[00:00.210 --> 00:02.430]  What is the purpose of artists?
[00:02.850 --> 00:06.650]  Do artists create social change or only represent it in their work?
[00:06.910 --> 00:08.490]  Can anyone be an artist?
[00:08.870 --> 00:12.450]  Join us for a panel discussion followed by audience Q&A.
[00:12.710 --> 00:16.610]  That's Monday, June 16th, 7 to 9 p.m.
[00:16.770 --> 00:21.270]  at The Commons, 388 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.
[00:21.630 --> 00:24.290]  For more information, visit brooklynpeace.org.
[00:41.500 --> 00:44.740]  And you're listening to WBAI New York.
[00:45.660 --> 00:46.620]  It's 7 o'clock.
[00:47.640 --> 00:49.120]  Time for Off the Hook.
[02:09.200 --> 02:10.560]  And a very good evening to everybody.
[02:10.740 --> 02:11.420]  The program is Off the Hook.
[02:11.480 --> 02:13.600]  Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
[02:13.740 --> 02:14.960]  Joined tonight by Mike.
[02:15.180 --> 02:15.640]  Hi there.
[02:15.820 --> 02:16.060]  Kyle.
[02:16.420 --> 02:16.700]  Hi.
[02:17.300 --> 02:18.960]  And I believe Bernie S.
[02:19.080 --> 02:19.740]  is with us as well.
[02:20.280 --> 02:21.480]  Greetings from Pennsylvania.
[02:21.860 --> 02:24.000]  Well, everyone sounds pretty good today.
[02:24.140 --> 02:25.720]  Everyone sounds like you're in the studio.
[02:25.940 --> 02:29.240]  Bernie, you're down in Pennsylvania, but we've got this Comrex thing working fine.
[02:29.400 --> 02:30.120]  Can you hear yourself all right?
[02:30.760 --> 02:31.700]  Yeah, it sounds great.
[02:31.720 --> 02:32.160]  No echo.
[02:32.460 --> 02:33.880]  I'm really happy this is working out well.
[02:33.940 --> 02:36.340]  And you got a chance to test it in Spain.
[02:36.360 --> 02:37.240]  So, hey.
[02:37.580 --> 02:37.900]  Yes.
[02:38.380 --> 02:41.480]  Yes, we were in Spain testing that, I think, two weeks ago.
[02:41.920 --> 02:43.520]  And that seemed to work out pretty well.
[02:43.740 --> 02:45.860]  In addition, here we are again.
[02:46.200 --> 02:47.460]  And guess what, folks?
[02:47.600 --> 02:49.600]  It's still fundraising mode here at the radio station.
[02:49.720 --> 02:51.700]  We'll get into that in just a little bit.
[02:52.120 --> 03:00.620]  If you want to call right away and pledge your undying support to this radio show and this radio station, 212-209-2950 is the phone number to do that at.
[03:00.820 --> 03:05.180]  I mean, we would prefer your undying support, but temporary support is okay, too.
[03:05.180 --> 03:09.720]  Just enough support so that we get the last few digits of your credit card before you lose interest.
[03:13.140 --> 03:16.100]  Yeah, it's... again, we'll have a bunch to say about that.
[03:16.240 --> 03:24.440]  But yeah, Kyle and I were over in Europe visiting some people and some lands that we hadn't been to before as well.
[03:25.280 --> 03:27.180]  Spain, Portugal being a couple of those.
[03:27.380 --> 03:29.340]  And also, we were playing with technology quite a bit.
[03:29.660 --> 03:31.440]  Learned a few things, right?
[03:31.440 --> 03:32.920]  Oh, absolutely.
[03:33.340 --> 03:41.140]  There's all kinds of different systems that we explored and, well, had some trouble with certain things.
[03:41.140 --> 03:48.720]  I think I mentioned on the show last week about, basically, connectivity in general there.
[03:49.020 --> 03:56.300]  How it's a real stark contrast from a lot of the advertising and flashy, high-speed everything.
[03:56.300 --> 04:08.460]  And then you get out in the field and you find certain parts of the world just really haven't gotten it fully implemented and your expectations are a bit, well, underwhelming.
[04:08.460 --> 04:12.340]  But then we left New York and we went to Europe and we found that it was much better over there.
[04:13.240 --> 04:14.480]  Oh, you were talking about Europe?
[04:14.960 --> 04:15.500]  Oh, yeah.
[04:15.640 --> 04:16.080]  Oh, okay.
[04:16.080 --> 04:16.840]  I was talking about...
[04:16.840 --> 04:19.960]  I thought you meant the airport where we couldn't get connected to save our lives.
[04:20.940 --> 04:22.420]  Yeah, there are problems over there.
[04:22.460 --> 04:25.840]  In fact, when we went to Germany, you wouldn't think Germany would be a problem.
[04:26.080 --> 04:28.520]  We were just trying to get on... we even went to a McDonald's.
[04:28.560 --> 04:28.840]  Remember that?
[04:28.900 --> 04:31.820]  We went to a McDonald's because we knew they had free Wi-Fi.
[04:32.300 --> 04:33.100]  That was so weird.
[04:33.100 --> 04:41.080]  We were trying to connect and this happened more than once where there's a Wi-Fi network and they say, okay, you must give us your mobile telephone number.
[04:41.240 --> 04:42.440]  We will send you a code.
[04:42.560 --> 04:44.120]  You enter the code, then you're online.
[04:44.640 --> 04:48.440]  Well, we gave them the mobile phone number and we never got a message.
[04:48.640 --> 04:50.120]  And this happened more than once in Germany.
[04:50.420 --> 04:56.320]  Did get spam afterwards on the mobile phone number, but we never got a message, never got online using that method.
[04:56.640 --> 04:58.360]  You went to McDonald's to get online.
[04:58.360 --> 04:59.700]  You deserve what you get.
[04:59.700 --> 05:00.440]  Well, okay.
[05:00.620 --> 05:02.120]  You want to tell me where else we could have gone?
[05:02.260 --> 05:04.320]  Because we were trying to get online in various other ways.
[05:04.440 --> 05:18.440]  Actually, the one way that did work very well... and I don't mind saying when a company does something good because I'll say when a company does something bad as well, but T-Mobile really has done something tremendously good with the plans that they have.
[05:18.540 --> 05:23.340]  Unlimited data overseas, unlimited texting overseas, really incredible.
[05:23.640 --> 05:27.200]  I used my phone as a hotspot on more than a number of occasions.
[05:27.780 --> 05:37.880]  And that enabled me to basically be on my computer on trains, buses while I was driving, all kinds of times that it was otherwise impossible for me to stay connected.
[05:38.340 --> 05:43.880]  And I got my bill when I got home and the only extra charge was for the phone call that I had to make to off the hook.
[05:44.440 --> 05:45.080]  And that was it.
[05:45.260 --> 05:45.760]  Well, there you go.
[05:45.900 --> 05:46.020]  Yeah.
[05:46.340 --> 05:47.700]  And even that wasn't so bad either.
[05:47.800 --> 05:49.440]  I think that was like 20 cents a minute or something.
[05:49.600 --> 05:51.420]  So it wasn't like it was in the past.
[05:51.420 --> 05:53.380]  So that's $12 for the hour.
[05:53.540 --> 05:54.960]  I hear something like that.
[05:55.040 --> 05:55.140]  Yeah.
[05:55.220 --> 06:02.080]  I hear of people that come home to thousands of dollars of data charges and surprises whenever they travel overseas.
[06:02.080 --> 06:04.480]  So it's nice not to have that worry.
[06:04.600 --> 06:11.880]  We're able to go online, websites on the smartphone and get GPS navigation whenever we need it to.
[06:12.240 --> 06:15.040]  So it's nice not to have to be paranoid, wouldn't you say?
[06:16.200 --> 06:17.000]  Paranoid about what?
[06:17.180 --> 06:17.940]  About charges.
[06:18.580 --> 06:19.440]  Oh, right, right.
[06:19.620 --> 06:19.780]  Yeah.
[06:19.960 --> 06:21.140]  About erroneous charges.
[06:21.140 --> 06:24.640]  And sometimes you have to call them and tell them, okay, I'm not back home.
[06:25.660 --> 06:29.160]  I want to shut the plan off that I had to change.
[06:29.280 --> 06:32.520]  And so it sounds like it's nice with T-Mobile or you don't have to do anything.
[06:32.520 --> 06:33.440]  It's just automatic.
[06:34.220 --> 06:37.500]  But it was frustrating.
[06:37.500 --> 06:39.480]  And it did not work all the time.
[06:39.520 --> 06:40.180]  That was the point.
[06:40.480 --> 06:45.160]  This data and 4G stuff, it was great when it did work, but it wasn't consistent.
[06:45.160 --> 06:50.100]  And it changed a lot with, as you might expect, with where you were in whatever country.
[06:50.360 --> 06:56.540]  And I will point out that McDonald's hotspot was sponsored or hosted by T-Mobile too.
[06:56.780 --> 06:57.120]  So...
[06:57.120 --> 06:57.520]  That's interesting.
[06:57.640 --> 06:59.180]  They have their fair share of issues.
[06:59.520 --> 06:59.800]  Yeah.
[07:00.040 --> 07:06.360]  Well, what's also interesting is that I noticed when I made my phone into a hotspot, maybe somebody knows a technical reason for this.
[07:06.540 --> 07:11.860]  But when I did that, I wasn't able to connect to actually any website using my computer.
[07:11.980 --> 07:13.880]  I could connect using SSH, using Putty.
[07:14.580 --> 07:17.060]  And that's how I read my mail anyway, text-based.
[07:17.240 --> 07:22.940]  If I used Gmail, I'd be out of luck because I wasn't able to connect to an actual website when I made my phone into a hotspot.
[07:23.000 --> 07:23.800]  I don't know why that was.
[07:23.920 --> 07:25.680]  That happened every place we traveled.
[07:25.860 --> 07:31.660]  In Spain, I found it interesting that my phone would not connect to websites often.
[07:31.900 --> 07:36.200]  It would get some kind of data failure, even though we had 4G.
[07:36.480 --> 07:40.260]  It was sometimes hopping from 3G to 4G, sometimes down to 2G.
[07:40.420 --> 07:41.620]  It was like schizophrenia.
[07:41.900 --> 07:43.740]  It would just go back and crazy.
[07:44.920 --> 07:51.420]  Sometimes it would have full LTE, all this high-speed thing lights up on the top, but then it's like 3G or 4G.
[07:51.900 --> 07:53.460]  It just couldn't make up its mind.
[07:53.620 --> 08:02.020]  And it'd just flounder looking for a site and have this progress bar kind of barely going anywhere and just hanging and hanging and hanging.
[08:02.100 --> 08:03.220]  And that's on the phone itself.
[08:03.340 --> 08:07.280]  So that was also a really bizarre behavior with the telephone network in particular.
[08:07.560 --> 08:07.660]  Yeah.
[08:07.740 --> 08:09.220]  And we had to do some pretty high-tech things.
[08:09.340 --> 08:16.540]  Like, for instance, when we got our Spain pass, we had to jump through some hoops to get the PDF sent to us within 24 hours.
[08:16.680 --> 08:20.620]  We didn't find out it took 24 hours to get the train pass until after we bought it.
[08:20.740 --> 08:23.660]  And we were leaving the next morning, so we wanted to get it in time.
[08:24.000 --> 08:28.160]  And so we had this PDF mailed to us, which we then transferred to the phone.
[08:28.260 --> 08:31.800]  And of course, the instructions are, all you have to do is print it out and go to the station.
[08:31.920 --> 08:33.100]  And of course, who travels with a printer?
[08:33.200 --> 08:33.440]  Come on.
[08:34.020 --> 08:41.000]  It's not that easy to just print things out when you're traveling, unless you're staying at the Marriott Marquis or something, and they have all these services for you.
[08:41.340 --> 08:50.120]  Fortunately, we went to the train station, just handed our smartphone under the window to the guy, and he was able to scan the various codes on there and print our tickets that way.
[08:50.240 --> 08:51.380]  But it can be a challenge.
[08:51.560 --> 08:51.920]  Yes, Bernie?
[08:52.600 --> 08:53.180]  A question.
[08:53.280 --> 08:54.760]  Is it called T-Mobile over there?
[08:55.580 --> 08:57.600]  It's Deutsche Telekom.
[08:57.740 --> 08:58.080]  I know that.
[08:58.620 --> 08:58.880]  Right.
[08:59.020 --> 08:59.840]  They call it T-Mobile.
[08:59.980 --> 09:00.600]  I know this is a big T.
[09:00.720 --> 09:02.140]  Sometimes it's Telefonica.
[09:02.140 --> 09:02.880]  I'm not sure.
[09:02.980 --> 09:04.260]  No, Telefonica is Spain.
[09:04.540 --> 09:09.600]  I know they have the same logo, but I think it's a different company name there.
[09:09.720 --> 09:15.060]  And over here in the U.S., it looks like Sprint is on the verge of buying T-Mobile.
[09:15.660 --> 09:15.980]  Really?
[09:16.100 --> 09:16.820]  I did not know that.
[09:17.100 --> 09:17.100]  Yes.
[09:17.260 --> 09:18.960]  Yeah, it's been going on while you've been out of the country.
[09:19.200 --> 09:19.600]  Well, yeah.
[09:19.640 --> 09:20.140]  No one told me.
[09:20.240 --> 09:21.340]  Tell us more about this.
[09:21.720 --> 09:34.960]  Well, the Sprint, which was, I think, last year purchased by SoftBank, a huge Japanese company with a lot of money, now has the capital and has tendered an offer to T-Mobile.
[09:35.100 --> 09:41.080]  And it looks like it's going to go through pending the decision of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
[09:42.180 --> 09:48.760]  You know, AT&T shot down... I'm sorry, the SEC shot down AT&T's bid to buy T-Mobile.
[09:48.900 --> 09:56.600]  And T-Mobile got $4 billion out of the deal because that was in the contract that if it fell through, AT&T had to pay him $4 billion.
[09:57.080 --> 10:03.940]  And right now, the deal is that Sprint would have to pay T-Mobile $1 billion if the deal is not approved by the SEC.
[10:04.300 --> 10:08.840]  But we could be saying goodbye to the T-Mobile brand here in the U.S.
[10:09.000 --> 10:16.540]  It doesn't make any sense because Sprint is a CDMA network and T-Mobile is a GSM network.
[10:16.740 --> 10:19.720]  But I guess under LTE, they can merge them together somehow.
[10:20.060 --> 10:33.440]  Well, I wonder if there's some kind of an organized plot to just basically get agreements to deals that you know will never go through because they're just so all-encompassing.
[10:33.620 --> 10:36.460]  And yet you get a penalty payment if they don't go through.
[10:37.000 --> 10:37.740]  $4 billion.
[10:37.740 --> 10:40.380]  I mean, that's no chump change there.
[10:41.280 --> 10:43.360]  Somebody got a raise for that, I think.
[10:43.720 --> 10:52.140]  Hey, Bernie, in your opinion, if this deal does go through, is there any way it could possibly benefit, you know, normal people as consumers or citizens or whatever?
[10:52.840 --> 10:56.240]  No, I see no advantage to consumers whatsoever from this.
[10:56.360 --> 10:56.980]  It's all downside.
[10:57.420 --> 11:05.180]  Did you guys hear the recent comments by the chairman of Sprint?
[11:05.180 --> 11:07.040]  I've always thought bonds were safe.
[11:07.300 --> 11:07.740]  Whoa, whoa, whoa.
[11:07.780 --> 11:08.500]  Where did that come from?
[11:08.720 --> 11:09.480]  Is that what he said?
[11:10.080 --> 11:12.460]  No, our computer suddenly started playing a commercial.
[11:12.580 --> 11:13.740]  That was kind of scary.
[11:14.280 --> 11:27.040]  No, the chairman of Sprint, Masayoshi Son, S-O-N, he said Americans don't realize how bad their internet service really is.
[11:27.280 --> 11:29.940]  This is the country that invented internet, he said.
[11:30.200 --> 11:32.480]  How can Americans live like this?
[11:33.560 --> 11:36.380]  Basically, he said Comcast is his service provider.
[11:36.860 --> 11:41.280]  He acknowledged that Sprint, which he bought a majority stake in, still has many problems with its network.
[11:41.440 --> 11:43.400]  I've only owned the company for six months.
[11:43.400 --> 11:45.040]  It takes a few years to build.
[11:45.260 --> 11:49.580]  So not exactly a re-endorsement of Sprint there from its chairman.
[11:50.620 --> 12:07.020]  Well, I think it was a comment on the industry as a whole in the United States, how us consumers get screwed with low quality service, low internet speeds, and high prices compared to almost every other country on the planet.
[12:07.700 --> 12:08.300]  Yeah.
[12:08.500 --> 12:09.600]  I think that's what he was referring to.
[12:09.860 --> 12:13.680]  And that is something that we've been sort of facing head on.
[12:13.940 --> 12:19.520]  I know, Kyle, our challenge is in getting bandwidth for our upcoming HOPE conference in July.
[12:20.040 --> 12:20.560]  Wow.
[12:20.800 --> 12:29.540]  What they have in places like Germany and the Netherlands just makes us look so, so far behind that it's comical.
[12:30.880 --> 12:47.620]  We basically, we have so many friends in the industry, so many people who want to help and just getting infrastructure to work properly, to get up to the speeds, you know, even half the speeds that they have in places like Berlin or even camp fields in the middle of the Netherlands.
[12:47.780 --> 12:49.240]  It's a real challenge, isn't it?
[12:50.540 --> 12:52.120]  I don't even want to talk about this.
[12:52.220 --> 12:53.300]  I'm going to start spitting.
[12:53.560 --> 12:53.780]  Yeah.
[12:54.060 --> 12:55.140]  Well, I keep it clean too.
[12:55.240 --> 12:55.880]  It gets me really riled up.
[12:56.560 --> 12:57.600]  We try, folks.
[12:57.700 --> 12:58.400]  We really do try.
[12:58.720 --> 13:05.200]  I don't know what I could speak to in what kind of detail either, but I've been to a couple events.
[13:05.200 --> 13:10.720]  I've seen what people are sort of doing and having fun as far as building these networks.
[13:10.860 --> 13:28.180]  And we really, I don't know, there's a real, uh, separation between the public and their understanding of, of, uh, bandwidth and like institutions like, uh, universities and, and, and private entities, people that are willing to pay for it, uh, whatever it,
[13:28.440 --> 13:29.300]  whatever the cost.
[13:29.520 --> 13:42.220]  And, and in general, we just aren't aware of, um, how like the, uh, like, uh, upstream technologies work and what we should really be after, what we should aspire to.
[13:42.380 --> 13:47.860]  And I think it's really, it's really complex to talk about this, but the, it has a lot to do with infrastructure.
[13:48.160 --> 13:56.840]  And right now, wireless is kicking butt to, um, to paraphrase, uh, some, some comments from a good friend of mine.
[13:57.500 --> 14:04.220]  And, and Kyle, you're talking about wireless, not, you're not talking about like wireless phones and wifi you're talking about, what kind of wireless are you talking about?
[14:04.440 --> 14:06.900]  Well, both Bernie are all of it really.
[14:07.040 --> 14:09.580]  Cause a lot of people are doing most of their internet on the phone anyway.
[14:09.820 --> 14:16.660]  Now they don't even, you know, they use it for instead of a landline or instead of broadband, they just, yeah, all I need is my phone all.
[14:16.760 --> 14:18.000]  And they are proud of that.
[14:18.000 --> 14:21.200]  I'm using a, I'm using a 3g connection right now.
[14:21.340 --> 14:22.360]  Oh, it sounds lovely.
[14:23.300 --> 14:24.380]  In data mode.
[14:24.600 --> 14:24.800]  Yeah.
[14:24.880 --> 14:29.040]  We're using this application, Lucy Live Light to connect to the Comrax there and it works great.
[14:29.280 --> 14:31.720]  I don't use it for all my internet connectivity, but it's great for that.
[14:31.780 --> 14:33.940]  But I think the wireless you were talking about a little bit, it was...
[14:33.940 --> 14:34.080]  Wow.
[14:34.140 --> 14:36.460]  Bernie, if only you could hear how you sound when you say it sounds great.
[14:37.220 --> 14:37.540]  Okay.
[14:37.620 --> 14:38.320]  Well, maybe it doesn't.
[14:38.500 --> 14:40.080]  Maybe don't say that and you'll sound better.
[14:40.200 --> 14:44.480]  It's dropping a little bit, but it's actually really funny and, uh, ironic given what you're saying.
[14:44.880 --> 14:51.700]  Well, it's a bad 3g connection, but we're, are you, at liberty talk about the kind of wireless connection you were talking about for the HOPE conference?
[14:52.220 --> 14:53.100]  Uh, yeah.
[14:53.100 --> 14:58.380]  We can talk about what we're trying to get and we can talk about what we've had in the past and we can talk about what the Europeans have had.
[14:58.600 --> 14:59.520]  Well, yeah.
[14:59.600 --> 15:01.680]  Because that puts it in perspective, I think.
[15:01.900 --> 15:02.200]  Right?
[15:02.440 --> 15:03.480]  Um, yeah.
[15:03.720 --> 15:05.000]  So where would we start?
[15:05.340 --> 15:15.860]  Um, we've had some offers in the last couple of years and people have wanted to help us get terrestrial, I'd say it cutely, terrestrial, um, uh, uplinks to the internet.
[15:15.860 --> 15:19.780]  And what by that I mean is, uh, optical connection, uh, through the hotel.
[15:20.040 --> 15:24.920]  And, and our venue is, it's kind of tricky because we really want to honor the space we're in.
[15:25.040 --> 15:26.920]  We don't want to, there's a lot of politics.
[15:27.100 --> 15:28.160]  There's things in that place.
[15:28.220 --> 15:30.180]  It's a hundred, uh, very old hotel.
[15:30.200 --> 15:31.540]  It was built in the 1600s or something.
[15:31.660 --> 15:31.720]  Yeah.
[15:31.820 --> 15:35.740]  It was an old building, old infrastructure, but it doesn't mean the internet has to stay old forever.
[15:35.740 --> 15:36.280]  Exactly.
[15:36.560 --> 15:47.060]  And in short, um, we've, we've really, um, and we're continuing and, and going to work with them as much as we can, um, perhaps for 2016 and on into the future.
[15:47.540 --> 15:50.500]  Uh, but the, the timing is a little odd.
[15:50.660 --> 15:53.320]  They're also trying, they've got renovations and things going on.
[15:53.400 --> 15:56.520]  So they're also trying to, um, God, I'm making excuses for them.
[15:56.760 --> 15:58.900]  They're also trying to upgrade their infrastructure.
[15:59.260 --> 16:04.120]  They've got deals obviously with cable television because, uh, people watch TV when they're in hotels.
[16:04.340 --> 16:06.340]  So it was a bit odd.
[16:06.340 --> 16:07.900]  Uh, and we really, really tried.
[16:07.980 --> 16:09.340]  It's not all doom and gloom.
[16:09.440 --> 16:11.460]  I mean, we, we are going to have a good network.
[16:11.600 --> 16:12.360]  There's no question about that.
[16:12.420 --> 16:13.860]  It's just, we want to have a great network.
[16:13.980 --> 16:19.600]  What they do in, in, in places like Germany and Netherlands, they have so much bandwidth.
[16:19.840 --> 16:22.680]  I mean, I don't know the numbers, Kyle, you have a better idea what the numbers are.
[16:22.760 --> 16:23.760]  It's something ridiculous.
[16:24.000 --> 16:25.480]  Like, um, okay.
[16:25.560 --> 16:31.880]  Well, I know, um, for like, uh, I believe it's dream hack or, or, um, uh, what is it?
[16:31.920 --> 16:35.340]  The gathering, they have, uh, a hundred, they have a terabyte backbone.
[16:35.380 --> 16:37.680]  And this is a big gaming, uh, event.
[16:37.840 --> 16:39.340]  And of course there are up links a lot slower.
[16:39.480 --> 16:45.280]  Now, a lot of the events we've gone to, I know BCC when, um, the Congress was still at BCC.
[16:45.500 --> 16:50.540]  I know they were able to bring in like 40 gigabits, maybe a hundred gigabit, uh, uplink.
[16:50.640 --> 16:53.620]  That's a uplink to the internet that that's distinct from your local.
[16:53.740 --> 17:01.660]  They have signs, they have signs up, say, use more bandwidth because people aren't using enough bandwidth, a bunch of thousands and thousands of hackers and they're not using enough bandwidth.
[17:01.720 --> 17:02.800]  That's how much they have.
[17:02.960 --> 17:09.200]  Uh, not, not to sound smug about this, but they actually do have more bandwidth than many countries.
[17:09.400 --> 17:12.240]  In fact, it was said that they have more bandwidth than the entire continent of Africa.
[17:12.600 --> 17:24.620]  That's, you know, there's something wrong with that, I think in general, but the fact remains that it can be done when the will is there, when the, when the, uh, intelligence is there, uh, you can build all kinds of, of really cool things.
[17:24.620 --> 17:25.500]  And that's what we're trying to do.
[17:25.600 --> 17:27.880]  And that's what I think eventually we will do.
[17:28.080 --> 17:28.420]  Absolutely.
[17:28.640 --> 17:40.620]  And I think the point is, um, that when you only have so much access to the internet, um, it's, it's, it's, uh, it limits your ability to physically have a strong presence there.
[17:40.760 --> 17:56.500]  And, and part of what that people are able to do, um, at these events in, in, uh, Europe is, is have, uh, a public facing IP for every single person and perhaps every single device or even blocks of IPs for people, um, to play with.
[17:56.600 --> 17:58.220]  And that's very powerful.
[17:58.260 --> 18:10.720]  And if you can do a lot of things very quickly with that, a four day event can be incredibly productive because literally, uh, your, uh, your presence there, your access is limited to four days.
[18:10.720 --> 18:22.920]  So however much you can do per second matters, especially if people are doing innovative things, very large files, whatever, uh, hosting, um, um, massive, uh, sites or whatever, whatever the point is for them.
[18:23.140 --> 18:31.260]  So, um, um, we would like to emulate that, whether it's for our internal network or for, um, for our uplink.
[18:31.400 --> 18:33.900]  And the two are very important, uh, together.
[18:34.140 --> 18:44.960]  If, if one or the other becomes a bottleneck, it's very hard to A, have a presence on the internet and B, move things around between people, uh, locally and, and combinations of both.
[18:45.180 --> 18:47.940]  So we really want to play and explore and innovate.
[18:48.200 --> 18:50.640]  And part of innovation is having resources.
[18:50.960 --> 19:07.120]  Now, if you'd like to, uh, join that conversation, if, if, uh, you're part of, uh, uh, say an organization or a company or just a, uh, a group of people that, uh, wants to help us build this, if not for this year, then for future years, but maybe, maybe we can even do things even bigger and better this year,
[19:07.640 --> 19:10.220]  uh, write to volunteer at hope.net.
[19:10.860 --> 19:11.700]  Yes, volunteers.
[19:12.020 --> 19:13.400]  I think they both work at hope.net.
[19:13.580 --> 19:13.920]  Absolutely.
[19:14.100 --> 19:18.440]  And, uh, and, and we can, uh, link you in with the people who are working hard on this.
[19:18.640 --> 19:23.260]  It's a really, really big conversation and something that I've been pushing for, for a couple of years.
[19:23.440 --> 19:27.000]  I've seen some really amazing things, uh, at events, uh, elsewhere.
[19:27.080 --> 19:39.080]  And I know that there's a lot of really capable, talented people, uh, here in the States who, who, uh, understand the stuff, understand what I am saying and, uh, and want this future for us too.
[19:39.240 --> 19:40.920]  And I, I just, I want things to evolve.
[19:41.100 --> 19:43.320]  I do not want them to just be the same.
[19:43.500 --> 19:43.680]  Right.
[19:43.940 --> 19:45.720]  We do have amazing things this year too.
[19:46.080 --> 19:50.540]  Uh, we just, like I said, we want it to be more amazing, but, uh, you won't be disappointed when you come to hope.
[19:50.600 --> 19:55.840]  I don't think network wise, uh, but, uh, we're always striving for more and we're going to get more.
[19:56.160 --> 19:56.520]  Absolutely.
[19:56.700 --> 19:57.200]  At some point.
[19:57.280 --> 19:57.400]  Yeah.
[19:57.880 --> 20:06.280]  Uh, sticking with hope for a moment, uh, we started to unveil our speaker list, uh, this week, and, uh, I think we have, what is it?
[20:06.360 --> 20:07.900]  25 talks up there right now.
[20:08.040 --> 20:15.500]  We're adding a bunch every day and wow, uh, we're getting quite a response already to, uh, uh, to the quality of the talks that we've posted.
[20:15.640 --> 20:21.640]  A lot of, um, surveillance themed, um, um, panels and discussions going on.
[20:21.700 --> 20:27.440]  Not surprising, you know, considering that, uh, the whole Edward Snowden, uh, deal started to unravel last year.
[20:27.620 --> 20:31.060]  Uh, but Bernie, I know, uh, you, you've been heavily involved in this.
[20:31.060 --> 20:36.260]  Um, would you say that, uh, this year is, is more surveillance themed than, than ever?
[20:37.400 --> 20:38.600]  It's in the air, Emmanuel.
[20:38.780 --> 20:39.560]  It's what's going on.
[20:39.700 --> 20:43.200]  And hope is, uh, got its finger on the pulse of what's going on every two years.
[20:43.400 --> 20:52.760]  So, uh, yeah, that is the, that is, that's the coin of the realm right now is, uh, surveillance, security, privacy, anonymity, whistleblowing.
[20:53.120 --> 21:02.920]  All these things are hot topics and they will be covered, uh, extensively by a lot of fascinating speakers at hope X this July 18th to 20th.
[21:03.020 --> 21:16.820]  And that's one thing that when Kyle and I were, uh, we're, we're traveling around in various places, uh, we learned just how connected all of this is, how people are following, uh, what, uh, other groups are doing, how it all kind of ties together.
[21:16.980 --> 21:20.060]  And hackers are really at the center of it all.
[21:20.240 --> 21:35.300]  And it's just incredible to me how year after year, we seem to rediscover this, but all of these, um, all these leaks, all these revelations, all these, uh, people standing up to authority, uh, they're either inspired by or hackers are inspired by them.
[21:35.500 --> 21:47.400]  Uh, it's, it's basically the same mentality of rebelliousness, uh, spreading knowledge, learning, making things better, and, um, standing up to oppression because that's all over.
[21:47.840 --> 21:54.980]  And I think you'll see that reflected in the talks this, this year, some really, really good people, uh, great organizations being represented.
[21:55.760 --> 21:59.520]  Um, just go to x.hope.net and you'll see what we have so far.
[21:59.520 --> 22:12.280]  And every day that's going to be updated a little bit more until we have, I think we're going to have what, about a hundred talks, maybe more actually, if you count all the things that will be unscheduled and if you count workshops and, and all sorts of other things that will be going on.
[22:12.480 --> 22:12.560]  Movies.
[22:12.900 --> 22:13.260]  Yes.
[22:13.720 --> 22:14.560]  You want to tell us something about it?
[22:14.700 --> 22:14.760]  All kinds of stuff.
[22:14.820 --> 22:15.620]  You've been working on movies.
[22:15.860 --> 22:22.220]  Uh, there, there are some interesting films that, uh, are coming out or, or that we have, uh, gotten ahold of anything you care to share?
[22:22.420 --> 22:28.320]  Well, um, I can't, we're still in negotiations on a lot of, but these, these are, these are films that are going to happen.
[22:28.540 --> 22:41.540]  Uh, these are, these are very new worthy films that, for instance, the film, uh, the, the internet's own boy, the story of Aaron Swartz, which is not released yet, will be screened at, uh, at Hope X.
[22:42.140 --> 22:48.120]  And, um, we have some other really interesting films, uh, that it looks like they're certain, but I can't announce them yet.
[22:48.400 --> 22:55.880]  But this is really a first rate film lineup of films that might not have even been seen in regular theaters yet that will be part of Hope.
[22:56.460 --> 22:58.200]  Some of them, you'll even have free popcorn.
[22:58.200 --> 22:59.320]  We just confirmed today.
[22:59.500 --> 23:00.460]  Oh, that is confirmed.
[23:00.620 --> 23:00.760]  Okay.
[23:00.820 --> 23:01.160]  That's good.
[23:01.460 --> 23:02.620]  Yes, it is confirmed today.
[23:03.200 --> 23:06.260]  So, um, yeah, this is a, this is going to be a lot of fun.
[23:06.320 --> 23:12.260]  It just, it's just one of like, it's just one of the many facets of Hope that is going to make it a really fun event.
[23:12.800 --> 23:22.300]  Uh, there's so many other things going on, but you'd want to catch a, uh, a movie or a late night thriller, or, I mean, it's all hacker related films about what's going on today.
[23:22.660 --> 23:30.480]  Let me just say that if you go to the website and you check out all that's been revealed so far, that is but a mere tiny fraction of what is to come.
[23:30.620 --> 23:34.340]  And there are some things that are to come that will simply blow your socks off.
[23:34.420 --> 23:49.520]  So I, I really do record, I say this occasionally, but this time there really is a good chance that we are going to fill up, uh, because of the, um, uh, the enthusiasm that we're seeing because of the quality of speakers and talks and all the other activities that we have.
[23:49.700 --> 23:55.180]  So I, I strongly recommend that if you are considering going, that you register while you can.
[23:55.360 --> 23:59.280]  Uh, the hotel is already, uh, sold out of the block that, uh, we were allocated.
[23:59.520 --> 24:02.740]  I think you can still get rooms, but not at the special, special rate.
[24:02.880 --> 24:04.400]  It's still a pretty good rate, I think.
[24:04.840 --> 24:09.540]  Uh, but, uh, as far as registration for the conference itself, x.hope.net has all the information on that.
[24:09.780 --> 24:21.340]  And, uh, definitely, uh, definitely sign up while you can, because I'm not sure how much longer we'll be able to, uh, uh, to, um, basically have the space because we, we could fill up.
[24:21.440 --> 24:25.180]  That's never happened before, but it's entirely, uh, entirely likely impossible this time.
[24:25.620 --> 24:26.880]  How will we know, Emmanuel?
[24:26.920 --> 24:26.980]  What's the capacity?
[24:27.160 --> 24:27.280]  Yeah.
[24:27.560 --> 24:28.240]  What is the capacity?
[24:28.420 --> 24:29.560]  Well, I think we're going to find that out.
[24:29.700 --> 24:31.420]  That's, that's what I, I'm not sure.
[24:31.960 --> 24:36.180]  Uh, it's, you know, there's CCC, I know has a huge amount of people now.
[24:36.500 --> 24:44.680]  Uh, we don't have the facilities to get that high in numbers, which is why it's more critical that, uh, we could sell out a lot quicker.
[24:45.180 --> 24:51.320]  Um, you'd think New York City would have lots of space, but, uh, yeah, there's lots of spaces, but not one big, huge space.
[24:51.400 --> 24:52.640]  And I kind of prefer it that way.
[24:52.740 --> 25:08.300]  I'd rather not have 10,000 people, uh, that we're, uh, responsible for, uh, but maybe more like, uh, four or 5,000 is, is basically, I think the max that we could ever hope to, unless we, we find another floor in the hotel and that hotel does have secret floors.
[25:08.440 --> 25:09.740]  So maybe we could do something like that.
[25:10.060 --> 25:10.800]  That'd be something.
[25:10.940 --> 25:11.020]  Yeah.
[25:11.160 --> 25:12.180]  It's, it's probably possible.
[25:12.480 --> 25:13.740]  This sounds probably to our audience.
[25:13.880 --> 25:14.460]  Like it's crazy.
[25:14.560 --> 25:20.840]  Like we've been holding events in this building for however many years, there are floors that are unknown to us, but there probably are.
[25:21.100 --> 25:25.340]  Well, there's the A, B and C floor that nobody seems to know what that's all about in the hotel.
[25:25.360 --> 25:29.920]  If you go up in the hotel elevator, you see all these weird floors that the elevator never stops at.
[25:30.360 --> 25:32.360]  And there, there, there's some history there as well.
[25:32.580 --> 25:34.860]  The hotel also has a 13th floor, which is kind of cool.
[25:35.020 --> 25:39.860]  But, but these are the floors that are known to us, even if we don't know what goes on in them, there's probably floors we don't even know about.
[25:39.980 --> 25:40.220]  Yes.
[25:40.400 --> 25:40.620]  Yes.
[25:40.780 --> 25:41.860]  I've been to some of those floors.
[25:42.060 --> 25:43.620]  Well, we will be on four of the floors.
[25:43.900 --> 25:48.380]  That's, that's how big this is getting four, first floor, second floor, sixth floor, and 18th floor.
[25:49.100 --> 25:51.600]  Uh, uh, we can only keep expanding.
[25:51.680 --> 25:53.500]  You know, there are more rooms that we can take.
[25:53.620 --> 25:55.360]  Uh, so, uh, anything is possible.
[25:55.540 --> 25:56.840]  And the hotel is Hotel Pennsylvania.
[25:56.840 --> 26:01.020]  Of course, you can go to Hotel Penn dot com and see what availability is over there.
[26:01.140 --> 26:02.360]  But this is going to be awesome.
[26:02.500 --> 26:03.880]  This is going to be really, uh, amazing.
[26:03.940 --> 26:09.500]  It's our 10th conference, 20th anniversary of the, uh, founding of the Hope Conference, 30th anniversary of 2600 Magazine.
[26:10.140 --> 26:12.200]  It's a year of anniversaries.
[26:12.580 --> 26:14.700]  It's, it's, it's really going to be something else.
[26:15.300 --> 26:18.120]  Uh, Bernie, anything else you'd like to update people on for the conference?
[26:19.540 --> 26:25.260]  All I can say is I'm, I'm, I'm exhausted and, and pumped up at the same time.
[26:25.260 --> 26:30.800]  We all are from, I mean, we've been doing, doing, almost nothing but hope planning for months.
[26:31.360 --> 26:34.320]  And, uh, it's getting more intense as it approaches.
[26:34.800 --> 26:36.140]  So we're just all juggling.
[26:36.440 --> 26:41.240]  I feel like one of those jugglers in the circus is like juggling all these plates, spinning plates on sticks.
[26:41.460 --> 26:48.020]  That's what we're all kind of doing right now, trying to get all this stuff up in the air and, and make sure it all happens, uh, and flows.
[26:48.280 --> 26:51.420]  And I would bet we couldn't get somebody to actually do that at the conference.
[26:51.480 --> 26:55.660]  So if anyone out there has that ability, please come and, uh, and bring your plates.
[26:55.860 --> 26:58.380]  We're not going to supply the plates and you have to clean up the mess too.
[26:58.860 --> 27:00.260]  But, uh, that would be something.
[27:00.480 --> 27:01.540]  I'll supply some plates.
[27:01.720 --> 27:01.980]  All right.
[27:02.020 --> 27:02.520]  There you go.
[27:02.880 --> 27:03.800]  They have to break them.
[27:03.920 --> 27:05.000]  Oh, I have, I have an announcement, Emmanuel.
[27:05.020 --> 27:05.300]  Go ahead.
[27:05.600 --> 27:13.160]  I know you always, uh, uh, groan when you hear this, but the FCC, we were just talking about, um, I mean, weren't we?
[27:13.260 --> 27:23.620]  No, we weren't, we were talking about the FCC, the FCC, uh, has awarded the Hope X conference, a special radio call sign.
[27:23.780 --> 27:24.140]  All right.
[27:24.200 --> 27:25.620]  Why would I groan about that?
[27:25.960 --> 27:26.800]  That's great.
[27:26.960 --> 27:28.220]  Like the whole ham radio thing.
[27:28.340 --> 27:31.760]  You're kind of like, uh, but I mean, ham radio is really the...
[27:31.760 --> 27:36.220]  Did I not drive out to Dayton how many times in the, in the 2600 van that was it?
[27:36.300 --> 27:36.380]  Okay.
[27:36.480 --> 27:37.880]  It takes me 15 hours to get out there.
[27:38.680 --> 27:39.940]  Never, never complain.
[27:40.100 --> 27:40.220]  Yeah.
[27:40.580 --> 27:43.380]  Ham radio operators are the original communications hackers.
[27:43.380 --> 27:46.360]  They were, they were hacking communications before there were telephones.
[27:46.900 --> 27:50.060]  Um, so maybe not before, but before...
[27:50.060 --> 27:52.060]  Wouldn't you say the telegraph hackers would be the first?
[27:52.500 --> 27:53.860]  Well, could be, could be.
[27:54.300 --> 28:03.660]  Um, but anyway, uh, more than, for more than a hundred years, there have been hackers that have been, uh, hacking, uh, communications, wireless, wireless communications more than a hundred years ago.
[28:03.760 --> 28:04.280]  Can you believe it?
[28:04.500 --> 28:04.640]  Yeah.
[28:04.800 --> 28:15.500]  Anyway, uh, the call sign is W2H, special FCC call sign for the special Amateur radio station on the 18th floor of the Hotel Pennsylvania.
[28:15.800 --> 28:23.540]  Last year, we made contact with something like 20 different countries with losing 5 watts of power.
[28:23.740 --> 28:26.640]  Now, are we contacting them or are they contacting us?
[28:26.800 --> 28:27.020]  Both.
[28:27.220 --> 28:28.220]  These are broadcasts.
[28:28.280 --> 28:29.500]  These are two-way communications.
[28:29.720 --> 28:29.840]  Okay.
[28:30.960 --> 28:34.000]  Data communications using a data mode called PSK-31.
[28:34.700 --> 28:37.820]  And, you know, Eastern Europe, Cuba, all over the place.
[28:37.820 --> 28:40.480]  Did I hear right, Bernie, that you're going to try and contact a space station?
[28:41.380 --> 28:42.820]  Yes, it just happens.
[28:43.620 --> 28:47.080]  This is like, this is the kind of stuff, the confluence that happens at Hope.
[28:47.300 --> 28:50.460]  It turns out that Saturday morning at 9.05 a.m.
[28:50.900 --> 28:54.100]  in Cheshire, Cheshire Catalyst brought this to our attention the other day.
[28:54.820 --> 28:56.400]  At 9.05 a.m.
[28:56.580 --> 29:02.760]  Saturday morning, which is right in the middle of Hope, the International Space Station will be passing right overhead.
[29:03.140 --> 29:04.160]  Right over the hotel?
[29:04.680 --> 29:05.820]  Right over the hotel.
[29:05.980 --> 29:06.060]  Interesting.
[29:06.060 --> 29:10.240]  If you had binoculars, if you had binoculars or a telescope, you could probably even see it.
[29:10.240 --> 29:11.500]  In the daytime.
[29:11.880 --> 29:16.080]  No, yeah, you can, because with, like, the sun's hitting the solar panels or something.
[29:16.180 --> 29:20.880]  But the bottom line is, we'll be able to see it using ham radio technology.
[29:21.100 --> 29:24.940]  There is a ham radio station on the International Space Station.
[29:24.940 --> 29:26.820]  It's called a repeater, a digipeater.
[29:26.980 --> 29:28.040]  It's packet radio.
[29:28.280 --> 29:33.460]  And we are going to set up a, what's called a terminal node controller, and bounce packets off that.
[29:33.460 --> 29:37.760]  And we will get a, we will probably get a confirmed contact going through the space station.
[29:37.900 --> 29:48.460]  Now, we can also try to get a voice contact, but that's much harder to get, because the radio channel clogs up with everybody trying to have a voice conversation with the astronaut.
[29:48.720 --> 29:53.420]  And the astronauts don't have better things to do than to get on a microphone all day long and talk to ham radio.
[29:53.420 --> 29:56.460]  Yeah, but if thousands of hackers are calling them, they really should pick up the phone.
[29:57.920 --> 30:07.260]  But we will, I'm saying there's a very good chance we will establish a brief radio data communication through the International Space Station from Hope.
[30:07.300 --> 30:09.920]  It just happens to line up just perfect timing this year.
[30:10.180 --> 30:10.520]  All right.
[30:10.560 --> 30:16.280]  Well, we should double check that to make sure it does line up then, because the space station passes over quite a few times.
[30:16.560 --> 30:17.580]  Kyle and I have seen it.
[30:18.160 --> 30:21.300]  We've lost count of how many times we've seen it, at night, obviously.
[30:21.840 --> 30:27.640]  But I'm sure it probably will pass over more than once during the weekend, because it does pass quite a bit.
[30:28.640 --> 30:28.960]  Right.
[30:29.060 --> 30:33.460]  But this seems like the best one, like, during daytime hours where people are going to be awake.
[30:33.760 --> 30:35.920]  So this is, it's just good timing.
[30:36.040 --> 30:37.140]  Saturday morning, we're going to try.
[30:37.240 --> 30:43.040]  So anybody coming to Hope, stop by the 18th floor, right by the main entrance to the conference rooms.
[30:43.080 --> 30:45.300]  You'll see the ham radio station set up there at 9 o'clock.
[30:45.560 --> 30:52.100]  You're going to see us establish, very likely, you'll see us try to establish communications through the International Space Station.
[30:52.140 --> 30:54.460]  Well, that alone would probably be more entertaining than the actual communications.
[30:54.700 --> 30:58.020]  So I advise people to go there and watch this happen.
[30:58.360 --> 31:05.540]  It's just one of many, many things that will be happening at the Hope Conference, where we've got Segway rides as well, and the usual.
[31:05.540 --> 31:06.000]  Yeah, that's confirmed.
[31:06.200 --> 31:07.260]  The usual fun and games.
[31:08.060 --> 31:11.600]  So again, x.hope.net is our website.
[31:12.680 --> 31:15.020]  Okay, we are in fundraising mode.
[31:15.020 --> 31:16.320]  Yes, we mentioned that before.
[31:17.040 --> 31:18.280]  Week number six.
[31:18.860 --> 31:22.860]  Not too thrilled about it, obviously, because it just seems to go on forever.
[31:22.860 --> 31:23.780]  We know this.
[31:23.980 --> 31:28.160]  But that's how the radio station survives, how we stay on the air.
[31:29.520 --> 31:39.060]  We basically have had our problems over the past several months, and we've been very public about these problems as far as getting premiums fulfilled.
[31:39.060 --> 31:43.380]  I'd like to read a couple of notes from some of our listeners.
[31:43.920 --> 31:45.840]  This is from Ray out in Phoenix.
[31:46.100 --> 31:48.380]  I'm just getting caught up with the past episodes.
[31:48.380 --> 31:52.040]  I pledged $125 during the October 9th show, 2013.
[31:52.600 --> 31:56.400]  I was expecting to get the thumb drive at the WikiLeaks and Snowden documents.
[31:56.600 --> 32:00.780]  It's no consolation knowing that I'm not the only one who hasn't received them.
[32:00.940 --> 32:03.340]  But at least I now have hope.
[32:03.580 --> 32:04.040]  X.
[32:04.240 --> 32:05.540]  Sorry, couldn't resist.
[32:07.000 --> 32:07.900]  Ray, you're forgiven.
[32:07.900 --> 32:11.980]  As a side note, the charge that was put on my card by WBAI was...
[32:11.980 --> 32:14.680]  If they go into the specifics there, we don't have to get into that.
[32:14.820 --> 32:35.040]  But yeah, Ray, nobody has gotten those premiums yet, because, Bernie, correct me if I'm wrong, we still have not succeeded in getting the station to live up to its promise to buy the thumb drives in the first place after we meticulously got all of the data together and even purchased a thumb drive duplicator.
[32:35.160 --> 32:35.520]  Is that correct?
[32:35.520 --> 32:41.520]  Yeah, actually, ironically, I think you spent more for the duplicator than they would have had to spend for the blank USB flash drives.
[32:41.700 --> 32:48.380]  But in any case, the station raked in about $8,000, which they needed to pay the transmitter bill and a lot of other things.
[32:48.680 --> 32:55.640]  But they neglected to do the little minor part about fulfilling premiums 10 months ago for that particular offering.
[32:56.220 --> 32:59.140]  We have reminded them literally dozens of times.
[32:59.160 --> 33:00.300]  Oh, I think it's more than that.
[33:00.760 --> 33:03.620]  All right, probably, I'm sure there's been hundreds of emails.
[33:03.620 --> 33:05.140]  I think we've hit 100, I really do.
[33:05.260 --> 33:16.800]  But for those people that think it's all some big nefarious plot, let me just step in here and say that over the past six weeks of this fundraiser, we have not been able to offer any new premiums of our own.
[33:16.880 --> 33:17.820]  We always do that.
[33:18.000 --> 33:19.800]  We come up with some really good material.
[33:20.360 --> 33:25.000]  But the reason we have not done that is because we don't want more people to not get their premiums.
[33:25.100 --> 33:27.300]  And we've heard so many complaints of people not getting them.
[33:27.300 --> 33:34.400]  And what we said to the station before this fundraiser, to management at the station before the fundraiser began, was, let's solve this problem.
[33:34.580 --> 33:37.120]  Let's get these thumb drives so we can offer more premiums.
[33:37.580 --> 33:40.780]  And we have not been able to get them to do this.
[33:40.920 --> 33:47.620]  Now, the station has lost many thousands of dollars that we could have raised with our premiums that we always donate to the radio station.
[33:48.260 --> 33:52.820]  So it's not a question of the station not wanting to fulfill this.
[33:52.860 --> 33:56.980]  It's a question of communication barriers and problems.
[33:57.300 --> 34:00.760]  Because it would have benefited the station so much to solve this problem.
[34:00.880 --> 34:03.320]  We would have raised a lot more than I'm sure we've raised already.
[34:04.640 --> 34:10.640]  And probably would have raised a lot more tonight if we had some really kick-ass premiums to give away as well.
[34:11.980 --> 34:13.040]  All right, here's another letter.
[34:13.240 --> 34:15.980]  I received the premium digital audio recorder last week.
[34:16.020 --> 34:17.980]  Yes, some premiums have indeed gone out.
[34:18.120 --> 34:21.300]  And we want to thank the people, the volunteers who have helped with that process.
[34:21.420 --> 34:24.440]  I had pledged for it in May, May 1913.
[34:24.440 --> 34:26.040]  I think that might be a typo.
[34:26.360 --> 34:28.700]  But again, I'm not entirely sure.
[34:29.300 --> 34:30.040]  May 1913.
[34:30.860 --> 34:38.240]  Yeah, if I could receive the OM Conference 120 DVD set pledged for it even earlier in time, I'd be even happier.
[34:38.420 --> 34:40.400]  You know, there's another example.
[34:40.660 --> 34:45.560]  These are the premiums that we delivered to the station a long time ago that for some reason did not go out.
[34:45.980 --> 34:53.040]  And we don't know what to say about that because we've already fulfilled these premiums and they should have gone to the people who pledged for them.
[34:53.160 --> 34:55.720]  So we're still working with the station on that.
[34:56.560 --> 34:58.160]  And this is from Brian.
[34:58.160 --> 35:01.800]  I know you're still working on getting the WikiLeaks thumb drive promo going.
[35:02.980 --> 35:06.200]  And you call for people to ask to contact you if they're missing a promo.
[35:06.460 --> 35:09.400]  So yeah, add me to the list.
[35:10.600 --> 35:23.580]  The interesting thing here, and here's another letter from Joshua, who says, if I get the USB stick before my album comes out on vinyl and USB stick and download, I plan to include its contents as a bonus on the USB version of my album.
[35:23.720 --> 35:25.760]  And that would happen sometime next year.
[35:25.900 --> 35:35.000]  So yeah, if we can get our act together and send the premiums out before next year, it'll go out on an album and be distributed even further.
[35:35.240 --> 35:44.240]  And what better way to help spread all these leaks and to give them to our listeners so they can distribute them in their creative, imaginative ways.
[35:44.800 --> 35:50.280]  So all that said, I think we all still believe that the radio station deserves our support.
[35:50.760 --> 35:54.560]  I just wish it was better coordinated so that we could be efficient.
[35:54.660 --> 35:56.400]  We're trying our best here at Off the Hook.
[35:56.520 --> 35:57.040]  We really are.
[35:57.240 --> 35:59.140]  And we're going to keep pestering and nagging.
[35:59.280 --> 36:04.660]  And it doesn't make people happy for us to do this, but it's what we have to do in order to fulfill our commitments.
[36:05.140 --> 36:07.400]  Phone number 212-209-2950.
[36:07.460 --> 36:11.400]  Pledge your support or go to give2wbai.org.
[36:11.500 --> 36:12.200]  That's the number 2.
[36:12.940 --> 36:13.800]  Give2wbai.org.
[36:13.800 --> 36:16.760]  Mention Off the Hook as your favorite show if, in fact, it is your favorite show.
[36:16.940 --> 36:19.860]  And hopefully that'll count for something.
[36:20.120 --> 36:22.740]  And hopefully we will raise enough to keep the station going.
[36:23.000 --> 36:27.740]  And hopefully people will listen and fulfill the premiums that we have supplied.
[36:28.160 --> 36:30.160]  I don't know what else we can say.
[36:30.160 --> 36:31.620]  Anyone have anything to add?
[36:32.900 --> 36:33.260]  No?
[36:33.980 --> 36:35.660]  I mean, I think it is that simple.
[36:35.960 --> 36:36.140]  Yeah.
[36:36.360 --> 36:45.600]  If you want us to stay on the air, if you want this program to stay on the air, even if this is the only program on this radio station you want us to stay on the air, you're missing out if that's the case.
[36:45.760 --> 36:47.500]  But some people like to miss out.
[36:48.400 --> 36:49.820]  We can only do it with your support.
[36:50.560 --> 36:53.940]  And I would just add the station is sort of still in flux.
[36:55.260 --> 37:03.520]  We're wanting to build out some studio space and really have an inspiring facility for the future.
[37:04.160 --> 37:05.900]  We've cut a lot of costs, I guess.
[37:06.060 --> 37:06.280]  I don't know.
[37:06.320 --> 37:08.820]  There's a lot of things about the station that have been sacrificed.
[37:09.140 --> 37:18.120]  And, well, it doesn't stop insofar as being an expense, especially the transmitter itself, which is precious.
[37:18.460 --> 37:21.620]  So, yeah, your contributions, they matter a lot.
[37:21.720 --> 37:40.240]  And they affect a lot of people, not just the folks at the station here and programs like ours, but people who listen, people who learn, and, well, the community that's impacted that gets to have this voice and not just another commercial station.
[37:40.740 --> 37:41.360]  Right.
[37:41.740 --> 37:44.360]  All right, again, 212-209-2950.
[37:44.840 --> 37:45.860]  It's a struggle.
[37:45.860 --> 37:52.560]  It's a constant battle to keep moving forward, but that's the only direction we know how to move in.
[37:52.560 --> 37:56.860]  So, help us do that by calling 212-209-2950.
[37:57.080 --> 38:00.920]  There are all kinds of BAI premiums being offered as well.
[38:01.040 --> 38:04.640]  And since those are in-house, it's quite likely those will be sent out quickly.
[38:05.120 --> 38:08.640]  So, I hope that's the case.
[38:09.120 --> 38:09.640]  Emmanuel?
[38:09.800 --> 38:09.980]  Yes.
[38:10.360 --> 38:17.720]  I just want to reiterate to our listeners that it's not that we're not offering our new, our special off-the-hook premiums.
[38:18.320 --> 38:24.500]  It's not that we've stopped offering these off-the-hook premiums because we want people to not pledge to the station.
[38:24.600 --> 38:25.760]  We want them to pledge to the station.
[38:25.760 --> 38:30.860]  We just don't want to create an additional backlog of the premiums that we donate to the station.
[38:30.960 --> 38:31.340]  Exactly, yes.
[38:31.340 --> 38:32.840]  Which the station just doesn't want to send.
[38:33.600 --> 38:33.960]  So...
[38:33.960 --> 38:37.700]  Imagine, we have this whole mess with the thumb drives.
[38:38.260 --> 38:40.140]  Multiply that times six, okay?
[38:40.140 --> 38:47.740]  If we had additional premiums for the six weeks of this fundraiser, then we'd be dealing with this for the rest of our lives.
[38:47.760 --> 38:49.700]  We have to have a system that works.
[38:49.740 --> 38:51.100]  We have to have a system that's efficient.
[38:52.100 --> 38:58.000]  And we've tried everything polite and nice and through channels to get this to happen.
[38:58.440 --> 39:01.600]  And so now we're stepping it up a little bit.
[39:01.780 --> 39:06.300]  Yeah, we've been as cooperative as we could possibly be about this.
[39:06.520 --> 39:08.080]  And really, it comes down to integrity.
[39:08.080 --> 39:14.040]  And we really would like to honor our word and have the station do the same.
[39:14.400 --> 39:25.660]  Hey, you know, on that subject, Kyle, integrity, honoring words, things like that, we have a situation that's brewing at the magazine at 2600.
[39:26.600 --> 39:35.500]  Yeah, we kind of have to get into this a little bit because maybe it won't result in anything bad and maybe it'll go away.
[39:35.760 --> 39:42.520]  But writing is on the wall and we're a little concerned because we've been down this road before.
[39:42.840 --> 39:53.700]  We got word a couple of weeks ago that our biggest distributor, Source Interlink, was closing its doors, fired everybody on their distribution staff.
[39:53.700 --> 40:01.960]  They basically distributed all kinds of magazines, including Time Magazine, to newsstands, bookstores, all around the country, in fact, all around the world.
[40:02.860 --> 40:09.240]  But they weren't doing it efficiently enough to make much of a profit, I guess.
[40:09.880 --> 40:14.260]  And Time Magazine apparently lost patience with them and said, you know what, we're not doing this anymore.
[40:14.540 --> 40:22.320]  And when they got that news from Time, that big source of income to them no longer coming in, they decided, okay, you know what, we're not even going to bother anymore.
[40:22.660 --> 40:23.700]  So we're done.
[40:23.900 --> 40:26.500]  We're closing our doors as of a couple of weeks ago.
[40:26.660 --> 40:28.560]  We got word of this when we were overseas.
[40:29.160 --> 40:37.280]  And basically, this puts us in a very precarious situation because this large distributor still owes us for two issues.
[40:37.860 --> 40:40.020]  And it's a huge amount of money.
[40:40.580 --> 40:49.780]  It's something that if we were not to get, it would severely impact the future of the magazine and of everything the magazine supports and funds.
[40:50.220 --> 40:57.820]  Now, what's interesting here, unlike last time this happened back in 1997 with a distributor known as Fine Print, this company is not bankrupt.
[40:57.980 --> 41:05.060]  This company has simply folded a division and absorbed various parts of its organization into something else.
[41:05.560 --> 41:06.820]  So we expect them.
[41:06.840 --> 41:09.900]  We expect them to honor their commitments and pay their debts.
[41:09.920 --> 41:13.460]  But a lot of people are telling us, yeah, don't expect to get paid.
[41:13.580 --> 41:15.460]  Don't expect that to actually happen.
[41:15.980 --> 41:17.860]  And we want to say we do expect to get paid.
[41:17.920 --> 41:23.720]  We do expect debts to be resolved and we do expect to move forward with what we're doing.
[41:23.880 --> 41:28.020]  But if this does not happen, we could be facing some very dire consequences in the future.
[41:28.240 --> 41:30.640]  So I just figured we should let people know that, right?
[41:31.560 --> 41:32.000]  Absolutely.
[41:32.700 --> 41:33.720]  What does this mean?
[41:33.780 --> 41:37.940]  So they buy the magazine from you and then sell it to the stores?
[41:38.160 --> 41:41.940]  Yeah, they basically buy the magazine at a certain percentage.
[41:42.140 --> 41:45.480]  They distribute it to the stores like Barnes & Noble and various other places.
[41:45.480 --> 41:53.040]  and then they get money for the sales and then the theory is that they can pay us for what they've gotten.
[41:53.900 --> 41:59.520]  And right now, if you go into Barnes & Noble right now and you buy a copy of $2,600, these people will get paid for that.
[41:59.960 --> 42:06.680]  And what we would like is for them to pay us for our share, our meager share of that.
[42:06.800 --> 42:13.780]  And if that does not happen, then we are the ones facing financial doom because of irresponsibility on somebody else's part.
[42:13.780 --> 42:17.080]  We hope it doesn't come to that because this company did not go out of business.
[42:17.240 --> 42:18.360]  This company does still exist.
[42:18.720 --> 42:20.680]  They renamed themselves to something else.
[42:21.340 --> 42:24.600]  And, you know, it's not even late yet.
[42:24.600 --> 42:27.800]  This is the week that we're supposed to get a big check from them.
[42:27.880 --> 42:33.420]  But if that does not happen in coming weeks, things are going to get more and more dire and weird and strange.
[42:33.760 --> 42:38.620]  And I just figured we should let people know that we could be going down this road yet again.
[42:38.960 --> 42:46.560]  1997, it was very shaky because we almost went out of business then because of what happened with Fine Print in Austin.
[42:47.020 --> 42:48.820]  And a lot of zines did go out of business.
[42:49.020 --> 42:50.100]  This doesn't affect just us.
[42:50.240 --> 42:52.120]  This affects publications all over the place.
[42:52.120 --> 42:59.360]  And it's indicative of the struggles that independent publishers have just getting out onto the newsstands.
[42:59.420 --> 43:02.820]  They are subject to this kind of nonsense happening all the time.
[43:02.900 --> 43:04.800]  And the publishers are the ones who always lose.
[43:05.400 --> 43:07.160]  We don't want to be discouraged.
[43:07.440 --> 43:09.780]  We don't want to be frightened by what we're hearing.
[43:10.580 --> 43:23.040]  And honestly, in my opinion, the polite thing, the polite thing to do would be to pay the money you owe before you make these wonderful changes.
[43:23.900 --> 43:30.280]  Well, actually, it doesn't work that way because they don't owe us for the issue that's on the stands now for another three months.
[43:30.440 --> 43:31.780]  But I hear what you're saying.
[43:31.960 --> 43:38.200]  And it's the right thing to do, obviously, is to absolve your debts and make things right.
[43:38.320 --> 43:39.640]  Especially if you still have a company.
[43:40.060 --> 43:41.640]  We just want certainty of that.
[43:41.760 --> 43:41.880]  Yeah.
[43:42.160 --> 43:44.640]  That that will happen as it ought to.
[43:44.640 --> 43:48.140]  It's thrown things into a bit of an uncertain state.
[43:48.460 --> 43:49.800]  And it's just...
[43:49.800 --> 43:54.220]  If we seem a little anxious and nervous in the weeks and months ahead, that could be why.
[43:54.860 --> 43:56.520]  Then again, this could get resolved next week.
[43:56.600 --> 43:57.480]  It would be nice if it did.
[43:57.720 --> 44:00.440]  So we just want to let people know where we are in all this.
[44:00.500 --> 44:02.040]  As if we don't have enough to worry about.
[44:02.300 --> 44:03.480]  We don't have enough to organize.
[44:04.360 --> 44:05.460]  Oh, it's just so much fun.
[44:05.620 --> 44:06.860]  Hey, let's take some phone calls.
[44:06.920 --> 44:07.740]  We haven't done that in a while.
[44:07.740 --> 44:10.400]  And I know that there are listeners out there who have things to say.
[44:11.100 --> 44:13.700]  212-209-2900 is our telephone number.
[44:13.920 --> 44:15.140]  I know it's a fundraiser.
[44:15.440 --> 44:17.480]  We want people to call the pledge line as well.
[44:17.600 --> 44:19.780]  212-209-2950.
[44:20.080 --> 44:24.260]  Maybe people who call and speak on the air can tell us if they've called the pledge line.
[44:24.380 --> 44:25.480]  And if so, why?
[44:25.640 --> 44:26.600]  And if not, why not?
[44:27.240 --> 44:28.460]  And various things like that.
[44:28.580 --> 44:30.900]  212-209-2900.
[44:32.040 --> 44:33.400]  Do you want to go straight to the phones?
[44:33.520 --> 44:35.240]  Or does anyone have anything else they'd like to...
[44:35.240 --> 44:35.980]  Are people calling?
[44:36.120 --> 44:36.680]  People are calling.
[44:36.780 --> 44:37.780]  Well, let's talk to the people.
[44:38.060 --> 44:40.280]  As soon as I say 2, the phone lines light up.
[44:40.420 --> 44:40.940]  That's good.
[44:41.180 --> 44:42.240]  We're on a delay, too.
[44:42.340 --> 44:43.840]  That means they can see the future.
[44:44.000 --> 44:44.720]  Yeah, they can.
[44:44.940 --> 44:45.440]  They really can.
[44:46.560 --> 44:49.480]  I'm not sure if this is working, though, because the light didn't turn to the right color.
[44:49.600 --> 44:50.300]  Is there anybody there?
[44:51.200 --> 44:52.140]  No, you see, there's nobody there.
[44:53.280 --> 44:54.020]  Why'd that happen?
[44:54.140 --> 44:54.560]  Okay, hang on.
[44:54.620 --> 44:55.520]  I've got to press these buttons.
[44:56.480 --> 44:58.120]  I'm less impressed than I was.
[45:07.560 --> 45:09.060]  It's green when it should...
[45:09.060 --> 45:10.520]  And these lights are lit up.
[45:11.400 --> 45:13.000]  I feel like an idiot, but...
[45:13.000 --> 45:14.060]  Okay, I'm going to try that.
[45:14.320 --> 45:15.180]  Can we get a dial tone?
[45:16.540 --> 45:17.440]  That's a dial tone?
[45:17.980 --> 45:18.380]  Okay.
[45:18.640 --> 45:19.640]  Okay, so it's not 48 volts.
[45:19.660 --> 45:21.180]  That passes for a dial tone these days.
[45:21.480 --> 45:23.120]  Sorry for the folks that we hung up on.
[45:23.820 --> 45:25.620]  212-209-2900.
[45:25.840 --> 45:26.600]  Let's try this again.
[45:37.560 --> 45:38.620]  Alternatives for distribution?
[45:38.980 --> 45:43.600]  Like, can you send to bookstores in-house or is that too labor-intensive?
[45:43.880 --> 45:46.380]  Or could you go through the irony of it all?
[45:46.460 --> 45:47.000]  Maybe Amazon?
[45:47.560 --> 45:50.420]  Well, we do go through Amazon with the Kindle.
[45:50.540 --> 45:53.640]  In fact, we're one of the top titles on the Kindle, which is kind of cool.
[45:54.120 --> 46:03.180]  And it shows that, you know, you can basically have controversial things in various formats and you can do well.
[46:03.920 --> 46:10.140]  We've done well just from reader support no advertising, nothing like that.
[46:10.260 --> 46:19.360]  As far as distributing the magazine in a different way, like directly to stores, many stores, many chains certainly simply don't deal with publishers.
[46:19.540 --> 46:20.620]  They only deal with distributors.
[46:21.340 --> 46:24.100]  And there are less and less distributors every year.
[46:24.260 --> 46:30.140]  They tend to go out of business and they take a lot of magazine sales with them when they do that.
[46:30.840 --> 46:33.160]  So it's not as easy as it should be.
[46:33.260 --> 46:34.660]  But we are looking into alternatives.
[46:34.660 --> 46:37.440]  We do have the bookstores that were lost.
[46:37.560 --> 46:45.200]  And the magazine stands at a loss covered by a new entity but that doesn't do anything to cover the debt that is owed to us.
[46:45.800 --> 46:46.600]  Does that answer your question?
[46:47.660 --> 46:49.940]  Yes, thank you very much and look forward to seeing you at HopeX.
[46:50.080 --> 46:50.320]  Thank you.
[46:50.460 --> 46:51.100]  All right, thanks.
[46:51.760 --> 46:55.700]  And of course, look forward to seeing as many BAI people as possible at HopeX.
[46:55.820 --> 47:00.500]  Again, x.hope.net is our website.
[47:00.800 --> 47:01.800]  We forgot to ask...
[47:02.240 --> 47:03.360]  Go ahead, Mike first, then Bernie.
[47:03.500 --> 47:09.460]  We forgot to ask that caller if he had pledged already and if he hadn't pledged, if he's going to call 212-209-2950.
[47:09.460 --> 47:12.980]  I don't want to put people on the spot, but if people want to say that, they should say that.
[47:13.060 --> 47:13.520]  Yeah, absolutely.
[47:13.720 --> 47:14.120]  Bernie, go ahead.
[47:15.320 --> 47:21.900]  It hadn't occurred to me, but one of the, like, million different components and facets of HopeX is at Hope No.
[47:21.960 --> 47:27.840]  9, two years ago, we had a special live version of Off the Hope from...
[47:27.840 --> 47:28.660]  Off the Hope?
[47:30.120 --> 47:31.520]  I'm sorry, of Off the Hope.
[47:31.540 --> 47:32.780]  No, I like that, Off the Hope.
[47:32.920 --> 47:33.540]  That's really good.
[47:33.640 --> 47:36.560]  Yeah, that's a Freudian slip.
[47:36.840 --> 47:37.200]  I like that.
[47:37.200 --> 47:40.000]  From now on, the show is Off the Hope until Hope is over.
[47:42.620 --> 47:43.500]  So go ahead.
[47:44.120 --> 47:53.220]  Yeah, we have an internet radio station at Hope called Radio Statler because the hotel was originally called the Hotel Statler, I believe.
[47:54.620 --> 48:05.520]  And it's a really professional looking radio station, a whole studio set up with microphones and mixing boards and Tech Darko is one of the main people running that station.
[48:05.660 --> 48:06.560]  He does a phenomenal job.
[48:06.700 --> 48:29.040]  What we do is we invite a lot of speakers who've given interesting talks down to Radio Statler studios and we interview them and that goes out over the internet and it's archived and it's really just sort of really interesting sort of back-channel conversations about speakers' impressions of Hope and how their talk went and the feedback they got.
[48:29.620 --> 48:33.260]  And it's a lot of fun and it's sort of like another facet of Hope.
[48:33.880 --> 48:36.540]  You know, I just realized this is my fault.
[48:36.720 --> 48:38.160]  We're so bad at promoting things.
[48:38.260 --> 48:45.440]  But we're talking about all the speakers at the Hope Conference coming up next month and I didn't even mention that our keynote speaker is Daniel Ellsberg.
[48:46.580 --> 48:50.340]  The whistleblower of all whistleblowers, Pentagon Papers, all that.
[48:50.480 --> 48:52.400]  Yes, he is our keynote speaker.
[48:52.500 --> 48:58.280]  And not only that, we've also managed to get NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake to appear as well.
[48:58.520 --> 49:00.060]  Bernie, anything you want to say about that?
[49:00.660 --> 49:09.440]  Yeah, actually, it started out we were trying to get a film screened called The Hacker Wars, the confluence of hacktivists and whistleblowers.
[49:09.700 --> 49:15.460]  But the director, Vivian Weissman, said she can't screen it until August for the Toronto International Film Festival.
[49:15.460 --> 49:25.880]  But she had interviewed Thomas Drake for her film and she offered to talk to him and she's going to bring him, get him to, she's going to interview him at Hope.
[49:25.920 --> 49:38.800]  It's going to be a conversation with Vivian Weissman and Thomas Drake and it's going to be a fascinating one-hour conversation with the whistleblower, the NSA whistleblower before Thomas, before Ed Snowden.
[49:39.320 --> 49:43.820]  Bill Binney was an NSA whistleblower who was our keynote speaker at the Hope No.
[49:43.920 --> 49:44.220]  9.
[49:44.380 --> 49:49.900]  And this is not something that, you know, we're just jumping on some bandwagon now that Ed Snowden has released all these documents.
[49:49.900 --> 49:51.600]  We've been covering this stuff for a while.
[49:52.740 --> 49:58.760]  So this will be a really interesting conversation and I hope you can all make it to Hope and catch this.
[49:58.760 --> 50:07.240]  And if you want a full list, well not a full listing yet, basically we have about a quarter of the speakers listed so far on our website, go to x.hope.net, keep checking that.
[50:07.240 --> 50:09.540]  Day after day you'll see more and more showing up.
[50:09.620 --> 50:17.900]  By next week at this time, I think people will be a lot more enthused by what they've seen because of all the revelations.
[50:18.260 --> 50:23.080]  Did you know, Emmanuel, that since we last spoke it has been the one-year anniversary of the Snowden leaks?
[50:23.360 --> 50:26.060]  You know, it's interesting, all this has happened in one year.
[50:26.280 --> 50:31.520]  It feels like the Ed Snowden story has been around for a long, long time, but no, it's only been one year.
[50:31.660 --> 50:34.380]  Think about all that has changed, the dialogue has changed.
[50:34.640 --> 50:34.980]  Wow, yeah.
[50:34.980 --> 50:38.720]  People are talking about spying in the NSA and they never would have even thought of it before.
[50:39.080 --> 50:49.880]  And I just find it incredible that anybody could think that's a bad thing, that anybody could think that we were not served tremendously by these revelations and by having this dialogue in the first place.
[50:50.460 --> 51:00.700]  Yeah, I find it's amazing how many different people understand and know the story and empathize and care about what it means for them and the country and the world.
[51:01.440 --> 51:02.920]  People I never would have thought.
[51:03.040 --> 51:14.380]  I mean, I have trouble explaining like what hardware hacking is or what a hacker space would be and these things, but if you mention the leaking or Edward Snowden in particular, people light up.
[51:14.520 --> 51:15.800]  They know exactly what you're talking about.
[51:15.820 --> 51:16.860]  It's been everywhere.
[51:17.880 --> 51:20.300]  Even when we're driving sometimes in...
[51:20.300 --> 51:21.180]  All the time.
[51:21.360 --> 51:27.940]  When we're driving in Germany, Edward Snowden is always being mentioned in a newscast every hour on the hour.
[51:28.020 --> 51:31.840]  So if you don't understand the language, you at least hear that name and you're like, okay, I know what that story's about.
[51:32.000 --> 51:36.480]  At a social function in Madrid, people are constantly talking about Snowden and what does this mean?
[51:36.700 --> 51:41.760]  And of course, you know, they know that we're connected with the hackers, so there's got to be some kind of...
[51:41.760 --> 51:43.660]  Oh my gosh, they're looking to us.
[51:43.760 --> 51:45.040]  They say, you know, what do you think?
[51:45.040 --> 51:45.740]  They want to know.
[51:45.920 --> 51:46.340]  They're like...
[51:46.340 --> 51:48.920]  They want to hear what hackers have to say about this.
[51:49.000 --> 52:00.800]  And it's an incredible, dare I say, privilege to be trusted to explain and to help evangelize and get people to understand what's at stake and what is important about this issue.
[52:00.920 --> 52:06.420]  So we want to really honor that and I think Hope is going to do our best to be an adjunct to the conversation.
[52:06.560 --> 52:12.740]  We met with some of our good friends in Berlin and it was just really nice to make that connection and to sort of tie it all together.
[52:13.040 --> 52:29.580]  Hackers, whistleblowers and just all these people working basically towards the same goal in different ways but talking to each other talking to each other and sharing and appreciating and I think you're going to see a lot of that at the conference as well and just in the hacker community in general.
[52:29.740 --> 52:31.440]  Hey, let's see if we can take another phone call.
[52:31.440 --> 52:33.080]  212-209-2900.
[52:33.160 --> 52:36.340]  We had a bunch of calls but they dropped off because we were talking.
[52:36.560 --> 52:39.360]  I apologize for that but we'll open up again.
[52:39.500 --> 52:52.720]  212-209-2900 in the moments we have left and please call the pledge line 212-209-2950 so that we can continue having conversations like this and all kinds of dialogues and various things like that.
[52:53.400 --> 52:56.180]  The phone's not ringing yet so we have to kill timing.
[52:56.180 --> 52:58.940]  That's a little bit sad that no one wants to call.
[52:59.020 --> 53:00.180]  Well, sometimes it takes time for people to dial.
[53:00.180 --> 53:03.520]  Maybe they're busy pledging instead 212-209-2950.
[53:03.700 --> 53:05.200]  Maybe the NSA is diverting our calls.
[53:05.320 --> 53:06.200]  It would not be the first time.
[53:07.320 --> 53:08.120]  Diverting our calls?
[53:08.200 --> 53:08.960]  I don't know about that.
[53:09.220 --> 53:10.800]  I mean, they've got a lot...
[53:10.800 --> 53:15.700]  I just don't think they have that much interest in doing that but maybe they do.
[53:15.700 --> 53:26.820]  People also could be afraid to call us because they think that as soon as they call 212-209-2900 their file will be opened somewhere in Fort Meade, Maryland and then they will be a target themselves.
[53:27.120 --> 53:28.880]  Will the file be in Maryland or in Utah?
[53:29.120 --> 53:30.440]  Here's somebody who has some courage.
[53:30.540 --> 53:31.060]  Oh, good evening.
[53:31.200 --> 53:32.000]  You're on Off the Hook.
[53:34.000 --> 53:34.400]  Hello?
[53:34.660 --> 53:35.120]  Yes, go ahead.
[53:35.180 --> 53:35.680]  What's on your mind?
[53:36.480 --> 53:37.140]  Hey, how you doing?
[53:37.540 --> 53:39.580]  Yeah, a couple questions.
[53:39.760 --> 53:53.120]  I've been a bit of a follower of this on WBAI and the name Emanuel Goldstein and the 2600 thing goes all the way back to the telephone hacking days if I'm not mistaken.
[53:53.120 --> 53:54.940]  I imagine he's in his 50s now.
[53:54.940 --> 53:59.620]  I seem to remember reading about him in the 1970s, early 70s.
[54:00.200 --> 54:01.560]  I'd like to see that article.
[54:02.420 --> 54:02.860]  Absolutely.
[54:03.600 --> 54:06.280]  It was in Esquire if I'm not mistaken.
[54:06.300 --> 54:07.300]  I believe it was...
[54:07.300 --> 54:14.520]  Well, you're talking about the famous Blue Box article that appeared in Esquire in the early 70s but I can assure you that Emanuel was not into this kind of thing then.
[54:15.080 --> 54:15.700]  Oh, okay.
[54:15.720 --> 54:17.160]  He was still collecting baseball cards.
[54:17.920 --> 54:19.000]  Okay, very good.
[54:19.140 --> 54:21.220]  I thought he'd be about in his 50s by now.
[54:21.440 --> 54:23.700]  Well, I'm not denying that.
[54:23.700 --> 54:25.560]  I'm just saying that...
[54:25.560 --> 54:32.680]  You're talking about people like Captain Crunch and maybe Cheshire and people like that that were really into the scene in the early days.
[54:33.020 --> 54:33.540]  Yep.
[54:34.020 --> 54:34.200]  Yeah.
[54:34.300 --> 54:34.660]  Absolutely.
[54:35.340 --> 54:53.360]  The other thing I wanted to mention that I was wondering this whole this whole next forum coming up in New York the concern I have is wouldn't the let's call it the government be keeping or opening up files on anybody that does show up to this?
[54:53.480 --> 54:54.220]  Well, okay.
[54:54.360 --> 54:55.500]  A couple of issues there.
[54:55.600 --> 54:57.880]  First of all, they'd have to get files on people somehow.
[54:57.880 --> 54:58.960]  They'd have to identify them.
[54:59.020 --> 55:00.120]  We don't give out that information.
[55:01.040 --> 55:12.620]  Second of all, you can't live your life in that kind of fear thinking that if you show up at something you're interested in that that's going to be a demerit on your permanent record and you should avoid it because then they win without doing a thing,
[55:12.980 --> 55:13.160]  you know?
[55:13.420 --> 55:15.760]  Yeah, I've got to admit that is true.
[55:16.840 --> 55:26.360]  You've got a point there but I am a bit concerned about that to be, you know, be on some kind of surveillance list if nothing else.
[55:26.480 --> 55:27.440]  You can buy a ticket for cash.
[55:28.140 --> 55:36.320]  Yeah, you can do that and just think if there are thousands of people like you there what better way to protect your anonymity?
[55:36.460 --> 55:48.920]  The more people that show up the more people that willingly put themselves on a list for reading material that is deemed dangerous or controversial well, the less significant that list becomes because they have to go through so many names.
[55:49.280 --> 55:50.760]  Got it, got it.
[55:50.820 --> 55:51.260]  That's true.
[55:51.420 --> 56:01.580]  But then again I imagine they have the capability to go through God knows how many names since from what I understand they're monitoring just about everything that's electronically oriented.
[56:01.580 --> 56:04.360]  Yeah, but how would they get how would they get your name though?
[56:04.500 --> 56:05.880]  How are you worried they would get your name?
[56:06.520 --> 56:08.520]  Oh, God knows what they have that
[56:11.890 --> 56:12.730]  comes to mind.
[56:13.150 --> 56:17.830]  Well, you're a lot more likely to reveal this information through Facebook than at a conference.
[56:18.090 --> 56:18.270]  That's so true.
[56:18.530 --> 56:19.310]  Right, right.
[56:20.070 --> 56:22.590]  But this is the place to learn how to protect yourself.
[56:22.630 --> 56:23.570]  That's the point.
[56:24.070 --> 56:31.410]  You'll come to the conference and you'll go away so much more educated and informed as to what the true threats actually are.
[56:31.410 --> 56:32.950]  Very good.
[56:33.510 --> 56:33.830]  All right.
[56:34.030 --> 56:34.450]  Thank you very much.
[56:34.530 --> 56:35.270]  Thanks for your support.
[56:35.550 --> 56:38.870]  And again, people, please call 212-209-2950.
[56:39.390 --> 56:42.270]  Pledge your support to the radio station.
[56:42.830 --> 56:45.350]  And we are leaving now.
[56:45.550 --> 56:46.370]  We're heading out.
[56:46.430 --> 56:48.730]  But we'll be back next week, hopefully.
[56:49.190 --> 56:53.990]  You can write to us OTH at 2600.com.
[56:54.490 --> 56:55.850]  That's our email address.
[56:56.510 --> 57:00.130]  Again, details on the HOPE conference.
[57:00.130 --> 57:02.670]  More talks revealed every day, x.hope.net.
[57:03.870 --> 57:07.270]  And one more time, the pledge line, 212-209-2950.
[57:07.550 --> 57:09.410]  Personal computer show is coming up next.
[57:11.230 --> 57:11.930]  This is Emmanuel.
[57:12.190 --> 57:12.690]  Have a good night.