[00:00.000 --> 00:04.960]  The Canadian political satire, Black Cop, and more.
[00:05.240 --> 00:11.160]  The African Diaspora International Film Festival, from November 24th to December 10th.
[00:11.460 --> 00:23.940]  For tickets and schedule, go online to myadiff.org or call 212-864-1760.
[00:24.380 --> 00:27.400]  Enjoy your world on the big screen.
[00:31.510 --> 00:36.010]  And you're listening to radio station WBAI.
[00:36.290 --> 00:38.570]  It's one minute to eight o'clock.
[00:38.830 --> 00:42.330]  I guess that gives us an extra minute of Off the Hook this week.
[00:42.810 --> 00:44.410]  So, enjoy.
[02:28.910 --> 02:35.170]  And for those of you who are just joining us at the very top of the hour, yes, we started a minute early, so you missed the actual beginning of the song.
[02:35.350 --> 02:35.950]  Not much else.
[02:35.950 --> 02:37.190]  It's Off the Hook.
[02:37.290 --> 02:39.390]  Emmanuel Goldstein here with you, joined tonight by Rob T.
[02:39.490 --> 02:39.890]  Firefly.
[02:40.170 --> 02:40.910]  Good evening.
[02:41.110 --> 02:41.430]  Alex.
[02:41.750 --> 02:42.230]  Good evening.
[02:42.370 --> 02:42.650]  Kyle.
[02:43.010 --> 02:43.870]  Yes, I am here.
[02:44.190 --> 02:45.770]  Our friends from Italy are here.
[02:45.990 --> 02:47.790]  We have Marina, Francesco, Francesca.
[02:47.990 --> 02:48.590]  Did I get it all right?
[02:48.730 --> 02:48.990]  Hi.
[02:49.170 --> 02:49.730]  How are you doing?
[02:50.430 --> 02:52.230]  Wow, I didn't think we'd get so many people in this room.
[02:52.390 --> 02:53.270]  This is pretty awesome.
[02:53.430 --> 02:57.430]  We're back after an absence of a week due to fundraising last week.
[02:57.510 --> 02:58.510]  I'm back after three weeks.
[02:58.630 --> 03:00.550]  I lost my voice two weeks ago.
[03:00.690 --> 03:05.270]  We all lost our voice when we were preempted, but it's back, for better or for worse.
[03:05.270 --> 03:08.330]  And we have so much to catch up on, so much to talk about.
[03:08.970 --> 03:13.830]  First off, well, we might as well update things here at the station.
[03:15.230 --> 03:22.450]  We are always facing a crisis of one sort or another, and this crisis, of course, is a big one involving Empire State Building.
[03:22.670 --> 03:32.170]  I know, Alex, you've been looking into, as our legal person here, you've been looking into what has been filed and what clocks have started ticking.
[03:32.170 --> 03:43.490]  Basically, the upshot is that we're supposed to come up with a couple of million bucks for the Empire State Building because that's just how it works in the world of landlords and ripoffs and things like that.
[03:43.610 --> 03:50.430]  And being charged many times the amount that we should be being charged, and we're stuck in a contract that won't expire for a couple of years to come.
[03:52.470 --> 03:58.990]  But losing that particular case a few weeks ago put us in very dire straits.
[03:59.130 --> 04:02.070]  Now, not fatal at all.
[04:02.210 --> 04:05.050]  In fact, there's a lot of hope, and I'll get into that in a moment.
[04:05.190 --> 04:08.270]  But tell me what you noticed looking over legal records.
[04:08.270 --> 04:09.010]  Sure.
[04:09.410 --> 04:15.430]  Well, as we all know, we lost, WBI being we lost a summary judgment motion.
[04:15.790 --> 04:26.390]  And that means that the judge found that there were no issues of material fact, there were only issues of law, and he decided those issues of law in favor of the Empire State Realty Trust.
[04:27.050 --> 04:28.650]  But that's not the end of it.
[04:28.690 --> 04:31.130]  There's a lot of procedure that happens after that.
[04:31.130 --> 04:40.870]  So what happened yesterday was apparently the plaintiff, the Empire State Realty Trust, LLC, filed what's called a notice of entry.
[04:41.050 --> 04:47.630]  And that means that that was served on the Himmelstein-McConnell law firm, which represents WBAI.
[04:48.290 --> 04:51.230]  In fact, I have the affidavit of service right in front of me.
[04:51.950 --> 04:58.490]  And it says, on November 7th, I served a true and correct copy of the notice of entry on counsel listed below.
[04:58.490 --> 05:03.550]  What that does, and what that means, is it starts the clock running for an appeal.
[05:04.110 --> 05:09.450]  So from yesterday, we now have 30 days to file what's called a notice of an appeal.
[05:09.610 --> 05:12.930]  So we have until December 7th to file that notice.
[05:13.110 --> 05:18.370]  And that doesn't mean that the appeal needs to be perfected or taken or briefed by that time.
[05:18.730 --> 05:30.030]  We actually will then have, if we file a notice of appeal, we will then have nine months to decide whether or not to perfect that appeal, to actually file a brief in the first appellate division of New York State.
[05:30.030 --> 05:36.290]  That would be the appellate body that's on Madison Avenue and, I think, 27th Street or so, right around now, or 26th.
[05:36.990 --> 05:38.750]  And they would decide this appeal.
[05:38.750 --> 05:41.710]  And we have an appeal as of right to the appellate division.
[05:41.830 --> 05:43.330]  So this can be appealed.
[05:43.330 --> 05:52.310]  And I think there are several grounds on which it should be appealed, in particular the unconscionability of the price gouging that we suffered in the wake of September 11th.
[05:52.310 --> 05:56.090]  Yeah, let's just clarify what we're talking about here.
[05:56.210 --> 06:01.890]  Basically, we were forced to sign a long-term contract with the Empire State Building.
[06:02.590 --> 06:06.750]  When the World Trade Center stopped existing, there was basically no competition.
[06:07.130 --> 06:08.750]  The Empire State Building was the only game in town.
[06:09.270 --> 06:12.150]  Since then, of course, the World Trade Center has been rebuilt.
[06:12.150 --> 06:18.250]  And there's another antenna on 42nd Street that many radio stations use.
[06:19.390 --> 06:23.830]  And basically, we could probably be paying about a third what we're paying right now.
[06:24.510 --> 06:30.970]  But we're forced into this crippling contract that we cannot get out of.
[06:31.110 --> 06:35.190]  It's not like, you know, when you're in your apartment and you say, you know what, I'm not going to pay rent anymore.
[06:35.190 --> 06:36.870]  I'm just going to wait it out.
[06:36.950 --> 06:38.230]  And it takes six months for them to evict you.
[06:38.310 --> 06:39.670]  It doesn't work that way with commercial leases.
[06:39.670 --> 06:41.030]  You are stuck.
[06:41.190 --> 06:47.850]  And you are responsible for the entire amount that you signed up for with the lease.
[06:48.250 --> 06:50.770]  And it was a very bad idea to sign this.
[06:51.810 --> 06:53.310]  Possibly, the people who did...
[06:53.310 --> 06:55.550]  By the way, the people who signed this were not WBAI people.
[06:55.650 --> 06:57.570]  They were Pacifica, our parent network.
[06:57.930 --> 07:00.650]  They basically signed that contract.
[07:00.930 --> 07:02.030]  Very ill-advised.
[07:02.130 --> 07:05.890]  And I'm sure if we had all talked about it, we would have tried to come up with a better idea.
[07:05.890 --> 07:09.110]  But now we're paying something on the order of $60,000 a month.
[07:09.110 --> 07:11.890]  Just to have our damn antenna up there.
[07:12.230 --> 07:14.630]  And we would like very much to, you know, to take it...
[07:14.630 --> 07:15.090]  In fact, you know what?
[07:15.150 --> 07:15.750]  Keep the antenna.
[07:15.930 --> 07:16.890]  It's like 50 years old.
[07:17.510 --> 07:19.830]  We'll get a new one and put it anywhere else.
[07:19.890 --> 07:20.350]  We have listeners.
[07:20.450 --> 07:21.830]  Well, we can put it on top of someone's house.
[07:21.990 --> 07:22.930]  It doesn't matter.
[07:22.950 --> 07:25.190]  But this is a crippling expense.
[07:25.370 --> 07:28.930]  And what we were trying to do was simply get out of this.
[07:28.930 --> 07:39.750]  And also, what had been talked about informally with Empire State Realty Trust was paying what the fair market value was for a number of years.
[07:39.750 --> 07:43.130]  And what this case did was basically say, you know what?
[07:43.130 --> 07:44.330]  You can't do that.
[07:44.430 --> 07:49.150]  You have to pay us everything starting from a couple of years ago when you started paying fair market value.
[07:49.290 --> 07:50.910]  And that adds up to...
[07:50.910 --> 07:53.150]  Plus legal fees adds up to a couple of million dollars.
[07:53.150 --> 07:55.230]  So that's where we are right now.
[07:55.750 --> 07:58.850]  It's easy to say, wow, Pacifica, you didn't pay your bills.
[07:58.990 --> 08:01.650]  But these bills are insane.
[08:01.950 --> 08:12.650]  And when you consider that there are radio stations, many radio stations, many non-commercial radio stations who have their tower space donated to them, they don't have to pay anything at all.
[08:12.870 --> 08:15.630]  And we're expected to pay $60,000 a month.
[08:15.730 --> 08:17.290]  And we are not a commercial radio station.
[08:17.490 --> 08:20.150]  In fact, I would like to know, what do the commercial radio stations pay?
[08:20.270 --> 08:22.610]  We have friends out there who work at some commercial stations.
[08:22.610 --> 08:23.070]  Find out.
[08:23.230 --> 08:30.590]  Let's do a little perusing in your boss's file cabinet and see what it is that they actually pay the Empire State Building if you're on that building.
[08:30.730 --> 08:32.130]  I'd like to know, are they paying the same thing?
[08:32.170 --> 08:32.830]  Are they paying more?
[08:32.930 --> 08:33.470]  Are they paying less?
[08:34.390 --> 08:36.650]  Or, you know, what are they paying in a different location?
[08:36.670 --> 08:39.490]  Let's have all the information brought out.
[08:40.210 --> 08:42.330]  But what else do you have for us, Alex?
[08:42.570 --> 08:42.810]  Sure.
[08:43.610 --> 08:44.810]  There is some danger, though.
[08:44.910 --> 08:45.570]  There is some danger.
[08:45.590 --> 08:49.970]  And it's not immediately looming, but it's sort of out there on the horizon as well.
[08:50.130 --> 08:50.530]  There is lots of danger.
[08:50.790 --> 08:51.970]  There's always danger here.
[08:51.970 --> 08:53.410]  This is why we're here.
[08:53.610 --> 08:54.830]  These are dangerous times.
[08:54.970 --> 08:55.770]  It's always danger.
[08:55.930 --> 08:56.570]  Always danger.
[08:56.730 --> 08:57.510]  No question.
[08:57.750 --> 09:04.070]  So this notice of entry is somewhat interesting because there is a little bit of a backlog in the courts.
[09:04.230 --> 09:09.650]  And this notice of entry means that the judgment itself has been deposited with the county clerk.
[09:09.930 --> 09:14.890]  And the county clerk then has to enter the judgment onto the rolls of judgments.
[09:14.890 --> 09:17.050]  And that judgment isn't effective.
[09:17.050 --> 09:20.130]  And it cannot be enforced until it is actually entered.
[09:20.490 --> 09:31.310]  Now, the problem with this is apparently it stems from Governor Cuomo having released a whole bunch of civil servants over the last couple of years and not allowed anybody or any of these agencies to rehire people.
[09:31.310 --> 09:35.270]  So there's a huge backlog in terms of entering these judgments.
[09:35.270 --> 09:38.170]  And it is somewhat complicated because damages need to be calculated.
[09:38.310 --> 09:39.430]  Attorney's fees need to be added.
[09:39.730 --> 09:42.650]  If there's costs and expenses, all this needs to go into this.
[09:42.730 --> 09:46.090]  And it's a real pain, frankly, to do this kind of thing.
[09:47.330 --> 09:54.970]  And as of last year, when we actually had a case overturned in the first appellal division where this case will hopefully land.
[09:55.110 --> 09:55.550]  We being?
[09:55.750 --> 09:56.710]  My law firm.
[09:56.810 --> 09:56.950]  Okay.
[09:57.270 --> 09:58.310]  The Blackstone Law Group.
[09:58.350 --> 09:59.850]  We had a case overturned.
[10:00.890 --> 10:05.270]  When we tried to have judgment entered on this, it actually took close to 13 weeks.
[10:05.530 --> 10:07.710]  That's how much of a backlog there is.
[10:08.870 --> 10:17.410]  But if this judgment is entered prior to that time or at the 13-week time, at that moment, that means the judgment can be enforced.
[10:17.790 --> 10:25.230]  And that means that the plaintiff can get the sheriff involved and seize assets.
[10:25.550 --> 10:27.010]  Subpoenas can start flying.
[10:27.010 --> 10:33.110]  As soon as the moment that judgment is issued, they can start to try to find WBAI's bank accounts.
[10:33.210 --> 10:34.270]  They can freeze bank accounts.
[10:34.310 --> 10:35.250]  Well, they're not going to get much there.
[10:35.250 --> 10:39.010]  I can tell you that right now because they're depleted thanks to the Empire State Building.
[10:39.230 --> 10:40.870]  That's pretty much all going to them anyway.
[10:41.170 --> 10:43.190]  But when you say seize assets, what do you mean?
[10:43.290 --> 10:47.530]  Like stormtroopers can come through the door and take the microphone I'm talking in right now?
[10:47.750 --> 10:48.430]  That's true.
[10:48.730 --> 10:49.190]  They could.
[10:49.590 --> 10:50.810]  I mean, it's quite possible.
[10:51.070 --> 10:54.410]  It's a bit of a process to get the sheriff involved in something like this.
[10:54.490 --> 10:55.610]  And because this is a...
[10:55.610 --> 10:58.590]  Is it just one sheriff in town or are there a whole bunch of them?
[10:58.690 --> 10:59.270]  That's a good question.
[10:59.290 --> 11:00.390]  I've always wondered.
[11:00.590 --> 11:01.130]  That's a good question.
[11:01.210 --> 11:02.750]  If there's one, he's probably quite busy.
[11:02.790 --> 11:04.250]  So I would imagine that there are several.
[11:04.590 --> 11:04.950]  Wow.
[11:04.950 --> 11:06.530]  Get to meet the sheriff of New York City.
[11:06.710 --> 11:07.370]  Well, they might.
[11:07.530 --> 11:09.950]  But look, that's a possibility.
[11:10.170 --> 11:10.750]  It's a possibility.
[11:10.930 --> 11:18.950]  There's a huge panoply of legal mechanisms that are allowed to somebody who is a judgment creditor and to be wielded against a judgment debtor.
[11:19.050 --> 11:20.630]  And WBI would be the judgment debtor.
[11:20.930 --> 11:41.910]  That being said, if a notice of appeal is filed, we can go to the first appellate division and we can say, you know, a stay on this judgment should be imposed so that the judgment cannot be enforced so that the plaintiff couldn't harass WBAI with a mess of subpoenas or freezing of the bank accounts because there may be legitimate reasons for this particular appeal.
[11:41.910 --> 11:45.470]  So let's see what happens over the next month.
[11:45.790 --> 12:00.310]  If I can just maneuver this balloon back down to earth for a second where we don't talk legalese, what can actually be done on a human scale that could just basically make this end already?
[12:00.310 --> 12:04.910]  And maybe everybody won't be completely happy, but sanity will prevail again.
[12:04.910 --> 12:11.390]  What can the Empire State Building or even Pacifica do to basically move forward and put this behind us?
[12:11.510 --> 12:12.250]  We got to negotiate.
[12:12.510 --> 12:15.710]  We have to negotiate a settlement of this particular judgment.
[12:15.810 --> 12:16.410]  They won't negotiate.
[12:16.590 --> 12:19.130]  That's what Pacifica has been trying to do is negotiate with them.
[12:19.190 --> 12:24.330]  Well, the idea here then is to enforce or to place some kind of leverage on them.
[12:24.450 --> 12:26.750]  You know, filing this notice of appeal is one thing.
[12:27.250 --> 12:30.030]  And then filing the briefs is yet another thing.
[12:30.150 --> 12:34.850]  And if those briefs have merit, it may cause them to come to the table and negotiate.
[12:34.910 --> 12:37.650]  So it's a matter of applying a little bit of pressure here.
[12:37.870 --> 12:42.190]  And I think that, you know, my opinion on this is that WBI needs to be a bit aggressive.
[12:42.770 --> 12:46.210]  You know, we may have lost some rejudgment, but that's not the entire battle.
[12:46.370 --> 12:51.170]  There is a long road ahead and many different ways that we can prevail.
[12:51.430 --> 12:51.790]  Yes.
[12:52.190 --> 13:07.230]  I think, you know, just the court of public opinion really needs to come into play here because, you know, while nobody is saying that, you know, we should not be paying rent on a place that we're renting, there's a question of fairness here.
[13:07.350 --> 13:08.670]  There's a question of ability to pay.
[13:08.790 --> 13:09.770]  There's a question of bullying.
[13:10.570 --> 13:17.510]  And, you know, no matter what you think about Pacifica and WBAI, what Empire State is doing is not right.
[13:17.530 --> 13:21.250]  It's just, it's very intimidating and unfair.
[13:21.550 --> 13:22.890]  Might work in corporate America.
[13:23.110 --> 13:24.550]  Doesn't really work for us.
[13:24.790 --> 13:33.290]  And while we're broadcasting from the Empire State Building, talking about the Empire State Building, it's something that I'm not sure is in their best interest.
[13:33.290 --> 13:34.930]  You know, put it this way.
[13:35.670 --> 13:43.630]  If there's another radio station in town that's looking for transmitter space, do you think they're going to go to the Empire State Building after hearing what they did to us?
[13:44.090 --> 13:49.570]  You know, I know people won't even go up to the observatory now because of what they did to us.
[13:49.710 --> 13:51.570]  So, you know, it's a trickle down effect.
[13:51.650 --> 14:00.750]  And the public relations disaster could be a lot worse than any amount, which to them is a piddling amount that we owe, which to us is a crippling amount.
[14:00.750 --> 14:06.610]  Now, that said, it doesn't mean that we will be driven out by this.
[14:06.850 --> 14:08.230]  We have options.
[14:08.230 --> 14:11.510]  We can make sacrifices throughout the network.
[14:11.610 --> 14:12.470]  This network is strong.
[14:12.670 --> 14:15.170]  You might hear about the infighting.
[14:15.270 --> 14:19.970]  You might hear about how, you know, forever and a day this place can't get its act together.
[14:19.970 --> 14:35.710]  But in reality, if you listen to some of the things that air over this station and the four others that Pacifica owns, you'll see that there is quite a bit of amazing talent and diversity that goes over our airwaves.
[14:35.770 --> 14:36.910]  And we have resources.
[14:36.910 --> 14:39.290]  We have ways that we can deal with this.
[14:39.970 --> 14:43.010]  And we will get through it if we absolutely have to.
[14:43.150 --> 14:44.830]  It'll come at a tremendous cost.
[14:45.930 --> 14:50.590]  You know, the Pacifica does have real estate in other places that can be sold.
[14:51.590 --> 14:53.910]  And that would be unfortunate.
[14:54.090 --> 14:56.530]  That would be bad because, you know, it took many years to build this up.
[14:56.630 --> 15:01.190]  But Pacifica is stronger than it was when it first started because we didn't have real estate then.
[15:01.730 --> 15:04.410]  But we're in the in the business of radio, not real estate.
[15:04.590 --> 15:10.570]  So to basically take out more loans to pay this off, you know, it's not what we want to do.
[15:10.570 --> 15:14.050]  It takes away what we are focused on.
[15:14.150 --> 15:18.730]  But don't believe the people who say that, yeah, they're going to sell the station.
[15:18.890 --> 15:22.010]  They're going to swap the signal with with something on the AM dial.
[15:22.290 --> 15:23.610]  Oh, my God, the things people are saying.
[15:23.850 --> 15:26.110]  No, we don't have to do things like that.
[15:26.630 --> 15:27.790]  Justice should prevail.
[15:27.790 --> 15:32.310]  We should be able to have a fair settlement here.
[15:32.410 --> 15:34.570]  This is not a fair, fair settlement we're dealing with right now.
[15:35.650 --> 15:42.910]  But regardless, this place is not going to disappear as long as our listeners stand by us, as long as the people here don't give up.
[15:43.370 --> 15:47.270]  I think our spirit and, you know, we saw this yesterday on Election Day.
[15:47.690 --> 15:48.950]  Spirit comes back.
[15:49.150 --> 16:02.730]  You know, it's one year since that show we did the day after the day of the other 9-11, you know, 11-9 last year, the day after Trump was elected, and everybody in the city was just in a state of shock and depressed and everything like that.
[16:02.850 --> 16:06.410]  And here we are one year later, and the feeling is very different.
[16:06.550 --> 16:08.190]  The feeling is that, yeah, we can fight back.
[16:08.290 --> 16:08.950]  We can win.
[16:09.090 --> 16:12.650]  We can not only repair this, but come back stronger than ever.
[16:12.670 --> 16:14.450]  And I feel the same way about this place.
[16:14.830 --> 16:16.350]  I completely agree.
[16:16.370 --> 16:19.030]  I think you're absolutely right about the court of public opinion here.
[16:19.130 --> 16:23.110]  It's so important that people rally together and put pressure on the Empire State Realty Trust.
[16:23.110 --> 16:33.350]  That's another point that is so worth making over and over and over again, because there will be a huge deterrent effect if there is potentially another tenant that wants to take this space.
[16:34.470 --> 16:38.030]  And in terms of fairness, we lost in front of a single judge.
[16:38.030 --> 16:43.970]  If we go to the first appellate division, we're going to be in front of a panel of five, and you need three to win.
[16:44.110 --> 16:45.510]  You just need to convince three people.
[16:45.590 --> 17:00.550]  I think we've got a much greater shot at this unconscionability argument, which really gets at the heart of fairness, and how unfair this is to hold us to these unconscionable prices with which we were gouged right after September 11th.
[17:00.630 --> 17:03.330]  So I think that that's a very compelling argument.
[17:03.450 --> 17:09.330]  I think we've got a great shot to get three judges on board to agree with us that this is completely unfair.
[17:09.750 --> 17:12.550]  And if we do that, this is over.
[17:12.910 --> 17:15.910]  Well, I guess then the plaintiff could appeal it further.
[17:15.910 --> 17:18.850]  But for all intents and purposes, that would be done.
[17:19.410 --> 17:20.950]  We'd be done with this headache.
[17:21.050 --> 17:21.790]  We'd move forward.
[17:21.930 --> 17:23.030]  We'll move forward either way.
[17:23.170 --> 17:27.430]  And, you know, we have to think here at the radio station of other ways of doing things, too.
[17:27.890 --> 17:30.230]  Ways to bring in more income.
[17:30.230 --> 17:42.190]  Because, you know, we have our fundraisers every now and then, but we need to be doing better so that we aren't perpetually struggling, so that we can build this studio out and really make this place the amazing place it can be.
[17:42.190 --> 17:46.070]  The amazing place it already is, just by physically having it in the first place.
[17:46.350 --> 17:48.370]  And obviously, people want to take that from us.
[17:48.630 --> 17:50.830]  But we can improve upon it.
[17:50.890 --> 17:51.590]  We can expand.
[17:51.710 --> 17:53.070]  We can do all kinds of amazing things.
[17:53.090 --> 17:54.770]  We have to believe that we can do that, though.
[17:55.090 --> 18:00.330]  And there's a lot of defeatist attitudes, which are understandable because there have been, you know, so many challenges.
[18:00.330 --> 18:12.150]  But when people see the tremendous support that we have fueled by our progress, our victories, I think that's what we should look to.
[18:12.890 --> 18:15.390]  Alternative ways of raising funds.
[18:15.530 --> 18:22.650]  I brought up, last time we were talking about a crisis, the concept of underwriting, something that Pacifica has always shied away from.
[18:22.830 --> 18:23.550]  We can do it.
[18:23.550 --> 18:24.210]  We can do it right.
[18:24.330 --> 18:27.070]  We can bring in a whole lot of extra money by doing that.
[18:27.070 --> 18:28.530]  We can do all kinds of other fundraisers.
[18:28.810 --> 18:37.030]  Actually, I wanted to ask one of our Italian friends, who comes from a place in Milan called Radio Populare.
[18:38.450 --> 18:42.770]  You guys have a radio station out there.
[18:42.990 --> 18:43.950]  We visited it.
[18:44.010 --> 18:46.730]  Kyle and I were out there in Milan earlier this year.
[18:47.050 --> 18:55.450]  And we were just blown away by the size, the number of studios, the number of people that were down there.
[18:55.450 --> 19:03.210]  There must have been a hundred listeners, a couple of hundred listeners that were just basically congregating around the studios.
[19:03.210 --> 19:04.510]  It was your anniversary, correct?
[19:05.010 --> 19:05.390]  Yeah.
[19:05.610 --> 19:09.610]  It was, well, 41 years since the foundation.
[19:09.710 --> 19:09.830]  41 years.
[19:10.010 --> 19:26.090]  And, you know, Radio Populare is based in Milan, but it is quite a national network now with several radios around Italy that takes the shows and put it on air.
[19:26.830 --> 19:33.910]  But, yeah, every year there is this party, let's say, when it's our birthday.
[19:33.910 --> 19:39.930]  And the good thing is that we try to involve all our listeners.
[19:40.190 --> 19:48.890]  That usually is also a moment in which we ask for raising funds for the radio.
[19:49.090 --> 19:52.190]  So in the same basic game here, you guys have to raise funds as well.
[19:52.190 --> 20:23.570]  Yes, basically, I would say that probably Radio Populare is, in Europe at least, the oldest media company that did a sort of, I would say, sort of crowdfunding in back to, I think it was 1991 or 1990, so many, many years ago, when the former director decided to ask the listeners to pay a sort of subscription every year.
[20:23.730 --> 20:25.950]  So not just once, but every year.
[20:26.250 --> 20:32.970]  That now currently is at least 90 euros, so around 100 dollars per year.
[20:32.970 --> 20:35.990]  So you ask listeners to pay 100 euros a year.
[20:36.190 --> 20:36.610]  Yes.
[20:36.790 --> 20:41.570]  This is the subscription of nearly 15,000 people every year.
[20:41.570 --> 20:43.030]  Now, that's a minimum amount, right?
[20:43.110 --> 20:45.570]  You don't accept things below a certain amount, correct?
[20:45.670 --> 20:48.650]  Well, you know, it's a marketing stuff thing at the end.
[20:48.770 --> 20:59.890]  Because what we say is that if you want to be a subscriber, so let's say sort of gold subscriber, you have to pay at least 100 dollars per year.
[20:59.890 --> 21:07.070]  But then, if you are a student and you have, I don't know, 20 dollars and you want to donate, why not?
[21:07.350 --> 21:19.290]  You have a different form of subscription, but you are not the official subscriber of the radio.
[21:19.490 --> 21:24.190]  I'm bad at math, but what does that turn out to be if you add all those numbers together?
[21:25.410 --> 21:31.210]  Is one, I think, one million and a half per year.
[21:31.350 --> 21:34.910]  Okay, that's just based on that minimum amount.
[21:35.090 --> 21:37.010]  And there are people who pay more than that, obviously.
[21:37.550 --> 21:38.150]  So...
[21:38.150 --> 21:46.710]  Last time, there was one listener that gave us more than 1,000 dollars.
[21:46.770 --> 21:47.030]  Wow.
[21:47.210 --> 21:47.470]  Once.
[21:47.710 --> 21:49.690]  And this is a subscription.
[21:50.150 --> 21:52.510]  So you're not on the air constantly asking for money.
[21:52.510 --> 21:54.850]  You're basically saying, okay, guys, renew your subscription.
[21:55.490 --> 21:58.630]  And if everybody does it, then you can keep going, right?
[21:58.650 --> 22:04.430]  The idea is that we have an automatic way to take money from...
[22:04.430 --> 22:06.450]  to drain money from the bank account.
[22:06.450 --> 22:07.190]  You don't have to ask.
[22:07.190 --> 22:08.330]  You just basically take.
[22:08.470 --> 22:08.650]  Okay.
[22:09.690 --> 22:10.170]  Wow.
[22:10.730 --> 22:18.330]  Then, of course, if you change, for instance, your bank account, we have to come back to you and ask to move it.
[22:18.670 --> 22:21.030]  But basically, it's an automatic way to take the money.
[22:21.030 --> 22:22.970]  But you guys are so inclusive.
[22:23.050 --> 22:27.690]  Basically, you invite the listeners down, and people are doing all kinds of different radio shows.
[22:27.910 --> 22:28.710]  And we saw it.
[22:28.770 --> 22:31.390]  It was just incredible, the amount of diversity down there.
[22:31.950 --> 22:33.030]  And it works.
[22:33.630 --> 22:34.450]  It's successful.
[22:34.650 --> 22:36.030]  Radio is very...
[22:36.670 --> 22:37.910]  It's the idea of community.
[22:37.910 --> 22:39.210]  They are very strong.
[22:39.210 --> 22:43.890]  Back to the 90s, when this all started.
[22:44.670 --> 22:51.370]  But this radio has a really strong community of the listeners and subscribers as well.
[22:51.490 --> 22:57.850]  So this is just one thing we can look at here at Pacifica as an example of something that we can point to.
[22:57.990 --> 23:00.770]  Do you guys have a website that maybe people can learn more?
[23:00.770 --> 23:01.730]  Yes, yes, sure.
[23:01.870 --> 23:12.410]  And there is a big yellow button, because the yellow is the color Radio Popolare, where you can push and then donate via PayPal or all that.
[23:13.330 --> 23:17.150]  I saw here that you have the SMS to...
[23:17.150 --> 23:21.350]  Yeah, we're dipping our toes into these little waiting pools here.
[23:21.450 --> 23:23.870]  That's interesting, because we don't have this way.
[23:24.130 --> 23:27.710]  So maybe we can exchange experiences just to...
[23:27.710 --> 23:28.370]  Do you take Bitcoin?
[23:29.030 --> 23:29.810]  No, not yet.
[23:29.810 --> 23:30.310]  We don't either.
[23:30.530 --> 23:31.470]  Okay, we have that in common.
[23:31.910 --> 23:32.970]  But hopefully soon.
[23:33.070 --> 23:37.330]  The website is www.radiopopolare...
[23:37.330 --> 23:39.350]  Okay, I think it's quite a...
[23:39.790 --> 23:40.190]  .it.
[23:40.630 --> 23:41.050]  That is the suffix of Italy.
[23:41.050 --> 23:44.670]  Okay, now you probably spell popularly different than we might think to do that, so it's...
[23:44.670 --> 23:47.010]  P-O-P-O-L-A-R-E.
[23:47.310 --> 23:48.630]  P-O-P-O, not you.
[23:48.770 --> 23:49.850]  Oh, okay, great.
[23:50.350 --> 23:51.330]  Thanks so much, you guys.
[23:51.450 --> 23:51.770]  Thank you.
[23:52.050 --> 23:54.850]  All right, and that's just, you know, one example.
[23:55.010 --> 23:57.010]  One example, one radio station, one country.
[23:58.010 --> 24:00.730]  There is a lot of potential out there, so let's not be defeated.
[24:00.870 --> 24:01.750]  Let's not be hopeless.
[24:02.550 --> 24:07.270]  WBAI is going to be here for another 57 years, and so will Pacifica.
[24:07.570 --> 24:10.110]  Yeah, and this is a good time to get good ideas like that.
[24:10.110 --> 24:22.810]  I know a lot of the Pacifica and WBAI community is excited about trying new things and moving forward, regardless of this judgment.
[24:22.810 --> 24:52.590]  I mean, I think it's a prime time to try these new things, and the kind of side byproduct, the benefit is that you do build your community, your wider local, and in this case with Pacifica national community, and that improves the programming, and our listeners then benefit from a stronger network and better shows and more interesting content.
[24:52.590 --> 24:55.350]  Okay, so we have many other things to talk about.
[24:55.450 --> 24:58.450]  We haven't been on in a couple of weeks, so a lot of things have happened.
[24:58.930 --> 25:04.810]  But first, you know, you probably heard the news today, the late-breaking bulletin, that this is sad.
[25:04.870 --> 25:06.630]  This is just a very sad story.
[25:07.910 --> 25:13.810]  A driverless shuttle in Las Vegas crashed today after it was launched only hours earlier.
[25:14.210 --> 25:25.410]  The shuttle crashed just before noon, not far from the Las Vegas Strip, less than two hours, less than two hours after officials held an unveiling ceremony to promote the vehicle.
[25:25.770 --> 25:32.370]  Dozens of people had lined up to board the shuttle, but no one was injured in the accident, which saw the bus collide with a semi-truck.
[25:32.970 --> 25:38.970]  The shuttle was built by Navaya, a French company that is also operating it on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
[25:39.710 --> 25:43.270]  Not far from a manufacturing facility, it has established in the city of Saline.
[25:43.830 --> 25:50.050]  The one involved in the accident in Las Vegas can hold up to 12 passengers and can hit a top speed of just 25 miles per hour.
[25:50.790 --> 25:53.870]  But it's only expected to ride around at about 15 miles per hour.
[25:54.330 --> 26:00.570]  It doesn't have a steering wheel or any pedals, but an attendant rides on board to oversee operations via a computer monitor.
[26:01.350 --> 26:03.130]  The bus is currently free.
[26:03.130 --> 26:04.970]  Well, it's not really free anymore.
[26:06.510 --> 26:12.010]  But, yeah, it was supposed to drive through downtown Las Vegas through the next year.
[26:12.870 --> 26:15.070]  And right now, of course, nobody knows what's going to happen.
[26:15.270 --> 26:19.110]  But less than two hours, self-driving vehicle has a collision.
[26:19.430 --> 26:21.150]  It doesn't bode well for the future, does it?
[26:21.550 --> 26:23.070]  What was the stop?
[26:23.550 --> 26:24.430]  How did it...
[26:24.430 --> 26:25.750]  The stop was a semi-truck.
[26:25.890 --> 26:26.670]  That was the stop.
[26:27.010 --> 26:28.810]  Oh, it actually collided.
[26:29.610 --> 26:31.450]  Was anyone hurt on the semi?
[26:31.790 --> 26:32.790]  They don't...
[26:32.790 --> 26:34.310]  Nobody gets hurt on a semi.
[26:34.530 --> 26:35.390]  Semi probably won.
[26:35.630 --> 26:37.110]  Yeah, no one ever gets hurt on a semi.
[26:37.110 --> 26:37.370]  I know.
[26:37.590 --> 26:41.970]  It's back to the drawing board, I guess, is what happened.
[26:42.070 --> 26:46.750]  And, okay, we also had this other interesting story that took place in the last week.
[26:47.190 --> 26:52.250]  And that was the Twitter employee that deactivated Donald Trump's account.
[26:52.350 --> 26:53.990]  It was deactivated for 11 minutes.
[26:54.250 --> 26:58.130]  And the thing that really kind of annoys me about...
[26:58.130 --> 26:59.130]  A lot of things annoy me.
[26:59.850 --> 27:02.330]  The fact that people take Twitter so seriously.
[27:02.490 --> 27:03.230]  Yeah, Twitter is great.
[27:03.410 --> 27:03.850]  You know what?
[27:03.950 --> 27:05.030]  280 characters now?
[27:05.030 --> 27:07.150]  Oh, wow, we can actually say full sentences.
[27:07.470 --> 27:09.130]  I'm the only person, I think, that likes this.
[27:09.290 --> 27:10.210]  Everyone else is complaining.
[27:10.430 --> 27:12.410]  Oh, my God, what's going to happen now?
[27:12.490 --> 27:13.690]  140 characters was enough.
[27:14.210 --> 27:15.110]  Actually, it wasn't.
[27:15.170 --> 27:17.430]  It's enough if you want to abbreviate everything and misspell words.
[27:18.010 --> 27:19.690]  Now I'm seeing actual paragraphs.
[27:19.930 --> 27:21.510]  And, you know, people might read more.
[27:21.610 --> 27:23.210]  I know that is something to be afraid of.
[27:23.550 --> 27:26.410]  But 280 characters is now the norm.
[27:26.410 --> 27:28.110]  Everybody has access to that.
[27:28.970 --> 27:30.210]  Unless you have a BlackBerry.
[27:30.490 --> 27:30.690]  What?
[27:30.870 --> 27:32.190]  The BlackBerry didn't get updated?
[27:32.910 --> 27:34.490]  BlackBerry people are still waiting.
[27:34.490 --> 27:35.630]  Are you kidding me?
[27:35.750 --> 27:39.430]  Yeah, they're going to be back in the 140 land for the indefinite future, I think.
[27:39.650 --> 27:40.610]  I'm so sorry to hear that.
[27:40.610 --> 27:43.250]  I think they have to buy new phones if they want to be...
[27:43.250 --> 27:47.670]  You know, you BlackBerry people have been pressured to change and don't ever change.
[27:47.850 --> 27:47.950]  No.
[27:47.950 --> 27:49.710]  Just hold on to those...
[27:49.710 --> 27:51.130]  Shine on, you crazy BlackBerrys.
[27:51.930 --> 27:52.750]  ...ancient bits of technology there.
[27:53.370 --> 27:56.710]  But anyway, okay, so Twitter is great for all kinds of things.
[27:56.710 --> 28:06.810]  But what people have to remember, and I've had this lecture, I've given this lecture so many times over the years, people, it's only radio, calm down.
[28:06.970 --> 28:08.770]  People, it's only IRC, calm down.
[28:08.890 --> 28:10.410]  People, it's only Facebook, calm down.
[28:10.550 --> 28:12.370]  And now people, for God's sake, it's only Twitter.
[28:12.570 --> 28:16.670]  You know, and they're treating this like this guy hacked into the Defense Department.
[28:16.910 --> 28:18.510]  Oh, the things he could have done.
[28:18.630 --> 28:19.610]  He could have started a war.
[28:19.610 --> 28:25.110]  Yeah, but the thing that's really an issue is that we have a president that uses Twitter as his main form of communication.
[28:25.310 --> 28:26.730]  That is the absurdity, all right?
[28:26.750 --> 28:31.050]  That's what we should be laughing at and not taking as seriously as we do.
[28:31.270 --> 28:36.510]  This guy was able to access an account and disable it for 11 minutes.
[28:36.730 --> 28:38.490]  Hey, they caught it in 11 minutes.
[28:38.490 --> 28:39.090]  Who noticed?
[28:39.350 --> 28:46.790]  I mean, how many people go to Donald Trump's main Twitter page to see what he's up to?
[28:47.290 --> 28:48.750]  Most people see a feed.
[28:48.750 --> 28:50.030]  They get an update.
[28:50.230 --> 28:52.690]  My damn phone goes off every time he says something.
[28:52.890 --> 28:54.110]  That's how I find that.
[28:54.110 --> 28:55.770]  Or I see it on my timeline.
[28:56.050 --> 29:00.870]  Why would anybody go to the page to see if he's still there to read what he has to say?
[29:01.030 --> 29:11.150]  The thing is, he's made it serious because he's used this platform to post what amount to presidential positions on things and official White House communiques.
[29:11.770 --> 29:12.770]  And that's fine.
[29:12.770 --> 29:19.850]  And he's made it into this thing that everyone has to keep their eyes glued to if they want to know what, you know, what insanity is coming down the pike next.
[29:19.970 --> 29:26.170]  But we still have to recognize how absurd it is, even if he has made it serious by saying serious things on it.
[29:26.230 --> 29:41.350]  It's still, you know, a ridiculous way that somebody in the position of President of the United States should be conveying important information or even having the ridiculous conversations that we see on Twitter.
[29:41.510 --> 29:42.010]  It's basically...
[29:42.010 --> 29:48.330]  It's brought down the respect of the office so incredibly much through his own actions, not through Twitter's.
[29:48.430 --> 30:01.490]  But, you know, I just think we need to have a reality check here and realize that this is not, you know, a system that launches missiles or is a national defense type of a thing.
[30:01.770 --> 30:02.710]  It's Twitter.
[30:03.010 --> 30:05.670]  And he lost access for 11 minutes.
[30:05.850 --> 30:08.510]  We should not care as much.
[30:08.690 --> 30:09.370]  They fixed it.
[30:09.450 --> 30:10.010]  They found it.
[30:10.270 --> 30:12.370]  And this guy is facing prison now.
[30:12.530 --> 30:16.890]  I mean, yeah, maybe tighten up the security so somebody can't just do that.
[30:17.430 --> 30:22.670]  But it goes to show that if you have an enemy someplace, you're vulnerable.
[30:22.670 --> 30:25.210]  And if you're President of the United States, people will notice.
[30:25.350 --> 30:26.790]  And if you're not, maybe nobody will notice.
[30:27.130 --> 30:28.410]  Imagine if this were a different platform.
[30:28.630 --> 30:32.110]  Imagine if Trump were using IRC to deliver his mission.
[30:32.350 --> 30:33.290]  I wish he were using IRC.
[30:33.310 --> 30:33.770]  Because then he could be...
[30:33.770 --> 30:34.590]  The drama and the net splits.
[30:34.630 --> 30:35.930]  He could be kick-banned.
[30:36.090 --> 30:38.110]  He could be, you know, all kinds of things.
[30:38.290 --> 30:42.270]  You know, plus M the channel so that he can be there, but he can't say a damn thing.
[30:43.390 --> 30:44.030]  Or invite...
[30:44.030 --> 30:44.350]  I don't know.
[30:44.390 --> 30:45.550]  That's all kinds of modes.
[30:45.770 --> 30:47.210]  IRC is built for this sort of thing.
[30:47.330 --> 30:48.190]  But Twitter, wow.
[30:48.950 --> 30:55.670]  Anyway, so this apparent contractor deactivated the account.
[30:56.010 --> 30:59.710]  11 minutes went by, and then it was reactivated.
[30:59.850 --> 31:01.930]  And everybody's talking about this.
[31:02.150 --> 31:06.050]  I mean, I think this particular contractor really is in jeopardy, too.
[31:06.070 --> 31:10.070]  Because it could be considered a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
[31:10.250 --> 31:11.730]  A violation of federal law.
[31:12.470 --> 31:13.850]  I don't know what that was.
[31:14.030 --> 31:15.210]  There's some ghost in the studio.
[31:15.210 --> 31:15.910]  There's a ghost in the studio.
[31:15.910 --> 31:17.150]  In the studio, yeah, exactly.
[31:18.130 --> 31:19.670]  But it could be quite serious.
[31:19.830 --> 31:31.650]  You know, there's a big problem here, though, when tiny little infractions like this, things that are quite literally just jokes, are taken so seriously as to literally be made a federal case.
[31:31.830 --> 31:34.610]  I mean, this is where that expression comes from, this platitude.
[31:34.730 --> 31:35.810]  Don't make a federal case out of it.
[31:35.910 --> 31:36.110]  Exactly.
[31:36.110 --> 31:40.950]  I really don't think people should make a federal case out of 11 minutes of Donald Trump being without Twitter.
[31:40.950 --> 31:44.530]  If a web page gets hacked, you know, you fix it.
[31:44.730 --> 31:45.050]  That's right.
[31:45.150 --> 31:46.770]  And it's...
[31:46.770 --> 31:50.390]  I look upon that with the same degree of seriousness.
[31:51.370 --> 31:54.170]  A website is hacked, okay, wow, there's a vulnerability.
[31:55.530 --> 32:01.510]  Restore from backups if something was actually erased and move on and learn from the experience.
[32:01.770 --> 32:03.910]  It's not the same thing as burning down a building.
[32:04.150 --> 32:05.710]  You know, it's different.
[32:05.710 --> 32:10.410]  Yeah, some commerce might be lost, but, you know, we're all having growing pains here with technology.
[32:10.630 --> 32:13.950]  They're saying that this 11 minutes was damaging.
[32:14.090 --> 32:14.610]  It cost money.
[32:14.730 --> 32:16.050]  I don't know who it cost money.
[32:16.350 --> 32:20.050]  How does 11 minutes of no Donald Trump cost anyone money?
[32:20.070 --> 32:22.630]  And I would think people would be having parties and buying things.
[32:22.670 --> 32:22.990]  It's true.
[32:22.990 --> 32:25.410]  And the damages threshold here, I believe, is $5,000.
[32:25.750 --> 32:29.970]  You need to cause, I think, $5,000 worth of damage to a federal interest computer.
[32:30.130 --> 32:37.610]  And a federal interest computer can be anything that engages in interstate commerce, of which this particular terminal probably was one.
[32:37.630 --> 32:43.130]  The problem here really stems from the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act because the law is somewhat vague.
[32:43.310 --> 33:00.530]  It basically criminalizes people doing things with computers without authorization or exceeding their authorization in the context of an employee who may have access to that particular system is what he did by shutting down that account without authorization when he had authorization to generally do that.
[33:01.590 --> 33:05.230]  That's a legal question that a prosecutor is going to have to think about.
[33:05.390 --> 33:12.490]  And I think this is a particularly good example of where something called prosecutorial discretion should come into play.
[33:12.690 --> 33:18.210]  That a prosecutor should look at this and say, I don't want this to be on my record.
[33:18.210 --> 33:29.070]  I don't want to be the guy who prosecuted somebody for shutting down Donald Trump because maybe that's just not the best way to win friends and influence people and it's not good for my legal career.
[33:29.070 --> 33:31.690]  So we're going to decline prosecution.
[33:31.950 --> 33:41.450]  And it's unfortunately in the hands of an AUSA, an assistant United States attorney for that particular federal district in California.
[33:41.450 --> 33:43.790]  I would imagine it's somewhere near San Francisco.
[33:43.830 --> 33:49.150]  But let's hope and pray, if we do pray, that they make this right decision.
[33:49.470 --> 33:52.490]  Can I just say, I think it would be a bit silly.
[33:53.130 --> 34:06.310]  Really, ordinarily, why this is an extraordinary case is that ordinarily the punishment would serve as a sort of a deterrent or something, but to dissuade a potential hacker or whomever in the future.
[34:06.470 --> 34:16.270]  I don't think if you punish this, that people would be any less tempted were they in a position to disable an account of Donald Trump in this specific case.
[34:16.450 --> 34:31.810]  I don't think there's any sort of punishment for this particular story would dissuade someone in the future were they to have that kind of control or power given how big of an impact it would have.
[34:31.990 --> 34:37.590]  I think it's still a target if you're able to do something like that disruptive, whether they punish or not.
[34:37.710 --> 34:43.530]  There was an article that came out in Business Insider about this, and it was basically kind of a panic piece.
[34:44.670 --> 34:50.910]  It's entitled, here's what's really terrifying about the Twitter employee who temporarily disabled Trump's account on his last day.
[34:50.990 --> 34:51.710]  That's quite a headline.
[34:52.650 --> 34:55.870]  For 11 minutes on Thursday night, the world experienced a first.
[34:56.030 --> 34:56.210]  U.S.
[34:56.490 --> 34:57.950]  President Donald Trump was not on Twitter.
[34:58.410 --> 34:59.710]  I mean, who noticed?
[35:00.030 --> 35:01.810]  11 minutes went by without him saying something.
[35:01.970 --> 35:02.090]  Wow.
[35:02.830 --> 35:08.790]  Trump's account was temporarily kicked offline as a result of the actions of a Twitter employee, later to be found out to be a Twitter contractor.
[35:09.150 --> 35:20.630]  At first, Twitter said it was an inadvertent human error, but the company followed up a couple of hours later and said the incident was caused by a customer support employee who did this on the employee's last day of work, suggesting it might not have been an accident.
[35:21.390 --> 35:22.430]  And that's the thing.
[35:22.550 --> 35:23.590]  You know, Twitter didn't have to say that.
[35:23.750 --> 35:28.790]  They could have easily covered this up, but they decided to be forthright about it, so they're telling us exactly what happened.
[35:29.230 --> 35:34.110]  Now, Trump critics quickly cheered the nameless Twitter supporter, support staffer, as a hero.
[35:34.270 --> 35:40.110]  Others laughed at the incident as one more humorous episode in a year in which politics, as usual, has become the theater of the absurd.
[35:40.310 --> 35:45.350]  But there's really nothing funny or commendable about the momentary unplugging of the real Donald Trump account.
[35:45.530 --> 35:47.390]  In fact, it's terrifying.
[35:48.110 --> 35:50.010]  Okay, and here's where we go into fantasy land.
[35:50.510 --> 35:52.950]  Trump's Twitter account is an unprecedented phenomenon.
[35:53.110 --> 35:58.030]  The most powerful person in the world has a megaphone to say whatever comes across his mind instantly.
[35:58.190 --> 36:00.250]  There's no filter, no time delay, no takebacks.
[36:01.170 --> 36:09.910]  Twitter has refused to provide any details about how this unique and powerful account in its case is operated, in its care rather, is operated and safeguarded.
[36:09.910 --> 36:16.030]  Obviously, there are important security reasons for this, and that's why there hasn't been very much public insistence for Twitter to be more transparent.
[36:16.210 --> 36:19.310]  I don't know why they would need to be even more transparent about this.
[36:19.670 --> 36:21.390]  But the fact that the president of the U.S.
[36:21.470 --> 36:27.690]  was able to be silenced, even just for 11 minutes, by a Twitter support staffer is not a reassuring sign.
[36:27.790 --> 36:28.550]  Let me just break in here.
[36:28.670 --> 36:29.770]  He was not silenced.
[36:29.910 --> 36:39.650]  He was kept from using a particular platform if he chose to use it in those 11 minutes, just like, you know, a busy signal is not...
[36:39.650 --> 36:40.770]  You guys know what that is, right?
[36:40.870 --> 36:41.690]  Remember busy signals?
[36:41.890 --> 36:46.010]  That would not be basically cutting him off from the phone network.
[36:46.210 --> 36:53.970]  It basically is a temporarily cutoff service, a temporary roadblock that he has to deal with or that we all have to deal with.
[36:54.070 --> 37:03.870]  Anyway, it suggests that whatever safeguards Twitter has in place for the POTUS account suffer from some major deficiencies.
[37:04.570 --> 37:08.830]  We don't really know what level of access various Twitter employees have to user accounts.
[37:08.830 --> 37:11.510]  I would imagine they have complete access to user accounts.
[37:11.510 --> 37:12.510]  It's their system.
[37:12.750 --> 37:17.510]  You know, as a system administrator, you can do things that involve trust.
[37:17.610 --> 37:18.810]  You can read people's mail.
[37:19.030 --> 37:20.970]  People in Google can do this.
[37:21.410 --> 37:23.370]  You can terminate their accounts.
[37:23.370 --> 37:27.950]  You can take action of all sorts without going through courts, without going through legal process.
[37:28.610 --> 37:30.890]  That's what happens when you run a system.
[37:31.110 --> 37:33.010]  And Donald Trump has agreed to those terms.
[37:33.010 --> 37:38.290]  Yeah, you can infer metadata about their account, like when it was logging in, where it was logging in.
[37:38.410 --> 37:44.950]  All of that kind of stuff is obviously something Twitter could infer behind the scenes.
[37:45.050 --> 37:48.270]  And I think this speaks to my point about going after them.
[37:48.350 --> 37:49.850]  You're just drawing more attention.
[37:50.190 --> 37:56.430]  You're just drawing more attention and making more people kind of scratch their heads and say like, well, what if we did it this way this time?
[37:56.430 --> 38:04.770]  And, you know, how would they scramble if we, you know, adjusted this or went about this way with what?
[38:04.770 --> 38:05.570]  A password reset?
[38:05.690 --> 38:06.070]  Who knows?
[38:06.250 --> 38:07.690]  But they're just drawing more attention to it.
[38:07.910 --> 38:13.570]  Continuing with this article here, hopefully the staffer only had the ability to suspend the account and not to actually access it.
[38:14.210 --> 38:17.530]  Well, I would bet that people can access accounts.
[38:17.670 --> 38:19.410]  I would bet that it's not that difficult.
[38:19.670 --> 38:22.110]  And I think that's something we should all keep in mind.
[38:22.110 --> 38:23.910]  It's the same thing as hacking a web page.
[38:24.070 --> 38:29.810]  Somebody breaks into Trump's Twitter account, expect them to tweet something that would make him look like even more of an imbecile.
[38:29.990 --> 38:34.570]  And we should all accept that that is possible and take it with a grain of salt.
[38:34.970 --> 38:37.170]  Now, here we go with some fear-mongering here.
[38:37.230 --> 38:41.690]  Just think, what if the rogue support staffer on his last day decided to do something different?
[38:41.810 --> 38:46.870]  What if, instead of taking Trump's account offline, the staffer decided to fire off a tweet on Trump's account?
[38:47.030 --> 38:50.090]  Perhaps the staffer might have Trump say something idiotic or embarrassing.
[38:50.270 --> 38:52.170]  And nobody would know the difference, obviously.
[38:52.430 --> 38:58.530]  Perhaps the staffer might have had Trump bash a company's stock in the hopes that they could trade ahead of it and make a quick buck.
[38:58.710 --> 39:08.710]  You know, the problem there is not that somebody could do that as a fake Trump person, but the fact that Trump can do that in the first place and has and will continue doing this.
[39:09.430 --> 39:17.410]  Continuing with the story here, perhaps the departing Twitter employee might have composed a tweet declaring that missiles had been fired at an enemy regime like North Korea.
[39:17.930 --> 39:25.610]  Okay, you can say a lot of things about North Korea, but I don't think they're dumb enough to look at a Twitter feed and say, oh, missiles are coming because somebody tweeted it.
[39:25.770 --> 39:31.970]  I think even they have more of a sense of what Twitter really is than a lot of us.
[39:32.250 --> 39:36.390]  And this is not how world affairs are conducted.
[39:36.510 --> 39:40.710]  Regardless of what this guy says on Twitter, it's not how it works.
[39:40.710 --> 39:44.550]  And we need to realize this is something that is vulnerable.
[39:44.750 --> 39:48.510]  And the absurdity is that he uses it as something that is not vulnerable.
[39:48.510 --> 39:55.910]  So let's not forget that webpages and Twitter accounts and Facebook pages all can be hacked.
[39:56.130 --> 39:57.410]  They all can be controlled.
[39:57.410 --> 40:00.150]  They all can say things that make absolutely no sense.
[40:00.490 --> 40:02.330]  And we cannot take it so seriously.
[40:02.490 --> 40:14.110]  You know, if more people had realized this last year, seeing all these ads on Facebook and realized, hey, just because it's on Facebook doesn't make it true, maybe we would have had a little bit more thinking before certain decisions were made.
[40:15.110 --> 40:15.630]  Maybe.
[40:15.890 --> 40:24.810]  And now we have 280 characters that, well, we will have 280 characters in which, you know, Trump can, you know, meander about whatever he wants to meander about.
[40:25.010 --> 40:25.990]  He's posted some longer tweets.
[40:26.210 --> 40:26.350]  Yeah.
[40:26.490 --> 40:40.250]  Well, so here's something a little bit more fear-mongering because we know some weird stuff about Donald Trump and you guarantee you that he takes this so incredibly seriously that, you know, that somebody had put some sort of ball gag in his mouth for 11 minutes.
[40:40.390 --> 40:41.310]  You know, this is how he must be.
[40:41.310 --> 40:42.550]  But he didn't even know it.
[40:42.850 --> 40:46.890]  You know, he probably was, I was going to say he was probably in the bathroom but that's when he tweets.
[40:46.890 --> 40:47.990]  Maybe he was asleep.
[40:48.130 --> 40:48.450]  Who knows?
[40:48.730 --> 40:48.930]  11 minutes.
[40:49.110 --> 40:50.890]  I think 11 minutes can go by without him tweeting.
[40:51.490 --> 40:51.890]  Easily.
[40:52.150 --> 40:52.810]  Well, let's hope so.
[40:52.970 --> 40:55.150]  But here's this kind of weird stuff that we know.
[40:55.470 --> 41:01.130]  To go back to my original point about prosecutorial discretion and why this guy may really be in serious jeopardy.
[41:01.430 --> 41:06.210]  The strange things that we know that Trump has done often relate to U.S.
[41:06.310 --> 41:06.550]  attorneys.
[41:06.730 --> 41:09.450]  We know that he had specific meetings with the U.S.
[41:09.490 --> 41:24.150]  attorney for the Eastern District of New York, the Southern District of New York, and the District of Florida that contains Mar-a-Lago where he has certain interests and he likes to curry favor with these people and we know that when he first took office he cleaned house when it came to the U.S.
[41:24.210 --> 41:24.410]  attorneys.
[41:24.550 --> 41:27.970]  First he said he wasn't going to fire Preet Bharara who was the U.S.
[41:28.210 --> 41:31.390]  attorney for the Southern District of New York and then all of a sudden Preet Bharara was fired.
[41:31.690 --> 41:54.130]  So these people they serve at the pleasure of the president if you can call it that at this moment and let's say they're not going to prosecute this person because quite frankly they would find it silly to do so and ridiculous they may find themselves out of a job Trump may go over there personally and have a meeting with them we don't know I think that we should be watching his actions when it
[41:54.130 --> 42:12.290]  comes to any interactions with the Department of Justice right now in any district in the United States because we know that he has taken it upon himself to make personal calls to these people to have personal meetings with them and I think it would set a very dangerous precedent if this particular employee was prosecuted for something so simple and so silly.
[42:12.450 --> 42:14.950]  You know, you deal with situations internally.
[42:15.430 --> 42:17.810]  This guy will never work at Twitter again, period.
[42:18.230 --> 42:20.390]  And whatever actions they want to take against him, fine.
[42:20.550 --> 42:28.370]  But this is not the equivalent of hacking into a sensitive machine by any stretch of the imagination.
[42:28.370 --> 42:30.970]  And we cannot let ourselves go down that road.
[42:31.590 --> 42:39.510]  Also, kind of a related story, too, as far as just intent and ways of resisting.
[42:40.050 --> 42:42.170]  There's this local private eye.
[42:42.430 --> 42:49.610]  He's been accused of trying to illegally obtain then-presidential candidate Trump's unreleased tax returns.
[42:50.050 --> 42:52.590]  And his name is Jordan Hamlet.
[42:52.690 --> 42:53.450]  He's from Baton Rouge.
[42:53.710 --> 43:06.390]  He's actually scheduled to stand trial on December 4th on a federal charge of misrepresenting his Social Security number in a failed attempt to access Trump's tax returns before last year's presidential election.
[43:06.390 --> 43:09.530]  Now, this is something a lot of people would see as a patriotic act.
[43:09.690 --> 43:14.410]  You have this guy that is being secretive about his financial status.
[43:15.110 --> 43:19.250]  And a lot of people want to know what we're getting into here.
[43:19.370 --> 43:25.850]  And he steadfastly refused to share this information in what many feel is a violation of trust.
[43:25.850 --> 43:35.490]  So this guy, yeah, he tried to gain access to them in a way that probably was not completely legal.
[43:35.630 --> 43:41.310]  But he's facing all kinds of penalties as a result of that.
[43:41.310 --> 43:42.990]  In June, senior U.S.
[43:43.310 --> 43:49.350]  District Judge James Brady refused to throw out statements that Hamlet made last October to federal agents in the hacking probe.
[43:49.650 --> 43:53.130]  Prosecutors say he admitted his crime to federal law enforcement authorities.
[43:54.410 --> 43:57.170]  In recently filed court documents, Assistant U.S.
[43:57.570 --> 44:07.190]  Attorney Ryan Rezai said Hamlet's attorney has since indicated that one of the defenses the client is interested in presenting at trial is the so-called white hat defense.
[44:07.450 --> 44:12.310]  In such a defense, a person claims to have committed a crime for supposedly ethical reasons.
[44:12.590 --> 44:18.310]  The prosecutor, however, called that defense essentially nothing more than a belated excuse for a crime.
[44:19.670 --> 44:33.630]  Worse, by putting on a white hat defense, the defendant is essentially asking the jury to ignore the evidence, which establishes the elements of the charged defense, including his admission that he committed the crime and based their decision on the defendant's warped view of his crime.
[44:33.630 --> 44:48.130]  So it's disturbing to me because obviously this guy was trying to do the right thing and get this information, freedom of information, get it to the people so they can be educated and have the information that they are used to having in the first place.
[44:48.430 --> 44:51.750]  And he's facing prison time as a result of those actions.
[44:52.070 --> 44:54.610]  Now, we've been offering the $10,000 reward.
[44:54.710 --> 44:58.370]  Now it's $20,000 for people to get us the Trump tax returns.
[44:58.370 --> 45:02.910]  But we emphasize, we do not want people breaking the law.
[45:03.410 --> 45:06.530]  We would not have advised this guy to do what he did.
[45:06.590 --> 45:14.490]  We're looking for people that have legitimate access to this information to send along a copy and collect your reward on the way out.
[45:15.530 --> 45:17.090]  Because people have the right to know.
[45:17.210 --> 45:18.930]  There are legal ways of getting this information.
[45:18.930 --> 45:20.790]  And we do have the right to know these things.
[45:20.790 --> 45:31.670]  But it just seems a bit annoying and disturbing that when something like this happens, all the focus is on the person trying to get the information as if they're the problem.
[45:31.850 --> 45:32.830]  And they're not the problem.
[45:33.010 --> 45:34.830]  They are the symptom of the problem.
[45:35.050 --> 45:46.250]  We wouldn't have people doing this if he followed what all other presidents before him since the times of Nixon have done and be forthright about his financial status.
[45:46.710 --> 45:48.870]  Why would somebody not do that?
[45:48.870 --> 45:51.190]  That is a question that I think we all deserve an answer to.
[45:51.470 --> 45:51.950]  Alex?
[45:52.090 --> 45:57.610]  This is going to be a really interesting case to follow because the issue here is really going to center on the jury.
[45:58.350 --> 46:04.130]  He may be precluded from presenting this particular white hat defense, as they're calling it.
[46:04.230 --> 46:10.190]  But on the other hand, once the evidence is presented to the jury, they have the right to nullify this particular verdict.
[46:10.390 --> 46:19.270]  They may determine that they do not believe that this person should be punished for this particular crime, even though he has actually engaged in that particular crime.
[46:19.450 --> 46:20.530]  That is their right.
[46:20.710 --> 46:28.690]  And a lot of people argue that jury nullification is a bad thing because it flouts the rule of law.
[46:28.810 --> 46:46.590]  But yet, on the other hand, the other way of looking at it, the more, I think, reasonable way of looking at it, is that ordinary citizens are the last check on the government here, and that ordinary citizens have the right, in the last instance, to determine whether or not punishment should be meted out to a particular individual.
[46:46.830 --> 46:50.190]  That is our right as a member of the jury.
[46:50.410 --> 47:02.950]  Now, a lot of attention is going to be paid to the jury selection in this particular case because jurors who will state that they intend not to follow the law can be disqualified from actually serving on the jury.
[47:02.950 --> 47:09.290]  So I think a gigantic amount of focus is going to be on the jury instructions and on the jury selection in this particular case.
[47:10.510 --> 47:15.350]  And they have, in my opinion, every single right to not punish this guy despite what he did.
[47:16.370 --> 47:16.950]  That's right.
[47:17.090 --> 47:17.410]  That's right.
[47:17.470 --> 47:18.370]  I hope it doesn't...
[47:18.370 --> 47:24.430]  Well, obviously, it's meant to dissuade people from probing and trying to get this information that we all have a right to see.
[47:25.410 --> 47:35.230]  I just hope that it's not something that quiets people, that intimidates them because, you know, a year of this, and we have seen people muzzled a bit.
[47:35.370 --> 47:38.270]  We've seen people paying the price for speaking out.
[47:38.430 --> 47:47.810]  You know, that person who flipped off the motorcade while she was biking down a road got fired from her job even though you couldn't see her face and didn't know who she worked for.
[47:48.770 --> 47:54.290]  People have to stand up to that kind of a thing because it's all we have.
[47:54.450 --> 47:56.650]  It's all we have as people right now.
[47:56.850 --> 47:58.530]  And everything we do counts.
[47:58.730 --> 48:00.010]  I just want to raise a point.
[48:00.170 --> 48:17.790]  In light of a lot of the leaks and documents found over the weekend or released by the ICIJ over tax havens and so on, it kind of reinforces the importance of being able to have transparency, especially with a leader like the president of the U.S.
[48:19.450 --> 48:23.850]  Also related to Trump, our friend William Binney is in the news.
[48:23.970 --> 48:24.930]  I don't know if you guys have seen this.
[48:25.230 --> 48:41.330]  But basically, apparently Donald Trump instructed the head of the CIA to meet with William Binney, one of our keynote speakers at the Hope Conference, because Binney has been saying that he doesn't believe that the DNC hack last year was at the hands of the Russians,
[48:41.410 --> 48:42.730]  but rather it was an inside job.
[48:43.450 --> 48:46.950]  It kind of flies in the face of what all the intelligence agencies are saying.
[48:47.570 --> 48:57.270]  But it is good to see one of our keynotes out there saying what he believes in and actually being talked to by people in the administration.
[48:58.250 --> 49:14.470]  But I did also hear that a lot of people in the CIA were very, very uncomfortable being put in that position by Trump, where they are supposed to take something seriously that really nobody else in the intelligence community, the existing intelligence community,
[49:14.610 --> 49:17.490]  believes or has concluded.
[49:17.890 --> 49:21.830]  But interesting to see the conversation going on.
[49:21.890 --> 49:22.810]  Maybe we'll have him back at Hope.
[49:23.070 --> 49:25.030]  Oh, also, I forgot to mention Hope.
[49:25.550 --> 49:32.390]  We just announced this today, Circle of Hope taking place July 20th through 22nd next year, Hotel Pennsylvania.
[49:32.390 --> 49:41.490]  We will be offering the first batch of tickets this Sunday, November 12th at 12 minutes past 12 Eastern time.
[49:41.670 --> 49:42.350]  That's 12-12.
[49:42.610 --> 49:45.710]  Now, we say 12 so many times because it's our 12th conference.
[49:45.990 --> 49:47.430]  It's 12-12 on 11-12.
[49:47.670 --> 49:48.470]  The Circle of Hope.
[49:48.570 --> 49:51.630]  We're not calling it Hope 12 or the 12th Hope or anything like that because that would be ridiculous.
[49:51.810 --> 49:54.230]  But the Circle of Hope, 12-12 p.m.
[49:54.330 --> 49:55.810]  on the 12th of November.
[49:56.250 --> 49:58.390]  Our first batch of tickets will go on sale.
[49:58.390 --> 50:00.370]  Go to hope.net for more information.
[50:00.370 --> 50:02.290]  Actually, you won't find more information on that right now.
[50:02.390 --> 50:06.850]  You can go to 2600.com, the story that's up there now about this.
[50:06.970 --> 50:13.010]  And you also get a link there to discounted hotel rooms at the Hotel Pennsylvania that are being offered for the conference.
[50:13.390 --> 50:19.110]  So more information, obviously, will be spread around as the time draws closer.
[50:19.190 --> 50:20.770]  But I'm looking forward to it.
[50:20.870 --> 50:23.030]  All kinds of people are discussing this.
[50:23.110 --> 50:31.310]  And again, don't be discouraged if you don't get tickets the first time around because last time we did this, the tickets sold out in less than one second.
[50:31.750 --> 50:34.130]  So the odds of getting tickets are pretty slim.
[50:34.550 --> 50:35.450]  None of us got tickets.
[50:35.530 --> 50:36.170]  We tried, too.
[50:37.290 --> 50:38.810]  But we'll have more.
[50:39.010 --> 50:40.190]  We'll have more.
[50:40.370 --> 50:45.290]  This is a very discounted, you know, for the lucky few that get through the first time.
[50:45.930 --> 50:47.930]  So more information on that on our websites.
[50:48.670 --> 50:53.690]  Now, Alex, we have something very interesting that happened in the last week called the Paradise Papers.
[50:54.390 --> 50:56.430]  Kind of the sequel to the Pentagon Papers.
[50:56.530 --> 50:57.510]  You want to tell us what that's all about?
[50:57.790 --> 50:57.970]  Yeah.
[50:58.130 --> 51:00.070]  The Pentagon Papers are the Panama Papers, right?
[51:00.490 --> 51:01.650]  There's all these different...
[51:01.650 --> 51:03.870]  Pentagon Papers, Panama Papers, and Paradise Papers.
[51:03.870 --> 51:07.230]  This is actually the same team that did the Panama Papers, I believe.
[51:07.410 --> 51:08.210]  That's exactly right.
[51:08.210 --> 51:16.090]  There was an amazing piece on Vice News this Monday about how this was kept quiet by a whole bunch of journalists.
[51:16.290 --> 51:29.730]  And this is where you see why journalism matters so much, because these people were able to work together, go through this treasure trove of information, and keep it to themselves until it was released only a few days ago.
[51:29.730 --> 51:31.990]  And that is what journalism is all about.
[51:32.210 --> 51:33.330]  Yeah, it was pretty incredible.
[51:33.610 --> 51:47.930]  So about 13.4 million documents were leaked to Deutsche Zeitung, which is the same German newspaper, I believe, over in Munich, to which the 2.6 terabytes of data from the Panama Papers was originally leaked.
[51:48.110 --> 51:53.390]  And because of this voluminous amount of data, Deutsche Zeitung could not handle all of this.
[51:53.430 --> 51:58.910]  So they got the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists involved out of Washington, D.C.
[51:58.910 --> 52:17.710]  And then I believe they got something like journalists in about 100 different countries working on this all for a year under strict operational security protocols, and they kept their OPSEC pretty damn tight for a year until literally the week before there were a couple of hints and whatnot on Reddit that something was about to drop.
[52:18.050 --> 52:26.590]  So this is, again, just like the Panama Papers, these documents originate from the Caribbean and specifically from a law firm in the Caribbean.
[52:26.590 --> 52:28.890]  And this time it's not Panama, this time it's Bermuda.
[52:29.150 --> 52:36.810]  And it's a law firm by the name of Appleby or applebyglobal.com is their actual website.
[52:37.110 --> 52:43.690]  So this is a law firm that they specializes in what they consider to be offshore legal advice.
[52:43.850 --> 52:50.250]  And you can read that basically as tax haven legal advice or methodologies to decrease your tax burdens.
[52:50.830 --> 52:56.150]  They operate out of Bermuda, the BVI, Cayman Islands, Isle of Man, Jersey.
[52:56.490 --> 52:59.850]  So all these different types of island-based tax havens is where...
[52:59.850 --> 53:01.210]  There is an island called Jersey.
[53:01.410 --> 53:02.650]  There is an island called Jersey.
[53:02.830 --> 53:03.310]  That's right.
[53:03.570 --> 53:03.730]  Yep.
[53:03.930 --> 53:06.710]  And yeah, it's why we have a new Jersey.
[53:06.870 --> 53:11.890]  Just to reiterate what you said, they have an office on every one of like the top 10.
[53:12.130 --> 53:12.430]  That's right.
[53:12.570 --> 53:16.510]  They don't have like a San Antonio and then like a Chicago office.
[53:16.510 --> 53:19.110]  No, they have offices on every single one of the tax havens islands.
[53:19.350 --> 53:20.110]  All of these islands.
[53:20.250 --> 53:20.650]  That's right.
[53:20.830 --> 53:24.070]  It also involves, to a lesser extent, two different trust companies.
[53:24.070 --> 53:28.050]  One by the name of Asia City Trust and the other one by the name of Estera.
[53:28.250 --> 53:29.970]  And these are based out of Asia.
[53:31.190 --> 53:33.370]  Primarily, I think they both are based out of Singapore.
[53:33.370 --> 53:41.290]  But they have offices in Hong Kong, in the Seychelles, I believe, in Dubai and Nevis, as well as Panama and Samoa.
[53:42.050 --> 53:45.630]  So this is a very, very interesting leak here.
[53:46.650 --> 53:48.150]  So much has come out of this.
[53:48.330 --> 53:49.770]  So many connections have been made.
[53:50.570 --> 53:52.490]  People have been probably been following this.
[53:52.630 --> 53:59.710]  But the Commerce Secretary has been linked to the son-in-law of Vladimir Putin through a company, I believe it's called Navigator or Navigant.
[53:59.830 --> 54:04.890]  I think it's Navigator, an interest which he didn't divest when he became Commerce Secretary.
[54:05.210 --> 54:07.230]  This is a major, major problem.
[54:07.430 --> 54:11.890]  One of the things that I want to get into here, because I know we only have a couple of minutes, is how did this happen again?
[54:11.890 --> 54:14.970]  Nobody knows who the leaguer was when it came to the Panama Papers.
[54:14.970 --> 54:15.950]  But what happened again?
[54:16.050 --> 54:17.150]  How did this breach happen again?
[54:17.250 --> 54:19.010]  How did another law firm in the Caribbean get popped?
[54:19.010 --> 54:19.470]  I can tell you that, Alex.
[54:19.990 --> 54:21.570]  Breaches are never going to stop.
[54:21.750 --> 54:25.970]  As long as they're human beings, as long as they're computers and files, they're all going to meet.
[54:25.970 --> 54:27.810]  And they're all going to get divulged at some point.
[54:27.890 --> 54:29.070]  That's never going to end.
[54:29.070 --> 54:35.110]  And the other thing that's never going to end is corruption and people funneling money in all kinds of places and conspiring with each other.
[54:35.270 --> 54:36.450]  That's never going to end, too.
[54:37.110 --> 54:37.610]  That's true.
[54:37.610 --> 54:43.150]  And if you recall, last year at Hope, I gave a pretty long talk on the Panama Papers.
[54:43.730 --> 54:46.290]  And next year at Hope, you're going to be giving a long talk on the Paradise Papers.
[54:46.350 --> 54:47.610]  I think that's true.
[54:47.730 --> 54:48.270]  I think that's true.
[54:48.270 --> 55:00.650]  But we hypothesized that this was probably somebody internal, because of the great amount of data, the great amount of documents, that grew a spine and leaked this particular trove, this treasure trove of documents over to Suddeutsche Zeitung.
[55:01.170 --> 55:03.330]  I think that may be the case this time.
[55:03.690 --> 55:15.930]  However, what we did identify in literally about 45 minutes worth of research on this particular entity was that there are a whole bunch of weird things that may indicate they may have been actually hacked.
[55:15.930 --> 55:20.930]  So, for instance, there are tons of subdomains for Applebee Global that still exist.
[55:21.870 --> 55:23.110]  Should I read some of these?
[55:23.210 --> 55:23.890]  Sure, why not?
[55:23.890 --> 55:24.530]  On the air?
[55:24.690 --> 55:27.330]  Where else will you hear subdomains for Applebee?
[55:27.390 --> 55:27.750]  That's right.
[55:27.770 --> 55:28.710]  Except on WBAI.
[55:28.790 --> 55:30.850]  So, applebee.com.
[55:31.330 --> 55:33.830]  ApplebeeGlobal, I'm sorry, .com is their actual website.
[55:33.830 --> 55:36.250]  But yet they have all these subdomains that are still active.
[55:36.570 --> 55:39.610]  av.applebeeGlobal.com.
[55:39.610 --> 55:46.110]  fs.applebeeGlobal, I-T-J-E-K-Y-M-U-O-W-A, which is Outlook Web Access.
[55:46.250 --> 55:48.930]  I was going to say they're like two-letter subdomains except for that three-letter one.
[55:48.990 --> 55:51.110]  Remote.applebeeGlobal.com.
[55:52.030 --> 55:53.910]  Video, webmail, www.
[55:54.370 --> 55:55.790]  But Access is the interesting one.
[55:55.910 --> 56:00.590]  Access has port 443 open, which we know is for encrypted SSL connection.
[56:00.710 --> 56:00.970]  SSL, okay.
[56:01.210 --> 56:05.010]  You go to that, you find that all of a sudden you get a certificate error.
[56:05.230 --> 56:07.630]  And it's a certificate that was mismatched.
[56:07.630 --> 56:09.590]  There's a mismatch of the host name over there.
[56:09.730 --> 56:17.470]  If you proceed further, it looks like there was a database behind that at some particular point, an SQL database that is now gone.
[56:18.290 --> 56:24.270]  Another very interesting thing here, one of the things that we do at my law firm is we identify cyber squatters.
[56:24.410 --> 56:27.510]  We find them, we root them out, we have all different types of technological means to do this.
[56:28.630 --> 56:39.110]  And ApplebeeGlobal.com, when we ran our searches, which are pretty sophisticated, we thought we found literally zero cyber squatters on this particular law firm, which was unusual until we looked more closely.
[56:39.290 --> 56:42.010]  And we found that there was, in fact, a cyber squatter on this.
[56:42.110 --> 56:45.770]  It was ApplebeeGlobal.com without the E.
[56:45.970 --> 56:52.690]  It looked so visually similar that I actually was convinced that it was a real domain belonging to Applebee itself.
[56:52.870 --> 56:53.890]  But it wasn't.
[56:53.990 --> 56:57.410]  It was also registered in December of 2016.
[56:57.410 --> 57:01.430]  What we know from Applebee is that this hack happened last year.
[57:01.590 --> 57:01.950]  Wow.
[57:01.950 --> 57:04.530]  And that may have been the attack vector.
[57:05.030 --> 57:06.710]  You're not going to catch the guy, are you?
[57:07.210 --> 57:07.990]  That did it.
[57:08.090 --> 57:08.570]  Don't do that.
[57:09.650 --> 57:11.550]  Well, maybe we could have him speak at Hope.
[57:12.630 --> 57:18.150]  If you own that domain and you realize that we're like only a few steps behind you, contact us and we'll have a nice conversation.
[57:18.450 --> 57:18.890]  That's true.
[57:18.990 --> 57:21.950]  But this is how spear phishing works.
[57:21.990 --> 57:25.250]  You find a domain that looks visually similar to something else.
[57:25.250 --> 57:27.970]  You send an email that may contain some particular malware.
[57:27.970 --> 57:29.210]  And that's your point of entry.
[57:29.350 --> 57:32.610]  And then you can make some lateral moves around a law firm and you can pop them.
[57:33.370 --> 57:39.590]  However, I still think this may have been an inside job just because of the sheer amount of data that was exfiltrated.
[57:39.710 --> 57:40.510]  It's terabytes, right?
[57:41.430 --> 57:42.430]  I can speak to that.
[57:42.710 --> 57:43.070]  Just two things.
[57:43.570 --> 57:46.370]  One, technically, they have not released the data yet.
[57:46.370 --> 57:48.770]  I think it's around just over a terabyte.
[57:48.910 --> 57:51.390]  1.4, I think, is what I saw when I was looking around.
[57:51.590 --> 57:59.210]  What they did release, and this was what the ICIJ had put together, was a database file of everyone, I think, named in the materials.
[57:59.210 --> 58:01.190]  And that is what is available now.
[58:01.390 --> 58:03.330]  I think it's on the order of about 400 megs.
[58:03.890 --> 58:17.190]  And the other thing that I wanted to say is that the fact that they're a company and have multiple offices in a sort of specialized field, to me, speaks to the size of the problem or the size of tax evasion worldwide.
[58:18.230 --> 58:29.310]  And when it's, you know, becoming so industrialized or so big that you've got multiple offices, a lot of employee turnover, you become a more brittle attack surface.
[58:29.310 --> 58:30.790]  And I think that's exactly what's going on here.
[58:30.870 --> 58:32.350]  We only have about 30 seconds left.
[58:32.390 --> 58:34.690]  So, Alex, are there any other bombshells you want to release?
[58:34.830 --> 58:38.670]  And we can talk about this more in future weeks, assuming that the Empire State Building doesn't come and take us away.
[58:38.790 --> 58:39.910]  I think that's exactly right.
[58:39.910 --> 58:41.030]  I think that we are...
[58:41.030 --> 58:43.650]  We should focus on this again next week.
[58:47.190 --> 58:53.790]  I think ICIJ is going to be really cautious about it because it probably does contain a lot of personally identifiable information.
[58:53.810 --> 58:56.390]  So a big data dump is going to be very tricky to do.
[58:56.590 --> 58:57.890]  But let's watch and see.
[58:58.810 --> 58:59.050]  Okay.
[58:59.150 --> 59:00.490]  Well, thanks so much for that analysis.
[59:00.730 --> 59:03.990]  And you can write to us here at the...
[59:03.990 --> 59:06.930]  Off the Hook, OTH at 2600.com.
[59:07.430 --> 59:13.030]  I'll be happy to read your letters on the air, maybe, and consider anything that you suggest to us.
[59:13.090 --> 59:16.530]  If you want to send us any information, that's what that email address is for as well.
[59:16.530 --> 59:18.470]  L-T-H at 2600.com.
[59:18.610 --> 59:20.150]  Tweet us at Hacker Radio Show.
[59:21.250 --> 59:24.710]  Now, Rob, this closing piece has some significance, doesn't it?
[59:25.070 --> 59:25.770]  It does.
[59:26.030 --> 59:38.550]  A piece of good news that came out of Election Day last night was the delegate-elect Danica Roam in Virginia who unseated a very LGBT-phobic, long-serving delegate.
[59:39.090 --> 59:41.250]  And she herself is a trans woman.
[59:41.410 --> 59:45.110]  And not only that, she also fronts a metal band called Cab Ride Home.
[59:45.110 --> 59:48.850]  So this is a little something off their latest album called Catch the...
[59:49.830 --> 59:51.970]  Oh, I don't have the name of it.
[59:52.790 --> 59:54.290]  Well, hold up your Shazam to it.
[59:54.350 --> 59:55.510]  I'm sure they'll figure it out.
[59:55.770 --> 59:57.530]  But this is the sound of the future.
[59:57.750 --> 01:00:00.890]  Yeah, you can find them on cabridehome.bandcamp.com.
[01:00:00.950 --> 01:00:02.290]  And this is called Alka-Phobia.
[01:00:02.670 --> 01:00:03.010]  Awesome.
[01:00:03.310 --> 01:00:06.350]  All right, we had a good day yesterday, and hopefully many good days ahead.
[01:00:07.010 --> 01:00:08.110]  We'll be back next week.
[01:00:08.350 --> 01:00:08.610]  Good night.
[01:00:08.610 --> 01:00:10.010]  We'll
[01:02:06.760 --> 01:02:07.880]  be right back.
[01:02:17.060 --> 01:02:18.700]  We'll be right back.