:15.650]  the institution, for us to spend on whatever I want.
[48:15.850 --> 48:29.910]  I mean, just last year, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, where I live, pulled in almost $7 million from these commissions, which are, in effect, kickbacks.
[48:30.590 --> 48:40.710]  and the vast majority of those, that $7 million went into Pennsylvania's general fund, as opposed to being spent on prisoner recreational programs, which is what the Department of Corrections in Pennsylvania claims.
[48:41.070 --> 48:44.350]  So, this is really a good thing that this FCC has made this ruling.
[48:44.370 --> 48:48.750]  Unfortunately, it only applies to interstate prisoner phone calls.
[48:48.790 --> 48:52.310]  That is, prisoners who call out of state from where their institution is.
[48:52.650 --> 48:59.110]  This rule does not apply to prisoners who call people who are in there in the same state they're being held captive in.
[48:59.310 --> 49:05.230]  So, the FCC is working on the interstate aspect of this, and I hope they come to a similar decision in that soon.
[49:05.390 --> 49:07.030]  Because people have been working on this for decades.
[49:07.230 --> 49:08.370]  It's a real problem.
[49:08.690 --> 49:18.770]  Prisoners really need to maintain family ties, and this is unduly punishing friends and family of prisoners who had nothing to do with the offense.
[49:19.230 --> 49:21.150]  And it's counterproductive, in my opinion.
[49:21.530 --> 49:23.630]  Bernie, it's horrible.
[49:23.970 --> 49:25.110]  I mean, that's...
[49:25.110 --> 49:26.130]  You're absolutely right.
[49:26.270 --> 49:28.550]  It's unconscionable, that practice.
[49:28.970 --> 49:30.730]  I mean, and this is...
[49:31.450 --> 49:32.310]  It's really horrible.
[49:32.470 --> 49:36.030]  I mean, and this is the way to steal a lot of money, isn't it?
[49:36.150 --> 49:36.250]  Right?
[49:36.310 --> 49:45.290]  I mean, if you really want to steal several million dollars per year, the way to do it is not to steal several million dollars from one person.
[49:46.150 --> 49:48.290]  It's to steal a little bit of money from a lot of people.
[49:49.930 --> 49:57.010]  And ultimately, so let's say, you know, one of these inmates, they spend, I don't know, $500 per year for these phone calls.
[49:57.510 --> 49:59.970]  I'm sure it's a hell of a lot more than that, actually.
[50:00.050 --> 50:01.830]  Let's say it's, you know, $1,500, $2,000.
[50:02.330 --> 50:08.930]  Is it really worth it for them to try to get that money back, given the hassle that they'll have to go through, hiring a lawyer, all this nonsense?
[50:09.590 --> 50:10.310]  It really isn't.
[50:10.390 --> 50:12.070]  It's just not economically feasible.
[50:12.650 --> 50:19.030]  The worst part, the worst part is not, it's not even coming from the prisoners' pockets, it's coming from the family and friends of prisoners.
[50:19.330 --> 50:19.650]  Absolutely.
[50:20.130 --> 50:25.130]  Who had nothing, who had nothing, who had no culpability in the offense that the prisoner was being locked up for.
[50:25.250 --> 50:25.590]  Yeah, absolutely.
[50:25.670 --> 50:29.070]  Who probably couldn't afford a lawyer for their loved one in the first place, anyhow.
[50:29.670 --> 50:29.890]  Right.
[50:29.990 --> 50:45.630]  And these people are paying for, just for collect phone calls from their, from like that father to the kids, is, at home, can, as this one woman testified, cost more per month than the rent and food, rent and electricity combined, or food and electricity combined.
[50:45.790 --> 50:46.570]  I mean, this is insane.
[50:46.710 --> 50:48.730]  I'm glad the FCC has finally stood up on this.
[50:48.750 --> 50:50.990]  Yeah, we were just talking about how cheap phone calls are nowadays.
[50:50.990 --> 50:56.930]  This is the last, the last bastion of expensive phone calls, or people who really have no other choice.
[50:57.070 --> 51:00.350]  These people, these people who just want to contact their family outside of prison.
[51:00.550 --> 51:06.650]  And it's good that this seems to be, this seems to be looking up at least for, for this location.
[51:07.990 --> 51:11.470]  And I have one more point on that, Robin, which I'd like to make that goes back to what Bernie says.
[51:11.610 --> 51:17.370]  And, you know, stealing a little bit of money from a lot of people is a problem, but there is a legal mechanism to combat this.
[51:17.450 --> 51:18.530]  It's called the class action.
[51:19.210 --> 51:20.950]  That's what class actions are supposed to do.
[51:20.990 --> 51:30.290]  And I think a lot of people and a lot of families probably had no idea how the system works in this reverse bidding practice, as Bernie mentioned, and I concurred with, absolutely unconscionable.
[51:30.550 --> 51:39.610]  If there are any plaintiff's attorneys listening to this show who would take on a class action to help these people, I think that could be a very, very lucrative case.
[51:40.290 --> 51:43.410]  You know, contact OTH at 2600.com.
[51:43.590 --> 51:46.990]  I think it would be something really, really worth looking into.
[51:47.930 --> 51:48.130]  Okay.
[51:48.810 --> 51:51.430]  Another story that we're familiar with.
[51:51.830 --> 52:01.310]  Kevin Poulsen, who writes the Threat Level blog on Wired.com, has gotten the first 104 pages of Aaron Schwartz's Secret Service file released.
[52:02.030 --> 52:04.130]  After half a year of delays and roadblocks, the U.S.
[52:04.150 --> 52:19.850]  Secret Service released the first 104 pages of agency documents about the late coder and activist Aaron Schwartz, who was a guest on this show and is well-known for so many things, including a brief report on Schwartz's suicide less than three months before his scheduled trial.
[52:20.330 --> 52:29.710]  The heavily redacted documents released today confirm early reports that the Secret Service was interested in a, quote, guerrilla open access manifesto that Schwartz and others had penned in 2008.
[52:29.970 --> 52:37.330]  And in May 2011, a Secret Service agent and a detective from the Cambridge Police Department interviewed a friend of Schwartz and inquired specifically about the political statement.
[52:37.770 --> 52:42.470]  The friend noted that Schwartz and his co-authors, quote, believe that the open access movement is a human rights issue.
[52:42.630 --> 52:45.010]  And this is, of course, something that we've talked a lot about on this show.
[52:45.250 --> 53:02.310]  And Kevin Poulsen himself is the plaintiff in Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, which is the Secret Service parent agency, and which has been giving him a series of roadblocks against getting any of these documents.
[53:02.310 --> 53:03.450]  So now they're starting to come out.
[53:03.690 --> 53:06.550]  You can find that on the Threat Level blog on Wired.com.
[53:06.730 --> 53:10.730]  They've embedded the whole set of 104 pages so far that have been released.
[53:11.070 --> 53:18.690]  The government says it's identified 14,500 pages of documents for release on a rolling basis, and it estimates it'll take six months to process them.
[53:20.110 --> 53:21.830]  Your tax dollars at work, Rob.
[53:22.030 --> 53:22.450]  Indeed.
[53:23.130 --> 53:23.570]  Indeed.
[53:25.690 --> 53:27.010]  We don't have a lot of time left.
[53:27.290 --> 53:29.610]  You know, we talked a lot about the Aaron Schwartz case.
[53:29.790 --> 53:47.450]  We had him on the show before he was at the end of his rope and couldn't deal with this hideous prosecution of him for allowing, you know, information, publicly sponsored information to be released.
[53:48.210 --> 53:53.910]  And, you know, imagine 14,500 documents in a criminal case is insane.
[53:54.610 --> 53:57.430]  This case had to have been incredibly expensive.
[53:57.430 --> 54:00.430]  There were no, nobody really, no, were victims.
[54:00.610 --> 54:02.110]  There were really no victims in that case.
[54:02.430 --> 54:14.450]  MIT didn't say, basically, anybody that had documents on JSTOR, the database, that not a single author of those documents complained that they were victimized.
[54:14.790 --> 54:14.930]  Right.
[54:15.110 --> 54:23.570]  So this was clear, when they were at, when it cleared the Secret Service and this Cambridge police detective were asking about this political manifesto that Aaron Schwartz wrote.
[54:25.050 --> 54:31.730]  It seems to me this was a politically motivated case and not really about, about theft of, of, of property.
[54:33.050 --> 54:38.990]  And, uh, it's, it's definitely something that's going to, I think, be reflected in the history books in all sorts of interesting ways.
[54:39.110 --> 54:39.950]  We don't have a lot of time left.
[54:40.110 --> 54:41.910]  Uh, got a couple of listener emails that I'd like to read out.
[54:42.190 --> 54:46.010]  Uh, Jamie writes, uh, hey guys, been a long time listener and I've written to you a few times before.
[54:46.350 --> 54:50.470]  Um, I've heard you talk so much about photography in public places causing issues with the police.
[54:50.850 --> 54:54.990]  Um, I found just in a, just such an incident recently while browsing a news site that is definitely worth a read.
[54:55.210 --> 55:00.550]  It has a happy ending though, as the guy in question stood his ground as he knew the law, they sent a helicopter and 15 police too.
[55:00.950 --> 55:07.430]  And, uh, the story he sent us originated at photographyisnotacrime.com and it was posted August 6th and it's fairly spectacular.
[55:07.950 --> 55:10.870]  Um, and it's just one of many, many similar stories on that site.
[55:10.950 --> 55:18.410]  So if you're interested in the subject to check out photographyisnotacrime.com Um, we have another email, uh, from Stuart in Tokyo.
[55:18.650 --> 55:22.890]  Our friend Stuart says, uh, here's another evil genius marketing idea from the UK.
[55:22.890 --> 55:28.150]  Hey, you may have seen bins, aka, uh, trash cans, with video displays serving ads while you were in London.
[55:28.510 --> 55:36.550]  It seems that the eventual intention of these street-level video displays is to serve you targeted advertising based on your mobile phone's Wi-Fi MAC address, i.e.
[55:36.550 --> 55:39.170]  the unique identifier of the network hardware in your phone.
[55:39.690 --> 55:51.290]  Um, it's obvious with hindsight, but even if you decided not to carry a mobile phone, your location could be tracked around the city by, say, a tablet PC giving up its MAC address to Wi-Fi hotspots that you pass where you're, um, where your number will be filed,
[55:51.470 --> 55:54.430]  indexed, and stored in a database, what could possibly go wrong?
[55:55.210 --> 56:06.550]  You know, and building on that, yesterday there was an article in the Financial Times that this particular company has now binned its own practice of providing ads on bins.
[56:06.750 --> 56:12.990]  And, and there's going to be an inquiry by the, uh, the UK government to determine whether or not they violated the UK Data Protection Act.
[56:12.990 --> 56:15.410]  So we'll be watching that unfold as well.
[56:15.590 --> 56:20.410]  We'll definitely be watching all this unfold, uh, and, uh, send us, uh, things that you hear about unfolding.
[56:20.610 --> 56:22.330]  O-T-H at 2600.com.
[56:22.490 --> 56:23.270]  We love hearing from you.
[56:23.870 --> 56:25.250]  Um, yep.
[56:25.430 --> 56:27.350]  Thanks for listening, uh, for Off the Hook, this is Rob T.
[56:27.450 --> 56:27.790]  Firefly.
[56:28.130 --> 56:28.650]  Have a good week.
[57:01.660 --> 57:06.400]  Oh, I'm about to whip somebody's ass.
[57:09.320 --> 57:14.480]  Oh, I'm about to whip somebody's ass.
[57:15.980 --> 57:23.280]  Oh, if you're gonna leave me alone, you're gonna have to send me home.
[57:24.340 --> 57:29.560]  Cause I'm about to whip somebody's ass.
[58:34.220 --> 58:38.780]  I'm about to whip somebody's ass.
[58:40.860 --> 58:47.060]  Oh, I'm about to whip somebody's ass.
[58:48.260 --> 58:55.420]  Oh, if you don't leave me alone, you're gonna have to send me home.
[58:56.600 --> 59:01.720]  Cause I'm about to whip somebody's ass.
[59:02.460 --> 59:03.460]  Is that right?
[59:12.900 --> 59:16.740]  I'm about to whip somebody's ass.
[59:38.350 --> 59:39.810]  Somebody's ass.
[59:45.250 --> 59:47.970]  Oh, I'm about to whip somebody's
[01:00:04.260 --> 01:00:05.700]  My, my, my.
[01:00:06.760 --> 01:00:07.900]  My, my, my.
[01:00:07.900 --> 01:00:10.040]  That, uh, wasn't, uh, polite.
[01:00:10.780 --> 01:00:11.500]  Ha, ha.
[01:00:12.680 --> 01:00:13.160]  Yeah.
[01:00:13.360 --> 01:00:17.120]  Sounds like the, uh, the police with the, uh, stop and frisk.
[01:00:17.980 --> 01:00:18.460]  Yeah.
[01:00:19.200 --> 01:00:19.280]  Yeah.