[00:00.000 --> 00:06.500] [SPEAKER_00]: You will also become a full voting member of WBAI, and our diverse programming will reflect your voice.
[00:06.800 --> 00:12.760] [SPEAKER_00]: Go to give2wbai.org and become a WBAI buddy to support Free Speech Radio today.
[00:34.380 --> 00:38.120] [SPEAKER_04]: And you're listening to radio station WBAI New York.
[00:38.620 --> 00:40.920] [SPEAKER_04]: Time is 7 o'clock, time for Off The Hook.
[02:39.960 --> 02:41.940] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh boy, is everything going to go wrong today?
[02:42.820 --> 02:43.640] [SPEAKER_04]: It's unbelievable.
[02:44.780 --> 02:46.040] [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, Bernie, are you there?
[02:46.680 --> 02:47.300] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm here.
[02:47.400 --> 02:50.680] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh good, because you weren't picking up your damn phone and we ran out of theme.
[02:51.280 --> 02:52.720] [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so this is Off The Hook.
[02:52.800 --> 02:53.320] [SPEAKER_04]: Emmanuel here.
[02:53.440 --> 02:55.680] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to introduce Bernie first, since I had to talk to you live on the air.
[02:55.780 --> 02:56.280] [SPEAKER_04]: Bernie, welcome.
[02:57.380 --> 02:58.660] [SPEAKER_05]: Greetings from Philadelphia.
[02:59.120 --> 03:00.960] [SPEAKER_04]: We're also joined tonight by Mike.
[03:01.260 --> 03:01.620] [SPEAKER_04]: Hi there.
[03:02.240 --> 03:02.920] [SPEAKER_04]: And Kyle.
[03:03.640 --> 03:04.040] [SPEAKER_04]: Hello.
[03:05.200 --> 03:06.920] [SPEAKER_04]: It's a joy to be here, it really is.
[03:09.360 --> 03:11.380] [SPEAKER_04]: Usually we just get here with one minute to spare.
[03:11.620 --> 03:15.700] [SPEAKER_04]: We were here for an hour beforehand, and of course everything goes haywire anyway.
[03:16.340 --> 03:17.900] [SPEAKER_04]: But that's just the nature of radio.
[03:18.840 --> 03:21.560] [SPEAKER_01]: The rest of the show is going to be professionally produced.
[03:21.760 --> 03:22.540] [SPEAKER_04]: I'd like to think that.
[03:22.670 --> 03:24.060] [SPEAKER_04]: I would definitely like to think that.
[03:24.180 --> 03:25.800] [SPEAKER_04]: We're going to try and do a bunch of things.
[03:26.480 --> 03:30.600] [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe even take phone calls if we can get the phone gizmo to work properly.
[03:32.060 --> 03:33.900] [SPEAKER_04]: One programming note, we are not on next week.
[03:34.040 --> 03:36.100] [SPEAKER_04]: Because the fundraiser begins.
[03:36.740 --> 03:37.220] [SPEAKER_04]: Hooray.
[03:37.400 --> 03:38.180] [SPEAKER_04]: And yes.
[03:38.440 --> 03:44.200] [SPEAKER_04]: And the cocktail party outside apparently has begun as well, because we have no soundproof in the studio at all.
[03:44.840 --> 03:46.670] [SPEAKER_04]: So hopefully people will keep it clean out there.
[03:47.820 --> 03:50.580] [SPEAKER_04]: Hey, we went to make a fair over the weekend, Kyle.
[03:51.140 --> 03:51.800] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we did.
[03:51.860 --> 03:55.920] [SPEAKER_02]: It was a heck of a good time over at the Hall of Science in Corona, Queens.
[03:56.220 --> 03:56.460] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[03:56.840 --> 04:00.880] [SPEAKER_02]: A two-day massive outdoor show-and-tell.
[04:00.880 --> 04:01.880] [SPEAKER_02]: Can I just say...
[04:01.880 --> 04:02.920] [SPEAKER_04]: Can I just say that...
[04:02.920 --> 04:03.170] [SPEAKER_04]: You can.
[04:03.380 --> 04:05.000] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, Corona, Queens.
[04:05.340 --> 04:08.420] [SPEAKER_04]: You know, I love Maker Faire, but I really love Corona as well.
[04:08.500 --> 04:09.700] [SPEAKER_04]: Just walking through the streets there.
[04:10.400 --> 04:11.820] [SPEAKER_04]: It's just such a cool neighborhood.
[04:11.840 --> 04:14.670] [SPEAKER_04]: People cooking things on the street and kids running around everywhere.
[04:15.100 --> 04:18.520] [SPEAKER_04]: It's just one of those neighborhoods you really have to check out if you're in Queens.
[04:19.350 --> 04:20.680] [SPEAKER_04]: And of course, Flushing as well.
[04:21.230 --> 04:23.120] [SPEAKER_04]: And you know, we drove through Maspeth today.
[04:23.290 --> 04:24.600] [SPEAKER_04]: Wow, that was something else, wasn't it?
[04:24.600 --> 04:25.200] [SPEAKER_04]: To get here.
[04:25.560 --> 04:30.000] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and mix of the industrial and residential.
[04:30.460 --> 04:34.940] [SPEAKER_02]: It's fascinating to check out new places and drive where you've never been before.
[04:35.080 --> 04:35.260] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[04:35.400 --> 04:41.040] [SPEAKER_04]: And we did that courtesy of Waze who suggested that you might want to try this route instead of the one you usually take.
[04:41.290 --> 04:43.400] [SPEAKER_04]: And so we went down all these like windy streets.
[04:43.680 --> 04:55.520] [SPEAKER_04]: It's kind of cool that these GPS programs or apps on your phone occasionally suggest you do something different, I guess for the reason of speed, getting there before the normal time.
[04:55.640 --> 04:58.200] [SPEAKER_04]: Sometimes it sends you on wild goose chases.
[04:58.360 --> 05:00.400] [SPEAKER_04]: Other times you wind up seeing some really interesting things.
[05:00.480 --> 05:06.940] [SPEAKER_04]: And today was one of those days where we got to go through Maspeth and see all kinds of industry and residential sections living together.
[05:07.020 --> 05:08.790] [SPEAKER_04]: And it was really different.
[05:09.680 --> 05:10.860] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just like SimCity.
[05:11.350 --> 05:12.790] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, it's a little different than that.
[05:12.920 --> 05:14.420] [SPEAKER_04]: But anyway, back to Maker Faire.
[05:14.680 --> 05:18.240] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so that was, as always, an amazing event.
[05:18.480 --> 05:19.680] [SPEAKER_04]: I think this year was better, though.
[05:19.680 --> 05:21.300] [SPEAKER_04]: This year was really incredible.
[05:21.440 --> 05:22.580] [SPEAKER_04]: It was a spirit about the place.
[05:22.740 --> 05:24.170] [SPEAKER_04]: It just was contagious.
[05:25.230 --> 05:26.230] [SPEAKER_04]: Weather was great.
[05:26.920 --> 05:29.720] [SPEAKER_04]: All kinds of people coming up to the 2600 van.
[05:29.740 --> 05:37.080] [SPEAKER_04]: Of course, we were wandering all over the place as well, checking out the, just the overall scene.
[05:37.860 --> 05:39.820] [SPEAKER_04]: Any memories that stand out to you, Kyle?
[05:40.780 --> 05:42.140] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, a lot.
[05:42.140 --> 05:55.600] [SPEAKER_02]: I got one chance to run around and explore and see what's going on, what's available, what's exhibited, what people are up to.
[05:56.160 --> 06:06.640] [SPEAKER_02]: And you really do have to steal yourself away, if you're a vendor or an exhibitor, to get that glimpse into each and every part of the site.
[06:06.640 --> 06:10.960] [SPEAKER_02]: They really take over the whole field, the grounds, the parking lot.
[06:11.080 --> 06:13.640] [SPEAKER_02]: The whole place becomes this massive fairgrounds.
[06:14.340 --> 06:15.860] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and it's getting bigger every year, too.
[06:15.920 --> 06:16.780] [SPEAKER_02]: It's getting bigger and bigger.
[06:16.960 --> 06:26.160] [SPEAKER_02]: I had to actually kind of race walk to keep up just with my plan to make a full, complete trip around the place.
[06:26.580 --> 06:26.940] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[06:26.940 --> 06:48.100] [SPEAKER_02]: But I enjoyed the pavilions that they had, some of the large sculptures that were there were pretty amazing, interesting exhibits that we'd seen in the past, a lot of racing, like competitive stuff with both the big wheels competition as well as the power tools.
[06:48.260 --> 06:49.080] [SPEAKER_02]: I heard them.
[06:49.150 --> 06:50.340] [SPEAKER_02]: I did not see the power tools.
[06:50.500 --> 06:51.380] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, you could hear them everywhere.
[06:51.720 --> 06:52.780] [SPEAKER_04]: I saw one thing.
[06:52.860 --> 06:53.780] [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe you could explain this.
[06:53.780 --> 06:59.560] [SPEAKER_04]: These people were riding what looked like a Segway around, except it didn't have anything except the wheels.
[06:59.940 --> 07:01.650] [SPEAKER_04]: It didn't have the whole top handlebar thing.
[07:01.760 --> 07:07.650] [SPEAKER_04]: They were just basically riding around with their feet and not holding on to anything.
[07:08.380 --> 07:09.650] [SPEAKER_04]: How is that even possible?
[07:10.380 --> 07:12.460] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there's a couple of those as a product.
[07:12.580 --> 07:16.720] [SPEAKER_02]: I think they've just gotten better with the balancing technology, the self-riding vehicles.
[07:17.000 --> 07:18.160] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's a new product.
[07:18.160 --> 07:20.940] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think a lot of people bought it and are playing around with it.
[07:21.400 --> 07:24.420] [SPEAKER_02]: But I saw that too and thought it was fascinating.
[07:24.620 --> 07:29.160] [SPEAKER_02]: People seemed very comfortable without any kind of structure in front of them.
[07:29.260 --> 07:32.920] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe it's even safer in the sense you can just step forward or jump off.
[07:33.100 --> 07:35.710] [SPEAKER_01]: These are like the powered skateboard type things.
[07:35.900 --> 07:36.780] [SPEAKER_04]: No, it's not a skateboard.
[07:36.920 --> 07:39.720] [SPEAKER_04]: It looks exactly like a Segway, except without the top part.
[07:40.270 --> 07:43.710] [SPEAKER_04]: You basically just stand on it, lean forward or lean backwards.
[07:44.560 --> 07:45.920] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm not sure how you stop.
[07:46.210 --> 07:47.240] [SPEAKER_04]: I guess you lean backwards.
[07:48.140 --> 07:50.220] [SPEAKER_04]: It's just the balancing question is something...
[07:50.220 --> 07:50.900] [SPEAKER_01]: How do you know that people do stuff?
[07:51.000 --> 07:52.660] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe they're still going.
[07:52.740 --> 07:54.340] [SPEAKER_04]: I think they got off at some point.
[07:54.360 --> 07:55.500] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm not exactly sure.
[07:55.710 --> 07:58.320] [SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, if we get these for Hope, they're a lot smaller.
[07:58.600 --> 07:59.860] [SPEAKER_04]: And we can probably get more of them.
[08:00.000 --> 08:01.150] [SPEAKER_04]: In fact, maybe we just give them to everybody.
[08:02.080 --> 08:02.440] [SPEAKER_02]: Definitely.
[08:02.720 --> 08:02.980] [SPEAKER_02]: Definitely.
[08:03.580 --> 08:08.620] [SPEAKER_02]: That would be just a fantastically magical thing to have.
[08:08.760 --> 08:09.560] [SPEAKER_02]: But I don't think it's going to happen.
[08:09.560 --> 08:15.650] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, the event also just had incredible art and performance going on.
[08:15.820 --> 08:21.760] [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people intermixing, kind of moving around the site.
[08:21.920 --> 08:27.360] [SPEAKER_02]: There's like basically performances moving around and going from place to place.
[08:27.360 --> 08:30.900] [SPEAKER_02]: There were some marching bands and that always adds to it.
[08:31.000 --> 08:31.860] [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's a lot of fun.
[08:31.980 --> 08:33.760] [SPEAKER_01]: Anything in particular that struck you?
[08:34.580 --> 08:35.710] [SPEAKER_01]: Any performance?
[08:35.710 --> 08:40.640] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we actually have video of these guys with saxophones.
[08:40.760 --> 08:47.400] [SPEAKER_02]: And they were basically just emitting a tone, like droning as they walked throughout every exhibit.
[08:47.400 --> 08:51.420] [SPEAKER_02]: And they came by and made this enormous, like loud noise into my face.
[08:51.640 --> 08:52.240] [SPEAKER_04]: They got into your face.
[08:52.300 --> 08:52.720] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, definitely.
[08:52.920 --> 08:52.980] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it was great.
[08:53.100 --> 08:54.360] [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't an actual band.
[08:54.420 --> 08:55.580] [SPEAKER_02]: It was just saxophones.
[08:55.660 --> 09:02.820] [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought that's just incredible that they all had this kind of flavor of different groups and so on.
[09:02.840 --> 09:03.260] [SPEAKER_02]: They really did.
[09:03.440 --> 09:03.880] [SPEAKER_02]: That stick together.
[09:03.880 --> 09:07.120] [SPEAKER_04]: They had like a second line from New Orleans that went through at one point.
[09:07.120 --> 09:11.280] [SPEAKER_04]: It seemed like it was just really different themes at different times.
[09:11.580 --> 09:14.820] [SPEAKER_02]: With like made instruments, improvised horn sections with like...
[09:14.820 --> 09:19.600] [SPEAKER_02]: They had a lot of like tin and obviously stuff that wasn't intended to be a musical instrument.
[09:20.820 --> 09:21.380] [SPEAKER_02]: Just...
[09:21.380 --> 09:31.340] [SPEAKER_02]: I like that because it really pushes people from just being one booth to just this moving kind of big community that's all kind of at play over the weekend.
[09:31.340 --> 09:33.820] [SPEAKER_02]: And it really is playful, the whole experience.
[09:35.020 --> 09:36.740] [SPEAKER_02]: And gosh, I could go on and on.
[09:36.900 --> 09:38.520] [SPEAKER_02]: We had a lot of people come up to us.
[09:38.600 --> 09:42.660] [SPEAKER_02]: And I do want to mention this one group came up to us and gave us a little circuit board.
[09:43.060 --> 09:44.080] [SPEAKER_02]: It's called the Photon.
[09:44.160 --> 09:48.100] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know much about it, but it's a Wi-Fi development project.
[09:48.830 --> 09:50.800] [SPEAKER_04]: It goes beyond me, but it looked really, really cool.
[09:50.900 --> 09:51.900] [SPEAKER_04]: You're holding it in your hand right now.
[09:52.020 --> 09:52.760] [SPEAKER_02]: I am holding it.
[09:52.760 --> 09:54.900] [SPEAKER_02]: But I promised them I would figure it out.
[09:55.160 --> 09:56.540] [SPEAKER_02]: But thank you very much for that.
[09:57.360 --> 09:58.280] [SPEAKER_02]: It's really neat.
[09:58.380 --> 10:02.100] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's the kind of thing that we don't really know about.
[10:02.220 --> 10:04.620] [SPEAKER_02]: And then people kind of say, you know what?
[10:04.660 --> 10:05.540] [SPEAKER_02]: You should check this out.
[10:05.620 --> 10:07.440] [SPEAKER_02]: I think that you might find this interesting.
[10:07.560 --> 10:08.710] [SPEAKER_02]: You might be able to get to use it.
[10:08.780 --> 10:11.400] [SPEAKER_02]: And they're adamant that, you know, we just want to give this to you guys.
[10:11.400 --> 10:14.440] [SPEAKER_02]: And you'll put it to good use or you might get something out of it.
[10:14.440 --> 10:16.300] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's the kind of thing that goes on.
[10:16.420 --> 10:25.080] [SPEAKER_02]: And we interact with the public a lot while we're there and get the opportunity to tell people what hacking is about, what we're about, and share different items.
[10:25.460 --> 10:32.420] [SPEAKER_02]: We try to give as much stuff away as we can possibly give away and just really evangelize and share.
[10:32.920 --> 10:36.440] [SPEAKER_02]: And people come by and want to share other things that they're doing.
[10:36.660 --> 10:39.100] [SPEAKER_02]: And really, that cross-pollination is the true magic.
[10:39.330 --> 10:40.900] [SPEAKER_02]: So we had a lot of that going on.
[10:40.980 --> 10:43.280] [SPEAKER_02]: And I am really thankful to everybody who came by the booth.
[10:43.280 --> 10:46.210] [SPEAKER_04]: And so many WBAA listeners came by as well.
[10:46.950 --> 10:49.430] [SPEAKER_04]: This is the event where we actually get to meet the most listeners.
[10:49.930 --> 10:51.210] [SPEAKER_04]: And it's just incredible to see.
[10:51.310 --> 10:53.340] [SPEAKER_04]: First of all, a lot of listeners learned about this through us.
[10:53.860 --> 10:55.920] [SPEAKER_04]: But so many people have been listening to us for years.
[10:55.940 --> 10:57.140] [SPEAKER_04]: I think we heard that.
[10:57.400 --> 11:02.120] [SPEAKER_04]: That and the question, when is the next hope, are the two questions I think we heard more than anything else.
[11:03.320 --> 11:04.740] [SPEAKER_04]: Or two statements, basically.
[11:04.820 --> 11:05.720] [SPEAKER_04]: I've been listening to you for years.
[11:05.720 --> 11:06.660] [SPEAKER_04]: And when is the next hope?
[11:07.480 --> 11:21.400] [SPEAKER_04]: It's really, really cool to actually meet the listeners and have all kinds of back and forth for various subject matter, mostly about technology or phones or just how things are changing and have changed over the years.
[11:21.700 --> 11:22.260] [SPEAKER_04]: Really, really cool.
[11:22.500 --> 11:26.520] [SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of people were wanting to evangelize to their families.
[11:26.720 --> 11:29.780] [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people might say, oh yeah, I remember this when I was growing up.
[11:29.860 --> 11:40.040] [SPEAKER_02]: They have families now and they're telling their family what we're about and how it's important, how it matters, the kinds of things that they grew up with and how it's the same, how things have changed.
[11:40.080 --> 11:45.380] [SPEAKER_02]: We always try to have phones and things that are playful that people can talk about the history.
[11:45.600 --> 11:46.960] [SPEAKER_02]: And we love demonstrating that.
[11:47.040 --> 11:47.860] [SPEAKER_02]: And kids are really attracted.
[11:48.280 --> 11:48.540] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, that's the thing.
[11:48.620 --> 11:54.100] [SPEAKER_04]: You set up a bunch of rotary phones on the desk and encourage kids to come up and try and figure out how to dial them.
[11:54.520 --> 11:59.640] [SPEAKER_04]: And that was amazing because so many kids do know how to do it, but so many don't know how to do it.
[11:59.980 --> 12:03.820] [SPEAKER_04]: And you get the parents saying, yeah, this is what I'm talking about.
[12:03.880 --> 12:05.960] [SPEAKER_04]: This is the kind of phone that I used to use when I was growing up.
[12:06.260 --> 12:16.220] [SPEAKER_04]: It's just really cool to see the interaction and the learning, the light bulbs going on above their heads as they see, oh, this is how telephony used to work or still does work to this day.
[12:16.910 --> 12:21.040] [SPEAKER_01]: How old are these kids or their parents that the parents had it growing up?
[12:21.500 --> 12:22.300] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, gosh.
[12:22.520 --> 12:28.920] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like, you know, people who are in their 30s or whatever who have young children now, they didn't have rotary phones growing up.
[12:29.180 --> 12:29.720] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, they did.
[12:29.800 --> 12:30.580] [SPEAKER_04]: They could have easily.
[12:31.000 --> 12:33.140] [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, they could have had Touch-Tone as well.
[12:33.400 --> 12:34.440] [SPEAKER_04]: Do you remember the Touch-Tone fee?
[12:34.580 --> 12:35.940] [SPEAKER_04]: We talked about it quite a bit on the show.
[12:35.940 --> 12:36.840] [SPEAKER_01]: I remember the Touch-Tone fee.
[12:36.840 --> 12:40.660] [SPEAKER_04]: That didn't go away until the 90s and some places didn't go away at all.
[12:41.260 --> 12:48.580] [SPEAKER_04]: But again, you know, people do have old rotary phones in their homes if they grew up with them or if their parents grew up with them.
[12:49.160 --> 12:51.740] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's a good point, Mike, raises.
[12:51.840 --> 12:54.680] [SPEAKER_02]: It is sort of fading out as far as the age ranges.
[12:54.900 --> 12:56.740] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, parents are becoming quite young.
[12:56.920 --> 12:58.220] [SPEAKER_02]: But that's exactly why we do it.
[12:58.300 --> 12:59.500] [SPEAKER_02]: We want to get a sense.
[12:59.640 --> 13:02.260] [SPEAKER_02]: We want to gauge what people are aware of, what they're familiar with.
[13:02.400 --> 13:11.880] [SPEAKER_02]: And if the parents themselves don't understand those types of like systems or that equipment, hadn't seen them, they might recognize them from their grandparents and so on.
[13:11.980 --> 13:13.140] [SPEAKER_02]: But it is changing.
[13:13.260 --> 13:24.140] [SPEAKER_02]: And we love watching that and trying to just make that capture that moment of discovery and the intrigue behind what is this clunky mechanical thing?
[13:24.320 --> 13:25.600] [SPEAKER_02]: And why is it important?
[13:25.800 --> 13:37.040] [SPEAKER_02]: How has the past, how has these relics of history, how have they influenced, how have they given us direction in some of the technologies that we use all the time now?
[13:37.420 --> 13:38.940] [SPEAKER_02]: And parents, oh, we had great stories.
[13:39.100 --> 13:47.840] [SPEAKER_02]: There were some stories about kids that had figured out how to sync iOS devices and bypass things and get their iPads to play games.
[13:47.900 --> 13:56.720] [SPEAKER_02]: Parents have real concerns and they're convinced that their children are going to hack them into oblivion or something.
[13:56.940 --> 14:01.980] [SPEAKER_02]: So there's a lot of those kind of funny anecdotes when we talk to families at these events.
[14:02.040 --> 14:10.220] [SPEAKER_04]: I actually talked to a couple of people who had written apps for VoIP connections so that they would accept Pulse because apparently they don't by default.
[14:10.360 --> 14:12.100] [SPEAKER_04]: That's important to them to be able to do that.
[14:12.540 --> 14:17.320] [SPEAKER_04]: And the kids were fascinated by the fact that you could just flash the switch hook and dial numbers that way.
[14:17.380 --> 14:26.380] [SPEAKER_04]: I remember when I first discovered that as a kid, what a magical moment that was because, hey, if you flash it twice, in fact, it still works to this day, you're dialing two.
[14:26.560 --> 14:28.360] [SPEAKER_04]: If you flash it eight times, you're dialing eight.
[14:28.780 --> 14:30.200] [SPEAKER_04]: Ten times, you're dialing zero.
[14:30.480 --> 14:32.280] [SPEAKER_04]: What happens when you dial 11 times?
[14:32.300 --> 14:37.760] [SPEAKER_04]: I tried that right away and got into trouble because somebody on the phone company end wasn't happy with that.
[14:37.960 --> 14:38.400] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[14:38.680 --> 14:39.320] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
[14:39.520 --> 14:40.680] [SPEAKER_02]: And there was a lot of teaching.
[14:40.940 --> 14:47.420] [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of folks, parents were saying, yeah, this is how you do it and tried to explain pulse dialing and how it works.
[14:47.580 --> 14:51.640] [SPEAKER_02]: And I even ended up suggesting analog telephone adapters.
[14:51.800 --> 14:58.000] [SPEAKER_02]: So you can, in fact, still use rotary phones with modern systems, even like VoIP and so on.
[14:58.120 --> 15:00.320] [SPEAKER_02]: But it takes a little extra doing.
[15:00.560 --> 15:04.060] [SPEAKER_02]: But you certainly can still work with the instruments themselves.
[15:04.360 --> 15:04.700] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[15:04.880 --> 15:16.100] [SPEAKER_04]: And explaining the concept of phone phreaking, both to kids and to people from the community who might have listened but never really got into that part of the hacker scene.
[15:16.480 --> 15:27.680] [SPEAKER_04]: That's incredible, being able to do that, being able to say to people that are just used to phone calls being free these days, you can call anywhere, anytime for however long you want and not get a big phone bill.
[15:28.380 --> 15:30.440] [SPEAKER_04]: That's what we were doing back in the day.
[15:30.580 --> 15:33.660] [SPEAKER_04]: We were trying to figure out ways to route around the billing computers.
[15:33.880 --> 15:35.120] [SPEAKER_04]: And wow, look, we won.
[15:35.240 --> 15:37.840] [SPEAKER_04]: We have exactly what we were asking for.
[15:37.980 --> 15:41.380] [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe not exactly, but definitely something that's very, very different.
[15:41.380 --> 15:48.560] [SPEAKER_04]: So it's just, it's cool to see that just be communicated to people that never had a concept of that before.
[15:48.740 --> 15:48.740] Yeah.
[15:49.200 --> 15:52.180] [SPEAKER_02]: A heck of a lot of that was built upon that spirit.
[15:52.420 --> 16:04.960] [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of the projects, a lot of the technologies today really do honor that to some degree or another, that kind of spirit that people wanted it to have contact.
[16:05.560 --> 16:07.380] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, and we met a, we met a cord board operator too.
[16:07.660 --> 16:08.100] [SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
[16:08.100 --> 16:08.480] [SPEAKER_02]: We did.
[16:08.480 --> 16:11.260] [SPEAKER_04]: We met somebody who, talk about technology, Mike.
[16:11.640 --> 16:12.040] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[16:12.260 --> 16:16.260] [SPEAKER_04]: People apparently were using cord boards well into the sixties and seventies.
[16:16.260 --> 16:17.000] [SPEAKER_01]: What does that mean?
[16:17.440 --> 16:18.360] [SPEAKER_04]: What does it mean?
[16:18.460 --> 16:21.140] [SPEAKER_04]: Not only are you unfamiliar with the technology, you don't even know what it means.
[16:21.340 --> 16:23.040] [SPEAKER_01]: I know the answer, but I don't think our listeners do.
[16:23.460 --> 16:25.860] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, well, anyone who's watching the old movie probably has seen it.
[16:26.020 --> 16:34.700] [SPEAKER_04]: That's basically where an operator connects different parties together by literally plugging in cables into different inputs.
[16:35.140 --> 16:39.400] [SPEAKER_04]: Bernie, you haven't said much on this, so maybe this is something you can add some color to.
[16:40.400 --> 16:40.880] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[16:41.620 --> 16:43.420] [SPEAKER_05]: Sometimes it was called a panel system.
[16:43.540 --> 16:46.180] [SPEAKER_05]: It was just a board with a bunch of holes in it.
[16:46.300 --> 16:53.000] [SPEAKER_05]: And these cloth insulated cables would look like large stereo headphone plugs.
[16:53.760 --> 17:00.280] [SPEAKER_05]: And operators, live human operators, would connect one jack to another to connect one person to another.
[17:00.320 --> 17:09.400] [SPEAKER_05]: I actually saw some in operation just a few weeks ago up in northern Maine, where there is a telephone museum.
[17:09.780 --> 17:14.460] [SPEAKER_05]: And they had an operating cord board there connected through into some phones.
[17:14.640 --> 17:24.660] [SPEAKER_05]: And it was really interesting to see one working and sit down and touch the tip and ring to the, which is the description of the plug to the different jacks.
[17:24.780 --> 17:26.400] [SPEAKER_05]: And you can find pictures of it.
[17:26.500 --> 17:31.500] [SPEAKER_05]: If you just look for a telephone cord board online, you can find pictures of these.
[17:31.540 --> 17:33.240] [SPEAKER_05]: And you've seen them in old movies probably, too.
[17:33.960 --> 17:34.360] Yeah.
[17:34.640 --> 17:39.080] [SPEAKER_02]: She had some fascinating insights, some stuff you don't normally hear about.
[17:39.140 --> 17:51.100] [SPEAKER_02]: She talked a lot about the positioning, how you would sit at the board, how you would hold your hands, how you would be ready to go right for connecting that call, or how you would signal that you needed to take a break.
[17:51.360 --> 17:54.980] [SPEAKER_02]: Those little details firsthand were really fantastic.
[17:55.060 --> 17:56.780] [SPEAKER_02]: And we were a little, we were confused at first.
[17:56.860 --> 17:57.780] [SPEAKER_02]: We did the math in our heads.
[17:57.880 --> 18:05.460] [SPEAKER_02]: We were a little, we were kind of like in the same campus, like Mike was speaking to earlier about just how long ago was it?
[18:05.580 --> 18:07.180] [SPEAKER_02]: Was that really even possible?
[18:07.680 --> 18:09.640] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, is there some description?
[18:09.960 --> 18:10.980] [SPEAKER_02]: How old are you?
[18:11.100 --> 18:13.720] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, well, she didn't look nearly old enough to be doing that.
[18:13.860 --> 18:19.900] [SPEAKER_04]: But I guess, you know, in certain parts of the country, this kind of technology was used for a little bit longer than we thought.
[18:20.240 --> 18:20.640] [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[18:21.320 --> 18:24.980] [SPEAKER_02]: On up and into, I guess, the early 70s.
[18:25.100 --> 18:27.640] [SPEAKER_02]: So it was fascinating to have those conversations.
[18:27.940 --> 18:32.920] [SPEAKER_04]: So that gives you a sense as to the different kinds of people who were there.
[18:33.480 --> 18:39.340] [SPEAKER_04]: People just starting out with technology, people playing with new things, people playing with old things, and just trying to figure out the history.
[18:39.540 --> 18:41.560] [SPEAKER_04]: So that's, that's the magic of it.
[18:41.680 --> 18:44.660] [SPEAKER_04]: And hopefully we'll get to go to more of these events.
[18:44.940 --> 18:50.620] [SPEAKER_04]: Just, it's extremely healthy environment, though, just for, for people who are asking a lot of questions.
[18:51.380 --> 18:54.020] [SPEAKER_04]: I just saw that repeated over and over again.
[18:54.820 --> 18:56.780] [SPEAKER_04]: Not very many helicopter parents.
[18:57.000 --> 18:58.440] [SPEAKER_04]: That's, that's a good thing to see.
[18:58.580 --> 19:02.340] [SPEAKER_04]: Kids just expressing themselves and, and experimenting.
[19:02.660 --> 19:04.320] [SPEAKER_01]: I imagine, though, a fair amount of helicopters.
[19:05.040 --> 19:10.660] [SPEAKER_04]: There were, you know, and the thing is, Kyle, I swore when we first went there that I was going to leave with a drone.
[19:10.960 --> 19:11.940] [SPEAKER_04]: And I didn't.
[19:12.040 --> 19:13.120] [SPEAKER_04]: I did not get a drone.
[19:13.380 --> 19:15.700] [SPEAKER_04]: They had, they had drones that were practicing.
[19:16.100 --> 19:20.220] [SPEAKER_04]: And they were, they were so cool because they were, they were hitting each other hard, falling to the ground, but they didn't break.
[19:20.360 --> 19:23.140] [SPEAKER_04]: They were, they were very, um, impervious to damage.
[19:23.340 --> 19:24.580] [SPEAKER_04]: And I want something like that.
[19:25.040 --> 19:39.060] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was a competitive drone league that, uh, hosted sort of, uh, drag strip of sorts, like a, a speed competition, as well as sort of a battle cage or net where, uh, they would just fight in, in more of a ring.
[19:39.620 --> 19:44.280] [SPEAKER_01]: I always took you for the type who would prefer a non-military drone, but...
[19:44.280 --> 19:50.160] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I, I prefer something that, um, you know, is rugged and can, um, uh, can, can do the job.
[19:50.280 --> 19:51.960] [SPEAKER_04]: And not necessarily take down other drones.
[19:52.100 --> 19:52.600] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't need that.
[19:52.740 --> 19:57.640] [SPEAKER_04]: I, I just would like to be able to, uh, you know, wander around and, and see what's, what's out there.
[19:57.760 --> 19:58.760] [SPEAKER_02]: You should be able to stick up for itself.
[19:59.140 --> 20:00.220] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, if necessary.
[20:00.460 --> 20:00.740] [SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
[20:01.380 --> 20:02.840] [SPEAKER_04]: Anyway, that was the Maker Faire this year.
[20:03.120 --> 20:04.380] [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, look forward to it next year.
[20:04.500 --> 20:07.620] [SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, maybe other ones too, because, uh, they're happening all over the place.
[20:07.760 --> 20:09.860] [SPEAKER_04]: If you go to MakerFaire.com, that's fair with an E.
[20:10.340 --> 20:12.640] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, you can find them in your area.
[20:12.880 --> 20:14.360] [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe, uh, they're all over the world.
[20:14.660 --> 20:14.780] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[20:14.920 --> 20:16.920] [SPEAKER_02]: We, we got some invitations too, so...
[20:16.920 --> 20:17.280] [SPEAKER_02]: We did.
[20:17.720 --> 20:19.540] [SPEAKER_04]: We're not going to make San Diego this weekend.
[20:19.780 --> 20:22.560] [SPEAKER_04]: Sorry to say, folks, it's too far away and too short notice.
[20:22.740 --> 20:24.900] [SPEAKER_04]: But, uh, Westport, Connecticut is a possibility.
[20:25.140 --> 20:26.200] [SPEAKER_04]: Detroit is a possibility.
[20:26.740 --> 20:28.140] [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, all kinds of places like that.
[20:28.260 --> 20:29.560] [SPEAKER_04]: Rome might even be a possibility.
[20:29.820 --> 20:31.000] [SPEAKER_04]: That, that would be awesome.
[20:31.220 --> 20:32.500] [SPEAKER_01]: You're going to ship the van over?
[20:32.620 --> 20:33.380] [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, I don't know about that.
[20:33.500 --> 20:37.560] [SPEAKER_04]: We'll have to figure something, something out as far as, or just get another van for that part of the world.
[20:37.920 --> 20:44.460] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, speaking of, um, of, um, old, uh, phones and phone museums, some very, very sad news.
[20:44.560 --> 20:45.120] [SPEAKER_04]: J.K.L.
[20:45.220 --> 20:54.100] [SPEAKER_04]: Phone Museum in Northern California was completely destroyed in the wildfire, and they're now accepting donations for support to rebuild and acquire new specimens.
[20:54.220 --> 20:56.400] [SPEAKER_04]: That's according to our, our listener, R.G.
[20:57.140 --> 20:58.480] [SPEAKER_04]: Bernie, terrible news, huh?
[20:59.340 --> 21:00.220] [SPEAKER_05]: It's tragic.
[21:00.460 --> 21:15.020] [SPEAKER_05]: Uh, people spend probably thousands of hours, uh, uh, in total, uh, working on, on putting these telephone museums together and, uh, you know, just lovingly reconditioning these phones and switches, which are, it's an incredible amount of work.
[21:15.240 --> 21:18.580] [SPEAKER_05]: And, uh, for it to all go up in flames is, uh, is so tragic.
[21:18.620 --> 21:25.340] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm hoping other telephone museums around the country, and there's several, um, can, uh, can help this one museum out.
[21:25.540 --> 21:28.340] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, because a lot of this equipment just doesn't exist anywhere else.
[21:28.420 --> 21:33.860] [SPEAKER_05]: All the phone companies have, uh, have just dumped it and, and sent it for scrap recycling.
[21:34.120 --> 21:35.880] [SPEAKER_05]: So there aren't many switches left.
[21:36.000 --> 21:42.000] [SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, there, there, you have not many switches left, but there is plenty of old telephone equipment.
[21:42.420 --> 21:45.280] [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, lots of it exists in people's attics and garages.
[21:45.800 --> 21:54.000] [SPEAKER_04]: And I'm sure that there are all kinds of specimens out there that, uh, could be donated to museums or just, uh, above all else, not thrown out.
[21:54.320 --> 21:57.160] [SPEAKER_04]: If you have an old phone in your house, don't throw it out.
[21:57.380 --> 21:58.880] [SPEAKER_04]: It's, it's, it's lasted this long.
[21:59.060 --> 22:01.660] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, it'll probably last at least as long in the future.
[22:01.880 --> 22:04.980] [SPEAKER_04]: And there are people who are very interested, uh, with that kind of a thing.
[22:05.100 --> 22:07.420] [SPEAKER_04]: So if you don't want it, donate it to somebody who does.
[22:07.580 --> 22:08.720] [SPEAKER_04]: There are plenty of people out there who do.
[22:09.640 --> 22:10.000] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[22:10.060 --> 22:11.480] [SPEAKER_02]: And some of these places even have storage.
[22:11.640 --> 22:20.860] [SPEAKER_02]: There's, uh, annexes and, you know, extra, extra overflow of, of equipment because it really does pile up when, you know, you have a place that accepts donations like that.
[22:21.260 --> 22:27.760] [SPEAKER_02]: People are more than willing to, uh, to offload large pieces of, of old switching gear, which is incredible.
[22:27.940 --> 22:35.460] [SPEAKER_02]: And it tells a story and has incredible craftsmanship, um, in its own right, just as a, uh, an artistic piece.
[22:35.640 --> 22:37.220] [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of the stuff is made out of wood.
[22:37.420 --> 22:43.720] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and you really cannot find it, uh, find anything made quite like it.
[22:43.820 --> 22:47.260] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's, it's very sad to hear that, um, there was that kind of damage.
[22:48.260 --> 22:48.700] [SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[22:49.040 --> 22:57.500] [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, moving on to some things that are changing as of October 1st, our credit cards are going to be working a little bit differently.
[22:57.540 --> 23:01.760] [SPEAKER_04]: In fact, uh, we were using credit cards, um, as merchants, uh, this weekend.
[23:02.300 --> 23:07.360] [SPEAKER_04]: And, uh, we insisted whenever possible that we use the chips and not the strip.
[23:07.520 --> 23:12.300] [SPEAKER_04]: Although sometimes we had to use the strip, especially when Amex is involved because they haven't quite cut over yet.
[23:12.440 --> 23:17.320] [SPEAKER_04]: What was some of the, some of the weird, um, errors or problems that we ran into?
[23:17.580 --> 23:17.980] [SPEAKER_04]: Do you remember?
[23:18.160 --> 23:19.500] [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people are aware of it.
[23:19.720 --> 23:27.100] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, there was some conversation when, uh, when we asked people and, and definitely direct directing what card to use and so on.
[23:27.620 --> 23:31.380] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, specifically for us, I mean, it was fairly smooth.
[23:31.520 --> 23:33.020] [SPEAKER_02]: There's a couple of cards that are not yet.
[23:33.020 --> 23:33.840] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, what is it?
[23:34.100 --> 23:34.520] [SPEAKER_02]: EMV?
[23:34.720 --> 23:35.200] [SPEAKER_02]: What is it?
[23:35.420 --> 23:35.840] [SPEAKER_02]: ECV?
[23:36.140 --> 23:41.180] [SPEAKER_02]: It's, it's, I can't remember the chips acronym, but that are not, uh, uh, in compliant yet.
[23:41.180 --> 23:46.540] [SPEAKER_02]: I believe the card processor is, is going to roll that out or has some sort of timeframe here.
[23:46.780 --> 23:51.280] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, certainly before the holidays, I'm sure, uh, to roll that out.
[23:51.480 --> 23:58.340] [SPEAKER_02]: But, uh, our experience in general, uh, any card that had it, uh, worked fairly well with, uh, with our equipment.
[23:58.600 --> 24:06.480] [SPEAKER_02]: And, um, we really only had signal, I think signal and network issues, but that's a little bit different when you're in a, at an event.
[24:06.480 --> 24:06.660] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[24:06.820 --> 24:09.560] [SPEAKER_04]: We had to stand on top of the van a couple of times to get signal, but, uh.
[24:09.640 --> 24:09.880] [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe.
[24:10.180 --> 24:13.140] [SPEAKER_01]: So people just were like, here, hackers, here's my credit card.
[24:13.240 --> 24:17.940] [SPEAKER_01]: Go stand on top of a van and, and, and use the chip part that no one has ever used before.
[24:17.940 --> 24:20.380] [SPEAKER_04]: It's that mentality that leads to all kinds of distrust.
[24:20.440 --> 24:28.440] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm, I'm just impressed that the, the, the attendees of the maker fair knew enough to trust you in this absurd situation.
[24:28.660 --> 24:40.620] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, because, uh, if they, if they know us, if they've listened to us, if they've read the magazine, they know that, um, if anybody knows how to entrust, um, uh, privacy or, or keep something secure, it's hackers.
[24:40.880 --> 24:44.980] [SPEAKER_04]: It's not the companies that, um, that let all your information get out.
[24:45.080 --> 24:51.600] [SPEAKER_04]: It's not the credit card organizations that I'm about to read a story now that, uh, tells how they're not doing it properly.
[24:52.000 --> 24:53.560] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, they don't care.
[24:53.700 --> 25:07.600] [SPEAKER_04]: We do because we have something to lose mainly trust and, uh, uh, uh, credit card information in our hands, obviously it's going to be, uh, uh, protected and not, uh, not abused like it is in, in, in companies that don't care.
[25:07.820 --> 25:08.160] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[25:08.260 --> 25:23.560] [SPEAKER_02]: And there's certain attributes to this technology that will actually make it a bit more secure for our customers, at least our audience, because they're using something that doesn't require them to, to put in some kind of pin in front of us.
[25:23.740 --> 25:24.180] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[25:24.300 --> 25:26.060] [SPEAKER_02]: We process everything without that.
[25:26.260 --> 25:26.380] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[25:26.520 --> 25:34.200] [SPEAKER_02]: And, uh, those kinds of change, you know, those decisions you make will, will, will dictate, uh, how the things are handled and so on.
[25:34.300 --> 25:38.320] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, it's, it's, it's the non-use of a pin actually that is a point of contention.
[25:38.540 --> 25:38.980] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[25:39.300 --> 25:44.520] [SPEAKER_04]: For the, um, uh, NRF, uh, which is the National Retail Foundation, I believe.
[25:45.060 --> 25:57.980] [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, they, um, uh, their general counsel, Mallory Duncan, uh, came out, um, uh, criticizing the new computer chip cards because they are requiring customers to provide a signature rather than a distinct pin.
[25:58.260 --> 26:04.420] [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, and they say that won't eliminate online and phone fraud with a stolen or lost chip card.
[26:04.840 --> 26:05.660] [SPEAKER_04]: Very true.
[26:05.900 --> 26:06.360] [SPEAKER_04]: It won't.
[26:06.480 --> 26:13.400] [SPEAKER_04]: If you had to enter a pin, then, uh, you'd have to have more information if you had a stolen card rather than, uh, simply entering the number.
[26:13.400 --> 26:17.400] [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, plus you can't really tell, Hey, that's not that person's signature.
[26:17.580 --> 26:22.160] [SPEAKER_04]: If they give you a card, whereas, uh, if they don't enter the right pin, you'll know right away.
[26:22.840 --> 26:33.480] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, Mallory Duncan also said the financial burden now in the tens of billions of dollars of making the transition to chip card technology unfairly rest mainly with retailers, not banks and credit card providers.
[26:33.520 --> 26:38.480] [SPEAKER_04]: We and our customers should not bear the burden for flaws in a 50 year old magnetic card system.
[26:38.700 --> 26:44.980] [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, the transition to chip cards and chip terminals has been all stick and no carrot and the technology doesn't work.
[26:44.980 --> 26:48.080] [SPEAKER_04]: We would like it to work and we want to secure payment system.
[26:48.360 --> 26:58.880] [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, retailers who have not installed the new equipment by the October 1st deadline, that's tomorrow, we're in, we'll incur the financial liability for fraudulent uses of a stolen or lost card.
[26:59.280 --> 27:04.240] [SPEAKER_04]: Banks will incur the liability if the payment terminals have been updated just as they do today with magnetic stripe cards.
[27:04.740 --> 27:08.600] [SPEAKER_04]: Consumers face no liability under the new system.
[27:08.840 --> 27:15.300] [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, while fraud with magnetic stripe cards is a widely recognized, uh, problem by, uh, recognized by us merchants.
[27:15.460 --> 27:22.980] [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, those retailers are also unconvinced that chip cards with signatures for purchases will be as secure as using a chip card with a pin.
[27:23.160 --> 27:26.380] [SPEAKER_04]: Now, Mike, when we go overseas, we see this all the time.
[27:26.380 --> 27:29.240] [SPEAKER_04]: We see a chip and pin being used everywhere.
[27:29.680 --> 27:31.080] [SPEAKER_04]: Why don't they do that here?
[27:31.280 --> 27:31.900] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[27:32.000 --> 27:37.720] [SPEAKER_01]: And apparently it's up to the card itself to decide what are the acceptable authorization methods.
[27:37.720 --> 27:42.060] [SPEAKER_01]: So I now have a card with a chip that, works overseas finally.
[27:42.420 --> 27:46.460] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, but it's, it's chip and signature and it's the card that makes the decision.
[27:46.520 --> 27:54.440] [SPEAKER_01]: So I have to, uh, you know, if I'm overseas and I put the card in the thing, it prints out a piece of paper and the clerk is like, what is going on?
[27:54.520 --> 27:55.640] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, we got another American.
[27:55.760 --> 27:55.920] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[27:55.920 --> 27:56.820] [SPEAKER_01]: You have to find a pen.
[27:57.160 --> 27:58.400] [SPEAKER_01]: It's, it's a big production.
[27:58.620 --> 28:01.060] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, but I did encounter one machine.
[28:01.280 --> 28:06.500] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, uh, I'll tell you, it's the Danish Metro machines that did ask me for a pin.
[28:06.680 --> 28:12.860] [SPEAKER_01]: So clearly my card knows about pins and can do it under duress, but it really prefers not to.
[28:12.980 --> 28:13.540] [SPEAKER_04]: Did you have a pin?
[28:13.740 --> 28:13.840] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[28:13.960 --> 28:14.360] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, okay.
[28:14.540 --> 28:14.660] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[28:14.860 --> 28:15.460] [SPEAKER_01]: It worked fine.
[28:15.540 --> 28:16.520] [SPEAKER_01]: I bought, I bought a Metro ticket.
[28:16.720 --> 28:21.520] [SPEAKER_04]: As many as a time I've, I've, uh, used my card overseas and I've asked for a pin and I don't have one.
[28:21.520 --> 28:26.860] [SPEAKER_04]: I just say, I don't have a pin and there's a button they hit for no pin, uh, which sounds really insecure.
[28:26.860 --> 28:31.480] [SPEAKER_04]: But I guess if, um, if, if you truly don't have a pin, uh, it'll go through.
[28:31.560 --> 28:34.540] [SPEAKER_04]: And if you, if you do have a pin saying no pin won't work.
[28:34.540 --> 28:37.300] [SPEAKER_01]: Now that particular card encouraged me to set a pin online.
[28:37.340 --> 28:45.720] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I got a recently a new card and they mailed it to me on a piece of paper that I have already shredded and I don't know the pin for that new card.
[28:46.080 --> 28:58.000] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, um, the real question is why are banks not pushing chip and pin technology in the U.S. according to analysts, they say banks think it'll be too difficult for consumers to learn a four digit pin.
[28:58.720 --> 29:00.160] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, come on.
[29:00.260 --> 29:01.840] [SPEAKER_01]: We can handle it for ATM cards.
[29:02.160 --> 29:02.220] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[29:02.360 --> 29:03.720] [SPEAKER_04]: We can handle it for all sorts of things.
[29:03.940 --> 29:05.640] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, give us a little bit of credit here.
[29:05.800 --> 29:08.020] [SPEAKER_04]: I think we can handle it's no pun intended.
[29:08.200 --> 29:13.240] [SPEAKER_04]: We can handle a four digit pin, um, and it'll keep our cards much more secure.
[29:13.720 --> 29:21.920] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, well, some banks and credit card officials, according to this story, have said they prefer to wait and see customer buying behaviors with chip and signature approaches.
[29:21.920 --> 29:29.900] [SPEAKER_04]: Banks will ultimately be responsible for deciding whether to move from chip and signature to chip and pin as has happened in Canada in recent years.
[29:30.480 --> 29:40.420] [SPEAKER_01]: Bernie, the other advantage of the chip and pin system is generally the strong employees don't handle your cards at all, uh, in most locations that, that primarily use chip and pin.
[29:40.640 --> 29:45.240] [SPEAKER_01]: So there's, uh, reduced opportunities for employee fraud as well.
[29:45.420 --> 29:55.120] [SPEAKER_04]: Now, Bernie, I know, uh, you've been the victim of, uh, of credit card, uh, fraud as a result of, uh, some, some things that have happened, um, in a hotel, right?
[29:56.200 --> 29:56.640] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[29:56.800 --> 30:09.260] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I wasn't actually a victim of fraud, but I was, my, my data was compromised, but, but I never noticed, uh, I had to get a new card and all this, but, um, I saw a couple of times that happened with the, uh, the Wyndham, the Wyndham hotel chain.
[30:09.260 --> 30:10.740] [SPEAKER_05]: I was at Nauticon a few years ago.
[30:10.860 --> 30:15.960] [SPEAKER_05]: And then shortly after that stay, uh, I got a letter from Wyndham saying, uh, Oh, your credit card number was compromised.
[30:15.960 --> 30:17.280] [SPEAKER_05]: Uh, you should get a new card.
[30:17.480 --> 30:21.160] [SPEAKER_05]: And then more recently was, there was the big, uh, what was the Home Depot thing?
[30:21.220 --> 30:21.880] [SPEAKER_05]: I forget what it was.
[30:21.980 --> 30:24.000] [SPEAKER_05]: It was a big, uh, Home Depot thing.
[30:24.060 --> 30:25.200] [SPEAKER_05]: I had to get a new card then too.
[30:25.340 --> 30:29.180] [SPEAKER_05]: And, and a lot of times they cancel your card before they send you a new one and you're less stranded sometimes.
[30:29.600 --> 30:30.420] [SPEAKER_05]: That happened to me.
[30:30.420 --> 30:33.320] [SPEAKER_05]: I was in a rural area and I couldn't buy gasoline when I needed to.
[30:33.620 --> 30:41.260] [SPEAKER_05]: But, um, I'm really perplexed by this whole theory, by the, by the retail merchants, uh, federation, uh, or national retail federation.
[30:41.820 --> 30:58.200] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, maybe not down, but the banks, they're, they're saying that people should pin code, or maybe it's going to take too long and clog up the, uh, the checkout lines, but wouldn't it take longer to sign your name on a, on a pin on a, on a, you know, digital signature pad?
[30:58.420 --> 31:00.620] [SPEAKER_05]: Wouldn't that take longer than any four digit pin?
[31:00.840 --> 31:05.360] [SPEAKER_04]: I can tell you it will, especially if you can't find a pen, like we had trouble with this weekend.
[31:05.940 --> 31:15.560] [SPEAKER_05]: They have a stylist, but I want to know, are these, um, are the, are the networks going to be analyzing our signatures now with, uh, with a chip and signature?
[31:15.860 --> 31:17.420] [SPEAKER_05]: Will they be actually comparing the signals?
[31:17.540 --> 31:19.240] [SPEAKER_05]: If you just draw a straight line, will it work?
[31:19.780 --> 31:25.800] [SPEAKER_05]: Does it, I mean, what, did they use any criteria to determine the, uh, the veracity of a signature or will they?
[31:26.000 --> 31:26.980] [SPEAKER_05]: Uh, that's what intrigues me.
[31:27.160 --> 31:36.400] [SPEAKER_04]: It's just another shortcut, and I think it's, uh, something that will be proven to be a, a mistake, and eventually we'll wind up using the system that the rest of the world, um, is using.
[31:36.580 --> 31:38.400] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm just amazed we have the, the chips.
[31:38.640 --> 31:43.480] [SPEAKER_04]: I've been, I've been complaining about this for many, many years, and finally we have the chips at least.
[31:43.480 --> 31:46.040] [SPEAKER_04]: So we're halfway there, maybe even two-thirds of the way there.
[31:46.660 --> 31:54.300] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, now, uh, Bernie, I know there were some cases, uh, you mentioned the, uh, the, the Wyndham Hotel, uh, uh, case where your credit card information was, was taken.
[31:54.600 --> 32:00.640] [SPEAKER_04]: There was, um, a decision, um, on, um, on, on, uh, who was liable for that recently?
[32:01.840 --> 32:04.220] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, I'm trying to remember what happened with there.
[32:04.340 --> 32:26.200] [SPEAKER_05]: I, I think, uh, it was ruled that the, uh, the, uh, a court ruled that federal, uh, trade commission, which, right, which is responsible for regulating things really related to credit card fraud, uh, ruled that, um, or a court ruled that the federal trade commission can prosecute companies over lax,
[32:26.200 --> 32:27.600] [SPEAKER_05]: uh, security.
[32:27.860 --> 32:33.400] [SPEAKER_05]: Uh, and this was Wyndham, the hotel, Wyndham Hotel chain was, uh, was the, uh, defendant in this case.
[32:33.580 --> 32:46.400] [SPEAKER_05]: Wyndham was saying, well, we credit card numbers that we, uh, uh, and names that we, uh, we failed to protect and the federal court ruled that, uh, the SEC can prosecute these companies for, uh, for their lax security.
[32:46.620 --> 32:53.840] [SPEAKER_05]: So this may be the first step to actually having some accountability to big companies who are really careless with our information.
[32:54.000 --> 33:03.780] [SPEAKER_04]: I kind of thought that they already had that right, that, uh, if, if there was lax security, that there was, uh, you had to answer to the FTC among other organizations.
[33:04.420 --> 33:08.640] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, that was, the Wyndham hotel chain was, uh, was fighting that saying, no, we shouldn't be.
[33:08.760 --> 33:14.700] [SPEAKER_05]: And the court said, no, you are responsible and you can be held, uh, you can be prosecuted and held liable.
[33:14.840 --> 33:26.420] [SPEAKER_05]: And that's going to also open up, uh, civil liability to companies that allow, that allow our credit card information, other personal information to be, uh, to be exposed to, uh, uh, unauthorized parties.
[33:26.560 --> 33:27.900] [SPEAKER_05]: So I think this is a positive step.
[33:28.000 --> 33:39.660] [SPEAKER_05]: The only way this is going to stop this kind of fraud is, uh, is if, uh, the companies that are, are not protecting our information or, are held accountable financially for their lax security.
[33:39.960 --> 33:41.460] [SPEAKER_05]: So that's, it's a small step in that direction.
[33:41.780 --> 33:42.740] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, it's interesting.
[33:42.860 --> 33:54.060] [SPEAKER_04]: You should mention the word fraud because that leads wonderfully into our next segment, uh, which is something you might've heard about in the news concerning automobiles, namely VW Volkswagen.
[33:54.520 --> 34:00.300] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it seems that, uh, there has been some cheating going on with regards to emissions.
[34:00.700 --> 34:01.960] [SPEAKER_04]: How is this cheating possible?
[34:02.120 --> 34:12.950] [SPEAKER_04]: It's possible through the technology that's inside the car, the computers that are basically programmed to sense when a car is being tested for emissions, as opposed to when a car is being driven.
[34:13.160 --> 34:17.430] [SPEAKER_04]: And when it's tested, it will give different results.
[34:17.580 --> 34:18.950] [SPEAKER_04]: That is what's been happening.
[34:19.080 --> 34:23.100] [SPEAKER_04]: It's, it's unbelievable what we're, what we're learning on a daily basis.
[34:23.300 --> 34:28.320] [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, but this affects people who have, um, uh, diesel, uh, Volkswagen cars.
[34:28.460 --> 34:29.140] [SPEAKER_04]: And guess what?
[34:29.220 --> 34:29.960] [SPEAKER_04]: We have one.
[34:30.080 --> 34:34.320] [SPEAKER_04]: We have one that actually, uh, is right smack in the middle of this controversy.
[34:34.320 --> 34:36.600] [SPEAKER_04]: So it's, it's of particular interest to, to us.
[34:36.700 --> 34:43.840] [SPEAKER_04]: And Kyle, you're a VW mechanic and on top of everything else, and you're, uh, you're into diesel and biodiesel and all that.
[34:44.000 --> 34:48.000] [SPEAKER_04]: So this is, this has, uh, all kinds of interesting points for you.
[34:48.450 --> 34:48.930] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[34:49.060 --> 34:49.160] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[34:49.370 --> 35:05.460] [SPEAKER_02]: So this is a really, um, impressive scandal that has basically erupted, uh, as a result of some compliance, basically the clean air standards in this country, um, were, were being tested.
[35:05.520 --> 35:12.760] [SPEAKER_02]: The vehicles are being tested to basically check on the compliance for, um, I guess the 2016 model years.
[35:12.760 --> 35:28.410] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was through some of this that some discrepancies were found and it was brought to, uh, the manufacturer Volkswagen, in this case brought to their attention and they, uh, made some token efforts, uh, but it didn't really, it didn't really erupt until,
[35:28.410 --> 35:43.600] [SPEAKER_02]: uh, a couple months later till midway through the summer or, or now, uh, really that they, um, admitted that there was an actual, uh, uh, intentional software bug put into the computer systems to detect testing, as you said.
[35:43.870 --> 35:52.980] [SPEAKER_02]: And, um, and basically they thought they could get away based with, without, uh, further testing and oversight, which is exactly what the EPA did.
[35:53.120 --> 35:58.390] [SPEAKER_02]: They went and replicated a test that had stumbled upon these results, found that they had the same results.
[35:58.500 --> 36:01.340] [SPEAKER_02]: And, and the crux of this is mobile air quality testing.
[36:01.390 --> 36:03.120] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's what, that's what was going on.
[36:03.430 --> 36:15.850] [SPEAKER_02]: The EPA's test only called for them to be, uh, tested on a dynamometer, which is, uh, basically like, um, two big rolling pins that the front wheels are on and it tested in a stationary position.
[36:15.850 --> 36:23.680] [SPEAKER_02]: They have fans and all the, the, the thing they didn't do is actually drive it like you would maybe drive it when you rent a car.
[36:24.080 --> 36:40.080] [SPEAKER_02]: And, um, this, uh, one university team did that, found the discrepancies and that really prompted the EPA to clamp down on this because they had already received complaints that there was evidence that the sensors, the state of the vehicle while testing,
[36:40.200 --> 36:44.960] [SPEAKER_02]: if you move the steering wheel, certain things would throw it off or turn on emissions controls.
[36:44.960 --> 36:53.980] [SPEAKER_02]: There was a suspicious activity with that, which you can imagine if, if it is sensing steering wheel movement and you're in a stationary position, who knows how they found it.
[36:54.160 --> 37:07.950] [SPEAKER_02]: The point is when they replicated it, um, the EPA found exactly the same results that this, uh, this other team had found in it and it supported some of the other prior suspicions that, that were brought up, but never really investigated.
[37:07.950 --> 37:20.140] [SPEAKER_04]: What I find interesting about this fascinating really is the fact that, um, because the systems inside this car, inside all new cars are what we refer to as, as black boxes.
[37:20.390 --> 37:21.750] [SPEAKER_04]: We can't get access to them.
[37:21.790 --> 37:22.460] [SPEAKER_04]: They're proprietary.
[37:22.480 --> 37:28.180] [SPEAKER_04]: Only those people licensed to the car have the, the right to even fix it these days.
[37:28.720 --> 37:30.200] [SPEAKER_04]: Nobody could detect this.
[37:30.370 --> 37:34.270] [SPEAKER_04]: And this is exactly, this wasn't really the point that we were trying to make.
[37:34.270 --> 37:37.640] [SPEAKER_04]: The point we were trying to make was that anybody should be able to fix that car.
[37:37.790 --> 37:41.500] [SPEAKER_04]: Any mechanic should be able to fix any car to get access to it.
[37:41.600 --> 37:45.480] [SPEAKER_04]: Shouldn't have to pay licensing fees or be on a special list.
[37:45.600 --> 37:58.600] [SPEAKER_04]: But wow, this makes the point much clearer than anything we could possibly say, because we hadn't even considered the possibility of nefarious actions on the part of the auto dealers to fraudulently change the data and not be detected.
[37:58.910 --> 37:59.250] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[37:59.370 --> 37:59.460] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[37:59.580 --> 38:08.000] [SPEAKER_02]: That's, that's the really astonishing thing that both of us realized immediately when we started hearing the news about this was that we had made these points.
[38:08.000 --> 38:22.580] [SPEAKER_02]: We'd talked about this on the air, but in the context of, um, of working on and tinkering with vehicle systems, um, vehicle engine management systems have been played with a little bit and people have, have been definitely wanting to have access.
[38:22.950 --> 38:29.100] [SPEAKER_02]: And, and we've, uh, talked with, uh, various people that have worked with legislation for legislation on this.
[38:29.200 --> 38:30.500] [SPEAKER_02]: The right to repair comes to mind.
[38:30.500 --> 38:31.950] [SPEAKER_02]: And we've, we've, we've talked about this over the years.
[38:32.100 --> 38:40.680] [SPEAKER_02]: It's evolved into a situation where we still have, um, the dealers and the manufacturers protecting their software.
[38:40.930 --> 38:50.580] [SPEAKER_02]: And, and this happens actually more often in industry and in consumer electronics than, than we really, uh, are care to acknowledge as a society.
[38:50.790 --> 38:52.480] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's all around us, really.
[38:52.640 --> 39:01.660] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, every device you get, um, um, in some way has some attribute that somebody wants to protect the, the, uh, the knowledge behind it.
[39:01.810 --> 39:07.140] [SPEAKER_02]: So, and then by purchasing it, you sort of are forced into these licensing agreements.
[39:07.290 --> 39:22.020] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's exactly the crux of what arguments we had made in the past were, was that these are essentially licensing agreements that bind you to something that if, if it breaks, or if it is found in this case to be in violation or, uh, in some, or is in some way unhealthful,
[39:22.020 --> 39:32.870] [SPEAKER_02]: uh, it is out of your control and you had absolutely no ability to audit the system that you'd licensed and paid for and, and, and a myriad of other things.
[39:32.870 --> 39:34.000] [SPEAKER_02]: It really is.
[39:34.120 --> 39:41.560] [SPEAKER_02]: It makes it impossible for people to understand the devices that they're using and, or even innovate and improve upon it.
[39:41.660 --> 39:52.640] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, except for if you're a real, um, really dedicated and, um, willing to take the risk of maybe breaking something as with other, uh, scenarios like this in consumer electronics.
[39:52.830 --> 40:07.140] [SPEAKER_04]: Look how long it took for this to be detected, how long this was out there and had this, uh, university team, I believe in West Virginia, not, uh, been, uh, diligent enough to actually investigate this and try and find out what was really going on.
[40:07.560 --> 40:09.830] [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, this could have gone on for a much longer time.
[40:09.930 --> 40:17.640] [SPEAKER_04]: We're talking about up to 40 times the allowable amount of emissions coming from these cars that were bought under false pretenses.
[40:17.890 --> 40:23.950] [SPEAKER_04]: People driving around thinking they're driving, they're driving environmentally friendly cars are actually driving environmentally hostile cars.
[40:24.180 --> 40:27.830] [SPEAKER_04]: There's a whole world of consumer issues that are opened up by that.
[40:27.950 --> 40:36.790] [SPEAKER_04]: But the, the, the concept of, of having this closed off system that you don't have access to, that you can't, uh, analyze that you can't adjust.
[40:36.810 --> 40:39.290] [SPEAKER_04]: You can't figure out what is actually going on.
[40:39.410 --> 40:40.540] [SPEAKER_04]: This is the danger.
[40:40.540 --> 40:42.930] [SPEAKER_04]: This is, is the risk of having that.
[40:43.830 --> 40:44.430] [SPEAKER_01]: Mike?
[40:44.540 --> 40:53.120] [SPEAKER_01]: All cars are environmentally hostile, but, uh, it's also, uh, not reasonable to assume that Volkswagen is the only company doing it.
[40:53.250 --> 40:56.430] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe they're the worst offenders and they got lucky and got caught.
[40:56.580 --> 41:13.140] [SPEAKER_01]: But, uh, the, according to the media, the team that ended up finding this issue was actually seeking to demonstrate that the cars were environmentally friendly and they, they, they just wanted to, you know, test some new equipment to show how great these cars were.
[41:13.250 --> 41:15.870] [SPEAKER_01]: And they ended up, of course, finding quite the opposite.
[41:16.120 --> 41:33.600] [SPEAKER_01]: But, uh, you know, the, the hubris of the management of Volkswagen to think they were going to get away with this and, and the regulatory environment that led them to reasonably believe that they would in fact get away with is, is, is really, really something.
[41:33.950 --> 41:53.160] [SPEAKER_02]: That's, that's, uh, in, in exactly, uh, uh, true what you said, uh, with regards to the, um, the, uh, group wanting to bolster these kinds of, uh, uh, clean diesel technologies that this absolutely, these, uh, engines were branded and marketed heavily as being,
[41:53.390 --> 41:53.930] [SPEAKER_02]: uh, clean.
[41:54.250 --> 42:01.700] [SPEAKER_02]: And, uh, and the team themselves, I want to emphasize this because you, you said it, uh, in, in the conversation, let's just say this one more time.
[42:01.700 --> 42:09.270] [SPEAKER_02]: The team did not actually break or violate any of the software that like so-called reverse engineering and so on.
[42:09.370 --> 42:12.480] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, they were not picking apart the engine management system.
[42:12.580 --> 42:17.500] [SPEAKER_02]: They were not violating any of the things that we've talked about in the past as being quite hostile to innovation.
[42:17.750 --> 42:19.310] [SPEAKER_02]: They actually use data.
[42:19.460 --> 42:27.460] [SPEAKER_02]: They found this by actually analyzing the emissions and, and found that there's something turning this on and off.
[42:27.790 --> 42:28.220] [SPEAKER_02]: Hmm.
[42:28.540 --> 42:31.750] [SPEAKER_02]: What, what is the, what is the, uh, the, the discrepancy?
[42:31.830 --> 42:34.790] [SPEAKER_02]: What is the difference between when it does something, when it does not do something?
[42:34.910 --> 42:38.430] [SPEAKER_02]: And the other important point is that these controls were on the vehicle.
[42:39.060 --> 42:43.250] [SPEAKER_02]: So the ability for these cars to be clean is there.
[42:43.960 --> 42:45.960] [SPEAKER_02]: It's simply being bypassed.
[42:45.960 --> 42:53.060] [SPEAKER_02]: So that, that kind of exasperates, I think, and, and makes it a bit worse considering there's not even an attempt.
[42:53.450 --> 43:01.140] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, and so there, there, there must be a motive behind this that is, that is, that yeah, is, uh, business oriented instead of in mindful.
[43:01.310 --> 43:12.480] [SPEAKER_04]: Let me ask you this then, uh, if, if they had actually reversed engineered the code, I, I, do you think they would have found even more or could they find even more if, if they could have access to what actually is going on?
[43:13.180 --> 43:13.580] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[43:13.720 --> 43:15.290] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's a really interesting question.
[43:15.810 --> 43:23.220] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, it, it would audits of engine management software have caught this or would this be something you see only in the lab?
[43:23.310 --> 43:27.020] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm not sure the, the, the question is it stands.
[43:27.140 --> 43:28.020] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a good question.
[43:28.200 --> 43:29.410] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't really know.
[43:29.540 --> 43:33.350] [SPEAKER_02]: I, this is a little bit, it gets a bit, um, beyond my expertise.
[43:33.580 --> 43:52.100] [SPEAKER_02]: It's stuff I'm fascinated and interested in and have wanted to understand and learn about, but, um, it's certainly possible that, that, um, you know, when you have systems like this, that nobody gets to take a look at, at least we're missing out on opportunities for innovation and people improving upon the systems and,
[43:52.100 --> 43:54.080] [SPEAKER_02]: uh, and, and making it better.
[43:54.200 --> 43:56.460] [SPEAKER_02]: I also wanted to add one other little fun fact.
[43:56.580 --> 44:02.220] [SPEAKER_02]: We were researching this Mike and looked into precedent for the so-called defeat, defeat devices.
[44:02.300 --> 44:20.380] [SPEAKER_02]: And it really has come about in the 1970s when emissions became something very, um, important, uh, when a lot of the like sixties muscle cars and other big kind of gas guzzlers, as they were called, um, began to come under scrutiny with, uh, clean air act,
[44:20.560 --> 44:22.020] [SPEAKER_02]: uh, initiatives and so on.
[44:22.120 --> 44:36.600] [SPEAKER_02]: So there were a couple, uh, defeat devices, uh, namely in 1973, um, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, and even Toyota were ordered to stop using ambient temperature switches, which disabled pollution controls at low temperatures.
[44:36.820 --> 44:39.100] [SPEAKER_02]: And then, um, skip ahead at the same year.
[44:39.300 --> 44:42.660] [SPEAKER_02]: Also, uh, Volkswagen settled with the EPA.
[44:43.200 --> 44:55.980] [SPEAKER_02]: 1973, um, they admitted no wrongdoing, however, but paid $120,000 for failing to disclose the existence of two temperature sensing switches that affected, uh, emissions functions.
[44:56.400 --> 44:57.770] [SPEAKER_02]: And that was, uh, yeah.
[44:58.520 --> 44:58.680] [SPEAKER_04]: 1973?
[44:59.640 --> 44:59.960] [SPEAKER_04]: Wow.
[45:00.060 --> 45:02.750] [SPEAKER_04]: So this happened before with Volkswagen.
[45:02.750 --> 45:03.020] [SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
[45:03.250 --> 45:03.440] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[45:03.600 --> 45:05.980] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, and in 1974, they were forced to remove them.
[45:05.980 --> 45:09.860] [SPEAKER_04]: And as Mike was saying, other car manufacturers are probably doing this as well.
[45:10.060 --> 45:12.100] [SPEAKER_02]: The Cadillac and so on and so on and so on.
[45:12.140 --> 45:28.680] [SPEAKER_02]: There are other cars that have had defeat devices for, for various reasons, but it's, it's mostly due to the admission, the emissions control policies and their inability to really innovate and put the right technology in there and, and provide both a car they can sell and also one that is not emitting,
[45:28.860 --> 45:30.120] [SPEAKER_02]: uh, toxic, uh.
[45:30.220 --> 45:30.360] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[45:30.460 --> 45:40.620] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, so what they learned from that is like, don't put a physical object in that someone's going to find, uh, what they're, what they're going to learn is from this is like, be a little more subtle about it next time.
[45:40.620 --> 45:45.140] [SPEAKER_01]: You can get away with this kind of thing for five years, but you got to be more subtle if you want to get away for longer.
[45:45.320 --> 45:49.680] [SPEAKER_01]: And let's be clear, these crimes that these car manufacturers are committing have victims.
[45:49.840 --> 45:53.080] [SPEAKER_01]: People are dying from the excess air pollution that these cars are emitting.
[45:53.320 --> 45:54.460] [SPEAKER_01]: It's 3,000 people a year.
[45:54.560 --> 46:01.920] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, so, so when they get away with something next time, like we, we have to act to stop them.
[46:02.060 --> 46:07.540] [SPEAKER_04]: I feel terrible because our car, uh, has been emitting 40 times, maybe up to 40 times what we thought it was emitting.
[46:07.770 --> 46:10.940] [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, and that could have, that could have done all kinds of damage to the environment.
[46:10.940 --> 46:18.900] [SPEAKER_04]: And the exact reason for getting a car that gets in the mid fifties miles per gallon and has low emissions is that you don't do that.
[46:19.020 --> 46:27.980] [SPEAKER_04]: And now here we are stuck with something that is polluting that, uh, when they get around to fixing it, isn't going to be the car that we thought we were getting.
[46:28.360 --> 46:31.520] [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, there's all kinds of consumer issues attached to this.
[46:31.640 --> 46:37.160] [SPEAKER_04]: Bernie, this is where I want to bring you in because, uh, uh, you're keenly aware of, uh, of consumer injustice.
[46:37.320 --> 46:42.290] [SPEAKER_04]: We were just talking about what happens to people whose, whose, uh, credit cards are, are, uh, laid out for all to see.
[46:42.600 --> 46:47.360] [SPEAKER_04]: But in a case like this, I don't know how VW can, can make it right.
[46:47.500 --> 46:54.880] [SPEAKER_04]: They have to, um, install something, uh, that actually delivers what they say they, that the cars are emitting.
[46:55.270 --> 47:00.320] [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, but when they do that, the cars are not going to be the same cars that the consumers bought.
[47:00.400 --> 47:06.900] [SPEAKER_04]: They're going to be cars that have significantly lower gas mileage and, and, and, and not enough, um, uh, as far as, as pickup.
[47:07.290 --> 47:09.420] [SPEAKER_04]: What do you think, uh, they're going to wind up doing?
[47:10.240 --> 47:18.300] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, first, I think the, uh, the EPA is going to hugely fine Volkswagen, probably in the billions of dollars.
[47:18.640 --> 47:39.770] [SPEAKER_05]: But I think also Volkswagen is going to face serious class action lawsuits by Volkswagen owners like yourself, who, uh, who own these so-called clean diesel vehicles, who were defrauded by, uh, being sold, uh, cars that were, uh, that were said to emit only a certain amount of,
[47:39.900 --> 47:42.340] [SPEAKER_05]: uh, these toxic, uh, chemicals.
[47:42.640 --> 47:44.420] [SPEAKER_05]: And, uh, they're doing a lot more.
[47:44.520 --> 47:52.520] [SPEAKER_05]: Now, when your car, your car is going to be recalled and you will have to get it, um, I don't know even how they're going to force people to bring their cars in.
[47:52.880 --> 48:05.320] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, I think some states are saying, well, if you don't take your car in to be, uh, retrofitted with, uh, uh, uh, better emissions controls, your Volkswagen, that we won't, we won't renew your vehicle registration.
[48:05.340 --> 48:08.480] [SPEAKER_05]: So that's maybe the states are going to have to get involved in that.
[48:08.620 --> 48:18.250] [SPEAKER_05]: But, uh, I think you and millions of other Volkswagen so-called clean diesel car owners are going to have serious, um, uh, class action lawsuit possibilities.
[48:18.320 --> 48:21.320] [SPEAKER_05]: You're, you're probably going to get paid money on this just without even trying.
[48:21.500 --> 48:34.580] [SPEAKER_05]: They're just going to try to pay you off because you're not going to get the mileage, the miles per gallon that you ever got with the, if they're going to actually make your car in compliance with the, with the, uh, the, the emissions that were, they were supposed to have.
[48:34.750 --> 48:36.520] [SPEAKER_05]: So this is a huge nightmare for Volkswagen.
[48:36.940 --> 48:38.540] [SPEAKER_05]: It's going to cost them billions of dollars.
[48:38.620 --> 48:43.420] [SPEAKER_05]: And I hope this is going to be a lesson to other car manufacturers to not pull this, but they're going to keep trying.
[48:43.500 --> 48:46.580] [SPEAKER_05]: All these companies are going to keep trying it as long as they think they can get away with it.
[48:46.680 --> 48:47.160] [SPEAKER_05]: Like Mike said.
[48:47.640 --> 48:51.020] [SPEAKER_02]: So I, I, I'm a little bit more optimistic.
[48:51.020 --> 49:14.840] [SPEAKER_02]: I, I actually think that it is, it is in the interest to both meet the compliance standard and, um, honor the, uh, the mileage and performance, uh, that they promise customers because of the very threat that, that that poses, if they don't honor the performance or the fuel economy,
[49:14.840 --> 49:25.040] [SPEAKER_02]: um, and are still in, and, or, and are still in violation, they're going to see that kind of class action up to and including the entire value of the car.
[49:25.440 --> 49:41.900] [SPEAKER_02]: So, and, and I think, uh, the, the, the real, the distinction I want to make about, uh, the fix being something that guarantees a lower economy or, or, um, or, uh, power isn't.
[49:42.040 --> 49:43.540] [SPEAKER_02]: So it, it depends on the fix.
[49:43.770 --> 49:50.180] [SPEAKER_02]: So it depends on how much they actually spend per car to fix this.
[49:50.320 --> 49:51.840] [SPEAKER_02]: There are other methods.
[49:51.840 --> 50:04.920] [SPEAKER_02]: And I just would say that if they choose the current method and it is activated in the software, and that is the only thing they, they allow is they turn on the emission control that's there, which is a Knox scrubber, a catalytic scrubber.
[50:05.060 --> 50:07.500] [SPEAKER_02]: If that's on, then yes, it will use fuel.
[50:07.640 --> 50:10.800] [SPEAKER_02]: If they augment it and add a different technology.
[50:10.800 --> 50:25.140] [SPEAKER_02]: So it has several technologies instead of just the one that, that is on the vehicle, as it stands, there is a potential to chemically alter the, the emissions, but that would then take the cost of the fix and push it up higher.
[50:25.140 --> 50:44.770] [SPEAKER_02]: But at least if they spend more money on the fix, um, adding technologies or augmenting the existing one, as I said, um, it'll cost less than the $37,000 they're expecting to get in class that they would be, uh, facing if they don't actually both fix it in a mission sense,
[50:44.860 --> 50:46.060] [SPEAKER_02]: but also performance and economy.
[50:46.600 --> 51:02.440] [SPEAKER_04]: So you're saying that if they just spend more money, um, uh, retrofitting the cars or adding something to them, they, they can, they can actually get to the point where the car is delivering what was promised to the consumer and also satisfying the EPA requirements.
[51:02.720 --> 51:03.180] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[51:03.220 --> 51:12.960] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I don't know the exact, uh, um, mechanical engineering and the exact trade-offs that they have to look at as far as numbers and how they do the engine mapping and so on and so forth.
[51:13.120 --> 51:31.360] [SPEAKER_02]: But I'm saying that if, if there's actually thought and, and energy put into fixing this and having it, uh, both perform and, and, um, and comply, uh, the way they advertise, you'll end up with a car that's actually better than they originally, uh, uh,
[51:31.680 --> 51:35.920] [SPEAKER_02]: offered because they'll address all of these things, but it will cost money for them to address it.
[51:36.020 --> 51:41.020] [SPEAKER_02]: And, and you always run into, uh, cost benefit when you're making financial decisions.
[51:41.020 --> 51:44.020] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's going to be really fascinating to see how they actually fix this.
[51:44.120 --> 51:46.900] [SPEAKER_04]: But this might actually save their image somewhat if they do put in more.
[51:46.900 --> 52:00.000] [SPEAKER_02]: That is the other big attribute of this is it is very much in their interest to do this the right way because not only are they under legal scrutiny, but this has a serious, uh, impact on their brand and marketing, which is really important to Volkswagen.
[52:00.180 --> 52:00.820] [SPEAKER_04]: This could destroy them.
[52:00.940 --> 52:03.000] [SPEAKER_04]: And this was a company that was allied with the Nazis once.
[52:03.200 --> 52:05.290] [SPEAKER_04]: So if that didn't destroy them, this definitely could.
[52:05.420 --> 52:05.720] [SPEAKER_04]: Go ahead, Mike.
[52:05.940 --> 52:06.750] [SPEAKER_01]: It was created by the Nazis.
[52:06.920 --> 52:11.980] [SPEAKER_01]: But, uh, Bernie, I want to ask you the kind of absurd rhetorical question that you sometimes ask me.
[52:12.140 --> 52:26.420] [SPEAKER_01]: Do you think the, the punishment in fines or jail time for Volkswagen incorporated or the executives who made this decision will actually be high enough to deter other car manufacturers from trying to pull the same stunt?
[52:26.600 --> 52:30.200] [SPEAKER_01]: Or do you think, you know, it will cost them billions of dollars, but they're a giant corporation.
[52:30.200 --> 52:31.660] [SPEAKER_01]: They can afford billions of dollars.
[52:31.800 --> 52:32.120] [SPEAKER_01]: Who cares?
[52:33.100 --> 52:48.220] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, I don't think, even if they lock up several executives and criminally prosecute them and put them in federal prison, I still think that the profit motive, uh, for some of these, uh, CEOs and, uh, other high ranking, uh, car manufacturing officials,
[52:48.440 --> 52:55.620] [SPEAKER_05]: I, I really think that they know that they can make so much more money if they cheat, that they're still going to be very tempted.
[52:55.770 --> 52:59.320] [SPEAKER_05]: It's just like on wall street and, and the banking industry investments.
[52:59.580 --> 53:15.440] [SPEAKER_05]: This is, they're going to keep cheating as well, just for the profit motive, even though if they think they might get caught, if they're raking in millions of dollars a year personally in their pockets, I think they're still going to, there's, I'm not as optimistic as Kyle is on this.
[53:15.700 --> 53:19.080] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, it, it, it's sad, but I think that's what's going to happen.
[53:19.100 --> 53:33.200] [SPEAKER_05]: What's worse though, is that this is actually killing people, as you said, like this nitrogen oxide, uh, it causes really serious, uh, problems, uh, like asthma and, and, and other, uh, respiratory diseases, uh, on a large scale.
[53:33.440 --> 53:35.120] [SPEAKER_05]: And this is killing people.
[53:35.120 --> 53:36.580] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's exactly true.
[53:36.750 --> 53:46.400] [SPEAKER_02]: And no matter what fuel source you're using with these vehicles, that you really do need these, uh, Knox scrubbing devices that are installed on all these vehicles and they need to be used the way they were intended.
[53:46.960 --> 53:53.040] [SPEAKER_04]: I just find it amazing because we've been to Wolfsburg at least twice now in Germany, which is a VW hub.
[53:53.200 --> 54:05.790] [SPEAKER_04]: It's like VW Mecca and blown away by just the, the atmosphere there of, of, of positivity and, and just feeling like we've been, uh, misled, uh, all these years.
[54:06.160 --> 54:11.720] [SPEAKER_04]: The company, I I'm addressing what you're saying, Bernie, as far as they're just going to keep going after the profit motive.
[54:11.860 --> 54:24.790] [SPEAKER_04]: I think in VW is case, they at least have, uh, their perception of themselves as being better than that, whether or not they actually are, uh, I don't know, but, um, I think it matters a lot more to them than we might think it does.
[54:24.790 --> 54:30.380] [SPEAKER_02]: I think this actually dips into a bit of nationalism because let's, let's not get this, uh, minced at all.
[54:30.580 --> 54:38.540] [SPEAKER_02]: A Volkswagen is very much, uh, a multinational, but they're very much a German multinational and industrial, uh, powerhouse.
[54:38.620 --> 54:46.420] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think it's, it's, it's about integrity and I, I really don't see them, um, cutting corners under this kind of fire.
[54:46.880 --> 54:49.700] [SPEAKER_04]: I just find it amazing that we're always in the middle of these things.
[54:49.900 --> 54:55.790] [SPEAKER_04]: Why did we have to get a VW diesel just in that particular, uh, a timeframe must be a reason.
[54:55.800 --> 55:12.770] [SPEAKER_04]: But you know, the thing that, that we've been railing about, uh, the, the, um, uh, right to repair, uh, not having black boxes in cars that we cannot access and, and reverse engineer, uh, that issue alone makes this something of interest to us, let alone the fact that we already have one of these things.
[55:12.940 --> 55:19.790] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, and let's be clear, this was not some rogue engineer, uh, doing something or some accident that was made.
[55:20.040 --> 55:26.040] [SPEAKER_01]: It, the, the next time it happens, they're going to put in enough plausible deniability that it might've been a mistake.
[55:26.140 --> 55:28.480] [SPEAKER_01]: But this particular case is very clear.
[55:28.640 --> 55:32.560] [SPEAKER_01]: This was done on purpose and this is not the, this is going to cost billions of dollars.
[55:32.770 --> 55:36.250] [SPEAKER_01]: This is not the kind of decision that some low level engineer was empowered to make.
[55:36.400 --> 55:37.600] [SPEAKER_01]: We'll find, there will be an investigation.
[55:37.840 --> 55:45.440] [SPEAKER_01]: We'll find out if it went all the way to the top or merely very high up, but this was not just some rogue, you know, one-off thing.
[55:45.440 --> 55:45.680] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[55:45.980 --> 55:50.750] [SPEAKER_02]: And across the board, I think people have communicated that this is unacceptable outright.
[55:51.270 --> 55:52.340] [SPEAKER_04]: Interesting times ahead.
[55:52.360 --> 55:53.900] [SPEAKER_04]: That's, uh, that's for sure.
[55:53.940 --> 55:56.060] [SPEAKER_04]: And, uh, we'll keep reporting on this story.
[55:56.720 --> 55:57.750] [SPEAKER_04]: We're out of time though.
[55:58.020 --> 55:59.040] [SPEAKER_04]: Boy, that hour went fast.
[55:59.220 --> 56:01.860] [SPEAKER_04]: Hey, uh, this is the Friday for 2600 meetings.
[56:01.980 --> 56:05.320] [SPEAKER_04]: Go to 2600.com/meetings and see if there's one near you.
[56:05.860 --> 56:14.420] [SPEAKER_04]: We will be back not next week in two weeks with a special two hour fundraiser, uh, here on WBAI New York.
[56:14.520 --> 56:15.660] [SPEAKER_04]: Stay tuned for the personal computer show.
[56:15.820 --> 56:16.270] [SPEAKER_04]: Write to us.
[56:16.520 --> 56:19.020] [SPEAKER_04]: oth@2600.com for off the hook.
[56:19.120 --> 56:19.480] [SPEAKER_04]: This is manual.
[56:19.920 --> 56:20.640] [SPEAKER_04]: Have a good night.