[00:00.000 --> 00:17.300]  American Realness, Performance Space 122's Coil Festival, NYC Winter Jazz Fest, Wavelength, APAP Music World Pre-Conference, APAP NYC 2018, and Global Fest.
[00:17.520 --> 00:22.360]  For more information, JanArtsNYC.org.
[00:22.560 --> 00:26.060]  That's JanArtsNYC.org.
[00:32.120 --> 00:38.280]  And you are listening to Radio Station WBAI 99.5 FM.
[00:38.860 --> 00:40.940]  On the web at WBAI.org.
[00:41.140 --> 00:44.760]  All this information is on a display of some sort on your listening device.
[00:45.820 --> 00:47.140]  And if it's not, it should be.
[00:49.300 --> 00:51.660]  It is just about 8 o'clock p.m.
[00:51.720 --> 00:56.740]  on a Wednesday night, which means it's time for another exciting edition of Off the Hook.
[01:05.220 --> 01:06.860]  So I ripped it off the wall.
[01:07.840 --> 01:09.820]  I cut myself while shaving.
[01:10.420 --> 01:12.360]  Now I can't make a cough.
[01:13.180 --> 01:15.120]  We couldn't get much worse.
[01:15.800 --> 01:17.680]  But if they could, they would.
[01:17.940 --> 01:20.580]  But Billy Bon for the best, expect the worst.
[01:21.220 --> 01:23.100]  I hope that's understood.
[01:23.320 --> 01:24.080]  But Billy Bon!
[02:20.480 --> 02:22.320]  A very good evening to you all.
[02:24.260 --> 02:26.020]  The program is Off the Hook.
[02:26.440 --> 02:26.980]  Rob T.
[02:27.100 --> 02:29.660]  Firefly here with you, and I'm joined in the studio by Alex.
[02:30.260 --> 02:31.200]  Good evening, everyone.
[02:33.520 --> 02:36.120]  And on the phone, we should have Emmanuel and Kyle.
[02:36.140 --> 02:36.680]  Are you guys there?
[02:38.340 --> 02:38.740]  Yeah.
[02:38.940 --> 02:39.320]  Are we here?
[02:39.460 --> 02:39.780]  We're here.
[02:40.260 --> 02:41.060]  Hey, what's up, guys?
[02:42.220 --> 02:42.580]  Excellent.
[02:42.660 --> 02:43.380]  Good to hear from you guys.
[02:43.820 --> 02:47.620]  You are, of course, still abroad on assignment on your travels.
[02:48.240 --> 02:49.020]  How's all that going?
[02:50.840 --> 02:57.140]  Well, interesting you bring that up, Rob, because last week, I don't know if you recall, we did a show.
[02:57.360 --> 03:02.840]  We were in Leipzig, Germany, and you called us, what is it, 8 o'clock there in New York City?
[03:03.060 --> 03:03.580]  Yes, indeed.
[03:04.620 --> 03:12.960]  Yeah, and it's 2 o'clock in the morning in Leipzig, Germany, as it is in most of Europe, which is pretty late.
[03:13.140 --> 03:17.360]  You know, it's kind of, most people are sleeping at this hour.
[03:17.360 --> 03:20.620]  And it's kind of a hardship to stay up this late.
[03:21.840 --> 03:27.260]  But it turns out we took a train down to Budapest, Hungary, a lovely city.
[03:27.420 --> 03:28.560]  We spent some time there.
[03:28.800 --> 03:37.320]  And then we got on another train, and we took that east to a place called Bucharest in Romania, and that's where we are right now.
[03:37.320 --> 03:38.080]  But you know what?
[03:38.260 --> 03:38.880]  Funny thing.
[03:39.580 --> 03:45.100]  They turned the clocks back, and it's actually 3 in the morning now.
[03:45.220 --> 03:49.080]  So it's even later than it was last week for us.
[03:50.520 --> 03:54.660]  So we definitely appreciate you staying up late to help us out.
[03:54.720 --> 03:57.780]  And also, your time traveling is impressive.
[03:58.520 --> 04:00.920]  Glad you could go through with that.
[04:00.920 --> 04:03.100]  But we're quite happy to do it.
[04:03.760 --> 04:05.400]  We do totally appreciate it.
[04:05.560 --> 04:11.100]  And so while we've kept you up this late, let's talk a bit about how things went with the event you were at, the CCC.
[04:12.500 --> 04:19.260]  Well, yeah, it's really, if anybody's been to an event like this, I would just describe it as a rush.
[04:19.560 --> 04:21.940]  You get so many different ideas.
[04:21.940 --> 04:23.460]  You talk to a lot of people.
[04:23.460 --> 04:27.520]  You see amazing art and technology on display.
[04:28.120 --> 04:29.860]  And those interactions are great.
[04:29.860 --> 04:34.720]  It can really energize you, and it can also be draining.
[04:34.720 --> 04:37.600]  You know, it's a big deal, you know, walking around.
[04:37.760 --> 04:40.540]  Just the space itself really was a workout.
[04:41.680 --> 04:50.060]  But it's in stark contrast, I think, when we do head east, you tend to see a mix.
[04:50.060 --> 04:58.280]  I think that's the main takeaway for me, of new technology, interesting technology, but those old-school wits.
[04:58.880 --> 05:03.200]  You know, the things where, yeah, technology's not really helping you.
[05:03.240 --> 05:07.360]  You're not seeing it work quite as fluid, you know.
[05:07.520 --> 05:11.880]  And, of course, you throw in different languages and different scripts.
[05:12.540 --> 05:15.560]  You got yourself a little bit more of a puzzle.
[05:15.560 --> 05:25.620]  And in any event, you know, that's kind of, well, we've had a lot to think about, but we've also, you know, been solving those puzzles as we explore.
[05:25.800 --> 05:30.580]  And, yeah, we'll get into more, I guess, about the recap and the event specifically.
[05:31.220 --> 05:32.920]  As I said, amazing.
[05:33.880 --> 05:37.160]  We ended up seeing many more talks.
[05:37.160 --> 05:41.280]  I learned about, you know, software that you can track.
[05:41.920 --> 05:50.180]  When you're in different places, you can see how censorship is on different networks, something I think we should do when we're in different places.
[05:51.020 --> 05:54.740]  And I don't know, E, you had a lot of other observations.
[05:54.960 --> 06:10.200]  What I saw at the Chaos Communication Congress was just a lot of empowerment, a lot of discussion, and just kind of creativeness that is very common in the hacker world.
[06:10.600 --> 06:15.720]  And when 15,000 hackers get together, it's just magic always happens.
[06:15.880 --> 06:18.880]  You know, we saw all kinds of things just kind of spontaneously occur.
[06:19.160 --> 06:26.480]  There was a hacker chorus that, for some reason, just walked across the entire space and just decided to start singing in a particular area.
[06:26.480 --> 06:32.860]  There was another spontaneous dancing group that was just dancing all over the space.
[06:33.240 --> 06:37.320]  And the space itself was just perfectly set up for that kind of thing.
[06:38.060 --> 06:45.220]  The people who ran the Congress Center of Leipzig said they never saw anything like this.
[06:45.240 --> 06:46.440]  I believe them.
[06:46.440 --> 06:55.940]  All the conferences and things that have come through there, nothing like 15,000 hackers has ever been part of their experience.
[06:56.480 --> 07:06.560]  So when that sort of thing happens, it's similar to the kind of things we hear after hope from people in the hotel, from people in New York City, but on a much larger scale.
[07:07.080 --> 07:11.240]  And that's just endemic of how Germany does things.
[07:11.400 --> 07:21.340]  Now that they are the center of democracy in the world, they basically have a responsibility towards making things as cool as possible.
[07:21.340 --> 07:26.940]  And I think in that particular case, they seem to fold off year after year.
[07:27.380 --> 07:33.660]  Oh, and speaking of hope, we actually had the opportunity to participate a little bit.
[07:33.860 --> 07:39.620]  Just a quick talk, five minutes, and it was kind of nerve-wracking.
[07:39.700 --> 07:45.640]  But we basically just introduced people to hope and let people know that that was going to be going on in July.
[07:48.540 --> 07:53.120]  And it was really cool for me because I got to invite people.
[07:53.280 --> 08:04.520]  I said, you know, there may be people in America that don't get to travel, they don't get to see and experience as much of these kinds of events in the world, and they need to hear your ideas.
[08:04.520 --> 08:06.860]  We want to have you come, submit a talk.
[08:07.020 --> 08:10.460]  So that was really kind of an exciting opportunity.
[08:12.680 --> 08:13.980]  That's this July, right?
[08:14.200 --> 08:15.080]  Hope is this July?
[08:15.800 --> 08:17.580]  Yeah, guys in New York, is that true?
[08:18.040 --> 08:18.840]  Yeah, hope's coming up.
[08:19.060 --> 08:21.540]  Yes, here in our time zone, hope is this July.
[08:22.800 --> 08:25.000]  Okay, then we're going to have to start selling tickets soon.
[08:25.780 --> 08:28.320]  And you know what, we should probably open up speaker submissions.
[08:29.420 --> 08:31.840]  So let's do that in the next, like, week or so.
[08:32.820 --> 08:34.020]  I like that, that's a good point.
[08:34.240 --> 08:35.320]  This is an excellent plan.
[08:35.420 --> 08:39.700]  Let's do some other planning, too, because these things don't plan themselves, that's for sure.
[08:39.700 --> 08:40.800]  I love this plan.
[08:41.560 --> 08:42.860]  Yeah, let's get some chairs.
[08:43.900 --> 08:44.980]  Chairs, those are useful.
[08:45.120 --> 08:45.880]  Maybe some tables.
[08:46.740 --> 08:54.860]  So, Emmanuel and Kyle, what are the things, you know, if anything, that you think, you know, we'll be implementing at Hope from CCC this year?
[08:54.860 --> 08:59.000]  Any great ideas that are going to assimilate themselves into New York this July?
[09:00.140 --> 09:00.600]  Lights.
[09:00.620 --> 09:02.380]  I'd like to see a lot more lights.
[09:03.040 --> 09:05.160]  Yeah, we need colorful lighting.
[09:05.160 --> 09:07.600]  We need more ambience, I guess is the word.
[09:08.600 --> 09:13.260]  You know, excuse me, I do recall we had lights at Hope last time.
[09:13.480 --> 09:14.840]  Oh, not like this, you didn't.
[09:15.460 --> 09:21.400]  No, this is just an incredible display of lights everywhere, and just sound and art.
[09:21.400 --> 09:25.560]  I think a lot of artwork, a lot of amazing displays.
[09:26.120 --> 09:28.780]  Yeah, when we say that, I think we mean audience participation.
[09:28.780 --> 09:36.300]  We mean people bringing stuff that maybe they think would add to the ambience, because our AV, our production is amazing.
[09:36.540 --> 09:50.460]  We really try our best to give the theme and the attendees a good feel for the kind of space it's going to be transformed into, which always makes it interesting.
[09:50.460 --> 09:58.280]  And it really comes off spectacular, just beautiful, and it is spectacular to see.
[09:58.460 --> 10:00.380]  But people can bring stuff, you know?
[10:00.540 --> 10:02.980]  LED strips are all over the place.
[10:03.180 --> 10:08.400]  People were doing absolutely everything they could do with these strips.
[10:08.400 --> 10:11.100]  But there's all kinds of other stuff, too.
[10:11.360 --> 10:17.460]  Maybe audio things, any kind of project, anything people are working on.
[10:17.800 --> 10:24.340]  We would love to see more of that, so that we're all sort of creating this thing.
[10:24.440 --> 10:29.940]  Because it is one of, I think, the unique parts of an event like Congress.
[10:30.620 --> 10:40.860]  It just, it's magical how much stuff is going on, and it's just, I don't want to say overstimulation, but it's a very stimulating experience.
[10:40.860 --> 10:46.580]  And I know we have as much of that going on in the States, so please show off.
[10:46.680 --> 10:47.520]  We'd love to see it.
[10:47.600 --> 10:55.660]  And I would encourage people to think of fun things that they'd like to have and add to that.
[10:55.660 --> 11:03.180]  By the way, we met so many people overseas at the Congress in Germany who expressed an interest in hope.
[11:03.280 --> 11:06.480]  Of course, the big problem is getting to the United States.
[11:06.480 --> 11:10.200]  In many cases, getting a visa is a lot more difficult than it has to be.
[11:10.660 --> 11:24.280]  And also, you know, there are people who say they want to come to our conference, they want to come to our city, and they're worried that something is going to happen to them because of all the nonsense that's going on in our government right now.
[11:24.280 --> 11:36.020]  And, you know, what we try to do is tell people that it's important that they at least make the effort and that they not let the negativity affect their plans.
[11:36.020 --> 11:47.600]  Because once you actually make it over and you find yourself with a bunch of people that have similar interests, it's something that you will remember for the rest of your life.
[11:47.740 --> 11:49.580]  It's something that will be a very positive experience.
[11:49.580 --> 11:53.220]  You can't let the people who are trying to take that away from you win.
[11:54.280 --> 12:06.260]  So we try and get people to just be determined to do whatever is possible to make it to one of our conferences that they express an interest in doing that in the first place.
[12:06.720 --> 12:09.340]  You know, you make a great point, Emmanuel.
[12:09.620 --> 12:13.460]  And I was actually going to ask you about that particular issue.
[12:14.360 --> 12:35.280]  You know, after DEFCON this year, when Malware Tech was arrested, you know, basically sort of on his way out of the United States, you know, everybody presumed that was going to have some kind of chilling effect with respect to hacker conferences and not to slight the other smaller conferences that I'm sure have happened between then and now and will happen between then and July.
[12:35.280 --> 12:45.580]  But HOPE is the next really, you know, major international hacker conference that attracts a very significant number of overseas visitors.
[12:45.840 --> 12:56.560]  And, you know, I'm not surprised that you had, in the wake of this Malware Tech arrest and subsequent prosecution, you heard some serious reservations about that.
[12:56.620 --> 13:00.580]  I mean, were they specifically mentioning the issue of the Malware Tech arrest to you?
[13:01.700 --> 13:13.560]  Nobody mentioned that particular case, but people are concerned about just the overall political climate and what's perceived as the unwelcoming atmosphere of our current administration.
[13:13.880 --> 13:14.960]  I sort of feel that, too.
[13:16.040 --> 13:17.360]  Yeah, we all do.
[13:17.500 --> 13:21.140]  But it's not the feeling of the people.
[13:21.360 --> 13:33.800]  I think that's something that we really have to emphasize, because what is going on, what we hear, even if it's in a foreign language, you understand it, does not represent the people, does not represent what people are saying or thinking.
[13:33.880 --> 13:36.300]  And I don't care if you're on the left or the right.
[13:37.480 --> 13:40.960]  What's going on right now does not represent you.
[13:41.420 --> 13:43.540]  It's, you know, well beneath you.
[13:43.960 --> 13:50.300]  And I only hope that we get past it soon before it gets even worse.
[13:51.360 --> 13:51.880]  Absolutely.
[13:52.320 --> 13:52.860]  Totally agree.
[13:53.120 --> 13:53.800]  Totally agree.
[13:53.800 --> 14:00.760]  And hope, I think, really embodies, you know, what it is, what is the best about New York in particular.
[14:01.020 --> 14:15.400]  And so it's so important for people, especially people who have not been here yet, to get over to New York, to experience this, to be sort of in the heart of the city, right across from the lovely Penn Station, and experience, you know, what exactly, you know,
[14:15.460 --> 14:18.640]  everybody is talking about, because, you know, New York is a welcoming place.
[14:18.740 --> 14:19.160]  They'll love it.
[14:19.260 --> 14:20.100]  They'll love the people here.
[14:20.100 --> 14:25.280]  Or this is not, even though it is Donald Trump's hometown, it is certainly not his town.
[14:26.440 --> 14:27.420]  Yeah, it's not.
[14:27.660 --> 14:30.860]  And I hope he won't be allowed back in at some point.
[14:31.000 --> 14:36.060]  But there are so many things about New York that are great, the Hope Conference just being one of many.
[14:36.460 --> 14:52.620]  But it's interesting, too, because we were staying in a hotel across the street from the main train station in Budapest, and I just sort of realized, wow, this is exactly like staying in New York City at Hotel Penn when we have a conference, because you're right across the street from Penn Station,
[14:52.820 --> 14:54.400]  and there's all this hustle and bustle.
[14:54.500 --> 14:56.320]  And it reminded me of New York quite a bit.
[14:56.460 --> 14:59.520]  But where we are right now, we're in Bucharest in Romania.
[14:59.800 --> 15:14.380]  This city has a really, really interesting area as well, because back in 1989, in fact, it was in December of 1989, was one of the most pivotal moments of the fall of the Iron Curtain that took place.
[15:14.380 --> 15:22.440]  You had this dictator, Nicolai Chisescu, who had ruled the country with an iron fist for many, many years.
[15:22.760 --> 15:24.420]  He and his wife, actually.
[15:24.680 --> 15:28.940]  It was kind of like a family dictatorship that ran the country.
[15:29.520 --> 15:30.820]  People lived in fear.
[15:30.980 --> 15:37.340]  The lights were dimmed at night because he was obsessed with paying back the entire national debt.
[15:37.500 --> 15:41.180]  He built himself huge palaces that people weren't allowed in.
[15:41.180 --> 15:45.000]  And everybody was living pretty much in squalor.
[15:45.000 --> 15:47.100]  And it was really not a very positive...
[15:49.400 --> 15:54.320]  He gave this speech to a crowd in the streets of Bucharest.
[15:54.840 --> 15:56.080]  And something happened.
[15:56.380 --> 15:58.380]  Somebody started to heckle him.
[15:59.060 --> 16:01.020]  Something that had never happened before.
[16:01.340 --> 16:03.960]  And he had never expected it to happen.
[16:03.960 --> 16:10.720]  You could see it in the video, the expression in his face, just how, all of a sudden, his world started to collapse.
[16:11.680 --> 16:14.800]  And he had no way of responding to this.
[16:14.920 --> 16:19.140]  He just kept giving his speech, thinking that the same old, hard words would keep working.
[16:19.340 --> 16:20.280]  Well, they didn't.
[16:20.340 --> 16:20.940]  They stopped.
[16:21.140 --> 16:22.240]  The people had had enough.
[16:22.380 --> 16:25.880]  At one point, they just said, we're done with this.
[16:25.880 --> 16:30.060]  And it moved very quickly after that.
[16:30.480 --> 16:38.180]  He tried to flee in a helicopter that was weighed down with all kinds of stolen goods that he was trying to get out of the country.
[16:38.620 --> 16:39.660]  He was caught.
[16:39.680 --> 16:40.620]  He was executed.
[16:40.920 --> 16:45.300]  And the video was shown on TV to tell the people that, yes, we caught him.
[16:45.380 --> 16:45.960]  It's over.
[16:45.960 --> 16:49.100]  And a whole new reign has begun.
[16:49.340 --> 16:52.300]  Now, I don't think that's the way it's going to go in the States.
[16:52.340 --> 16:58.020]  But I do think there will be that point in time where somebody starts to heckle.
[16:58.180 --> 16:59.680]  Somebody starts to shout back.
[16:59.680 --> 17:01.740]  And that will be a good day.
[17:01.860 --> 17:08.940]  That will be a day when the tide starts to turn and when people start to realize that, yes, there is a better life for us.
[17:09.000 --> 17:17.520]  We can express ourselves and be positive and prosper in so many different ways.
[17:17.720 --> 17:23.300]  When we were in Germany, we talked to a friend of ours who's American.
[17:24.380 --> 17:25.900]  He lives there now.
[17:26.020 --> 17:28.340]  But at one point, he needed a hip replacement.
[17:28.480 --> 17:29.140]  A hip replacement.
[17:29.680 --> 17:33.440]  And he was able to get it from the German government for no cause.
[17:34.640 --> 17:38.800]  Imagine a foreigner in the United States who needs a new hip.
[17:39.220 --> 17:40.700]  What do you think is going to happen?
[17:41.260 --> 17:45.540]  You know, our mood, our tone is wrong.
[17:45.900 --> 17:47.400]  We can afford to do better.
[17:47.540 --> 17:48.700]  We can afford to be nicer.
[17:49.060 --> 17:55.340]  And when that happens, I think you'll just see things become a lot brighter overall.
[17:55.820 --> 17:56.760]  A hip replacement.
[17:56.760 --> 18:07.620]  That's something that could seriously damage the financial stability and future of even someone who's a born citizen of this country, let alone a visitor from elsewhere.
[18:11.420 --> 18:14.380]  The apprehension sort of spans administrations.
[18:14.600 --> 18:34.760]  We've heard not really reference to the case specifically that Alex mentioned, but a lot of the same concern that we've heard, you know, even four years ago, eight years ago, and longer, it just sort of changes forms in a lot of ways.
[18:34.760 --> 18:50.840]  And we need to encourage people and, you know, remind them, remind ourselves and others that, you know, this story isn't necessarily only for this country, Romania.
[18:50.840 --> 19:06.060]  There's other stories and, as he indicated, parallels that would be a good reminder to those trying to keep, say, immigrants out.
[19:06.180 --> 19:10.420]  And even for travel to visit, you know, we don't make it easy.
[19:10.420 --> 19:17.160]  Someone from Europe has to do a lot more than the average American who wants to go and visit someplace.
[19:17.500 --> 19:19.540]  So we need to be empathetic to that.
[19:19.620 --> 19:27.020]  And I would just remind people listening that are considering visiting for Hope, you know, we'll provide a lot of information.
[19:27.020 --> 19:36.640]  And we have, in past conferences, a lot of support and mechanism for you to tell stories if you're going through anything when you do cross borders.
[19:36.640 --> 19:43.300]  And also other resources were you to have any sort of difficulty with that.
[19:43.500 --> 19:49.540]  But the stories of other leaders falling, these are so fresh.
[19:49.720 --> 19:53.540]  I mean, that was not 20 years ago or about just over 20.
[19:53.680 --> 19:55.020]  It was close to 30, actually.
[19:55.240 --> 19:55.480]  Was it?
[19:55.560 --> 19:55.920]  Okay, okay.
[19:55.920 --> 20:07.360]  So these things are why the people are actually in control and why these leaders need not forget whom they work for.
[20:08.180 --> 20:12.720]  Yeah, you know, and we feel strongly about this as far as traveling.
[20:12.760 --> 20:14.620]  We're always welcomed in places.
[20:14.620 --> 20:16.500]  We're always treated with respect.
[20:16.900 --> 20:23.780]  We just want to be able to do that as well on our end and stop being hostile and suspicious and stingy.
[20:23.780 --> 20:27.820]  And, you know, that's really my wish for this year.
[20:28.000 --> 20:38.900]  Yeah, we shouldn't have a stigma as a place that you can't go to unless you're only, you know, going for leisure or vice.
[20:40.340 --> 20:42.980]  Anyway, enough politics and social issues.
[20:43.300 --> 20:47.860]  Any questions about the technology that we have been encountering?
[20:48.260 --> 20:52.620]  Well, there is... we have one tweet so far, and you can tweet at us, at Hacker Radio Show.
[20:54.360 --> 20:58.100]  Someone, Gonzo, has tweeted us, where are the bathrooms nice at CCC?
[21:00.200 --> 21:01.480]  The bathrooms are very nice.
[21:01.620 --> 21:04.300]  In fact, the bathrooms are very nice in Europe in general.
[21:05.720 --> 21:11.480]  What I like about them, for the most part, is that the stalled doors go all the way down to the floor.
[21:11.640 --> 21:19.120]  So there's no chance of a senator, you know, accidentally or on purpose rolling some toilet paper or some sort of a signal to you.
[21:19.780 --> 21:20.960]  That kind of thing happens.
[21:21.180 --> 21:23.060]  Always a privacy advocate you are.
[21:23.940 --> 21:25.800]  Yeah, it's different.
[21:26.100 --> 21:29.200]  You know, every toilet flushes in a different way, which is always a challenge.
[21:30.220 --> 21:35.560]  But for the most part, at the Congress, it was very accessible.
[21:35.600 --> 21:39.340]  And in other parts that we've been to, certainly as well.
[21:39.700 --> 21:41.780]  I don't remember going to the bathroom.
[21:41.960 --> 21:43.720]  I was so busy with the conference.
[21:44.000 --> 21:45.220]  That's how pleasant it was.
[21:45.260 --> 21:46.240]  You don't even remember going.
[21:46.460 --> 21:46.780]  Wow.
[21:47.000 --> 21:47.160]  Wow.
[21:47.260 --> 21:48.420]  So it's just like the Port Authority.
[21:49.880 --> 21:51.040]  Not at all.
[21:51.200 --> 21:51.400]  Wow.
[21:51.860 --> 21:52.340]  No.
[21:53.060 --> 21:53.640]  Definitely not.
[21:53.780 --> 21:56.720]  No, in seriousness, the facilities there were great.
[21:56.940 --> 22:01.480]  And we took advantage of the space.
[22:01.740 --> 22:06.720]  And, yeah, there's no difficulty as far as that goes.
[22:06.880 --> 22:15.500]  In fact, yeah, you might find fixtures and equipment there that, you know, you may not yet have in the States.
[22:15.800 --> 22:18.480]  So, yeah, there's technology everywhere.
[22:18.480 --> 22:20.720]  And we're always comparing those things.
[22:20.720 --> 22:33.000]  I got to say, though, on the train to Romania from Hungary, I was a little bitter about it because we had a snafu with the Hungarian train people where we specifically asked for a private room.
[22:33.000 --> 22:36.080]  And we wound up hunkering down with four other people.
[22:36.480 --> 22:38.180]  Imagine that as Americans.
[22:38.340 --> 22:43.880]  Imagine, you know, having to go to sleep in a train car, in a cabin.
[22:43.880 --> 22:50.980]  And all of a sudden, there's four strangers that you have to share the room with, especially when you ask not to do that.
[22:50.980 --> 22:54.380]  So I was in a bad mood, and I was noticing all these things.
[22:54.500 --> 23:00.060]  Almost as soon as we crossed into Romania, it seemed like the bathrooms just became unusable.
[23:00.440 --> 23:03.400]  The lid to the toilet was in the hallway for some reason.
[23:03.600 --> 23:05.260]  The other one was overflowing.
[23:05.520 --> 23:07.580]  And it was just, I don't know.
[23:07.680 --> 23:07.940]  I don't know.
[23:08.080 --> 23:12.100]  It just must have been some kind of malfunction of one sort or another.
[23:12.100 --> 23:13.540]  So you do notice problems.
[23:13.540 --> 23:20.040]  But for the most part, it's something that is accessible and taken care of.
[23:20.200 --> 23:22.800]  But I know there's other bits of technology you're interested in.
[23:23.400 --> 23:23.980]  Yeah, probably.
[23:24.120 --> 23:25.820]  Apart from the personal conveniences.
[23:26.080 --> 23:28.680]  Yeah, what are some things you saw at the conference?
[23:31.280 --> 23:33.180]  Bits of technology we saw at the conference?
[23:33.400 --> 23:38.320]  Yeah, particular bits of technology that jumped out at you is particularly interesting, notable.
[23:40.620 --> 23:41.180]  Wow.
[23:42.820 --> 23:51.460]  Geez, the conference itself, there was a lot of personal mobility devices, I had already indicated.
[23:51.700 --> 23:51.720]  Oh, yeah.
[23:51.940 --> 23:56.880]  Because of the space, a lot of people either had built things that could move around.
[23:57.060 --> 24:04.800]  As I mentioned, the furniture that had wheels and was motorized, and, of course, scooters and Segways and hoverboards and all that.
[24:04.960 --> 24:08.420]  But there's, geez.
[24:08.420 --> 24:17.540]  So many people who are handicapped, for instance, in wheelchairs and even crutches that had LED strips on them.
[24:17.540 --> 24:19.500]  I just thought that was the coolest thing ever.
[24:19.640 --> 24:20.440]  It looked so festive.
[24:20.820 --> 24:22.020]  Yeah, a lot of customization.
[24:22.600 --> 24:32.180]  So if you had some sort of device or, you know, equipment, you could just modify it.
[24:32.240 --> 24:34.380]  You know, give it that flair, the personal touch.
[24:34.380 --> 24:40.560]  And that stuff is always exciting to see, because it's unique.
[24:40.560 --> 24:51.640]  And that's kind of the spirit of hacking, is sort of making something your own and making it perhaps have more features than it ever had when it was designed.
[24:53.580 --> 25:04.260]  So, geez, the other really, let's see, we saw an amazing display of lights from one of the hackerspaces that was actually made out of mate bottles.
[25:04.440 --> 25:05.380]  Mate bottles, yes.
[25:05.640 --> 25:15.640]  And it was playing, it was actually a wall of bottles that were lit up displaying like a yuletide, you know, Christmas fireplace.
[25:15.640 --> 25:21.580]  Yeah, so we stood around the fireplace, and that was entertaining.
[25:21.940 --> 25:24.240]  Again, a visual display, that kind of thing.
[25:24.460 --> 25:28.360]  A lot of things with data and messaging.
[25:29.120 --> 25:30.100]  There was a...
[25:30.100 --> 25:31.060]  Yeah, what's the thing that happened?
[25:31.260 --> 25:36.540]  You saw this at the network talk as far as spikes in network usage.
[25:36.920 --> 25:38.320]  This is a great story.
[25:38.800 --> 25:44.020]  So there was, I was going to mention, receipt printers being repurposed to make banners.
[25:44.020 --> 25:47.700]  And there was even an on-site news company.
[25:47.860 --> 25:49.540]  I think it was a spoof news company.
[25:49.700 --> 25:52.620]  They were printing sensational headlines every hour.
[25:52.860 --> 25:54.200]  We couldn't quite figure it out.
[25:54.320 --> 25:54.980]  We didn't...
[25:54.980 --> 25:56.600]  It was called NSMBC.
[25:58.280 --> 25:58.760]  Nonstop.
[25:58.880 --> 26:03.460]  I don't know what it was, but there was really clever and just hilarious stuff like that.
[26:03.640 --> 26:09.220]  A lot of postings, talking about technology firms and projects and so on.
[26:09.220 --> 26:21.580]  But when I was watching the network talk, as I normally do, because it's important to understand the infrastructure and what all is powering people's connectivity.
[26:21.580 --> 26:26.740]  And I always take a lot back for when we're planning our event.
[26:27.180 --> 26:29.940]  They were talking about the wireless network.
[26:30.600 --> 26:38.140]  And when they were going through some of the spikes in traffic over, I believe it was a wired connection.
[26:38.280 --> 26:43.740]  It may have been Wi-Fi, but in any event, they're showing logs for the entire, like, four days.
[26:44.120 --> 26:46.520]  And they had a huge amount of bandwidth, too.
[26:46.860 --> 26:50.760]  Yeah, they had 400 gigabit of uplink.
[26:51.700 --> 26:52.160]  And...
[26:52.160 --> 26:52.960]  400 gigabit.
[26:53.040 --> 26:54.600]  We just got to 10 gigabit.
[26:54.720 --> 26:57.360]  And we're one of the fastest conferences in the States.
[26:57.660 --> 26:58.640]  They're at 400.
[26:58.640 --> 26:59.840]  This is what we're dealing with.
[27:00.080 --> 27:18.080]  Yeah, they were using some very interesting wave division multiplexing and something that is actually a sort of sub-discipline of that called alien wave, which allows third parties to cram more stuff in dense wave division multiplexing.
[27:18.160 --> 27:29.980]  It's just incredible ways to basically bond and load balance multiple ISPs to create this massive, massive, massive backbone.
[27:30.640 --> 27:36.080]  But as they went through, they had this log, and it had these five gigabit bursts.
[27:36.660 --> 27:40.380]  And it would go up and down, and it would pause for a little bit.
[27:40.540 --> 27:51.220]  And when they zoomed out and looked at it over, I believe, like four days or three days, they realized that the spikes themselves were a pattern.
[27:51.220 --> 27:54.300]  And the pattern actually was Morse code.
[27:54.600 --> 28:02.640]  So someone had been loading the connection at five gigabit bursts, and they decoded it.
[28:02.740 --> 28:16.900]  They figured out what the dot and dash coding was, and it was 343, which was the name of the conference, and it was the 34th Chaos Communication Congress.
[28:17.060 --> 28:22.340]  So that's the kind of game you'll see being played at an event like that.
[28:23.180 --> 28:23.580]  Wow.
[28:23.940 --> 28:25.360]  Okay, that is awesome.
[28:25.380 --> 28:30.160]  And I'm sure our Hope Network team would like to hear more about the setup there.
[28:31.020 --> 28:33.920]  We've got a few more minutes, but I know it's silly o'clock over there.
[28:34.120 --> 28:36.160]  So one last question for you guys.
[28:36.320 --> 28:41.840]  Now that the conference is over, where do your travels take you next?
[28:42.800 --> 28:46.320]  Well, we just keep getting on trains and heading to strange places.
[28:47.120 --> 28:51.660]  Bucharest is a place I've been to once before, and I have to say, it's so much nicer now.
[28:51.660 --> 28:58.120]  I was afraid the first time I came here, it was kind of gray and depressing.
[28:58.640 --> 29:06.380]  It's scary, too, because they still had the mechanism in place that Czescu had used for his decades in power.
[29:06.740 --> 29:08.860]  And you don't just disassemble that overnight.
[29:09.280 --> 29:11.520]  We see a lot of young people around.
[29:11.520 --> 29:16.800]  We see a lot of vitality and just a positive feeling.
[29:17.000 --> 29:32.840]  Also, this is something I know not everybody agrees with, but I think the presence of the EU has been a tremendous benefit, because you see a lot of dilapidated buildings, but then you see EU construction projects and things are starting to improve.
[29:32.840 --> 29:39.160]  You see train lines that are being reconstructed and new buildings and structures of all sorts.
[29:39.160 --> 29:48.740]  I just think being inclusive in that manner is a great thing to gather and keep their individual identity.
[29:48.920 --> 29:50.700]  The Romanian language is an incredible language.
[29:50.880 --> 29:53.260]  We're in Eastern Europe, and it's a Romance language.
[29:53.260 --> 29:54.560]  It's really incredible to study.
[29:56.120 --> 30:05.940]  It's also great to just be linked to all the other countries around and not have these walls that have been built over so many years.
[30:06.300 --> 30:09.700]  So, you know, we've seen that now as far as where we're going to go afterwards.
[30:09.940 --> 30:14.780]  We're thinking of going over to Moldova, which was actually part of the Soviet Union.
[30:14.780 --> 30:16.680]  It was in the Soviet Republic of Moldavia.
[30:17.420 --> 30:19.420]  We know very little about that place.
[30:19.420 --> 30:23.680]  If any listeners have any advice or have ever been there, we'd love to hear your experiences.
[30:24.160 --> 30:28.000]  And you can write to us, of course, at OTH at 2600.com.
[30:28.140 --> 30:36.220]  Or if you're in Moldova, or if you're in Belize, or many other places in the area, we might be able to stop by.
[30:36.980 --> 30:43.200]  But other than that, I know we're planning to stop in Iceland at some point, which is going to be fun later.
[30:43.820 --> 30:45.940]  But we're trying to see those damn northern lights.
[30:46.220 --> 30:48.600]  And we're going to find them if it kills us.
[30:49.020 --> 30:50.360]  Have you ever seen them before?
[30:51.340 --> 30:52.460]  I've never seen them.
[30:52.620 --> 30:53.120]  You're a kid.
[30:53.120 --> 30:59.420]  Yeah, we had been to Iceland once before, but we did not get a chance to see the northern lights.
[31:00.080 --> 31:02.480]  Apparently you can't see them when the sun's out all day.
[31:02.480 --> 31:07.640]  And if anybody who travels realizes, it's hard to see everything in one trip.
[31:07.720 --> 31:08.480]  So you've got to go back.
[31:08.580 --> 31:10.980]  That was one of the reasons we went to Budapest again.
[31:10.980 --> 31:13.380]  We'd been there before and wanted to see it again.
[31:14.280 --> 31:24.040]  And I would just add or reiterate what you were saying about the sort of liveliness and vitality mixed with, yeah, history.
[31:24.300 --> 31:25.840]  And as he said, dilapidation.
[31:26.000 --> 31:28.120]  There's a lot of things that need work.
[31:28.120 --> 31:40.580]  There's a lot of rural areas that are struggling, that are very rural, and frankly remind me of places in the northwest, but I won't get into that.
[31:41.680 --> 31:44.740]  And, you know, there isn't regular services everywhere.
[31:44.980 --> 31:52.500]  There's a lot of, you know, difficulty keeping things updated, you know, lack of resources.
[31:52.500 --> 31:57.220]  And so, but, you know, part of it is aesthetic and technology.
[31:57.220 --> 32:03.800]  You can bring in things that can kind of lift spirits and have a positive aspect.
[32:03.800 --> 32:10.400]  I know that it often had an art fixture or something just extra.
[32:10.600 --> 32:14.300]  It wasn't just, okay, this is a pump house for a water project.
[32:14.360 --> 32:17.300]  We're going to put them like animal sculptures in.
[32:17.300 --> 32:23.120]  So there's definitely that sense of lifting spirits as well.
[32:23.160 --> 32:25.300]  And that's so, so vital.
[32:25.540 --> 32:31.740]  And one thing in the city of Bucharest here that I just really, really appreciate is the mix of technology.
[32:31.880 --> 32:33.080]  There's a ton of graffiti.
[32:33.240 --> 32:34.720]  There's a ton of old buildings.
[32:35.000 --> 32:39.000]  There's an expanse of wires and infrastructure.
[32:39.480 --> 32:43.140]  And, you know, you can't fix every tile in every street.
[32:43.140 --> 32:53.020]  I mean, maybe that's okay in Amsterdam and other parts of Western Europe where every brick, you know, gets, you know, it's yearly, you know, medical.
[32:53.880 --> 33:02.980]  But here people are dealing with everyday life, but they have this sort of modern sense, too.
[33:03.120 --> 33:04.160]  There's a lot of...
[33:04.160 --> 33:07.760]  So that fusion of those two things is kind of exciting.
[33:07.760 --> 33:18.060]  And just one example, like coffee culture and art and just that sense of activity.
[33:18.060 --> 33:19.840]  It feels very lively here.
[33:20.280 --> 33:25.660]  And those kinds of things are what we're going to continue to explore before we move on.
[33:26.160 --> 33:42.540]  But it's important, you know, because if you just stay in one spot or you only get a little bit of time in one place, you don't really get the full sense of the history, but also what's going on currently, you know, the activity and excitement.
[33:42.820 --> 33:44.640]  And there really is quite a bit of that.
[33:44.740 --> 33:54.860]  And it's just cool to see how people blend the two and what becomes a priority and going on into the future.
[33:54.860 --> 34:10.960]  No matter what kind of technology you're dealing with, whether it's a coffee machine or a cellular phone or a computer or just anything that people are into these days, no matter what country you're in, you'll find a group of people who are into that or developing something different.
[34:11.300 --> 34:13.860]  And that's where you have real fun.
[34:14.080 --> 34:15.420]  Yeah, I know that's one thing on the border.
[34:15.580 --> 34:24.240]  Just the border guards alone, Hungary and Romania, we were interrupted, you know, and had to show our documents.
[34:24.860 --> 34:35.140]  Now, we haven't done that on a trip, really, since we did Yugoslavia, where you actually show your papers and you get stamps and so on with those border guards.
[34:35.240 --> 34:39.760]  But one thing they didn't have was portable passport scanners.
[34:40.300 --> 34:47.060]  Well, this time, because Romania and Hungary, they are part of the EU, but not, I think, full members.
[34:47.220 --> 34:48.920]  We don't have the exact...
[34:48.920 --> 34:53.340]  They're not part of the Schengen area, so they're still passport controlled.
[34:53.600 --> 35:13.060]  Well, while we were submitting our documents, I noticed both, when we were leaving Hungary, the border agents slid our passports and basically had a screen up, checking our names and corresponding stuff, in a handheld, very high-tech device.
[35:13.560 --> 35:15.840]  And the same thing happened when we were coming into Romania.
[35:16.020 --> 35:21.300]  The border guard was using a handheld passport scanner, which is something I've never seen anywhere.
[35:21.500 --> 35:31.920]  Because, obviously, if you think about it, you know, Iceland or Europe or pretty much anywhere else, Canada, any border, you're dealing with somebody who's got a computer, a desktop there.
[35:31.920 --> 35:52.300]  But this was really, really unique, seeing the mobile network used, I would imagine, for checking passports and getting through quickly and sort of eliminating paperwork and getting to the stamping part and so that the rest of that travel and sort of logistical necessity can keep going,
[35:52.300 --> 35:54.900]  because that's vital to the economy and growth.
[35:55.120 --> 35:56.380]  I hope that answers your question.
[35:57.180 --> 35:59.760]  That makes some way toward answering my question, yes.
[35:59.760 --> 36:07.500]  Well, you guys, thank you very much for staying up late for us, and we look forward to hearing more about your adventures in parts abroad.
[36:07.920 --> 36:12.820]  And with that, I'll let you get back to your lives for the moment, and we'll...
[36:12.820 --> 36:20.060]  Hopefully next week, or not even later, because it's 3.30 in the morning now, and I don't know if I can take any more of this.
[36:20.660 --> 36:24.660]  Well, either stay up late or get up early, because we'd love to hear more from you.
[36:24.900 --> 36:27.600]  Emmanuel and Kyle, thank you very much for joining us.
[36:28.520 --> 36:28.920]  Bye.
[36:29.860 --> 36:32.900]  And be careful as you're walking through those trains.
[36:33.220 --> 36:37.000]  You know, watch out for the toilet lids that are strewn about the hallways.
[36:37.240 --> 36:42.080]  And, yeah, it sounds like they're having a very exciting time over there.
[36:42.180 --> 36:54.940]  I mean, the way Kyle had described Bucharest with, you know, lots of graffiti, broken tiles, a lack of public services, lack of public resources, but somehow contributing to the overall ambience of the area.
[36:55.080 --> 36:56.360]  It sounds a lot to me like the East Village.
[36:58.280 --> 37:02.860]  I didn't hear anything about rats, though, so, you know, maybe it's a bit of a step up.
[37:03.000 --> 37:05.440]  I know we can say all these horrible things about the East Village now.
[37:05.580 --> 37:08.040]  His manual is so protective of it, and he's not here.
[37:08.500 --> 37:08.660]  Yeah.
[37:08.840 --> 37:12.400]  Now, yeah, the buses are away again.
[37:12.400 --> 37:13.860]  We get to unwind a little.
[37:13.860 --> 37:18.860]  So, in other news, there's a lot going on this week.
[37:18.960 --> 37:22.440]  There was a lot going on right before we went live.
[37:23.120 --> 37:28.340]  There's a really fascinating pair of flaws that have just been found in the world's computers.
[37:29.280 --> 37:33.660]  When I say the world's computers, I mean pretty much everything out there that's running.
[37:34.780 --> 37:36.400]  Do you understand how this works?
[37:36.400 --> 37:37.980]  Because I'm a little mystified.
[37:38.760 --> 37:39.240]  It's...
[37:39.240 --> 37:47.240]  Well, there's been a very good write-up by a writer called Nicole Perlroth, who is a cybersecurity reporter for the New York Times.
[37:47.580 --> 37:50.140]  And their story just went live today.
[37:51.280 --> 37:54.760]  It's entitled, Researchers Discover Two Major Flaws in the World's Computers.
[37:54.820 --> 37:55.920]  It's on the New York Times website.
[37:55.920 --> 38:06.500]  But Nicole also tweeted a thread on her Twitter account, which is Nicole Perlroth, P-E-R-L-R-O-T-H.
[38:06.980 --> 38:10.920]  And it really goes a long way toward breaking it down.
[38:11.040 --> 38:16.380]  But basically, there are a lot of things being said about these vulnerabilities.
[38:17.140 --> 38:20.000]  And not all of it is clear or true.
[38:20.400 --> 38:25.140]  But what boils down, it's basically we're dealing with two serious threats.
[38:25.140 --> 38:35.440]  The first is isolated to chips made by Intel, which are, you know, a significant chunk of the computers out there.
[38:36.780 --> 38:43.700]  This vulnerability has been called Meltdown, and it affects virtually all the Intel microprocessors that are currently out there and running.
[38:44.560 --> 38:45.520]  There's a...
[38:45.520 --> 38:55.020]  Because the way this hardware exploit works, it works by tripping basically when the processor has been overloaded in a certain way.
[38:55.520 --> 38:58.920]  And so the patch to solve this has been released by Intel.
[38:59.060 --> 38:59.620]  It's called Kaiser.
[38:59.620 --> 39:14.040]  And as a function of protecting against this vulnerability, it will slow performance speeds of processors by as much as 30%, which is not great news for users of these processors.
[39:14.040 --> 39:17.760]  And specifically, I think it has to deal with speculative execution, right?
[39:17.920 --> 39:18.560]  So any...
[39:18.560 --> 39:19.460]  Excuse me.
[39:19.960 --> 39:30.120]  Any sort of kernel-intensive type of processing that relies on speculative execution, and I think serialized processing, are going to be very, very slowed down.
[39:30.180 --> 39:40.020]  And a lot of that is sort of network operations, but things like gaming and programs like that aren't necessarily going to be slowed down by 30%.
[39:40.020 --> 39:43.580]  But this is going to be a huge problem for cloud computing systems.
[39:43.580 --> 39:58.620]  Absolutely, because what these take advantage of is speculative processing, which is when, basically, to break it down to people who might not be hardware nuts, the processor basically reads ahead a little bit in the list of tasks it's got to do.
[39:58.620 --> 40:09.980]  And this takes advantage of vulnerability in that to basically drop what it's read ahead and is not supposed to technically know yet into working memory.
[40:09.980 --> 40:14.960]  So you could basically read stuff that's in the memory that you're not supposed to have access to.
[40:15.180 --> 40:30.420]  And what this means is it's a big impact on shared systems, shared systems like web hosting, like cloud computing, like stuff that is not your one computer on your desk for the most part, but is the larger computers that make up the greater internet.
[40:31.400 --> 40:37.540]  Computers where multiple web apps or web hosts are hosted on the same machine.
[40:37.540 --> 40:39.080]  You can jump from one to the other.
[40:41.160 --> 40:43.760]  And, you know, basically things like that.
[40:44.100 --> 40:51.860]  So the one isolated to Intel chips has been called Meltdown and the patch called Kaiser will be released, but you're going to take this performance hit.
[40:51.860 --> 40:59.040]  The second issue has been called Spectre, and it's a bit more difficult to exploit than the Intel one.
[40:59.460 --> 41:03.240]  We're already seeing proof of concepts for the Intel vulnerability starting to hit the net today.
[41:03.400 --> 41:14.140]  But Spectre affects basically all the processors, not just Intel, but ones made by AMD and ones made by ARM, which are basically all the processors out there.
[41:16.100 --> 41:25.960]  So there are, of course, isolated cases of other processors out there, but all the big ones, basically, all the main ones, and there is no fix for that.
[41:26.760 --> 41:35.120]  And another element of this vulnerability is that it's not really one vulnerability so much as it's an entire category of vulnerabilities.
[41:35.420 --> 41:41.280]  So any patches are going to have to be extremely clever as these things go in order to address these.
[41:43.040 --> 41:54.580]  So, basically, yeah, every computer out there is affected by these or can be affected by these, and there are no easy fixes.
[41:54.580 --> 41:57.860]  So we will be following this with great interest.
[41:58.100 --> 42:04.060]  Yeah, and my understanding here with respect to Spectre in particular is that there really isn't such an easy fix.
[42:04.180 --> 42:05.740]  There's really no easy fix for this at all.
[42:06.340 --> 42:09.140]  And, you know, it's going to become a very big problem.
[42:09.140 --> 42:20.160]  And I think, you know, you're going to see the Googles and AWSs of the world, you know, working hard and feverishly and around the clock to try to patch this on as many systems as they possibly can.
[42:20.300 --> 42:23.040]  Inevitably, there are going to be some that are going to be overlooked.
[42:24.380 --> 42:35.220]  Whether they can be exploited, and my understanding with respect to Skeptor in particular as well is that certain bits of data could possibly be appended to serialized instructions.
[42:35.840 --> 42:41.320]  And that means the execution of code, I would presume, at the kernel level, which could be very bad.
[42:42.400 --> 42:48.660]  But one other thing to think about here, too, is what about all these other smaller systems that are sort of cloud providers, too?
[42:48.880 --> 42:53.640]  These virtual machines that are running on virtual private servers all around the world.
[42:53.820 --> 43:10.140]  These smaller companies that can't afford to host something on AWS for 50K a month or something like that are using all these smaller providers who may not have the resources to continually patch this 24 hours a day for the next God knows how many days.
[43:10.520 --> 43:15.580]  So they may be more vulnerable for an extended period of time.
[43:15.820 --> 43:28.140]  You look back at things like WannaCry and WannaCrypt and you realize that unpatched systems are really the soft underbelly of the entire internet and the world's economy here.
[43:28.140 --> 43:39.460]  You know, there is a potential for major disruption, but I do not think we really know just yet how easy it's going to be to exploit these vulnerabilities.
[43:39.820 --> 43:43.080]  Unless you have any more information than I know, Rob, because I don't.
[43:43.580 --> 43:46.420]  Not at the moment, and not in a way that makes much sense.
[43:46.540 --> 43:52.140]  But yeah, this literally broke today, and it's something that we're going to be keeping an eye on.
[43:52.200 --> 43:53.100]  We'd love to hear more about.
[43:53.240 --> 43:59.800]  If you've got insight on this, send us an email, OTH at 2600.com, or tweet at us at Hacker Radio Show.
[44:00.080 --> 44:04.080]  And yeah, we're all keeping an eye on this because it affects all of us.
[44:05.540 --> 44:06.400]  Yeah, scary stuff.
[44:06.620 --> 44:07.260]  It's heck out there.
[44:07.460 --> 44:08.660]  Scary stuff, scary stuff.
[44:09.220 --> 44:11.620]  There really has been a lot going on this week.
[44:11.820 --> 44:24.280]  You know, try not to venture into the Twitter sphere of, you know, juveniles masquerading as world leaders and things like that, you know, unless you want to, but I would...
[44:24.280 --> 44:36.100]  Well, I'd only speculate, and of course, now that Emmanuel and Kyle are off the line, I can speculate on how they just happened to leave the country when we're closer to nuclear war than we've been in 30 years.
[44:36.460 --> 44:37.540]  So, like...
[44:37.540 --> 44:37.680]  Yeah.
[44:38.340 --> 44:41.680]  I'm wondering how much they knew ahead of time.
[44:41.820 --> 44:42.720]  The war had a hand in us.
[44:43.000 --> 44:43.140]  Yes.
[44:43.260 --> 44:44.540]  They very well may have.
[44:44.600 --> 44:45.120]  You never know.
[44:45.280 --> 44:48.440]  But we're going to go play global thermonuclear war some other time.
[44:48.440 --> 44:50.040]  But, yeah.
[44:50.940 --> 44:52.040]  There's a lot going on.
[44:52.100 --> 44:56.220]  In fact, we got a listener email regarding what we were saying, talking of Twitter and world leaders.
[44:57.280 --> 45:01.680]  We got an email regarding what we were saying about this last week.
[45:02.420 --> 45:03.480]  Gila writes to us, Hi, gang.
[45:03.640 --> 45:06.320]  A thought from last night and a somewhat related article to share with you.
[45:07.120 --> 45:20.640]  Regarding Twitter and Internet Archive and the Library of Congress decision, I can't help but wonder if Twitter's reluctance to keep archives of everything happening there right now is something of an implicit admission that what's happening on Twitter isn't good and they don't want a permanent record of it.
[45:20.800 --> 45:25.260]  That they know the decisions that they're making about community standards and the proliferation of trollbots and the like.
[45:25.860 --> 45:26.140]  Yeah.
[45:26.300 --> 45:37.340]  So, basically, that's an interesting idea because, of course, this is being reported on and talked about, but Twitter themselves might not want that permanent record to exist so much.
[45:37.340 --> 45:52.820]  And there, you know, the reason that they gave for this, apparently, was the extended volume of the tweets requiring an expanded amount of storage in order to retain all this data at the Library of Congress.
[45:53.000 --> 45:55.380]  I mean, that's sort of a ridiculous explanation.
[45:55.640 --> 45:58.300]  I mean, storage is so cheap here, for God's sake, Sam.
[45:58.700 --> 46:05.020]  I mean, maybe with these tax cuts and things, you know, they just don't have the funds to buy additional hard drives.
[46:05.180 --> 46:05.980]  I mean, who the hell knows?
[46:05.980 --> 46:23.000]  But I think that she brings up a good point, though, that, you know, these historical records, and especially in times when Twitter is being used for official channels of diplomatic communications between enormous children, they need to be preserved.
[46:23.000 --> 46:29.560]  But I don't think that there'll really be any shortage of actual preservation as well between the media, between users.
[46:29.720 --> 46:34.940]  And there are other parties that also have access to Twitter and Twitter's data.
[46:34.940 --> 46:45.640]  and it's unfortunate, but I think we'll have to rely on those parties to keep track of what the hell is happening on that damn place going forward.
[46:46.140 --> 47:02.220]  Yeah, and another interesting aspect of it was, of course, I believe we mentioned this last week, Jason Scott, friend of the show, and who works with the Internet Archive, let, you know, let slip the knowledge that they offered, the Internet Archive offered to take up archiving these tweets,
[47:02.220 --> 47:04.240]  and Twitter refused to work with them on this.
[47:04.580 --> 47:13.180]  So it's not even that they don't have the storage or they don't want to put the work into it, but when somebody else with the storage and the available work came up and said, hey, we'll take care of it instead, they still said no.
[47:14.080 --> 47:20.980]  And Gila goes on to send us the New York Times article, Confessions of a Digital Nazi Hunter, which was published on the 27th.
[47:21.100 --> 47:22.220]  It's on NewYorkTimes.com.
[47:22.220 --> 47:37.860]  And that is a story of users who made a bot to detect a certain kind of Twitter impersonator that is made to spread messages of racism and other sorts of bigotry.
[47:38.340 --> 47:43.260]  And they made a bot to call these impersonators out on what they were doing.
[47:43.540 --> 47:44.660]  Twitter suspended the bot.
[47:45.260 --> 47:49.120]  And Twitter had, like, a couple of times to the point where they banned the bot.
[47:50.060 --> 47:56.960]  Because, and they didn't ban the Nazis or anyone that impersonator, impersonator buster, it was called.
[47:57.400 --> 48:01.260]  They didn't ban the people that the bot existed to call out.
[48:01.420 --> 48:02.340]  They banned the bot.
[48:03.040 --> 48:10.560]  I mean, it's incredible that that story seems to also, I think, dovetail with some other interesting things that had broken this week, especially on The Intercept.
[48:10.740 --> 48:27.080]  There was like Glenn Greenwald piece in which it was exposed that Facebook would be or has been working with the Israeli and the United States government in blocking certain users from accessing Twitter or deleting and suspending certain accounts.
[48:28.240 --> 48:37.580]  You know, and one thing I think is worth mentioning with respect to that particular article is the use of the sanctions list in the United States.
[48:38.900 --> 48:46.160]  And what was happening there is that people who are on the sanctions list are not allowed, well, you're not allowed to do business with them.
[48:46.160 --> 49:04.540]  And Facebook then uses the sanctions list as a reason for deleting or suspending somebody's account, like the leader of Chechnya, excuse me, who was, you know, known to be rather repressive and not really a friend to many types of minorities around the world.
[49:04.840 --> 49:06.340]  But his account was suspended.
[49:06.480 --> 49:14.560]  But, you know, they claimed it was very dangerous for the administration to use something like the sanctions list to censor speech and free expression.
[49:15.120 --> 49:17.760]  And I think that's absolutely right.
[49:17.760 --> 49:18.960]  I think it's a valid point.
[49:19.300 --> 49:22.880]  But what do we really expect them to do?
[49:23.120 --> 49:23.940]  I mean, they're a U.S.
[49:24.120 --> 49:24.380]  company.
[49:24.680 --> 49:27.300]  They're subject to the authority of the United States.
[49:27.960 --> 49:38.860]  Facebook, at all times, whenever we're scrolling through our phones, flipping through things, looking at these ridiculous videos that people are posting now, I mean, it's all nonsense, I feel like, lately.
[49:39.000 --> 49:42.960]  I just think it's like sickening to me to have to flip through this nowadays.
[49:43.440 --> 49:47.780]  It sort of feels like how MySpace was many, many years ago, about 10 years ago.
[49:48.800 --> 49:51.300]  And in my opinion, hopefully, it's on its way out.
[49:51.420 --> 49:56.640]  But in any event, Facebook is engaged in commerce all the time.
[49:56.860 --> 50:00.120]  You know, they're targeting advertisements at us.
[50:00.220 --> 50:04.160]  They're tracking our data, tracking our usage habits, tracking our usage periods.
[50:04.160 --> 50:07.140]  So they are engaged in commerce, and we are the target of that commerce.
[50:07.200 --> 50:09.020]  And we are also the product of that commerce.
[50:09.180 --> 50:12.400]  So we need to expect that they're going to comply as a U.S.
[50:12.500 --> 50:14.180]  company with U.S.
[50:14.240 --> 50:14.960]  laws and regulations.
[50:15.400 --> 50:26.940]  But what Glenn Greenwald did bring up, and which I think is an excellent point, how do we trust that this administration is not going to misuse that sanctions list to censor free speech?
[50:28.260 --> 50:40.180]  So what I think the article didn't draw out, and which I think is an important distinction, is the difference between the use of this power and the power itself.
[50:40.420 --> 50:47.760]  So the exercise of this power over the sanctions list, the ability to add and remove people from it, is one thing.
[50:47.840 --> 50:49.680]  And I think we need to expect that U.S.
[50:49.800 --> 50:51.320]  companies are going to comply with that.
[50:51.500 --> 50:55.960]  We don't want people doing business with individuals who are on the sanctions list.
[50:55.960 --> 51:00.540]  As a matter of course, it's not really the best way to win friends and influence people in the international community.
[51:00.540 --> 51:11.240]  But what are we to do if we don't trust the people to exercise that power in a reasonable or justified manner?
[51:12.180 --> 51:13.820]  That's a very interesting question.
[51:13.820 --> 51:15.480]  I've got no damn clue as to an answer.
[51:15.740 --> 51:19.100]  Yeah, well, you know, 2018 elections are around the corner.
[51:19.500 --> 51:21.280]  Yeah, that's very true.
[51:21.580 --> 51:27.680]  And of course, something we're keeping an eye on not just on this program, but on pretty much every program on this station.
[51:29.460 --> 51:29.980]  Yeah.
[51:30.240 --> 51:30.380]  Yeah.
[51:30.820 --> 51:32.760]  Should we talk about elections for a little bit?
[51:32.820 --> 51:39.700]  You know, there was some interesting election-related news that came out this week as well in terms of the voting systems.
[51:39.840 --> 51:40.680]  I did catch that.
[51:41.020 --> 51:42.200]  Tell us a bit about what's going on there.
[51:42.340 --> 51:46.660]  Well, this is an interesting development, actually.
[51:46.800 --> 51:48.740]  There is a group of six senators.
[51:49.700 --> 51:56.400]  And can you guess the political denomination, so to speak, of these particular senators?
[51:56.500 --> 51:57.100]  There's six of them.
[51:57.260 --> 52:00.980]  Well, let's hear what they've done first and then maybe maybe I'll guess what...
[52:00.980 --> 52:01.520]  Okay, very good.
[52:01.640 --> 52:02.120]  Very good, yeah.
[52:02.280 --> 52:07.920]  So these six senators, they have proposed something called the Secure Elections Act.
[52:08.200 --> 52:14.880]  This is something we've talked about time and time again, you know, or the vulnerabilities attendant to voting systems and elections themselves.
[52:15.100 --> 52:20.320]  It's on everybody's mind and with midterm elections coming up, extremely important.
[52:20.320 --> 52:31.940]  And this particular bill is really kind of innovative and I think responds to a lot of the concerns of the hacker and information security community.
[52:33.120 --> 52:36.720]  What it's designed to do is really kind of three different things.
[52:37.040 --> 52:42.540]  The first one being the replacement of electronic voting systems that are only electronic.
[52:43.200 --> 52:43.800]  Wow.
[52:44.060 --> 52:44.280]  Wow.
[52:44.780 --> 52:45.920]  You know, that's incredible.
[52:46.100 --> 52:48.760]  This is like something we've been saying for a really long time.
[52:48.760 --> 52:54.120]  It's such a bad idea to have voting systems that are completely electronic with no paper ballot.
[52:54.400 --> 53:05.500]  Yeah, something that we definitely on this program and at the Hope Conferences and in 2600 Magazine and in the hacker community in general, something we've all been saying is a terrible idea for what, the past three presidents?
[53:06.760 --> 53:09.740]  Now people are starting to think maybe it might be a bad idea?
[53:10.000 --> 53:10.980]  Yeah, exactly.
[53:11.220 --> 53:20.160]  So I mean, the gold standard here is sort of what we have in New York, as a matter of fact, which is, you know, an optical scanning system that relies on a paper ballot for an electronic tally.
[53:20.340 --> 53:25.780]  So you fill out a paper ballot and then that paper ballot is scanned and then that's electronically tallied.
[53:25.960 --> 53:33.760]  So if there is an irregularity, if there's an audit, if there is some reason to question the vote, you can always go back to the paper ballot.
[53:33.920 --> 53:36.640]  Yes, the paper still exists as its own thing.
[53:36.640 --> 53:37.040]  Exactly.
[53:37.320 --> 53:48.380]  And so this law would be... would rather enable states to apply for federal funding to identify their vulnerable election systems and have them replaced at the federal government's expense.
[53:48.660 --> 53:54.000]  So, I mean, this is a really, really great idea that responds to a lot of concerns from the hacker community.
[53:54.400 --> 53:57.440]  And I think this is a very great thing.
[53:58.420 --> 54:13.060]  The other interesting thing about this is it also specifies that after an election, there should be some kind of audit, you know, by default of the actual ballots.
[54:13.060 --> 54:37.480]  So to take a look at the voting mechanisms, the ballots, any irregularities that may have been noticed and look for things that would have otherwise gone unnoticed had there not been an audit with the idea of confirming the actual election, collecting evidence in the wake of an election to confirm an election without there being any kind of irregularities or without the requirement of there being
[54:37.480 --> 54:39.600]  a very slim margin to trigger an audit.
[54:39.600 --> 54:42.260]  So that's really cool, too.
[54:42.940 --> 54:52.220]  Think back to what Jill Stein was trying to do in Pennsylvania, where they had these electronic voting systems with no paper trail.
[54:52.520 --> 55:05.060]  She tried to go into federal court and they threw her out for lack of standing because they said, we're not going to order a forensic examination of whether there was tampering with these particular machines because we need evidence of tampering.
[55:05.060 --> 55:09.680]  And without a forensic audit, she could have no evidence of tampering.
[55:09.800 --> 55:14.320]  So if she had a real chicken and egg problem, this takes it out of the equation.
[55:14.320 --> 55:16.680]  It's a really great idea.
[55:17.220 --> 55:23.780]  And this is a very old idea in the information technology world where you compare things with backups.
[55:23.780 --> 55:28.820]  You check with other versions of the same data to make sure everything's going smoothly.
[55:29.540 --> 55:39.200]  And, you know, so putting in some mechanism to basically check from the analog backup, that would mean a lot for the entire process.
[55:39.380 --> 55:41.040]  I think you're absolutely right.
[55:41.040 --> 55:47.460]  And I think there's still a hell of a lot the federal government could learn from the information technology community on these particular points.
[55:47.460 --> 55:49.380]  But this is a great step in the right direction.
[55:49.540 --> 55:52.660]  And the third point is a minor point, which is about information sharing.
[55:52.800 --> 55:57.660]  They obviously want more information to be shared between the federal government and state governments.
[55:58.120 --> 56:14.080]  And I think some sort of streamlined process to allow state workers to obtain security clearances, to access information from the intelligence community and whatnot, which will be quite interesting in light of the fact that marijuana is now legal at the state level in places like California.
[56:14.080 --> 56:25.140]  So, you know, finding Californians eligible for a security clearance in the intelligence community might be tricky, might be trickier, especially in California.
[56:26.320 --> 56:27.640]  So, yeah, this is great.
[56:27.800 --> 56:29.520]  So we'll go back to the original question since we only have it.
[56:30.220 --> 56:32.300]  So six senators proposed this.
[56:32.420 --> 56:32.800]  Six senators.
[56:32.900 --> 56:35.040]  What are their political affiliations?
[56:35.640 --> 56:37.960]  Is it all Democrat?
[56:39.000 --> 56:40.580]  Are they Russians?
[56:40.720 --> 56:41.360]  They're not Russians.
[56:41.860 --> 56:42.400]  Not yet.
[56:42.640 --> 56:42.980]  Not yet.
[56:44.000 --> 56:46.860]  I'm going to take a wild guess here and say they were maybe Democrats.
[56:47.740 --> 56:49.840]  Three Democrats and three Republicans.
[56:50.120 --> 56:50.480]  No kidding.
[56:50.760 --> 56:52.360]  It's a bipartisan bill.
[56:52.500 --> 56:53.040]  Right down the middle.
[56:53.220 --> 56:55.840]  So this is something that should just sail through Congress.
[56:56.000 --> 56:56.600]  I mean, let's see.
[56:56.660 --> 56:57.600]  Let's see how it goes.
[56:57.740 --> 57:08.040]  But, you know, it's still possible for some of these measures to take place by the midterm elections in 2018 if they get their butts in gear.
[57:09.180 --> 57:10.820]  Well, that's a very big if.
[57:11.360 --> 57:17.020]  If it's an if we'll be looking the if at for as much time as we need to.
[57:17.960 --> 57:22.100]  But that that comes comes close to wrapping it up here at off the hook.
[57:22.920 --> 57:35.920]  Send us email OTH at 2600 dot com tweeted us at hacker radio show and or just shout very loud out your nearest window and maybe we'll hear it.
[57:35.920 --> 57:40.340]  Maybe someone else will if you're in Bucharest, Emmanuel and Kyle might actually hear you.
[57:40.480 --> 57:41.160]  This is true.
[57:41.560 --> 57:47.520]  But if you're in Bucharest, I think shout in the local language because that's that's really the most effective way to do it there.
[57:47.520 --> 57:52.720]  Um, yes, 2600 meetings happening all over the world this Friday.
[57:53.300 --> 57:57.900]  Our local one happens in the atrium on 53rd Street and 3rd Avenue.
[57:58.100 --> 58:03.460]  But keep an eye on those weather forecasts because apparently we're being bombed by a cyclone or something.
[58:03.460 --> 58:09.000]  So do, uh, do your due diligence, keep an eye on the forecasts and be safe and warm out there.
[58:09.700 --> 58:16.200]  Um, check 2600 dot com slash meetings for info on meetings in your area or how to start one yourself.
[58:17.380 --> 58:22.480]  And with that, that brings us to the close of another edition of off the hook.
[58:23.300 --> 58:24.220]  This is Rob T.
[58:24.380 --> 58:28.600]  Firefly wishing you a very happy and healthy 2018.
[58:30.620 --> 58:31.640]  Have a very good night.
[58:39.810 --> 59:12.350]  Lines form on my face and hands Lines form from the ups and downs I'm in the middle without any plans I'm a boy and I'm a man I'm 18 and I don't know what I want 18 I just don't know what I want Eighteen, I gotta get away.
[59:15.250 --> 59:19.430]  I gotta get out of this place.
[59:20.610 --> 59:26.250]  I'll go runnin' in outer space, oh yeah.
[59:35.730 --> 59:41.610]  I got a baby's brain and an old man's heart.
[59:41.610 --> 59:46.450]  Took eighteen years to get this far.
[59:47.370 --> 59:51.690]  Don't always know what I'm talkin' about.
[59:52.510 --> 59:56.650]  Feels like I'm livin' in the middle of doubt.
[59:56.970 --> 01:00:01.990]  Cause I'm eighteen, I get confused every day.
[01:00:02.830 --> 01:00:06.750]  Eighteen, I just don't know what to say.
[01:00:07.610 --> 01:00:11.070]  Eighteen, I gotta get away.
[01:00:15.290 --> 01:00:16.250]  Whoa!
[01:00:17.050 --> 01:00:21.210]  Lines fall on my face and my hands.
[01:00:21.790 --> 01:00:25.110]  Lines fall on the left and right.
[01:00:26.170 --> 01:00:30.110]  I'm in the middle, the middle of life.
[01:00:31.150 --> 01:00:34.530]  I'm a boy and I'm a man.
[01:00:34.730 --> 01:00:37.390]  I'm eighteen and I like it.
[01:00:39.150 --> 01:00:42.110]  Yes, I like it.
[01:00:42.110 --> 01:00:52.590]  Well I like it, love it, like it, love it.
[01:00:52.630 --> 01:00:59.090]  Eighteen, eighteen, eighteen and I like it.