[00:00.000 --> 00:04.680]  ...scapegoating entire segments of the world, entire countries, entire religions.
[00:04.880 --> 00:09.100]  Hi, I'm Jesse Lent, the host of Trump Watch on WBAI.
[00:09.360 --> 00:21.640]  Each week on the show, we take a deep dive on one specific aspect of the Donald Trump administration by speaking with journalists, academics, and activists on the front lines of covering this unprecedented presidency.
[00:21.960 --> 00:29.860]  Join me Wednesday nights at 6.30 for Trump Watch on WBAI 99.5 FM, Pacifica Radio, New York.
[00:31.160 --> 00:34.220]  And you are listening to Unprecedented Presidency.
[00:34.220 --> 00:35.720]  That's such a nice way to say it.
[00:36.200 --> 00:38.700]  You're listening to WBAI New York.
[00:38.840 --> 00:41.880]  It's 8 o'clock time once again for Off the Hook.
[00:47.320 --> 00:51.780]  The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
[00:52.740 --> 00:57.280]  I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
[00:57.920 --> 01:05.530]  We couldn't get much worse, put a billy bump, but the best is back the worst.
[01:06.290 --> 01:09.110]  I hope that's understood, but make me know!
[02:04.920 --> 02:06.480]  And a very good evening to everybody.
[02:06.560 --> 02:07.540]  The program is Off the Hook.
[02:07.700 --> 02:09.920]  Emmanuel Goldstein here with you, joined tonight by Rob T.
[02:10.060 --> 02:10.500]  Firefly.
[02:10.720 --> 02:11.320]  Good evening.
[02:11.580 --> 02:11.880]  Kyle?
[02:12.160 --> 02:12.500]  Hi.
[02:12.680 --> 02:13.080]  Voltaire?
[02:13.340 --> 02:13.540]  Hey.
[02:14.180 --> 02:17.720]  You know, I like the idea of using somewhat sanitized language.
[02:19.740 --> 02:29.700]  It's hard to say Unprecedented Presidency, but it's a better way than referring to the apocalypse or hell unleashed in front of us and things like that.
[02:29.840 --> 02:31.640]  So we're going to try and do that.
[02:31.960 --> 02:33.960]  We're going to try and sort of calm ourselves a little bit.
[02:33.960 --> 02:40.780]  And our friends in Florida who had that recent weather event, I hope they're doing well.
[02:41.660 --> 02:43.240]  You know, just calm down.
[02:43.300 --> 02:44.640]  We don't have to use all the dramatic words.
[02:44.640 --> 02:46.680]  We'll get through this together.
[02:47.320 --> 02:52.600]  Yes, there was a few things, a few documents left out this week, as usual.
[02:52.920 --> 02:54.840]  Just no big deal at all.
[02:55.220 --> 02:56.360]  Where are the documents left out?
[02:56.580 --> 02:57.240]  I don't know.
[02:57.340 --> 02:58.040]  Pick a company.
[02:58.140 --> 02:58.560]  Oh, okay.
[02:58.720 --> 02:58.860]  Yeah.
[02:58.860 --> 03:00.480]  Well, we will pick a company, believe me.
[03:00.580 --> 03:00.780]  Okay.
[03:01.140 --> 03:07.280]  In fact, going along with this theme of ours, Equifax had a little bit of a hiccup over the last week.
[03:07.280 --> 03:07.840]  Minors slip.
[03:07.840 --> 03:08.740]  No, I can't do this.
[03:08.860 --> 03:10.620]  No, I need my words.
[03:12.320 --> 03:14.180]  Equifax had a disastrous week.
[03:14.180 --> 03:16.060]  It was the worst thing ever.
[03:17.100 --> 03:22.660]  And they should all be drawn and quartered and afterwards fed to rabid dogs.
[03:24.420 --> 03:30.700]  That's the executive staff, not the regular nine-to-five employees, unless they knew something about this.
[03:30.740 --> 03:32.920]  What did healthy dogs do to deserve that?
[03:33.000 --> 03:34.480]  They should be able to get in on this.
[03:34.600 --> 03:35.420]  All dogs.
[03:35.660 --> 03:35.920]  All right.
[03:36.020 --> 03:37.680]  Well, let's keep the dogs out of it.
[03:37.720 --> 03:38.140]  They're innocent.
[03:38.520 --> 03:39.740]  But Equifax, wow.
[03:41.100 --> 03:46.400]  Well, you know, we talk about this week after week after week, and it seems like nobody ever learns.
[03:47.000 --> 03:48.860]  We just keep making the same mistakes.
[03:48.860 --> 03:58.880]  And by we, I'm just saying the human race, because what Equifax has done is basically victimized almost everybody in this country now.
[03:59.120 --> 04:09.960]  We've seen massive data leaks before, but usually, you know, the data leaks are affecting the people who were foolish enough to do business with the company in the first place.
[04:10.180 --> 04:20.720]  You know, you stay at a particular hotel, or you sign up for a specific online service, or maybe you get a phone contract from one company or another.
[04:20.980 --> 04:31.620]  So, you know, it's not your fault, but you did make the decision to get into bed with these people, and whatever happened, happened, and you're paying the price now.
[04:31.660 --> 04:36.480]  But in this particular case, in the case of Equifax, no such agreement was made.
[04:36.740 --> 04:37.720]  We're not customers.
[04:37.720 --> 04:39.060]  We're not customers of Equifax.
[04:39.140 --> 04:39.880]  We're not users.
[04:40.320 --> 04:41.200]  We're victims.
[04:41.540 --> 04:42.240]  We're the product.
[04:45.720 --> 04:56.740]  Typically, people who have credit reports at no request of theirs have found that their information has been compromised, big time.
[04:57.400 --> 05:06.020]  Information including Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, addresses, all kinds of everything you could possibly imagine.
[05:06.540 --> 05:07.220]  Yeah.
[05:07.560 --> 05:09.800]  And what do we do about it?
[05:09.860 --> 05:10.860]  That's what we're going to be discussing.
[05:11.100 --> 05:11.400]  Rob?
[05:11.400 --> 05:14.780]  My favorite thing about this whole case is Equifax.
[05:14.920 --> 05:15.960]  It's a credit reporting agency.
[05:16.220 --> 05:18.380]  It's one of the original credit reporting agencies.
[05:18.640 --> 05:23.960]  This is an entire industry that has commodified and commercialized the concept of responsibility.
[05:24.480 --> 05:26.140]  And that's what they do.
[05:26.220 --> 05:30.120]  They sell information about what a bunch of algorithms think of your responsibility.
[05:30.500 --> 05:36.760]  And so, you know, if you missed one credit card payment six years ago, well, that's terribly irresponsible of you.
[05:36.780 --> 05:37.940]  And you should have known better.
[05:37.940 --> 05:39.640]  And now you're suffering for it.
[05:39.740 --> 05:44.260]  But when it happens in reverse and, oh, all your info is out there, well, tough.
[05:44.700 --> 05:44.860]  Yeah.
[05:45.100 --> 05:45.220]  Yeah.
[05:45.280 --> 05:47.420]  That is basically where we're at right now.
[05:47.600 --> 05:49.160]  Of course, it doesn't have to be that way.
[05:49.420 --> 06:03.960]  I think when 143 million people in this country are affected by someone else's incompetence, they might have a voice if they band together and refuse to be victimized even further.
[06:04.340 --> 06:05.840]  Let's sum up what happened.
[06:05.840 --> 06:22.240]  Um, the, um, basically in the, in the past, as, as we've discussed, when, when, when people have been compromised in the past, you might expect the company to, uh, send you an apology letter and an offer of, uh, free identity theft protection from a credit reporting agency.
[06:22.980 --> 06:30.860]  But, but according to this story from Bloomberg, what happens when the reporting agency is the one that gets breached?
[06:30.860 --> 06:38.460]  Well, Equifax has said that its systems had been accessed by intruders, potentially affecting 143 million U.S.
[06:38.560 --> 06:39.080]  consumers.
[06:39.520 --> 06:44.280]  Uh, Equifax chief executive, Richard Smith did not mince words.
[06:44.500 --> 06:46.640]  He called the event disappointing.
[06:47.440 --> 06:48.080]  Yeah.
[06:48.220 --> 06:48.560]  Yeah.
[06:48.700 --> 06:50.880]  You think we were using sanitized language.
[06:51.100 --> 06:51.300]  Wow.
[06:51.960 --> 06:58.700]  Uh, yeah, it's a bit of an understatement for a company whose core business is precisely that collecting people's credit information.
[06:59.160 --> 07:06.920]  Uh, as we mentioned, the, the stolen information includes names, social security numbers, birth dates, addresses, driver's license numbers, you, you name it.
[07:07.100 --> 07:09.280]  And, uh, they, they have let that go.
[07:09.680 --> 07:14.520]  Uh, there will be a lot of credit card fraud in the, um, months, years ahead.
[07:15.820 --> 07:21.560]  Why, why does Equifax or any credit agency need to have your credit card number?
[07:22.020 --> 07:24.460]  You know, I mean, isn't your name enough?
[07:24.680 --> 07:25.800]  Isn't your address enough?
[07:25.960 --> 07:27.920]  Why do they need the actual account number?
[07:28.360 --> 07:34.660]  I think of how, how much, uh, pain and suffering would have been averted if that information was not in their hands.
[07:34.740 --> 07:38.380]  I see no reason why they need to have all of that.
[07:38.880 --> 07:44.600]  And I don't think any of us agreed, uh, at least not specifically, uh, to give them that information.
[07:44.600 --> 07:49.500]  Probably just by getting a credit card, you are in fact agreeing to that, uh, but that doesn't make it right.
[07:49.500 --> 07:51.260]  Um, okay.
[07:51.400 --> 08:12.880]  Now here's, here's the thing that really is disturbing and, uh, it disturbed us back when it happened and it's come back to haunt us now in the year 2008, the, uh, federal trade commission created the red flags rule and that required businesses and organizations to collect personally identifying information from their customers,
[08:13.360 --> 08:16.520]  even if it wasn't necessary for service.
[08:16.520 --> 08:26.040]  So that's why phone companies began asking you for your social security number and, uh, you were compelled to give it even though they have nothing to do with social security.
[08:26.380 --> 08:35.020]  So utility companies, telecom providers, doctors, countless other what's known as unreliable custodians were given that information.
[08:35.860 --> 08:42.400]  So one paradox of digital security is that combating fraud typically requires collecting even more sensitive data.
[08:42.740 --> 08:49.500]  So if social security numbers have been hacked, then we'll need more personal information to be sure people are who they claim to be.
[08:50.060 --> 08:58.680]  Uh, so you know, this is going, uh, legislators have proposed a biometric social security card that could contain fingerprints or retinal scans.
[08:59.200 --> 09:16.020]  The part of me, the paranoid part of me, which is becoming more and more of the realistic part of me thinks that a lot of this may have been set up just so they can get that, just so they can get the retinal scans and the DNA and the fingerprints into a particular card that we are required now to carry with us.
[09:16.980 --> 09:26.180]  Once hackers figure out how to replicate biometric data, maybe we'll have to consider digital DNA samples or virtual cavity searches, according to this Bloomberg article.
[09:26.380 --> 09:36.680]  Now the problem with social security numbers is that businesses and financial services treat them as authenticators, meaning that the mere possession of the number is enough to verify a person's identity.
[09:36.960 --> 09:40.840]  In practice, identification and authentication should be two different things.
[09:40.940 --> 09:43.660]  For example, a driver's license is a form of identification.
[09:43.660 --> 09:49.460]  A person's face, which corroborates with the photo on the license, provides the authentication.
[09:49.880 --> 09:52.220]  One is useless without the other.
[09:52.360 --> 09:54.660]  And yeah, we will be talking about the iPhone in a little bit.
[09:54.840 --> 10:02.880]  The Republic of Estonia uses such a system to identify members of its e-residency program, even with no physical presence.
[10:03.100 --> 10:11.420]  Each e-resident has a public numerical key that serves as a unique identifier and a corresponding private key that is never revealed.
[10:11.820 --> 10:22.360]  During the authentication process, the private key is used to generate an irreversible digital signature, and that signature is shared and verified by the public key without ever exposing the private key.
[10:22.540 --> 10:25.520]  And that's the basic idea behind public key cryptography.
[10:25.660 --> 10:34.980]  It's how computers authenticate themselves over the internet, how Bitcoin transactions are created on the blockchain, and yes, an individual could still accidentally reveal a private key.
[10:35.280 --> 10:41.100]  But 143 million people aren't going to do that, and that's what makes that system better.
[10:41.320 --> 10:47.500]  The idea of having a universal identification number is outdated, especially when far better technology has been available for decades.
[10:47.840 --> 10:54.740]  The only thing social security numbers should be used for is to pay our taxes, which identity thieves are welcome to do.
[10:56.000 --> 11:08.160]  And that's an article by Elaine Au from Bloomberg on the Equifax hack, the Equifax security nightmare that we are going to be dealing with for quite some time to come.
[11:08.580 --> 11:11.260]  I wouldn't be surprised if all of us in this room are affected.
[11:11.600 --> 11:20.840]  Yeah, I wasn't brave enough to use Equifax or whatever sites that were to help you indicate whether you were affected.
[11:20.860 --> 11:32.980]  Well, it's funny because initially when you went to that site, you were told that you were waiving all rights to sue them for their neglect in the future just by using that site.
[11:33.200 --> 11:34.820]  Of course, there was outrage at that.
[11:34.960 --> 11:35.740]  That got taken away.
[11:35.960 --> 11:46.740]  On top of that, I just couldn't get past the fact that I would be giving them more information at all, let alone signing up for more credit monitoring if that was something I had done in the past.
[11:46.740 --> 11:49.860]  It just all seemed insane in light of the breach.
[11:49.960 --> 12:01.800]  Because trust becomes something they have to regain instead of people intrinsically trusting them as the arbiter of this information, which is a whole other conversation.
[12:02.120 --> 12:09.780]  Well, you know, for those of you who hesitated to go to that site, I went to that site just to see what it was all about.
[12:10.360 --> 12:13.720]  The cybersecurity incident and important consumer information.
[12:14.100 --> 12:16.980]  See if your personal information is potentially impacted.
[12:17.520 --> 12:25.520]  So basically what you do is you click on a link called check potential impact, provide your last name and the last six digits of your social security number.
[12:25.720 --> 12:31.960]  And based on that information, you'll receive a message indicating whether your personal information may have been impacted by this incident.
[12:32.140 --> 12:40.220]  Now, regardless, according to the folks at Equifax, we will provide you the option to enroll in trusted ID Premier.
[12:40.660 --> 12:42.200]  You will receive an enrollment date.
[12:42.340 --> 12:50.720]  You should return to this site and follow the how do I enroll instructions that occur after that date to continue the enrollment and activation process.
[12:50.840 --> 12:55.220]  The enrollment period ends on Tuesday, November 21st, 2017.
[12:55.980 --> 12:56.800]  See, that's it right there.
[12:56.880 --> 12:57.480]  There's a product.
[12:57.480 --> 13:01.240]  It's a product that is right, ready for this situation.
[13:01.420 --> 13:08.600]  And they're there to furnish this product in a time when, when I, I need to know X, Y, or Z about it.
[13:08.780 --> 13:12.800]  Frankly, you know, I do, I really want to know if I, if my information was breached.
[13:12.840 --> 13:23.160]  I'm happy just assuming it was and, uh, and I'll just, uh, uh, react correspondingly in my life, but I, I don't need them to tell me necessarily.
[13:23.580 --> 13:29.020]  Well, I, I, I went through the process, uh, and basically you type in a last name and last six digits of social security number.
[13:29.520 --> 13:32.200]  Uh, and, um, I'm not saying I used, what did you find?
[13:32.280 --> 13:33.820]  I'm not saying I used my information.
[13:34.220 --> 13:41.300]  I'm not necessarily that, uh, you know, that naive, but I did, um, I do have a list of fake information.
[13:41.320 --> 13:44.260]  Oh, so I use something from the list of fake information.
[13:44.260 --> 13:49.060]  In other words, a last name that's fake and last six digits of a social security number that are also fake.
[13:49.960 --> 13:51.140]  That list is handy.
[13:51.240 --> 13:52.340]  Believe me, it comes in handy.
[13:52.500 --> 13:54.600]  It's a fake real lists or real.
[13:54.620 --> 13:56.940]  No, it's a list of fake names and fake social security numbers.
[13:57.100 --> 13:57.320]  Okay.
[13:57.540 --> 13:57.760]  Yeah.
[13:58.020 --> 13:59.880]  I, I, I have a use for it anyway.
[13:59.900 --> 14:04.300]  Uh, so I put that in and immediately, immediately, uh, received a response.
[14:04.520 --> 14:08.440]  I'm talking about less than a second based on the information, uh, provided.
[14:08.620 --> 14:11.860]  We believe that your personal information was not impacted by this incident.
[14:12.200 --> 14:16.760]  Click the button below to continue your enrollment in trusted ID premier, because we really want to sell this product.
[14:17.600 --> 14:21.800]  Um, then like a special use, like medical use, like a comfort animal.
[14:22.020 --> 14:28.000]  You just, you just carry around a fake person, you know, we'll get to what you have to give them to, to enroll.
[14:28.180 --> 14:28.960]  It helps with your anxiety.
[14:29.180 --> 14:31.040]  I gave them real information from a different list.
[14:31.120 --> 14:39.540]  I have, uh, and, um, uh, then I, at the same speed based on the information provider, we believe that your personal information may have been impacted by this incident.
[14:39.740 --> 14:40.460]  Click the button below.
[14:40.760 --> 14:46.840]  Uh, and I also tried by changing the SSN by one digit to see if it actually was looking it up.
[14:46.960 --> 14:52.220]  And yeah, it was looking it up because it said that we don't think that was impacted because that person doesn't exist.
[14:52.520 --> 14:53.140]  That's not a real account.
[14:53.260 --> 14:56.040]  They didn't say that part, but they, uh, that's the implication.
[14:56.220 --> 15:00.520]  But as far as like real warning or information, was it useful?
[15:00.740 --> 15:08.520]  Well, uh, it, it, it shows that they have quick access to the last six digits of the social security number and a matching last name.
[15:08.520 --> 15:10.720]  They are looking that up in a fraction of a second.
[15:11.060 --> 15:15.740]  Uh, so all that information is online someplace and no doubt insecure as well.
[15:15.880 --> 15:16.180]  Interesting.
[15:16.500 --> 15:21.440]  And, uh, there's also reports that, uh, the site they're using to do this is insecure.
[15:21.980 --> 15:34.520]  Um, I'll get to that story in a minute, but what they, what they ask you for once you, uh, proceed to the next, uh, level, uh, is to give your first name, your middle name, your last name, your date of birth, your social security number, gender address,
[15:35.160 --> 15:40.100]  um, uh, email address, phone number, information they might not already have.
[15:40.220 --> 15:45.680]  So basically they're saying, give us more information so that we can keep you safe from our own incompetence.
[15:45.980 --> 15:48.780]  Uh, and I don't know if that's a good idea.
[15:48.900 --> 15:54.440]  I think maybe Equifax, a better idea would be for you to just provide this service for everybody in the damn country.
[15:54.620 --> 16:08.980]  Now, without us giving you anything more, it's time for you to give us something as in competency and, uh, you know, maybe some compensation for the hell you've put us through, because what's going to happen now, we all have to be looking over our shoulders constantly.
[16:08.980 --> 16:17.360]  We have to see if someone's using our, our social security number for something or our driver's license, you're making a fake license and getting all kinds of, of traffic tickets.
[16:17.540 --> 16:19.920]  Apparently, uh, they have our credit card numbers.
[16:20.100 --> 16:22.040]  So there's that mortgage information.
[16:22.200 --> 16:23.340]  Who knows what else they have?
[16:23.440 --> 16:24.740]  This is a huge deal.
[16:24.840 --> 16:27.540]  This is one of the worst, uh, examples of this.
[16:27.540 --> 16:29.360]  I can ever remember hearing about.
[16:29.760 --> 16:30.100]  Yeah.
[16:30.200 --> 16:36.580]  They got to be put on time out, you know, like it definitely is not an institution I'm going to be running to.
[16:36.920 --> 16:43.340]  Like I was talking about earlier in light of the trust that has been lost in, in, in the process of this breach.
[16:43.560 --> 16:45.600]  I never trusted them, but I didn't have a choice.
[16:45.800 --> 16:46.720]  I don't think anybody did.
[16:46.840 --> 16:46.940]  Yeah.
[16:46.980 --> 16:47.960]  You never had a choice.
[16:48.160 --> 16:53.280]  So confronting that is one, uh, one, one part of this, uh, certainly.
[16:53.560 --> 16:57.060]  And I think that, uh, yeah, we'll, we'll be, um, go ahead.
[16:57.560 --> 16:59.980]  The question of not having a choice is actually interesting.
[17:00.280 --> 17:11.080]  The, um, this company started in the, um, in the seventies with, uh, during the Watergate, uh, hearings and, uh, a lot of Congress people were trying to regulate them and like a push back.
[17:11.260 --> 17:11.620]  Wait, wait, wait.
[17:11.840 --> 17:14.000]  Equifax started during the Watergate hearings?
[17:14.100 --> 17:19.880]  Uh, it is, um, I, I'm not sure what they, it started is the, it was the early seventies though.
[17:20.080 --> 17:20.220]  Okay.
[17:20.260 --> 17:22.200]  So that's not related to the Watergate hearings.
[17:22.440 --> 17:38.260]  No, but, um, there is a fair, they tried to regulate it to make it, um, like then to have more accountability, but the FBI, uh, appreciates the fact that there's like a poorly regulated, uh, group that, that, uh, tries to get personal information and like,
[17:38.620 --> 17:43.100]  uh, uh, like evaluating credit worthiness, which can be a proxy for other things.
[17:43.740 --> 17:43.760]  So.
[17:44.160 --> 17:46.680]  Hey, um, the small, uh, small correction to that, Voltaire.
[17:46.860 --> 17:50.060]  Um, Equifax was actually founded in, um, 1899.
[17:50.580 --> 17:51.860]  It was in previous.
[17:51.860 --> 17:52.940]  Hold on a second.
[17:52.940 --> 17:54.720]  How could they have been found in 1899?
[17:54.880 --> 17:56.040]  Nobody had credit cards then.
[17:56.220 --> 18:03.400]  Back then they were the retail credit company and, uh, they were basically starting this whole, this whole, uh, business of, uh, credit reporting.
[18:03.800 --> 18:09.100]  And it was, it was mainly, it was, it was a very, uh, niche thing until, uh, around the sixties and seventies.
[18:09.260 --> 18:20.540]  Um, it became apparent exactly how much information they were gathering on people, which led to in 1970, the, uh, the Congress, uh, holding hearings and eventually ending up, uh, enacting the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
[18:20.540 --> 18:28.640]  And it was around then that they changed their name to Equifax, uh, because this whole thing, they were talking about retail credit company and, uh, what, uh, what they're doing.
[18:28.780 --> 18:43.040]  And so it was sort of a rebranding, um, when they, when they, uh, when they changed their name, but, uh, they, they were, uh, they were basically being, uh, being said to have collected all sorts of facts, uh, statistics and accuracies, rumors, um, about,
[18:43.040 --> 18:54.700]  uh, so many different phases of a person's life, not just, uh, the financial stuff that, uh, you know, that you know, and love them, uh, gathering now, but, uh, marital troubles, uh, school history, childhood, uh, apparently sex life.
[18:54.740 --> 18:55.880]  Wait, they got marital trouble?
[18:56.120 --> 19:08.060]  How do they, um, this, this is, this comes from a, uh, a Wired article, uh, that came out in 1995, um, called, uh, Separating Equifax from Fiction, and it's worth digging up, but, uh, it really goes, it really goes deep into all this.
[19:08.060 --> 19:09.580]  I hope the article's as good as that title.
[19:09.740 --> 19:11.020]  That's, that's, that's pretty awesome.
[19:11.240 --> 19:15.960]  Well, actually, you know what, there, there are, there are three of these, uh, national credit bureaus.
[19:16.140 --> 19:17.460]  Equifax is only one of them.
[19:17.580 --> 19:20.700]  Can any of you, without looking at your phones, name the other two?
[19:21.060 --> 19:21.760]  I'm just curious.
[19:21.860 --> 19:22.260]  Go ahead, Rob.
[19:22.700 --> 19:23.960]  Um, one of them's TRW.
[19:24.500 --> 19:25.240]  You are wrong.
[19:25.680 --> 19:30.320]  One of them used to be TRW, and I'm not sure which one, but it's not called TRW anymore.
[19:30.980 --> 19:33.580]  Is it like, is it like Experian or something?
[19:33.880 --> 19:36.800]  Uh, yes, Kyle, you got, you got the second one right, Experian.
[19:36.920 --> 19:38.580]  So we have Equifax and Experian.
[19:38.760 --> 19:41.420]  And I can tell you the third one does not begin with X either.
[19:41.960 --> 19:43.440]  So it's, it's, it's a whole other one.
[19:43.480 --> 19:58.320]  I bet how much you want to bet that they're going to put this entire problem into one department, then like split up the company in like some kind of, uh, uh, takeover bid from some other conglomerate, one other, uh, yeah, Experian will come in and, and,
[19:58.580 --> 20:01.480]  uh, yeah, and just swallow them up and say, we'll do it right.
[20:01.480 --> 20:08.880]  Then it'll be like three, you know, it'll, it'll be, it'll pop up in, you know, a couple of years after the dust, the, the coast is clear.
[20:09.080 --> 20:10.800]  Any, any final guests on the, on the third one?
[20:11.440 --> 20:12.920]  Our listeners need to know this.
[20:13.160 --> 20:13.320]  Okay.
[20:13.580 --> 20:14.120]  Evil court.
[20:14.580 --> 20:15.960]  No, no, no, let's be serious.
[20:16.160 --> 20:16.560]  We should know this.
[20:16.660 --> 20:17.280]  We should know this.
[20:17.340 --> 20:20.660]  Everybody should know this because they have all our information.
[20:20.820 --> 20:21.820]  They have all our info.
[20:21.900 --> 20:24.820]  And now, now hackers have all their information.
[20:24.880 --> 20:27.040]  So it's a little bit of a retributive justice.
[20:27.420 --> 20:27.600]  Yeah.
[20:27.640 --> 20:35.340]  It hurts people as well, but, uh, it really shows how, how badly they, they take care of the information that is our information.
[20:35.500 --> 20:36.100]  Can you give me a hint?
[20:36.160 --> 20:38.200]  Is it a made up word or is it an acronym?
[20:38.680 --> 20:38.860]  It's all made up words.
[20:39.360 --> 20:40.340]  It's all made up words.
[20:40.540 --> 20:41.540]  It's called transunion.
[20:42.000 --> 20:42.200]  All right.
[20:42.460 --> 20:43.660]  Transunion is the third one.
[20:43.700 --> 20:44.400]  Sounds like a good thing.
[20:44.500 --> 20:47.760]  Now, maybe, maybe somebody can figure out which one of those used to be TRW.
[20:47.920 --> 20:48.520]  Was it Equifax?
[20:48.620 --> 20:49.520]  Was it Experian?
[20:49.620 --> 20:50.340]  Was it Transunion?
[20:50.780 --> 20:59.540]  Uh, while I, um, focus on, on what I made reference to a few minutes ago, and that's the, um, the monitoring site is also vulnerable to hacking.
[20:59.820 --> 21:07.840]  Uh, the site that they've used to set up a credit account monitoring in the wake of last week's security breach is also vulnerable to hackers.
[21:08.040 --> 21:09.260]  According to ZD net.
[21:09.640 --> 21:12.840]  Uh, of course I should point out that it's not just hackers that can get into this.
[21:12.960 --> 21:14.560]  It's anybody that knows what they're doing.
[21:14.760 --> 21:16.840]  Uh, hackers will be the ones to figure it out though.
[21:16.960 --> 21:23.720]  In the aftermath of the breach, the, uh, going recommendation has been to set up alerts and freezes on any and all credit accounts.
[21:24.360 --> 21:29.960]  Countless are thought to a flock to the website, and the credit rating agency phone banks to protect themselves from hackers.
[21:30.460 --> 21:38.060]  Uh, the problem is that Equifax's site used to set up alerts on individuals credit rating history, uh, can be easily spoofed.
[21:38.160 --> 21:42.480]  That's according to security researcher, Martin Hall, who told this to ZD net.
[21:42.620 --> 21:51.560]  Uh, the site is, um, is, is used to request a 90 day fraud or active duty alert for credit report holders thought to be the majority of Americans.
[21:51.580 --> 21:54.540]  First of all, let me just step in here and say 90 days is ridiculous.
[21:54.940 --> 21:57.220]  This information will be good for years.
[21:57.620 --> 22:03.460]  So, uh, all someone has to do who has your information is not use it for 90 days.
[22:03.560 --> 22:13.700]  And then you're going to stop using this, um, uh, this, uh, Equifax, um, uh, service because they are only offering it for 90 days.
[22:13.760 --> 22:14.480]  After that, you have to pay.
[22:14.660 --> 22:14.800]  Yeah.
[22:14.820 --> 22:15.660]  You have to pay them.
[22:15.820 --> 22:17.380]  They are going to make money off of this.
[22:18.000 --> 22:27.080]  And, um, after 90 days, if somebody commits fraud, you won't know about it because you didn't pay the very people who released your information to the world.
[22:27.420 --> 22:28.640]  So, okay.
[22:29.320 --> 22:34.860]  Um, but vulnerabilities in the site can allow hackers to siphon off personal information of anyone who visits.
[22:34.920 --> 22:47.880]  The site's vulnerable to a cross site scripting known as XSX, XSS attack, uh, which lets an attacker run malicious code on a legitimate website or web application, uh, such as Equifax's site.
[22:48.000 --> 22:56.580]  Now in this case, a hacker can trick a user into loading the site from a malicious link, which prompts for the consumers, social security number and other personal information.
[22:56.580 --> 22:59.160]  And that data could be seen by a malicious actor.
[22:59.380 --> 23:09.720]  As soon as the information is submitted, um, anyone with knowledge of the code can use it in phishing emails to, uh, trick unaware consumers into turning over personal information to an attacker.
[23:10.280 --> 23:20.340]  Uh, even though the link in the page appeared to be Equifax's domain, it's, um, uh, apparently it's, it's not a difficult thing to, uh, uh, to bypass this.
[23:21.300 --> 23:25.720]  This is really, uh, really kind of disturbing and, and even scary.
[23:25.880 --> 23:30.820]  Cross site scripting is a very, very common, um, vulnerability that sites have.
[23:30.980 --> 23:33.560]  So it's something they ought to have been looking out for.
[23:33.560 --> 23:34.580]  Yeah.
[23:34.960 --> 23:38.940]  Uh, now, um, there's more, but there's, there's always more.
[23:39.700 --> 23:44.160]  Apparently, um, there's some allegations of insider trading as a result of this.
[23:44.340 --> 23:56.580]  Now, um, 36 U S senators yesterday called on federal authorities to investigate the sale of nearly $2 million in shares of credit bureau Equifax by company executives after a massive data breach.
[23:56.800 --> 23:59.780]  Uh, one compared their actions to insider trading.
[23:59.980 --> 24:04.340]  I don't know why all 36 didn't, but, uh, yes, it sure seems like that to me.
[24:04.820 --> 24:08.120]  Um, the lawmakers signed a letter asking the U S department of justice.
[24:08.260 --> 24:08.840]  Good luck with that.
[24:08.920 --> 24:19.980]  The securities and exchange commission and the federal trade commission, the same ones who helped get us in this mess to look into about $1.8 million in stock sales by three executives between July 29th.
[24:20.160 --> 24:26.920]  The day Equifax said it learned its systems were hacked in mid may and when they made it public last week.
[24:27.400 --> 24:30.260]  If that happened, somebody needs to go to jail.
[24:30.460 --> 24:34.680]  That's according to Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat on the Senate banking committee.
[24:35.000 --> 24:38.640]  Uh, it's a problem when people can act with impunity with no consequences.
[24:38.640 --> 24:41.900]  How is that not insider trading now?
[24:42.100 --> 24:53.740]  Um, more than 15 million people have visited the, um, the, uh, firm's support website and 11.5 million are enrolling in credit monitoring and identity theft protection.
[24:54.100 --> 24:56.880]  So it seems like Equifax's plan is working.
[24:57.040 --> 24:59.440]  The company at first thought the intrusion was limited.
[24:59.700 --> 25:07.440]  Uh, Equifax hired a cybersecurity firm and spent thousands of hours investigating before informing the public six weeks after the breach was discovered.
[25:07.660 --> 25:10.580]  They've known about this for six weeks and we're only finding out about it now.
[25:11.380 --> 25:21.520]  Uh, hackers who are the villains in all of this, of course, pilfered names, birthdays, addresses, as well as social security driver's license numbers, a treasure trove for identity theft, uh, thieves.
[25:21.720 --> 25:26.720]  Um, and again, as we said, data of up to 143 million people may have been exposed.
[25:26.860 --> 25:28.800]  That's pretty much half the population of the country, isn't it?
[25:28.880 --> 25:30.720]  And children don't really have this information.
[25:30.720 --> 25:38.040]  So you can't count them following a revelation through the stock sales by chief financial officer, John Gamble and two other people.
[25:38.540 --> 25:45.260]  Equifax said in a statement last week that the executives were not aware that an intrusion had occurred when they sold their shares.
[25:45.740 --> 25:48.060]  Now let's, let's look at this for a second.
[25:48.160 --> 25:55.280]  They're, they're high ranking executives in the company that is going through a crisis that threatens its very existence.
[25:55.280 --> 26:02.720]  And they didn't know about it when they made these sales that, that actually, it makes them look really, uh, like really, really bad.
[26:02.940 --> 26:18.280]  It exposes them because, uh, it's, it's, uh, it shows this, um, in this short sightedness that they would rather like, because most often I think a company that takes on risk like this would be insured on some level.
[26:18.480 --> 26:26.440]  So it seems really odd that they would just be so quick to jump ship out of greed, like kind of sheer greed, uh, just on the surface.
[26:26.560 --> 26:28.840]  It makes them look real, their, their management look really, really.
[26:29.060 --> 26:34.340]  And Equifax, uh, jumping to their defense immediately, not even saying we're going to investigate this, just saying, Nope, they weren't aware of it.
[26:34.400 --> 26:34.820]  They didn't know.
[26:35.640 --> 26:37.740]  Obviously people in Equifax knew about this.
[26:37.900 --> 26:46.880]  So the odds that other people in Equifax might've been told by those people in Equifax, it seems quite, quite logical, probably a lot of people running around with their hair proverbially on fire.
[26:47.000 --> 26:51.500]  And you know, it was definitely coming up around the water cooler and, and, and so on.
[26:51.600 --> 27:05.640]  Well, Massachusetts attorney general, uh, Maura Healy, who by the way is suing Equifax, uh, said, um, uh, she's charging them with allegations of failing to maintain appropriate safeguards to protect consumers data, uh, including that of nearly 3 million Massachusetts residents.
[27:05.640 --> 27:12.560]  In all of our years investigating data breaches, this may be the most brazen failure to protect consumer data we have ever seen.
[27:12.740 --> 27:21.560]  She said in a statement, um, Equifax had initially appeared to offer credit monitoring to breach victims only if they forfeited their right to file a lawsuit.
[27:21.740 --> 27:23.560]  Uh, New York attorney general, A.G.
[27:23.740 --> 27:33.320]  Schneiderman said yesterday that Equifax removed that language from its website and hopefully soon we'll remove its website from our, our existence here.
[27:33.660 --> 27:43.200]  Uh, treasury secretary, uh, Munchen called the Equifax breach quite unfortunate and insisted that his top priority is to make sure financial data is safe.
[27:43.420 --> 27:46.860]  I am concerned about the global financial system and keeping it safe.
[27:46.980 --> 27:52.180]  In other words, you're out of luck if you're looking to him for, uh, for support on an individual level.
[27:52.620 --> 27:57.480]  He basically cares about the big bucks and, uh, that's, that's where the attention is going to be focused.
[27:57.600 --> 28:07.360]  Keeping companies like, uh, uh, like Equifax afloat, uh, is a higher priority than any inconvenience that may happen to you as a result of their incompetence.
[28:07.580 --> 28:11.240]  Now, um, another story that's very interesting and related to this.
[28:11.420 --> 28:12.420]  Well, I just thought of something.
[28:12.620 --> 28:12.840]  Go ahead.
[28:13.200 --> 28:18.240]  They're, they're seeking, uh, they're going to more interested in damage control than seeking damages.
[28:19.440 --> 28:20.280]  No, absolutely.
[28:20.480 --> 28:20.620]  Yeah.
[28:20.660 --> 28:35.120]  I mean, that's really what it is, is about downplaying the risk, making sure a company, like you just said, Equifax is able to come through something like this to put us all at risk again without actually fixing sort of the root, uh, right.
[28:35.180 --> 28:36.600]  There's two more companies like that.
[28:36.800 --> 28:42.420]  The same thing could happen to, uh, well, we'll just have to see, I guess, but again, we don't have a choice now.
[28:42.760 --> 29:03.600]  Um, after the, uh, after the hack, there was actually a, um, a statement issued supposedly by the people who did it, uh, on an onion site, uh, the authors of a statement insist that if Equifax forks over 600 bitcoins, which is about $2.66 million, they'll delete all the stolen data.
[29:04.000 --> 29:10.940]  And, um, basically, yeah, basically they have to do this by September 15th.
[29:11.040 --> 29:11.980]  That's what the day after tomorrow.
[29:12.540 --> 29:13.500]  Um, yeah.
[29:13.820 --> 29:17.060]  Uh, now basically, uh, they're going to delete all the data.
[29:17.260 --> 29:24.040]  Um, or if they don't pay by Friday, uh, they're going to dump all the data.
[29:24.320 --> 29:26.400]  They're going to make it, uh, accessible.
[29:26.560 --> 29:28.020]  That means everybody gets it.
[29:28.080 --> 29:28.200]  Wait.
[29:28.380 --> 29:28.580]  Yeah.
[29:28.580 --> 29:34.660]  So you're saying I can get a copy of all 143 Americans affected by this.
[29:34.800 --> 29:36.820]  And that's the best way to find out if you're affected by it.
[29:36.920 --> 29:38.240]  You can just scan that file.
[29:38.300 --> 29:39.780]  Forget their website to check.
[29:39.900 --> 29:43.760]  Just wait till it's dumped and then you can go through and see if you're in there yourself.
[29:44.120 --> 29:45.360]  Well, here's the thing though.
[29:45.560 --> 29:53.860]  Uh, even these guys have some scruples because they say that they will not post, uh, credit card numbers publicly, uh, probably because they want to use them.
[29:54.520 --> 29:56.800]  And if they posted them, they wouldn't be able to use them.
[29:57.200 --> 30:00.860]  Here's, here's what, um, what they say, uh, under our reasons.
[30:00.860 --> 30:05.940]  We are two people trying to solve our lives and those of our families.
[30:06.280 --> 30:15.900]  We did not expect to get as much information as we did, nor do we want to affect any citizen, but we need to monetize the information as soon as possible.
[30:15.900 --> 30:21.080]  Every day that passes is worth less and the limit will be on September 15th.
[30:21.240 --> 30:25.000]  That day, all the information except the credit cards will be published.
[30:25.260 --> 30:29.000]  It's a necessary damage for companies like Equifax to learn.
[30:29.280 --> 30:35.620]  If up to day 15, they pay the requested amount, all the information and all the backups will be deleted.
[30:35.900 --> 30:43.260]  Our word may seem insufficient, but we do not gain anything by posting personal information if it is not absolutely necessary.
[30:43.880 --> 30:55.100]  And, uh, they offered to, um, um, um, confirm that they are in fact in possession of this, um, request a specific part or a specific data from an email that corresponds to Equifax and we will send it to you.
[30:55.220 --> 31:01.100]  The, uh, the, the, the group says, um, they also said they, uh, they're not giving interviews.
[31:01.100 --> 31:03.660]  Our only intention is to solve this issue with Equifax.
[31:03.780 --> 31:05.540]  We do not have expectations to collect anything.
[31:05.540 --> 31:09.360]  So on the 15th, everything will be published except the credit cards.
[31:09.500 --> 31:19.420]  Now looking at this, um, this statement, um, I have to say it's, it, it seems like these are people from a non-English speaking country.
[31:19.900 --> 31:25.660]  Um, I don't know many people who would say a sentence like it's a necessary damage for companies like Equifax to learn.
[31:26.040 --> 31:29.120]  That just seems like, um, clumsily put together English.
[31:29.460 --> 31:34.360]  Uh, and a couple other examples in there as well, but, um, you know, it's, the damage is done.
[31:34.480 --> 31:36.000]  It doesn't really matter who they are at this point.
[31:36.720 --> 31:44.040]  Um, but I would say, you know, it's, um, it's, it's interesting that, uh, that, that people are out there claiming to have done this.
[31:44.120 --> 31:46.540]  I would imagine, uh, it would be a very dangerous thing to do.
[31:46.660 --> 31:52.040]  I wonder why that time period specifically, that's kind of curious, like what are the, the priorities there?
[31:52.200 --> 31:54.860]  The sense of urgency to, uh, to have this done quicker.
[31:55.060 --> 31:57.000]  Is, yeah, is it the news cycle?
[31:57.240 --> 31:58.680]  Is there a technical reason?
[31:58.860 --> 32:07.300]  I'd be very curious, uh, uh, what they see as the first, first, uh, thing of, of it running into a time limit like that.
[32:07.420 --> 32:11.720]  What, what is the variable that, that makes it so soon or that specific?
[32:12.260 --> 32:13.460]  The thing is that there's nothing they can do.
[32:13.580 --> 32:15.480]  They can, they can delete all the information.
[32:15.620 --> 32:20.780]  They can say they delete all the information, even if they don't collect the, the 2.66 million dollars.
[32:21.260 --> 32:26.800]  Uh, there, there is no way that we will believe that that information is not still out there someplace.
[32:26.800 --> 32:30.120]  You can't just put back that, that level of trust and security.
[32:30.120 --> 32:33.820]  So there really is, is no way that this is going to work.
[32:34.300 --> 32:38.120]  Yeah, there, there aren't many information security courses involving the honor system.
[32:39.140 --> 32:40.280]  No, no, not really.
[32:40.440 --> 32:58.680]  And there's no doubt going to be investigate investigations continuously, uh, uh, until then, or, or in the meantime, uh, and specifically, uh, the details surrounding how actually this breach occurred, what led up to it, what kinds of traffic was, was going,
[32:58.940 --> 33:00.360]  uh, to and from the site.
[33:00.520 --> 33:11.100]  All of that's going to be, I think, picked apart, uh, out of a sheer interest because of the, the, the size and, uh, and interest in this particular, uh, target.
[33:11.280 --> 33:18.560]  What I would really like to know from these people or from anyone with knowledge is exactly, exactly how you did it, because that is how we learn.
[33:18.720 --> 33:23.580]  There's nothing we can gain at this point, uh, with, with the, the compromised data.
[33:24.000 --> 33:26.480]  All of our social security numbers have been compromised.
[33:26.480 --> 33:33.140]  We can, uh, not use those as identifiers in any, uh, serious conversation anymore.
[33:33.300 --> 33:42.920]  We cannot say this is something that is, is private and no one else has seen or is only being used for, uh, for paying taxes or, or, or with trusted companies.
[33:43.160 --> 33:44.240]  No, it's out there.
[33:44.400 --> 33:49.940]  We either have to change them all or, uh, or just deal with the fact that they're kind of useless right now.
[33:50.100 --> 33:52.040]  So that can't be fixed.
[33:52.040 --> 33:53.860]  That cannot be fixed at this stage.
[33:54.080 --> 33:58.800]  What we can learn from though, is how this company managed to screw up so badly.
[33:59.040 --> 34:02.320]  Uh, and maybe that'll prevent it from happening in the future.
[34:02.440 --> 34:09.780]  Although to be honest, I think, I think all of the lessons on what not to do were already out there, if not for years, then for decades.
[34:10.380 --> 34:13.680]  Yeah, it's, it's all stories I think we've told in one way or another.
[34:13.920 --> 34:25.420]  And what, what I think will, uh, be the case when we get the, the story of, of how this occurred is, is going to be about all the different things that led up to it, the pieces and parts of it.
[34:25.520 --> 34:37.320]  Maybe in this, uh, initial article and, and, uh, stories about it, it's that cross site scripting was a big factor, but that may only be, um, one of several steps along the way to this breach having, having occurred.
[34:37.460 --> 34:40.560]  And the paradigm, uh, has definitely shifted on both ends.
[34:40.600 --> 34:50.140]  I mean, we have to now take another look, a deep, hard look at, uh, how we think of social security numbers, as you said, and, uh, and their place in all these transactions that we conduct in our lives.
[34:50.360 --> 35:05.120]  Um, we can no longer start from the assumption that it's any kind of private, uh, private thing, but, uh, we also have to, I mean, the fallout from this is going to be fan, fantastically, uh, uh, disturbing to, to everyone involved because, I mean, credit fraud,
[35:05.120 --> 35:08.740]  identity theft, these are things that are under the purview of the secret service in this country.
[35:09.180 --> 35:14.860]  Um, they do the, they do the investigating and, uh, there, there was, there is what used to be a routine amount of it.
[35:15.380 --> 35:19.160]  Um, now we can expect that that's going to hugely balloon.
[35:19.500 --> 35:26.640]  Um, when, uh, when people make use of, uh, of the info that's leaked out and, you know, is, is the secret service going to be able to handle that?
[35:26.720 --> 35:33.720]  They already, uh, announced earlier that their budget is, uh, kind of feeling a bit of a squeeze, uh, due to unrelated, um, things going on.
[35:33.840 --> 35:34.040]  Uh-huh.
[35:34.120 --> 35:34.700]  A lot of travel.
[35:34.700 --> 35:51.820]  That's a good, that's a really good point because their, uh, their reach in distributing this data and, and it being, uh, in a digital format, that's extremely portable and something that can be shared quickly, uh, throughout the world is entire, is a lot different than like,
[35:51.940 --> 35:59.760]  you know, carding in the, in the eighties and nineties would, would be historically, this is a whole different, uh, ball game.
[35:59.980 --> 36:18.720]  And, uh, yeah, that, the resources, uh, of the agencies, like FTC or Department of Commerce, the, that are going to be looking into this to say nothing of having, uh, um, the corporate interests, uh, in, in, on their heels, uh, it would be, they'd be hard pressed to,
[36:18.800 --> 36:27.700]  to actually, you know, do a really thorough job to look at the, the movement and the way that we use these things socially and so on and from now and in the future.
[36:28.160 --> 36:28.600]  Yeah.
[36:28.600 --> 36:35.600]  When it comes to the actual, um, uh, exploit that was used, it's believed that it was an exploit in Apache strut.
[36:36.120 --> 36:43.940]  Um, and, uh, and so at first when, when this came out, the Equifax only claimed like, oh, it's, it's Apache's fault.
[36:44.060 --> 36:47.140]  They made the, their, their, their software wasn't good enough.
[36:47.300 --> 37:02.800]  And, uh, it, and it turns out that, uh, after a deeper study by, um, contrast security found that in fact it was, uh, the hat, even though the hat took place in July, that it was a, uh, there's a patch for it in March and they didn't apply that.
[37:03.040 --> 37:03.100]  So.
[37:03.840 --> 37:16.120]  And, and just keeping all that information in a form where it could be accessed, uh, even by people who, who, uh, had authorization, uh, in an insecure environment, uh, that is unforgivable.
[37:16.320 --> 37:23.180]  It's unforgivable to, to just put all of our information out there without even asking permission to do it from the people that were affected.
[37:23.520 --> 37:26.120]  So, you know, on Friday, I hope the file is released.
[37:26.180 --> 37:28.100]  I hope, uh, everybody gets a copy.
[37:28.200 --> 37:44.940]  I don't know how we get a copy of 140, 40 plus million, uh, files, but the thing is once it's out there, once it's spread all over the place, then people will realize this information is meaningless and, uh, we have to start over and do something better because it's been compromised.
[37:44.940 --> 37:50.920]  You know, is it, is it better if it's only 10% of the people whose lives are, are completely screwed up by this?
[37:51.180 --> 37:58.660]  Or is it better if we just start with a clean slate and, and reveal all of it and say, wow, boy, did we do that wrong?
[37:58.820 --> 38:00.360]  Let's, let's get it right the next time.
[38:00.480 --> 38:01.300]  No more excuses.
[38:01.580 --> 38:02.940]  That is exactly what I'm wondering.
[38:03.060 --> 38:07.440]  I mean, we have this, they have this whole credit reporting agency business model that they've built up over the decades.
[38:07.820 --> 38:10.920]  Um, and is this something now that's going to be reexamined in any way?
[38:10.980 --> 38:14.740]  Because as you said, when everyone has the data, that's their stock in trade, it's meaningless.
[38:14.760 --> 38:15.360]  It's useless.
[38:15.860 --> 38:17.760]  And, uh, where, where do we go from here?
[38:17.820 --> 38:22.580]  I mean, there have been like the fight club and Mr. Robot type fantasies of what if we could just erase all the credit?
[38:23.320 --> 38:28.100]  And, uh, have they just, have they just Mr. Robot themselves out of existence?
[38:28.280 --> 38:28.920]  I don't know.
[38:29.000 --> 38:29.680]  It might've happened.
[38:29.840 --> 38:33.960]  There's kind of the reverse of that instead of like being able to erase every copy of the, at the data.
[38:34.180 --> 38:37.520]  Now everybody had the data and it'll be un-deletable.
[38:38.640 --> 38:39.160]  All right.
[38:39.220 --> 38:48.320]  Well, uh, you know, I think what we get out of all this is that everything is hackable and we should not make any assumptions that something is airtight.
[38:48.560 --> 38:53.820]  We should always be looking for the holes, trying to figure out ways to, um, to defeat security.
[38:53.960 --> 38:55.140]  That's, that's what we do.
[38:55.140 --> 39:03.140]  And it's important to, uh, uh, to not be dissuaded from that because if we don't do this, somebody else will, I think this has been proven over and over again.
[39:03.520 --> 39:10.100]  And, uh, at least if we do it, you know, we can let people know and hopefully, uh, prevent it from spiraling out of control.
[39:10.500 --> 39:22.920]  If we're dissuaded from doing this, then bad people will reveal this information and use it for their own personal gain and, and ask for millions of dollars in return and, and I can be completely non-trustworthy.
[39:23.120 --> 39:37.180]  So, you know, every bit of technology, every, every, um, um, database, think of it as being vulnerable in one way or another, and think of whatever plan you might have, uh, if something were to happen to that data.
[39:37.760 --> 39:39.480]  Um, um, I don't think we do that enough.
[39:39.780 --> 39:44.260]  Uh, the best we can do is, is the, the systems that we run ourselves.
[39:44.260 --> 39:53.020]  We do the best job we can keeping that secure, coming up with, uh, with methods so that it's not wide open and available to people that, uh, we do not trust.
[39:53.220 --> 40:02.540]  Uh, but if you think of, you know, our smartphones, our, our, uh, tablets, uh, even our cars now, everything is open to being hacked.
[40:02.540 --> 40:17.880]  And I think rather than, um, uh, just spread fear and, and, um, tarnish the image of hackers by saying they're the ones that are doing this, I think we need to try and break these systems more and more so that we can determine, are they safe or are they not safe?
[40:18.000 --> 40:24.140]  And if they're not safe, we will find out and we will spread the information around and we'll come up with better systems as a result.
[40:24.340 --> 40:43.000]  Now, of course, the story that you might've seen in the last, uh, week or so is that, um, Alexa, uh, I'm probably just, I probably just triggered a whole bunch of them, uh, and, and Siri and all these, um, personal voice assistants are vulnerable to what's known as a silent attack.
[40:43.000 --> 40:48.480]  It's, it's also called the, um, the dolphin attack because dolphins speak in high frequencies.
[40:48.980 --> 40:52.880]  Uh, and basically, uh, that's what, uh, someone figured out.
[40:52.880 --> 41:02.160]  Uh, if you play back a command in a super high frequency that we cannot hear Alexa, Siri, how you doing?
[41:02.420 --> 41:02.700]  What's up?
[41:02.840 --> 41:03.840]  Just, just saying your names.
[41:04.340 --> 41:06.600]  Um, they will act upon it.
[41:06.800 --> 41:07.220]  Yeah.
[41:07.360 --> 41:13.560]  So this is an interesting method and it's one that I think really should be explored and, and, uh, and, and used to its fullest.
[41:14.060 --> 41:22.820]  Um, you can hijack somebody's, um, somebody's little voice assistant there and make it do, um, funny things or serious things.
[41:23.140 --> 41:26.460]  Uh, you can basically tell it to, uh, call a phone number.
[41:26.720 --> 41:29.200]  Uh, you can tell it to go to a website.
[41:29.200 --> 41:31.320]  You can say, uh, open the door.
[41:31.460 --> 41:32.800]  You can say, turn the temperature up.
[41:33.240 --> 41:39.660]  You know, there's, uh, good things and bad things you can do, but the important thing is to demonstrate the fact that, uh, wow, this can happen.
[41:40.000 --> 41:41.220]  Now there are a few things.
[41:41.440 --> 41:47.240]  Um, you have to, um, you have to be somewhat within range of the device itself.
[41:47.700 --> 41:53.480]  Uh, and you have to also be prepared for the fact that the device usually It really responds audibly to a command.
[41:53.940 --> 42:05.680]  If you can get the legitimate owner of the device to not notice these things, that you're standing three feet away from the device, and that the device is speaking back, or you could always turn the volume down.
[42:05.740 --> 42:07.060]  That could be your first command.
[42:07.060 --> 42:15.780]  I was just going to say, the first thing you command it to do in the high pitch or whatever out-of-band frequency is set the volume to, like, one or zero.
[42:15.780 --> 42:17.080]  Alexa, volume one.
[42:17.280 --> 42:17.940]  That's all you got to say.
[42:18.080 --> 42:22.680]  And then, okay, now separate the bedroom from the kitchen.
[42:22.860 --> 42:24.540]  I don't know what Alexa can do these days.
[42:24.820 --> 42:29.300]  The two you mentioned, go to a website and dial a phone number.
[42:29.400 --> 42:34.020]  Those are other communications mediums, so it's changing modes, right?
[42:34.020 --> 43:01.820]  You use this one way of accessing control to then gain access to other communications modes, quite literally calling someone else or going to a site, which could be a site you crafted that is malicious or otherwise exploits this system, which is perhaps behind your network infrastructure and so on and so forth.
[43:01.820 --> 43:10.120]  Well, what I want to do is demonstrate, because we're talking about high frequencies here and frequencies that we cannot hear, we as humans cannot hear.
[43:10.780 --> 43:20.960]  We're talking about in the range of 20,000 hertz, and to give you an idea of what that sounds like, we're going to play a few examples of what certain tones sound like.
[43:21.160 --> 43:24.220]  This is an example of 500 hertz.
[43:30.780 --> 43:31.220]  Wow.
[43:31.460 --> 43:33.960]  Okay, so we all heard that tone, right?
[43:34.220 --> 43:34.920]  Everybody could hear that?
[43:35.400 --> 43:35.840]  Yes.
[43:36.260 --> 43:36.540]  Okay, well, good.
[43:38.040 --> 43:38.640]  I'm sorry.
[43:38.940 --> 43:39.500]  Hang on.
[43:43.510 --> 43:44.530]  You heard that one, too?
[43:45.230 --> 43:45.670]  Okay.
[43:45.790 --> 43:46.410]  Someone swear.
[43:46.630 --> 43:48.490]  No, that was 1,000 hertz.
[43:48.830 --> 43:51.650]  I'm sorry, I'm having trouble with the CD player here, because it's not...
[43:51.650 --> 43:56.030]  The engineer who designed this CD player did not design it to play consecutive tracks.
[43:56.030 --> 44:02.450]  So, for every... I have to hit the pause button, then I have to skip through each track one by one to get to the next track.
[44:02.610 --> 44:03.510]  So, what are we at, 1,000?
[44:04.630 --> 44:06.050]  Yeah, that was 1,000 hertz.
[44:06.210 --> 44:08.430]  So, the next one, the next one's a very special frequency.
[44:09.530 --> 44:10.810]  That's 2,600 hertz.
[44:11.150 --> 44:11.630]  Let's listen.
[44:17.950 --> 44:19.090]  Ah, it's music to my ears.
[44:19.630 --> 44:19.730]  Yeah.
[44:20.590 --> 44:21.590]  2,600 hertz.
[44:21.830 --> 44:23.230]  I imagine we all heard that.
[44:23.330 --> 44:24.870]  Probably annoyed a lot of people.
[44:25.130 --> 44:26.030]  And some dogs.
[44:26.370 --> 44:28.210]  Well, we haven't even gotten to the dogs yet.
[44:28.370 --> 44:30.010]  I don't know what frequencies dogs can hear up to.
[44:30.010 --> 44:32.650]  So, maybe somebody can look that up while I'm figuring out the CD player here.
[44:33.430 --> 44:36.870]  The next tone we are going to hear is 5,000 hertz.
[44:37.270 --> 44:39.010]  And we might start losing people here.
[44:39.270 --> 44:42.790]  Not out of impatience, but people might not hear these tones.
[44:42.950 --> 44:44.090]  They're getting kind of high-pitched.
[44:44.250 --> 44:44.910]  5,000 hertz.
[44:50.330 --> 44:53.610]  I can just imagine people who have BAI cranked.
[44:53.970 --> 45:00.650]  Also, I'm not sure how this translates over the internet and over radio waves in general.
[45:00.790 --> 45:01.530]  Super good.
[45:01.670 --> 45:02.610]  Hopefully super good.
[45:02.610 --> 45:04.050]  I'm pretty sure it translates.
[45:04.190 --> 45:08.250]  I would like to know from listeners if they're hearing all these tones the way you're supposed to hear them.
[45:08.370 --> 45:09.970]  We're going to hear all about this from listeners.
[45:10.150 --> 45:10.570]  I'm sure.
[45:10.730 --> 45:10.870]  Yeah.
[45:11.210 --> 45:11.670]  Tweet at us.
[45:12.470 --> 45:12.930]  Hang on.
[45:12.970 --> 45:15.610]  I've got to count the right number here or I'll play the wrong tone.
[45:15.950 --> 45:16.290]  Okay.
[45:16.370 --> 45:21.390]  The next tone, this is where you really should start seeing people having more difficulty.
[45:22.170 --> 45:24.130]  This is 10,000 hertz.
[45:30.670 --> 45:31.330]  I heard it.
[45:31.410 --> 45:31.830]  Did you hear it?
[45:31.990 --> 45:32.470]  I heard it.
[45:32.550 --> 45:32.750]  Okay.
[45:32.750 --> 45:33.530]  I think we all heard it.
[45:33.630 --> 45:36.970]  And it doesn't feel good hearing a sound like that.
[45:37.710 --> 45:40.530]  The next one, definitely more difficult to hear.
[45:41.330 --> 45:43.990]  That would be 15,000 hertz.
[45:50.630 --> 45:51.150]  Okay.
[45:51.250 --> 45:53.790]  I actually turned down the studio noise so that people could hear that.
[45:54.410 --> 46:03.450]  Let me play that again only because I think the noise, the studio noise might have interfered with the sound of that really, really high frequency tone.
[46:05.610 --> 46:07.190]  15,000 hertz.
[46:07.530 --> 46:07.890]  Let's listen.
[46:16.050 --> 46:16.490]  Okay.
[46:16.870 --> 46:17.590]  Did you guys hear it?
[46:18.030 --> 46:18.330]  No.
[46:18.490 --> 46:18.670]  Yes.
[46:19.390 --> 46:20.250]  You didn't hear it, Voltaire?
[46:20.370 --> 46:20.530]  No.
[46:20.690 --> 46:20.870]  Okay.
[46:21.090 --> 46:22.390]  You also have lousy headphones.
[46:22.630 --> 46:24.470]  So that's possibly a reason.
[46:25.290 --> 46:25.730]  Okay.
[46:25.890 --> 46:27.710]  So then the next one is the pivotal one.
[46:27.790 --> 46:36.910]  This is the 20,000 hertz that apparently people have encoded their voices to speak at that particular frequency.
[46:36.910 --> 46:37.550]  We have to do that.
[46:37.630 --> 46:38.690]  We have to try this ourselves.
[46:39.630 --> 46:47.650]  encode to 20,000 or higher or higher frequency to speak with our personal voice assistants.
[46:47.990 --> 46:52.410]  This is, and I expect many people will not be able to hear this, probably myself included.
[46:53.130 --> 46:57.270]  This is what 20,000 hertz sounds like.
[47:05.040 --> 47:05.560]  Okay.
[47:05.660 --> 47:08.140]  I think all I heard was the audible click of it ending.
[47:08.360 --> 47:08.980]  I can't hear it.
[47:09.060 --> 47:09.140]  Yeah.
[47:09.240 --> 47:10.380]  Just the starting and stopping.
[47:10.780 --> 47:11.080]  Yes.
[47:11.200 --> 47:11.460]  Voltaire?
[47:11.460 --> 47:16.080]  We should note that younger people are often able to hear up to 20,000 hertz.
[47:16.380 --> 47:16.820]  Yeah.
[47:16.960 --> 47:18.140]  That is absolutely true.
[47:18.560 --> 47:22.980]  And just for the fun of it, I also recorded 21,000 just because that's above 20,000.
[47:23.080 --> 47:23.560]  That's what they say.
[47:23.680 --> 47:26.620]  This is being used to...
[47:27.240 --> 47:30.820]  This is how it's being used to communicate with various personal assistants.
[47:31.260 --> 47:32.660]  Let's see if anybody can hear this.
[47:39.830 --> 47:40.450]  I don't know.
[47:40.610 --> 47:42.210]  I'd be very surprised if anybody was able to hear that.
[47:42.750 --> 47:43.450]  21,000 hertz.
[47:43.570 --> 47:50.170]  So anyway, basically, microphones can pick up up to 42,000 hertz.
[47:50.750 --> 47:53.430]  So you can see what we're up against here with us and the robots.
[47:53.670 --> 48:02.310]  They're going to win unless we disable anything above what the human ear can already detect, which is a simple thing to do.
[48:02.530 --> 48:03.750]  They should have done that from the start.
[48:03.750 --> 48:09.450]  Some devices use inaudible frequencies to sync and to update and things like that.
[48:09.550 --> 48:10.110]  But you know what?
[48:10.570 --> 48:16.750]  Not a good idea if it's going to be hackable and used to actually issue commands.
[48:17.050 --> 48:19.510]  Just a quick apology to all our listeners with headphones.
[48:20.070 --> 48:23.330]  Well, you know, we did give you plenty of warning.
[48:23.590 --> 48:26.250]  So hopefully you got out of the way in time.
[48:27.530 --> 48:28.010]  All right.
[48:28.070 --> 48:29.990]  Shall we open up to phone calls in the few minutes we have left?
[48:29.990 --> 48:32.770]  Our phone number, 347-335-0818.
[48:32.770 --> 48:38.650]  Any claims that you may wish to file against us for damaging your ears, you'll just have to take a number.
[48:39.510 --> 48:40.770]  347-335-0818.
[48:41.670 --> 48:45.570]  You can also write to us, OTH at 2600.com.
[48:45.730 --> 48:49.170]  Or check out our Twitter, Hacker Radio Show on Twitter.
[48:49.590 --> 48:53.390]  I imagine we've got quite a tweet storm going right now.
[48:53.490 --> 48:54.610]  We often do.
[48:54.910 --> 48:56.910]  But let's take this first phone call.
[48:57.510 --> 48:58.210]  Good evening.
[48:58.390 --> 48:58.910]  You're on Off the Hook.
[48:58.970 --> 48:59.210]  Go ahead.
[49:00.190 --> 49:02.450]  Hey, this is Nick Vivid.
[49:02.570 --> 49:02.950]  Hey, Rob.
[49:03.110 --> 49:03.810]  Hey, gang.
[49:03.970 --> 49:04.510]  How's it going?
[49:04.790 --> 49:05.090]  Hey, Nick.
[49:05.870 --> 49:06.190]  Howdy.
[49:07.050 --> 49:07.710]  What's on your mind?
[49:08.930 --> 49:11.490]  Hey, regarding the test tones, I was wondering.
[49:11.590 --> 49:14.950]  I didn't hear the super high frequencies on my end.
[49:15.250 --> 49:20.310]  I was wondering, does the radio station have a filter where they cut off over like 16K?
[49:20.590 --> 49:21.110]  Well, maybe.
[49:21.370 --> 49:22.330]  This is how we find out.
[49:22.330 --> 49:27.330]  I looked into this a little bit, and I couldn't find any documentation suggesting we did.
[49:27.470 --> 49:34.650]  But if nobody, if the youngest listeners did not hear that, it would indicate something like that might be installed.
[49:34.970 --> 49:37.550]  Yeah, I was just thinking that might be a possibility out there.
[49:37.550 --> 49:38.870]  Yeah, we're not 100% sure.
[49:38.990 --> 49:43.590]  There may be some kind of compression or limiting in the transmission facility itself.
[49:43.810 --> 49:44.210]  But...
[49:44.210 --> 49:45.210]  We learned through experimentation.
[49:45.210 --> 49:46.950]  And everybody heard the 500 hertz, right?
[49:47.150 --> 49:48.030]  That was a good one.
[49:48.030 --> 49:48.750]  And 15,000.
[49:48.750 --> 49:50.650]  Yeah, 15,000.
[49:50.690 --> 49:51.830]  I think everyone heard 15,000.
[49:51.930 --> 49:54.310]  And the 2,600 definitely heard my ears.
[49:54.350 --> 49:56.450]  It brings back memories just talking about it now.
[49:57.250 --> 49:57.650]  Yeah.
[49:58.350 --> 49:58.730]  All right.
[49:58.850 --> 49:59.570]  I'll let you guys go.
[49:59.670 --> 50:00.210]  Thanks so much.
[50:00.290 --> 50:00.870]  Thanks for your call.
[50:01.210 --> 50:05.090]  And front number again, 347-335-0818.
[50:06.890 --> 50:12.310]  Yeah, we're just looking into all kinds of interesting experiments and things like that.
[50:13.410 --> 50:16.650]  Our friends over at CCC in Germany, by the way, were in the news.
[50:16.650 --> 50:28.390]  They have warned that software used to record and transmit voting tallies in many German states have serious flaws, and they're vulnerable to external attack just weeks before voters cast their ballots in federal elections.
[50:28.630 --> 50:43.050]  Hackers from the Chaos Computer Club published an analysis of the PC wall software package last Thursday, in which they reported finding a host of problems in security holes that even a moderately skilled hacker, let alone a state-sponsored team, could exploit.
[50:43.050 --> 50:47.710]  The analysis showed a number of security problems and multiple practical attack scenarios.
[50:47.970 --> 50:55.450]  Some of these scenarios allow for the changing of vote totals across electoral district and state boundaries, according to the CCC.
[50:55.810 --> 51:01.070]  The software in question has been used in Germany's national, state, and municipal elections for decades.
[51:02.030 --> 51:06.370]  So our friends over there are experimenting with systems, reporting their findings.
[51:06.650 --> 51:09.650]  And I think the difference over there, they're taken seriously.
[51:09.730 --> 51:11.810]  So let's follow up on that.
[51:11.810 --> 51:12.770]  Good evening, you're on Off the Hook.
[51:13.470 --> 51:15.210]  Yes, it's Tom from the Bronx.
[51:15.230 --> 51:16.510]  Tom from the Bronx, how are you doing?
[51:16.630 --> 51:24.050]  I like to say this, this Equifax story, does it affect all the depositors, like in the bank?
[51:24.050 --> 51:28.790]  If you don't have anything with Equifax, does it affect you?
[51:29.010 --> 51:31.810]  If you don't have anything, none of us have anything in Equifax.
[51:31.990 --> 51:33.030]  They take the information.
[51:33.030 --> 51:34.390]  We don't have a say in this.
[51:34.510 --> 51:36.130]  It's not like you're a customer of theirs.
[51:36.130 --> 51:43.150]  They basically, it's like somebody eavesdropping on all of your phone conversations and you don't ask for them to be there.
[51:43.430 --> 51:46.770]  These guys, plus two other companies, are there all the time.
[51:47.270 --> 51:56.910]  In other words, somebody like me, just as a depositor in the Chase Bank, could be in that mix too.
[51:57.090 --> 51:57.430]  Absolutely.
[51:57.790 --> 51:58.930]  Do you have a credit card, Tom?
[51:59.210 --> 51:59.570]  No.
[51:59.770 --> 52:00.570]  You've never had a credit card.
[52:00.650 --> 52:01.310]  Have you had a mortgage?
[52:01.770 --> 52:02.190]  No.
[52:02.190 --> 52:07.170]  Okay, well, you know, there's not that much that they can get you on.
[52:08.150 --> 52:14.510]  If they can't use your credit card, they can't, you know, defraud and steal your identity in that particular way.
[52:14.630 --> 52:16.270]  But there are other things they can certainly do.
[52:17.010 --> 52:17.670]  Like what?
[52:17.990 --> 52:25.770]  Yeah, I don't know if it involves debit cards either, but if you have one of those hooked to your bank account, and many bank accounts just come with them these days, you might have ended up in there, I think.
[52:26.510 --> 52:33.530]  Yeah, I mean, they can, if you keep an eye out for what's going on, you know, you'll notice if something happens.
[52:33.650 --> 52:36.030]  And you're not liable for this, but you have to tell them.
[52:37.150 --> 52:41.310]  Well, I'm just, I'm just minding my own business.
[52:41.490 --> 52:43.830]  I'm not even involved in any of this stuff.
[52:43.950 --> 52:48.990]  Yeah, you know, I don't think you would be on the radar, but everybody is at risk.
[52:49.230 --> 52:56.310]  And, you know, whenever your information is stored someplace by irresponsible people, there's something that can happen that can hurt you.
[52:56.390 --> 52:58.330]  I can't say exactly what might happen.
[52:58.330 --> 53:05.790]  But if you look at your bank statements, and you notice anything that's out of the ordinary, you're doing everything you can possibly do.
[53:06.030 --> 53:12.390]  Well, I went to the dentist, and I had to give him my Social Security number.
[53:14.030 --> 53:15.150]  Okay, well, you know what?
[53:15.410 --> 53:26.570]  Your dentist is likely not checking your Social Security number against a database and going to the federal government to say, is this actually the Social Security number of Tom from the Bronx?
[53:27.270 --> 53:30.450]  You can give him any series of numbers.
[53:30.610 --> 53:33.850]  It should be something that looks like a Social Security number, obviously, nine digits.
[53:34.050 --> 53:38.990]  And, you know, the opening sequence shouldn't be 999 or something like that.
[53:39.870 --> 53:41.850]  But you don't have to give that information.
[53:41.990 --> 53:43.110]  That's one thing I learned from the start.
[53:43.110 --> 53:47.050]  You can lie to people if you don't want to give them information.
[53:47.050 --> 53:48.670]  You can lie to representatives on the phone.
[53:48.770 --> 53:50.350]  You can even lie to your dentist.
[53:50.630 --> 53:51.870]  You know, he might ask, how are you feeling today?
[53:51.870 --> 53:53.230]  You might say, good, when you're not.
[53:53.230 --> 53:54.270]  But that's a lie.
[53:54.430 --> 53:57.070]  So not giving your Social Security number, it's another lie.
[53:57.070 --> 53:59.530]  But it's a kind of lie that I think we can live with.
[53:59.790 --> 54:02.050]  Well, I put it down already, so...
[54:02.610 --> 54:10.150]  But I was afraid that, like, an assistant to something that has to pay for an automobile or something, you know?
[54:10.730 --> 54:11.490]  Well, yeah.
[54:11.630 --> 54:13.110]  I mean, there is all kinds.
[54:13.230 --> 54:14.650]  It's very unlikely that that will happen.
[54:14.770 --> 54:19.470]  But it's, you know, these are the risks that we're facing whenever we give out bits of our private lives.
[54:19.470 --> 54:20.530]  Yeah, yeah.
[54:20.530 --> 54:23.610]  Well, I thought it was the law at that time, you know.
[54:23.750 --> 54:25.050]  Well, they make you think it's the law.
[54:25.270 --> 54:27.950]  It's not the law that you have to give this information.
[54:28.310 --> 54:32.650]  But what they did in 2008 was make it so that companies can request it.
[54:33.570 --> 54:33.810]  Yeah.
[54:34.130 --> 54:41.670]  But in other words, today it's the dentist, tomorrow it's Joe Blow, or Lord knows who else, you know.
[54:42.330 --> 54:48.950]  Yeah, the pool of names and information is just really huge with this particular breach.
[54:49.170 --> 54:59.390]  And, yeah, it's somebody basically reaching into a hat, and you could fit a certain profile that is of use to someone for one, you know, X, Y, or Z.
[54:59.630 --> 55:00.710]  But you really don't know.
[55:00.810 --> 55:02.250]  You just sort of have to monitor it.
[55:02.290 --> 55:04.490]  And that's where they've built this model, this business model.
[55:04.690 --> 55:05.570]  Good hearing from you, Tom.
[55:05.670 --> 55:06.470]  Good luck with all that.
[55:06.570 --> 55:08.150]  And make sure the floss.
[55:08.410 --> 55:09.370]  That's very important.
[55:09.490 --> 55:10.330]  Your dentist will say that.
[55:10.990 --> 55:12.810]  But, you know, I found an answer.
[55:13.250 --> 55:18.630]  I looked this up to see what TRW turned into, because we all think TRW is a credit reporting agency.
[55:18.810 --> 55:20.690]  They haven't been since 1996.
[55:21.450 --> 55:23.070]  That's 21 years ago.
[55:23.310 --> 55:24.230]  21 years ago.
[55:24.410 --> 55:25.430]  But think about it.
[55:25.550 --> 55:34.150]  Think about how well they're preserving their own privacy, where we don't even know that they don't do this anymore, that they formed another company, and that company is Experian.
[55:34.350 --> 55:36.290]  So TRW turned into Experian.
[55:36.490 --> 55:39.350]  Many people still think it's called TRW, and it's not.
[55:39.350 --> 55:42.390]  Imagine if we could fool them the way they fool us.
[55:43.150 --> 55:43.410]  All right.
[55:43.490 --> 55:43.790]  Good evening.
[55:43.930 --> 55:44.570]  You're on off the hook.
[55:44.650 --> 55:44.870]  Go ahead.
[55:46.070 --> 55:46.330]  Hello.
[55:46.730 --> 55:46.890]  Hi.
[55:46.970 --> 55:47.470]  What's on your mind?
[55:48.270 --> 55:48.550]  Hi.
[55:48.950 --> 55:55.270]  I heard you complaining about how unpleasant the 2600 tone was.
[55:55.510 --> 55:56.290]  Oh, I wasn't complaining.
[55:56.930 --> 55:59.290]  That must have been everybody else you were hearing, but not me.
[55:59.290 --> 56:00.050]  Okay.
[56:00.470 --> 56:02.070]  Because, you know, you can just whistle.
[56:02.270 --> 56:06.890]  It doesn't have to sound as mechanical as what you were playing.
[56:07.050 --> 56:08.450]  Can you whistle 2600 hertz?
[56:10.410 --> 56:11.750]  That's not 2600 hertz.
[56:12.330 --> 56:13.050]  It's close.
[56:13.050 --> 56:13.710]  You're getting there.
[56:13.710 --> 56:15.130]  It's high, but it's not that high.
[56:16.130 --> 56:26.790]  But, you know, it's interesting, because in the old days, when 2600 hertz was used on the phone network in something known as in-band signaling, it could actually affect a phone call in progress.
[56:26.790 --> 56:34.290]  People sometimes would whistle just in a normal speech and disconnect the phone call that they were on inadvertently by doing that.
[56:35.270 --> 56:35.710]  Okay.
[56:35.790 --> 56:38.310]  Well, if you played it again, I could match it with whistling.
[56:38.470 --> 56:39.250]  Actually, you know what?
[56:39.590 --> 56:41.510]  Usually I can't, but today I can.
[56:41.510 --> 56:44.830]  So I just got to look up the corresponding number, which is three.
[56:45.490 --> 56:50.170]  And what you will hear coming down your phone line in just a second is 2600 hertz.
[56:56.860 --> 56:58.260]  I hope that made your day.
[56:59.060 --> 56:59.500]  Okay.
[56:59.500 --> 57:03.220]  I guess that's an octave higher than what I was thinking.
[57:03.460 --> 57:03.840]  A little bit.
[57:03.860 --> 57:05.880]  But with practice, I never could do it myself.
[57:06.100 --> 57:07.360]  I'm embarrassed to say that.
[57:07.380 --> 57:08.360]  I never could do that.
[57:08.580 --> 57:10.000]  But with practice...
[57:10.000 --> 57:14.120]  I can't whistle that high, but I made some sort of sound approximately.
[57:14.580 --> 57:16.140]  I hear it coming over delay now.
[57:16.460 --> 57:18.760]  The whole city is going to be in an uproar about this.
[57:18.900 --> 57:21.440]  Maybe at the Maker Faire is coming up in a couple of weeks.
[57:21.520 --> 57:22.240]  We could have a contest.
[57:22.380 --> 57:24.480]  Who can whistle 2600 and get it just right?
[57:24.600 --> 57:26.060]  I couldn't whistle that high.
[57:26.480 --> 57:27.000]  Uh-huh.
[57:27.500 --> 57:28.840]  But you could, you know...
[57:28.840 --> 57:29.780]  It takes practice.
[57:29.800 --> 57:32.360]  You could play it on a recorder or something like that.
[57:32.540 --> 57:32.780]  Yes.
[57:33.080 --> 57:33.300]  Yeah.
[57:34.440 --> 57:34.960]  And listen...
[57:34.960 --> 57:46.860]  I mean, there are electronic pitch tone generators for, you know, electronic tuning forks.
[57:46.860 --> 57:47.520]  Uh-huh.
[57:47.860 --> 57:48.820]  There's all kinds of methods.
[57:48.940 --> 57:50.740]  But listen, we're going to have to leave it there because we're out of time.
[57:50.820 --> 57:52.040]  But I want to thank you for calling in.
[57:52.260 --> 57:53.460]  And please keep practicing.
[57:54.320 --> 57:56.420]  Everybody else, please keep in touch.
[57:56.580 --> 57:58.580]  Write to us, OTH at 2600.com.
[57:58.720 --> 57:59.720]  Hacker Radio Show on Twitter.
[58:00.220 --> 58:01.380]  We'll see you again next week.
[58:01.540 --> 58:01.780]  Good night.
[58:04.580 --> 58:11.180]  Well, it laid around for a couple of days till finally I thought, what the hay, why not see if this thing will really work?
[58:12.660 --> 58:19.020]  So I went down to my favorite store, picked out three or four shirts or more, a pair of pants and the striped and the tie.
[58:19.060 --> 58:21.580]  And the man came by and said, yes, sir, cash or charge.
[58:22.300 --> 58:24.600]  I said, just put it on my credit card.
[58:25.380 --> 58:26.640]  Write that dude up.
[58:26.940 --> 58:28.000]  Ah, convenient.
[58:30.860 --> 58:35.020]  Now I put that card away in a drawer, and I never charged one dollar more.
[58:35.220 --> 58:37.700]  Then one day in the mail, I got this bill.
[58:39.240 --> 58:41.160]  Typed on a card all full of holes.
[58:41.280 --> 58:43.120]  I said, do not staple, bend, or fold.
[58:43.120 --> 58:47.600]  With the astronomical figure of thirty-two hundred dollars and forty-two cents.
[58:47.920 --> 58:48.260]  When?
[58:49.480 --> 58:50.660]  There's been a mistake.
[58:51.380 --> 58:52.800]  So I got on the phone.
[58:53.200 --> 58:53.460]  Hello?
[58:53.800 --> 58:53.960]  Hello?
[58:56.580 --> 59:03.640]  I got Mr. Black and Mr. Brown, and then I got the runner round, till finally Mr. Green came on the line.
[59:04.620 --> 59:09.120]  I said, sir, this may be hard to take, but your computer has made a mistake.
[59:09.120 --> 59:11.820]  It says I owe more money than I've ever seen.
[59:11.820 --> 59:14.060]  And he said, people like you make mistakes.
[59:15.580 --> 59:16.860]  Computers do not lie.
[59:17.700 --> 59:18.900]  Send us the bread.
[59:19.700 --> 59:20.680]  P.D.Q.
[59:22.780 --> 59:27.180]  Well, now this has just about done me in, so I grabbed that computer card again.
[59:27.180 --> 59:29.940]  The one with all those holes punched out so nice.
[59:30.980 --> 59:33.300]  And I threw it on the floor, and I stomped it twice.
[59:33.380 --> 59:36.880]  And I whipped out my pocket knife and punched out a few new holes.
[59:36.880 --> 59:39.700]  So there hadn't been no holes before, then I've been a double.
[59:41.120 --> 59:42.600]  Stapled it across the end.
[59:43.620 --> 59:45.000]  Drove my car over it.
[59:45.700 --> 59:47.220]  Stick that up your computer.
[59:48.980 --> 59:55.960]  I sent it back in and never heard no more, till one day the mailman came to the door with a special delivery from the charge all place.
[59:57.060 --> 59:59.180]  Inside was a note from Mr. Green.
[59:59.380 --> 01:00:01.160]  Said, we run your card through our machine.
[01:00:01.160 --> 01:00:05.800]  And it tells us you've overpaid your bill and closed as a check payable to you.
[01:00:06.920 --> 01:00:08.680]  For $9,000.
[01:00:10.520 --> 01:00:12.140]  We appreciate your business.
[01:00:15.080 --> 01:00:19.280]  Well, I got back on the phone again and called Mr. Green, and he was in.
[01:00:19.400 --> 01:00:21.540]  And I said, I think there's something you should know.
[01:00:23.100 --> 01:00:25.280]  Then I told him what the computer had done.
[01:00:25.380 --> 01:00:31.380]  And I said, just remember, you're the one that told me computers do not lie.
[01:00:31.800 --> 01:00:32.580]  Thank you.
[01:00:32.580 --> 01:00:32.680]  Thank you.
[01:00:33.140 --> 01:00:33.560]  Thank you.