[00:00.000 --> 00:05.540]  5-1-6-6-2-0-3-6-0-2.
[00:05.760 --> 00:10.600]  That's 5-1-6-6-2-0-3-6-0-2.
[00:13.690 --> 00:16.090]  Hi, this is David Amram.
[00:16.310 --> 00:24.270]  You're listening to WBAI New York 99.5 on your FM dial and keep on listening.
[00:32.670 --> 00:33.730]  Yes, that's right.
[00:33.910 --> 00:34.530]  It's the truth.
[00:34.810 --> 00:41.350]  WBAI New York 99.5 FM commercial free since 1960 and hopefully many decades beyond.
[00:41.610 --> 00:46.770]  It's 8 o'clock and you're listening to the sounds of Off the Hook.
[00:48.690 --> 00:49.550]  Starting now.
[00:50.670 --> 00:51.270]  Really.
[02:18.100 --> 02:19.320]  And a very good evening to everybody.
[02:19.400 --> 02:20.320]  The program is Off the Hook.
[02:20.500 --> 02:22.760]  Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
[02:22.860 --> 02:24.320]  Joined tonight by Rob T.
[02:24.420 --> 02:24.800]  Firefly.
[02:25.000 --> 02:25.720]  Good evening.
[02:26.160 --> 02:26.560]  Alex.
[02:26.900 --> 02:27.280]  Good evening.
[02:27.460 --> 02:27.760]  Kyle.
[02:28.180 --> 02:28.940]  Yes, hey, what's up?
[02:29.140 --> 02:32.740]  And hopefully our listeners as well because this is a fundraising edition.
[02:33.040 --> 02:34.600]  Yes, the winter fundraiser has begun.
[02:34.600 --> 02:36.240]  I'm here at WBAI.
[02:36.340 --> 02:37.500]  I know everyone's been looking forward to it.
[02:37.640 --> 02:41.040]  It's an essential part of how this place stays alive.
[02:41.040 --> 02:42.660]  And yes, we are alive.
[02:42.660 --> 02:43.440]  We're still here.
[02:43.560 --> 02:45.100]  And we intend to stay.
[02:46.000 --> 02:52.280]  We'll get into what we're offering tonight because it's really something fantastic and amazing in just a few minutes.
[02:52.360 --> 02:56.260]  But first, a couple of updates on things that have been going on.
[02:56.420 --> 02:56.960]  What is this?
[02:57.020 --> 02:58.440]  I just got an email.
[02:58.800 --> 03:00.960]  We're still fighting to save net neutrality.
[03:01.060 --> 03:01.780]  We haven't given up yet.
[03:02.320 --> 03:03.380]  Who knows about this?
[03:03.380 --> 03:06.460]  I think Mr. Firefly does, actually.
[03:06.800 --> 03:07.460]  One more vote?
[03:07.460 --> 03:08.800]  February 27th?
[03:09.000 --> 03:09.700]  I'm going to put him on the spot.
[03:09.860 --> 03:11.220]  I think people haven't given up.
[03:11.320 --> 03:13.440]  I think this is about garnering more votes.
[03:13.600 --> 03:15.660]  Flood the Senate to save net neutrality.
[03:15.800 --> 03:22.440]  Now, this is all about what's happening on February 27th, which apparently is... that's it.
[03:22.440 --> 03:23.940]  It's the last chance.
[03:24.600 --> 03:26.320]  There's going to be a day of action.
[03:29.540 --> 03:38.880]  Websites and internet users, online communities, they're all going to come together to harness the power that we have to secure that one more hashtag, one more vote.
[03:38.880 --> 03:43.800]  We need to pass the CRA resolution in the Senate.
[03:43.800 --> 03:45.720]  That's the Congressional Review Act.
[03:46.340 --> 03:51.320]  We'll provide tools for everyone to make it super easy for your followers and visitors to take action.
[03:51.780 --> 03:55.920]  That's according to some... actually, you know what?
[03:55.920 --> 04:01.000]  I sent this to a printer-friendly site, so it doesn't have the URL that I printed it from.
[04:01.140 --> 04:02.760]  It comes from battleforthenet.com.
[04:02.820 --> 04:04.060]  Battleforthenet.com.
[04:04.740 --> 04:05.620]  Battleforthenet.com.
[04:05.960 --> 04:11.520]  Okay, so we actually can get something done here, maybe, hopefully?
[04:11.720 --> 04:14.840]  Well, this isn't the only action, I think, that is taking place.
[04:14.840 --> 04:28.000]  In fact, there's some interesting things going on with various states who are putting in legislation requiring any services procured to the state, whether it's universities or governments.
[04:28.360 --> 04:32.880]  All of their connectivity must adhere to net neutrality laws.
[04:33.020 --> 04:35.720]  I know that's true for New York and a couple other states.
[04:35.900 --> 04:43.360]  So it's going to happen regionally and on the local levels, but this is that federal fight that is still alive and kicking.
[04:43.360 --> 04:50.160]  So support for those local representatives, but also this federal fight, all of that action is necessary.
[04:50.160 --> 04:56.180]  If you need to go to Burger King to thank them, do that, whatever you feel.
[04:56.360 --> 05:00.160]  Okay, now you mentioned Burger King, and that's important that we point out what we're talking about here.
[05:00.280 --> 05:06.060]  Burger King put out a commercial, look it up on YouTube, and you'll see how they actually explain the situation.
[05:06.060 --> 05:14.840]  I think they did a better job than we've done, showing how net neutrality in other aspects of life is a good thing.
[05:15.260 --> 05:21.320]  You order a Whopper, and you can only get it in two minutes if you pay an extra 20 bucks.
[05:21.420 --> 05:22.900]  Otherwise, you have to wait 20 minutes.
[05:24.440 --> 05:29.580]  It's kind of a clumsy analogy, but it gets the point across to people who aren't in the tech world.
[05:29.580 --> 05:34.480]  Well, and in reality, it shows how we would not tolerate it in other avenues of life.
[05:34.660 --> 05:36.240]  If it came down...
[05:36.240 --> 05:36.340]  Exactly, yes.
[05:36.340 --> 05:44.380]  If it was food, if it was not this sort of virtual, non-tangible thing we think of as connectivity, we wouldn't tolerate it.
[05:44.420 --> 05:54.440]  Because it's a little bit more ethereal, less tangible, you can't hold it necessarily, and it's maybe a policy that's sort of invisible to you.
[05:54.560 --> 06:01.520]  It's easier to make people accept it, whereas with food, you would not stand for it.
[06:01.560 --> 06:08.140]  And I implore listeners, no matter what you think of fast food, no matter what you think of Burger King or whoever owns them, was it Pepsi?
[06:09.220 --> 06:09.620]  Yum?
[06:09.620 --> 06:10.220]  I don't know.
[06:10.280 --> 06:10.860]  I don't even know.
[06:10.920 --> 06:11.340]  I don't care.
[06:11.560 --> 06:14.940]  Whatever you think about eating meat, it's, you know, they didn't have to do this.
[06:15.020 --> 06:18.560]  They didn't have to come out and make this statement and wake people up.
[06:18.560 --> 06:19.080]  And they did.
[06:19.120 --> 06:19.860]  And that's important.
[06:20.060 --> 06:24.300]  So let's take the allies that we get and run with it.
[06:24.340 --> 06:25.320]  Now, here are some facts.
[06:26.580 --> 06:30.420]  Basically, the FCC voted to kill net neutrality on December 14th.
[06:30.820 --> 06:33.120]  Now, Congress can block that.
[06:33.220 --> 06:37.500]  They can block that repeal using that thing known as the Congressional Review Act.
[06:37.760 --> 06:40.680]  It takes a simple majority in the Senate and House.
[06:40.820 --> 06:42.140]  It can't be blocked by leadership.
[06:42.220 --> 06:44.280]  There can be no amendments or filibusters.
[06:45.180 --> 06:49.480]  Now, in the Senate, they need 51 votes.
[06:50.560 --> 06:51.080]  All right.
[06:51.280 --> 06:52.340]  There's a challenge ahead.
[06:52.580 --> 06:53.920]  Do you know how many votes they have right now?
[06:54.200 --> 06:54.900]  You want to guess?
[06:55.860 --> 06:56.180]  40.
[06:57.080 --> 06:58.020]  I think they have 50.
[06:58.220 --> 06:58.600]  Do they have 50?
[06:58.600 --> 06:59.300]  Oh, so you know.
[06:59.580 --> 07:00.140]  I said 40.
[07:00.180 --> 07:01.480]  I was trying to make a dramatic, Alex.
[07:01.480 --> 07:03.660]  I just guessed because I remember the title of the article.
[07:03.660 --> 07:03.680]  Yeah, it's 50.
[07:03.680 --> 07:03.960]  It's 50.
[07:04.120 --> 07:09.220]  I was hoping somebody would say 10, you know, or 12, and I could sort of string them along and say, no, we have 50.
[07:09.300 --> 07:10.080]  We only need one.
[07:10.240 --> 07:11.220]  Just one vote.
[07:11.220 --> 07:12.840]  I said it, and I immediately regretted it.
[07:12.920 --> 07:14.080]  Now I regret regretting it.
[07:14.160 --> 07:14.620]  All right, then.
[07:14.760 --> 07:14.980]  Okay.
[07:15.420 --> 07:17.520]  So, but it doesn't end there.
[07:17.920 --> 07:24.180]  After the 51, then they have to take the fight to the House, and there are already more than 100 co-sponsors.
[07:24.680 --> 07:27.700]  So a co-sponsor, I think that's a little bit better than just a yes.
[07:28.320 --> 07:30.920]  They'll need 218 votes there to win.
[07:30.960 --> 07:32.180]  So it's doable.
[07:32.440 --> 07:33.140]  It's definitely doable.
[07:33.360 --> 07:36.320]  And I think this is something that crosses the aisle.
[07:36.320 --> 07:40.680]  I think on the left, on the right, people see the benefit of net neutrality.
[07:40.680 --> 07:42.560]  So, again, what's that website, Rob?
[07:44.020 --> 07:44.660]  Battleforthenet.com.
[07:44.720 --> 07:45.080]  All right.
[07:45.200 --> 07:52.300]  And they've got more info on how you can participate, little bits of code you can put on your own sites if you have them, and all sorts of other info.
[07:52.360 --> 07:54.900]  And bits of code you can put on other people's websites if you get access to them.
[07:55.360 --> 07:56.420]  You didn't hear that from me.
[07:56.500 --> 07:56.880]  Oh, yes.
[07:56.940 --> 08:03.160]  Well, let's hope that this actually kicks off, I think, because the last couple of protests with regard to net neutrality, I think, have been kind of duds.
[08:03.220 --> 08:03.880]  Kicks off, really.
[08:03.960 --> 08:05.640]  You can't get the Super Bowl out of your head, can you?
[08:05.680 --> 08:05.980]  Oh, I know.
[08:06.120 --> 08:07.060]  Didn't you love the ads?
[08:07.540 --> 08:09.100]  The 30-second silence.
[08:09.100 --> 08:09.920]  Do you like that?
[08:10.080 --> 08:13.840]  That was paid for by the resistance movement.
[08:13.940 --> 08:14.380]  Did you know that?
[08:14.580 --> 08:15.020]  Oh, is that right?
[08:15.040 --> 08:16.720]  It was 30 seconds of a black screen.
[08:16.840 --> 08:21.420]  It was to get everybody just to sit down and think for a second about where we are as a nation.
[08:21.740 --> 08:22.540]  Did you see...
[08:22.540 --> 08:27.100]  This is a bit of a digression, but did you see the commercial about the guy whose bleep doesn't stink?
[08:27.700 --> 08:30.500]  Yes, I did see that, and I tried to forget about it.
[08:30.600 --> 08:30.980]  Oh, you did?
[08:31.060 --> 08:31.180]  Okay.
[08:31.240 --> 08:34.020]  Well, that guy is actually a friend of mine, the guy whose bleep doesn't stink.
[08:34.620 --> 08:36.360]  Well, that's really...
[08:36.360 --> 08:37.780]  That's a feather in your cap.
[08:38.040 --> 08:38.240]  I know.
[08:38.260 --> 08:38.580]  That's...
[08:38.580 --> 08:39.120]  Well, okay.
[08:39.120 --> 08:40.280]  And I can attest to it.
[08:40.400 --> 08:40.660]  Uh-huh.
[08:40.840 --> 08:42.520]  Add it to the other feathers you have in your cap.
[08:42.720 --> 08:42.860]  Yeah.
[08:43.100 --> 08:44.680]  That's just a pretty incredible point of information.
[08:44.800 --> 08:45.900]  He's never going to live that down.
[08:45.960 --> 08:46.240]  You know that.
[08:46.520 --> 08:47.060]  I know.
[08:47.220 --> 08:49.600]  You know, I thought I smelled his bleep on you that I didn't smell.
[08:49.800 --> 08:53.140]  Well, you know, during the Super Bowl, Alexa was said a million times.
[08:53.380 --> 08:53.420]  Oh, yes.
[08:53.420 --> 08:54.460]  Because there's all kinds of commercials.
[08:54.460 --> 09:05.420]  Now, apparently, Amazon has come up with a way to prevent Alexa from being triggered every time Alexa is said on commercials and things like that.
[09:06.940 --> 09:09.300]  Amazon basically thought about this years ago.
[09:09.460 --> 09:23.320]  And in September of 2014, the company patented techniques to prevent Alexa from waking up as part of a broadcast watched by a large population, such as during a popular sporting event or a TV show or things like that.
[09:23.320 --> 09:25.720]  Now, the patent broadly describes two techniques.
[09:25.860 --> 09:30.000]  The first calls for transmitting a snippet of a commercial to Echo devices before it airs.
[09:30.080 --> 09:31.880]  Every Alexa has an Echo device.
[09:32.220 --> 09:38.800]  Then the Echo can compare live commands to the acoustic fingerprint of the snippet to determine whether the commands are authentic.
[09:38.940 --> 09:45.320]  So basically, if you have a commercial, you transmit a snippet before it airs.
[09:45.400 --> 09:53.800]  I'm not sure when they do this, how they do this exactly, but your Echo device will know that this is not real and won't respond to it.
[09:54.060 --> 10:02.580]  Now, the second tactic describes how a commercial itself could transmit an inaudible acoustic signal to tell Alexa to ignore its wake world.
[10:02.700 --> 10:15.080]  And this actually happened during the Super Bowl because there was a commercial that said Alexa a lot of times, and I tried to get the attention of my Alexa, and she wouldn't respond.
[10:15.360 --> 10:16.600]  She wouldn't respond at all.
[10:16.600 --> 10:22.240]  So some kind of inaudible signal was sent, and it basically put Alexa to sleep.
[10:22.400 --> 10:33.740]  Yeah, I love the idea of this just from a hacker's perspective as well because if you think about it, this is sort of like phone freaking in a sense when everything ran off tones and signals of tones and, you know, DTMS, for an example.
[10:33.900 --> 10:41.180]  So, you know, like the famed blue boxes, right, were based off certain tones that were sort of secretive back in the day.
[10:41.180 --> 10:50.440]  And I think it would probably or will probably be replicated, these inaudible tones that cause an Alexa to ignore its users.
[10:50.440 --> 10:57.280]  I think it could be a hell of a lot of fun to create something that replicates that, and I'm sure it'll be reverse engineered before you know it.
[10:57.400 --> 11:04.980]  Well, as hackers, definitely, like, from that perspective, understanding exactly what's going on, how it works, and the familiarity.
[11:04.980 --> 11:15.080]  Like you said, you mentioned in-band signaling, what they're doing, the snippet, I think of as like a thumbnail, you know, like smaller versions of images.
[11:16.340 --> 11:18.320]  That is the way I think of that.
[11:18.460 --> 11:31.080]  And I think the frequency in-band silencing of the wake word is done through a gap.
[11:31.080 --> 11:36.420]  So it's sort of like a barcode of the frequency spectrum that the device picks up on.
[11:36.580 --> 11:50.000]  So it's maybe it's listening on a certain band, and the word itself in the commercial sounds very much like it would be in that range, but it has gaps missing in the spectrum of audio.
[11:50.160 --> 11:51.400]  Well, there's also something else.
[11:51.480 --> 11:59.020]  I found some more information on this, and apparently has to do with the number of responses that the cloud services are getting at the same time.
[11:59.020 --> 12:12.900]  So basically, according to this post that explained the whole thing, when multiple devices start waking up simultaneously from a broadcast event, similar audio is streaming to Alexa's cloud services from all the Alexa's, all the Echo devices throughout the country.
[12:13.060 --> 12:19.780]  An algorithm within Amazon's cloud detects matching audio from distinct devices and prevents additional devices from responding.
[12:20.020 --> 12:21.380]  So they have layers of it.
[12:21.460 --> 12:28.300]  Let's say, yeah, suddenly there's a thousand requests for the exact same thing from Alexa's all over the world.
[12:29.000 --> 12:35.800]  That tells the cloud that, yeah, this is a broadcast, and additional Alexa should not respond.
[12:36.100 --> 12:44.400]  The dynamic fingerprinting, they say, isn't perfect, but as many as 80% to 90% of devices won't respond to these broadcasts thanks to the dynamic creation of the fingerprint.
[12:44.520 --> 12:45.260]  So that's how they do it.
[12:45.720 --> 12:52.220]  But understanding that, you could exploit that and effectively jam the usefulness of those devices.
[12:52.520 --> 13:03.600]  And as we add more and more functionality to home attendance like this, your imagination could... is the only limit for how it could be exploited.
[13:03.640 --> 13:10.980]  I'd love to see some talks at Hope about how to jam Alexa's or how to make them do unintentional things.
[13:11.320 --> 13:14.240]  And there's various other Alexa hacks, because I know they're out there.
[13:14.240 --> 13:14.240]  Sure.
[13:14.560 --> 13:18.800]  And as far as I know, the old phone-freaking rules still apply.
[13:18.800 --> 13:25.660]  So the first individual to make a box that can jam an Alexa, I think, gets to decide what color the box's name is.
[13:26.600 --> 13:27.040]  Wow.
[13:27.580 --> 13:31.340]  Perhaps we should name it the magenta box in honor of last week's broadcast.
[13:31.700 --> 13:32.060]  Okay.
[13:32.240 --> 13:33.440]  Well, you know, we've...
[13:33.440 --> 13:35.500]  But we're preempting whoever is...
[13:35.500 --> 13:36.920]  We've had magenta boxes in the past.
[13:37.060 --> 13:41.580]  I forget what... Well, yeah, there is a magenta box somewhere in the hacker world.
[13:41.580 --> 13:42.060]  I know that.
[13:42.060 --> 13:43.860]  We'll certainly let the market decide.
[13:44.180 --> 13:44.280]  Yeah.
[13:44.800 --> 13:45.280]  But...
[13:45.280 --> 13:45.620]  Go ahead.
[13:45.920 --> 13:46.220]  Oh, no.
[13:46.280 --> 13:52.900]  I was just wanting to reiterate the importance of net neutrality in watching the football game.
[13:53.120 --> 14:04.020]  So, you know, that just as a background, you know, it's still important because, you know, how you get your entertainment and how all of commerce and all this is affected by it.
[14:04.100 --> 14:06.500]  But that's already something we covered.
[14:06.780 --> 14:07.180]  So...
[14:07.180 --> 14:07.720]  Well, okay.
[14:08.000 --> 14:17.400]  Speaking of privacy and various things like that, which is definitely something that you worry about with Alexa devices.
[14:17.720 --> 14:20.240]  Are they transmitting things they shouldn't be transmitting?
[14:20.340 --> 14:21.140]  Are they eavesdropping?
[14:21.660 --> 14:24.780]  There's all kinds of valid concerns that many of us have.
[14:25.820 --> 14:29.420]  We noticed something coming back into the country a few weeks ago, Kyle and I.
[14:29.560 --> 14:29.940]  Oh, yeah.
[14:29.940 --> 14:34.640]  When we arrived back from Iceland, or actually it didn't matter where we came from.
[14:35.600 --> 14:43.440]  Basically, I don't know if we've talked about this in the past over the years, but when you come into the country, there's two lines.
[14:43.600 --> 14:44.300]  There's a line for U.S.
[14:44.380 --> 14:50.820]  citizens and a line for people from other countries that have visas or have to go through a different kind of screening.
[14:50.820 --> 14:52.200]  They have their picture taken.
[14:52.380 --> 14:53.720]  They have their fingerprints taken.
[14:53.920 --> 14:54.300]  All right.
[14:54.380 --> 15:00.060]  And that's always been a big deal because we don't want to have to deal with that ourselves.
[15:00.660 --> 15:06.420]  And as long as it's for people that are visiting this country, it wasn't that big a deal.
[15:06.600 --> 15:07.420]  But guess what?
[15:07.720 --> 15:09.160]  It's no longer the case.
[15:09.360 --> 15:14.080]  Now you do have your picture taken when you come into the country if you're an American citizen.
[15:14.460 --> 15:17.320]  So that just has kind of quietly faded away.
[15:17.980 --> 15:24.240]  And while they don't take our fingerprints yet, they are basically doing facial recognition.
[15:24.540 --> 15:28.600]  They're doing all kinds of things that would have been unheard of only a few years ago.
[15:28.840 --> 15:29.280]  Yeah.
[15:29.340 --> 15:38.520]  I just want to emphasize, too, that when this occurred, it was, I think, Patriot Act and post-9-11 legislation that allowed this stuff to creep in.
[15:39.040 --> 15:51.260]  The webcams and fingerprinting devices were at the counter with the border agent and actually basically extra devices connected to their system.
[15:51.660 --> 15:54.840]  What's distinct about this system is that they're kiosks.
[15:55.220 --> 16:05.160]  And the kiosk itself is basically to speed up the intake or the flow of passengers through that system.
[16:05.500 --> 16:12.040]  And the unusual part is that people from the country are subjected to this.
[16:12.260 --> 16:19.420]  As you said, it was at the counter with a border agent and they would only subject people who were not themselves American citizens.
[16:20.420 --> 16:25.260]  What's going on here with these kiosks, very similar stuff is going on with the EU, by the way.
[16:25.380 --> 16:30.560]  I mean, you went through a couple of them at borders in Europe moving throughout.
[16:30.780 --> 16:32.400]  And basically, it's like a camera on a door.
[16:32.660 --> 16:36.360]  But these are basically little machines that are stationary.
[16:36.560 --> 16:39.240]  They don't have anything moving up and down.
[16:39.420 --> 16:45.740]  And as you said, it's got a very distinct camera that lights up lights so your face is not dark.
[16:45.940 --> 16:51.180]  And, you know, you're told to... and it's all automated to remove your hat.
[16:51.340 --> 16:52.280]  All these things.
[16:52.460 --> 17:03.500]  But they're not using something that is right next to where you hold your passport to initiate the whole automated check-in kind of thing, which is four fingerprints.
[17:03.900 --> 17:05.380]  So it's right there.
[17:05.520 --> 17:06.500]  It's all in one.
[17:06.900 --> 17:11.140]  And they're conditioning, I would say, conditioning people to go through them.
[17:11.360 --> 17:15.660]  And it's maybe for the sake of efficiency, for the sake of, you know, queuing up.
[17:15.760 --> 17:20.420]  It's basically a receipt that it prints out this photo of you and a bunch of other information.
[17:20.420 --> 17:22.320]  Of course, you can't photograph it.
[17:22.460 --> 17:24.760]  We tried to kind of commit to memory.
[17:25.180 --> 17:26.500]  We were in different parts of the line.
[17:26.580 --> 17:30.760]  I got out of line to stand next to you so we could compare what the two look like.
[17:31.160 --> 17:32.860]  And we had to do this very quickly.
[17:32.960 --> 17:34.380]  We both noticed it immediately.
[17:34.720 --> 17:37.780]  There's a long 15-digit code, alpha numeric code.
[17:38.020 --> 17:39.000]  And it was identical.
[17:39.380 --> 17:41.000]  It was the exact same thing.
[17:41.180 --> 17:44.220]  So it seems like that would be a code that would be unique for every person.
[17:44.340 --> 17:44.840]  It's not.
[17:45.000 --> 17:45.800]  It was the same.
[17:46.240 --> 17:54.240]  There's another code that's different for every machine, but there was no uniquely identifiable series of digits there.
[17:54.360 --> 17:56.420]  But your face obviously was something unique.
[17:56.420 --> 17:58.960]  And I think your name is associated on there.
[17:59.100 --> 18:01.840]  And I believe passport number is definitely on there.
[18:01.920 --> 18:16.360]  But it's essentially like a little piece of like a receipt that comes out of this thing that is in addition to the other two documents you have, which would be your immigration, your entry form that you fill out of declarations.
[18:16.540 --> 18:17.440]  And then, of course, your passport.
[18:17.760 --> 18:20.580]  So now three documents and this automated kiosk.
[18:20.680 --> 18:22.280]  And you're still talking to a border agent.
[18:22.280 --> 18:23.640]  Yeah, you don't save any time.
[18:23.800 --> 18:24.160]  That's the thing.
[18:24.320 --> 18:30.460]  Used to be you got online and you'd hand your passport and that little customs form to an agent.
[18:30.680 --> 18:37.160]  You still do that except now you stand online for a little kiosk before that where you hold your passport down on glass.
[18:37.340 --> 18:39.860]  It scans, it takes your picture and prints out a little receipt.
[18:40.120 --> 18:42.220]  You go to the same guy and hand that to him as well.
[18:42.320 --> 18:43.620]  That initiates it, the passport.
[18:43.780 --> 18:45.000]  But yeah, it's the same process.
[18:45.000 --> 18:45.340]  Yeah.
[18:45.500 --> 18:46.980]  So you're not saving any time.
[18:47.140 --> 18:48.900]  It's just another step and it's more surveillance.
[18:49.160 --> 18:52.780]  Now, Kyle, you said that the four fingerprints are right next to you.
[18:52.880 --> 18:54.000]  You mean your hand is next to it?
[18:54.060 --> 18:56.220]  Or did you see an actual device for four fingerprints?
[18:56.600 --> 18:56.940]  No, no, no.
[18:57.180 --> 19:06.820]  It's a hand scanner, but it doesn't really have any like outline for where you put your individual fingers.
[19:06.820 --> 19:06.980]  But it was there.
[19:07.260 --> 19:11.140]  But it's absolutely right next to where you would put your passport.
[19:11.140 --> 19:13.840]  So it's basically like two scanners side by side.
[19:14.080 --> 19:15.860]  One is for your documents.
[19:16.200 --> 19:17.440]  Okay, so your passport.
[19:17.760 --> 19:26.860]  And that basically picks up the standardized barcode and name and number, passport number, that information on the bottom of your identity page.
[19:26.960 --> 19:35.240]  And then also it'll bring in the other information, the template stuff for like your picture, date of birth, you know, where it was issued, all that.
[19:35.420 --> 19:37.380]  So that becomes part of what they scan.
[19:37.540 --> 19:45.260]  They take a current picture of you that's very low resolution on what they print out, but you have no idea what they're able to store it as.
[19:45.440 --> 19:58.240]  So, I mean, I'm not saying they're scanning things like your iris, but definitely your face could be updated in whatever they might already have of your, you know, eye placement.
[19:58.520 --> 20:04.060]  Well, you know, it's interesting because this is something that they were very clear about when it was introduced back, I believe, in 2004.
[20:05.020 --> 20:08.940]  What this is only going to be for foreigners, only going to be for people visiting the United States.
[20:09.100 --> 20:13.080]  And now it just quietly is starting to affect all of us.
[20:13.780 --> 20:18.180]  And, you know, I guess we're not surprised and many people don't object.
[20:18.340 --> 20:19.800]  They say, okay, it's good for security.
[20:19.900 --> 20:22.420]  Of course, you're not leaving the country, you're entering the country.
[20:22.420 --> 20:24.300]  So I'm not really sure what kind of security that is.
[20:24.480 --> 20:37.920]  There is also, according to this article from Ars Technica from last July, DHS has been pushing a plan that if enacted, would require all Americans to submit to a facial recognition scan when departing the country.
[20:38.680 --> 20:49.640]  According to the Associated Press, which first reported the plan, facial scanning pilot programs are already underway at six American airports, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, New York City, and Washington, D.C.
[20:50.880 --> 21:01.140]  Basically, DHS said the only way for an individual to ensure he or she is not subject to collection of biometric information when traveling internationally is to refrain from traveling.
[21:01.620 --> 21:02.200]  Isn't that nice?
[21:02.620 --> 21:03.280]  Aren't they helpful?
[21:03.740 --> 21:04.620]  Yeah, stay in the homeland.
[21:04.840 --> 21:09.840]  And another aspect of this is it is all under the auspices of the Homeland Security arm.
[21:10.080 --> 21:22.420]  I'm not sure how that exactly in detail how that helps implement a lot of this stuff, but it certainly gets lumped in with a lot of the legislation and stuff that authorizes spending for these things.
[21:22.600 --> 21:24.500]  And essentially, the equipment is there.
[21:24.620 --> 21:33.460]  The equipment is there to unmask, scan people's faces, correlate it with a national identity, which would be your passport.
[21:33.800 --> 21:43.280]  And if they so choose, require you place your hands there and take biometrics from your finger in the form of fingerprints.
[21:43.640 --> 21:46.580]  So right there, a lot of concerning things.
[21:46.580 --> 21:52.200]  It's not completely implemented and very little explanation of it was available.
[21:52.880 --> 21:55.900]  And of course, you can't document any of it at the border.
[21:56.260 --> 21:57.720]  No, but we're documenting it here.
[21:57.940 --> 21:58.780]  Yeah, that's what it was.
[21:58.840 --> 21:59.960]  I'm so glad you brought that up.
[22:00.100 --> 22:00.960]  Yeah, we're paying attention.
[22:01.160 --> 22:01.840]  That was remarkable.
[22:02.000 --> 22:08.040]  I think we'd done it before at that particular airport, but... Wait a minute, you know what I should have done?
[22:08.180 --> 22:09.040]  I just thought of this now.
[22:09.380 --> 22:14.180]  I should have gotten a receipt and then pretended like I didn't get a receipt and just go back and do it again.
[22:14.600 --> 22:16.120]  Would they have known I did it twice?
[22:16.660 --> 22:23.280]  Yeah, there's there should be people out there who maybe have a little extra time at the border.
[22:23.640 --> 22:24.080]  Do this.
[22:24.400 --> 22:35.580]  Okay, hackers, if you're coming back into the country, and you find yourself in one of these kiosks, you know, follow the directions, but try and do a sleight of hand and get the thing in your pocket and just say, Oh, it didn't work.
[22:35.720 --> 22:36.420]  I'll try it again.
[22:36.600 --> 22:40.780]  Keep a copy of one and then do it again if it lets you and present that one.
[22:40.940 --> 22:50.900]  I mean, you know, if if you judge this to be, you know, an accident that that you're likely to make, you didn't hear it from us.
[22:51.040 --> 22:56.660]  But you know, don't don't necessarily look at making that kind of mistake as a bad thing.
[22:56.740 --> 22:58.500]  It could be very interesting.
[22:58.680 --> 23:02.880]  This is so we can analyze the the numbers and implementation.
[23:02.880 --> 23:03.620]  Yeah, exactly.
[23:03.780 --> 23:05.280]  How how is it being handled?
[23:06.280 --> 23:14.660]  I would venture a guess that the 15 digit code that alphanumeric code that was the same between the two of you was probably some kind of coding of the flight number that you were on.
[23:14.720 --> 23:15.340]  That's my guess.
[23:15.540 --> 23:17.880]  Why 15 alphanumeric characters?
[23:18.000 --> 23:18.860]  That seems an awful lot.
[23:18.960 --> 23:19.960]  Why not just the flight number?
[23:20.120 --> 23:24.920]  Yeah, maybe it contains additional information along with the flight, like your seat number and whatnot.
[23:25.300 --> 23:25.860]  Could have been batches.
[23:25.860 --> 23:26.500]  Plus, how do they know?
[23:26.540 --> 23:27.600]  How do they know the flight number?
[23:27.760 --> 23:29.240]  You know, you just you're showing up at a kiosk.
[23:29.320 --> 23:31.140]  A lot of different people are showing up at the same time.
[23:31.540 --> 23:33.020]  Waves of people, multiple flights.
[23:33.300 --> 23:36.780]  Yeah, as the planes come in, when I came into the U.S.
[23:36.820 --> 23:42.660]  from Dubai about two weeks ago, I actually got to skip that entire thing because there was a bottleneck at that at the kiosk station.
[23:42.840 --> 23:44.140]  So it was funny.
[23:44.280 --> 23:48.660]  My partner, John, had to go to the kiosks and he was sort of ahead of me in line.
[23:48.820 --> 23:49.020]  Sure.
[23:49.160 --> 23:50.880]  And I got to go directly to the desk.
[23:51.020 --> 23:52.300]  So I skipped the entire thing.
[23:52.440 --> 23:56.800]  I actually wanted to go through the kiosks, of course, for the same reasons that we are just discussing.
[23:57.300 --> 24:00.000]  But I just skipped the whole thing because it was causing a bottleneck.
[24:00.160 --> 24:01.900]  So there's an efficiency issue.
[24:02.280 --> 24:11.300]  But, you know, Kyle, I mentioned something I think really important, which is this notion of function creep of privacy and invasive technology at the border.
[24:11.980 --> 24:20.300]  And, you know, and you mentioned something, Emanuel, that I think is also very interesting that the policy statements about this were that they were never going to be used against U.S.
[24:20.380 --> 24:20.600]  citizens.
[24:21.080 --> 24:30.440]  It's so hard for us to prevent this kind of function creep because borders have for a very long time been essentially Fourth Amendment free zones.
[24:30.440 --> 24:34.360]  There's very, very little you can do to fight privacy invasions at the border.
[24:35.060 --> 24:37.700]  The legal precedent on this is really quite clear.
[24:37.700 --> 24:41.380]  You have basically almost no privacy rights at a border.
[24:41.540 --> 24:44.680]  So they can continue to implement this and continue to implement it.
[24:44.960 --> 24:53.140]  The only way that we can really fight back is to do it from a political perspective, you know, much the same way that we're fighting back with regard to net neutrality.
[24:53.300 --> 24:59.000]  So I don't think that we will win in the courts when it comes to privacy related issues at the border, unfortunately.
[24:59.320 --> 25:08.140]  And also borders, border patrols operate many miles away from borders, a couple of hundred miles, I believe.
[25:08.280 --> 25:08.440]  Yes.
[25:08.520 --> 25:11.180]  And the entire shoreline is considered a border.
[25:11.400 --> 25:12.500]  So that includes us.
[25:12.660 --> 25:14.880]  That includes virtually the entire country, almost.
[25:15.520 --> 25:19.860]  So it's really, yeah, we lose more and more privacy by the day, it seems.
[25:20.060 --> 25:23.740]  But, you know, if we can't win in court, we can at least know about this.
[25:23.820 --> 25:30.740]  And we can at least find ways to subvert the system or just educate people about it so that we know exactly what it is we're giving away.
[25:30.940 --> 25:31.800]  That's exactly right.
[25:32.040 --> 25:36.380]  And give people the opportunity to understand the mechanism of doing this on mass, right?
[25:36.520 --> 25:43.500]  So these cute little kiosks become like speed cameras or other little forms of collecting information.
[25:43.780 --> 25:45.260]  And it has to be affordable.
[25:45.480 --> 25:54.980]  It has to be a way for a bureaucracy to do that to a lot of people, uh, garner as much information as possible and repurpose it and handle it, um, to their liking.
[25:55.240 --> 25:55.340]  Right.
[25:55.460 --> 26:02.140]  But it's through these little, um, these, these avenues, these little, um, machines and, and forms of technology.
[26:02.480 --> 26:06.200]  And, uh, yeah, just, it should be on everyone's mind when you're passing through.
[26:06.440 --> 26:13.320]  And Alex, I think your experience really illustrates how actually non-vital this, uh, this whole rigamarole is to the process of traveling.
[26:13.320 --> 26:21.060]  If it's something that they could just switch off if they feel like it and you're, you know, they're kind of a little backed up and a little, uh, you know, pressed for time and they're like, eh, skip it for now.
[26:21.420 --> 26:21.580]  Yeah.
[26:21.920 --> 26:22.740]  That was exactly right.
[26:22.820 --> 26:23.320]  That was my thought.
[26:23.420 --> 26:23.960]  All right.
[26:24.060 --> 26:25.360]  Well, that sounds good to me.
[26:25.540 --> 26:29.860]  I mean, I'm still gonna have to wait for my baggage, but, uh, that's if you, if you have baggage to wait for.
[26:30.000 --> 26:30.500]  That's true.
[26:30.600 --> 26:30.900]  That's true.
[26:31.400 --> 26:35.440]  Hey, uh, we are, as mentioned in the middle of a, uh, a fun drive.
[26:35.600 --> 26:36.880]  Actually, we're at the beginning of a fun drive.
[26:36.980 --> 26:38.740]  This is the first week and there's going to be a few of them.
[26:39.000 --> 26:43.680]  Uh, but it's, uh, I see our, our goal is $500,099 and 50 cents.
[26:43.900 --> 26:44.340]  Oh, that's cute.
[26:44.460 --> 26:45.620]  99.5.
[26:45.620 --> 26:46.200]  I like that.
[26:46.640 --> 26:49.580]  Um, and, uh, we're not quite there yet because we just started.
[26:49.860 --> 26:59.620]  Um, but, um, we have something kind of special to offer tonight, uh, during this particular program, uh, and something I think we can all use.
[26:59.920 --> 27:02.240]  And that is a lawyer.
[27:02.880 --> 27:04.720]  We can use legal advice.
[27:04.900 --> 27:08.760]  We can use legal, uh, remedies of one sort or another.
[27:09.420 --> 27:12.400]  And Alex, I believe you are the person stepping forward.
[27:12.400 --> 27:20.480]  Um, and you've done this before, uh, to, to, to, uh, great, um, um, I guess, appreciation from the people that have pledged for this.
[27:20.660 --> 27:32.280]  Uh, but you're offering three hours of, um, of legal time, uh, in, in exchange for a pledge of, uh, $300, which is incredibly discounted.
[27:32.320 --> 27:39.540]  If you've ever had a lawyer, ever had good legal representation, uh, three hours can easily run you, uh, many thousands of dollars.
[27:40.360 --> 27:46.120]  Um, tell us some of the things that, that you can offer people who, uh, who might be interested in, in, uh, participating in this.
[27:46.220 --> 27:49.400]  And, uh, the number by the way is 516-620-3602.
[27:49.680 --> 27:55.140]  Uh, if you want to get the legal consultation with Blackstone Law Group is, is the official name of that.
[27:55.240 --> 27:58.820]  So tell the person on the other end of the phone call that that is what you want to pledge for.
[27:58.880 --> 28:00.680]  We only have five of these.
[28:01.160 --> 28:05.220]  So if they, um, if they run out this hour, that's it.
[28:05.640 --> 28:11.300]  I mean, there's only so much time Alex can donate and you're donating 15 hours of legal consulting, which is incredible.
[28:11.600 --> 28:15.360]  Uh, but just an indication of the kinds of things that we can do if we put our heads together.
[28:15.520 --> 28:16.640]  Yeah, you're absolutely right.
[28:16.640 --> 28:18.580]  And I'm, I'm happy to do this again.
[28:18.580 --> 28:21.100]  We did it last year, I think with great success.
[28:21.340 --> 28:22.440]  And like you said, great appreciation.
[28:22.640 --> 28:31.960]  And in fact, we wound up working on some really interesting matters for some WBAI listeners and, uh, off the hook listeners and, um, and, and it was fun.
[28:32.100 --> 28:33.380]  And so let's do it again.
[28:33.620 --> 28:41.080]  And like you said, we only have five of these because I, I can't give away too much time and God forbid everybody wants to use them at exactly the same moment.
[28:41.220 --> 28:42.740]  It will be a rather busy week.
[28:43.060 --> 28:46.960]  But, um, you know, a couple of things I should mention about me and my law firm.
[28:47.300 --> 28:54.720]  Uh, you know, I started out essentially as a hacker in the nineties, you know, hanging out at 2600 meetings back starting, I think in 1994.
[28:55.400 --> 29:02.420]  And then, uh, I made some wrong turns in life and, uh, wound up in law school, which was, uh, yeah, definitely a mistake.
[29:02.760 --> 29:10.440]  But, uh, from there, it was an interesting background because, uh, as a hacker in the nineties, I've always kind of maintained that mentality and philosophy.
[29:10.700 --> 29:12.620]  I always still consider myself a hacker.
[29:13.160 --> 29:18.880]  Um, and I wound up working in places where I never really would have expected working.
[29:19.040 --> 29:20.760]  I worked for the army JAG Corps.
[29:20.900 --> 29:30.020]  I worked, uh, at, uh, Dartmouth colleges Institute for security technology studies, which did a lot of counter terrorism and cyber security research as a federally funded research center.
[29:30.320 --> 29:32.600]  Um, and that was all open source intelligence.
[29:32.780 --> 29:50.320]  And then I actually worked in the intelligence community itself at, at CIA for a little while in their council's office, then wound up clerking at the court of appeals for the armed forces, then went in, uh, sort of sold my soul for a while and went with a very big law firm by the name of Steptoe and Johnson,
[29:50.560 --> 29:52.800]  first in Washington, DC, then New York.
[29:53.180 --> 29:58.020]  Then I wound up moving to London dealing with primarily information security law.
[29:58.100 --> 30:03.220]  And then I was the chief compliance officer of a major, uh, conglomerate based out of London.
[30:03.400 --> 30:08.880]  Uh, and then a couple of years ago, I decided I, uh, did not want to have bosses anymore.
[30:08.960 --> 30:13.640]  And a couple of my partners from Steptoe and I got together and we formed the Blackstone law group in New York.
[30:13.780 --> 30:19.860]  And what we do is we focus on technology related issues and we focus a lot on information security.
[30:20.400 --> 30:36.200]  So part of what we deal with are information security audits, a lot of, you know, uh, sort of auditing the posture of a particular company, determining whether or not somebody is compliant with, let's say the department of financial services, cyber security regulations,
[30:36.480 --> 30:40.260]  any kind of federal standards, NIST standards when it comes to cyber security.
[30:40.440 --> 30:44.480]  We deal a lot with investigations, uh, when somebody is hacked or breached.
[30:44.900 --> 30:48.200]  Uh, we try to hack down, we try to find the bad guys.
[30:48.360 --> 30:49.420]  We don't necessarily hack back.
[30:49.820 --> 31:03.620]  Can, can you give us, uh, the details of, of one of the cases that you took on from the last, um, last fundraiser, you know, what, what you did and, uh, you know, uh, who it was for and just, uh, as much as you... Well, the short answer to that is no.
[31:04.320 --> 31:05.060]  What do you mean no?
[31:05.280 --> 31:07.060]  You can't reveal that information?
[31:07.800 --> 31:13.280]  Uh, I could reveal that information, but I'd probably lose my law license, especially if I did it on the radio as well.
[31:13.280 --> 31:13.440]  Okay.
[31:13.520 --> 31:15.040]  Because we have... Do it out in the hallway later?
[31:15.160 --> 31:18.520]  Can we, uh, exchange, uh, some confidential information about, uh, clients?
[31:18.620 --> 31:22.220]  Or do you, are you one of the people that kind of protects that information?
[31:22.540 --> 31:25.580]  Well, I have a legal duty to protect that information.
[31:25.720 --> 31:27.200]  It's called the attorney-client privilege.
[31:27.500 --> 31:35.260]  So if somebody were to contact me and utilize this particular service, um, I would never be able to discuss their matter on the radio.
[31:35.480 --> 31:35.980]  God forbid.
[31:36.400 --> 31:37.240]  I mean, geez.
[31:37.740 --> 31:41.800]  I mean, you know, you and I don't discuss any of your private matters on the radio.
[31:41.960 --> 31:42.800]  Well, we try not to.
[31:42.980 --> 31:43.640]  We don't.
[31:43.740 --> 31:45.040]  They inevitably come up, but yes.
[31:45.180 --> 31:46.120]  I could, I guess.
[31:46.300 --> 31:48.780]  But, um, no, we, we absolutely cannot.
[31:48.960 --> 31:50.280]  Everything has to be held in confidence.
[31:50.520 --> 31:56.300]  And, um, and that's actually something that's really important, especially when it comes to information security issues, because a lot of
[32:01.460 --> 32:14.280]  some kind of risk assessment of their networks, uh, any kind of penetration testing, uh, if you directly contract with that party and then they hand over to you a document that lists all of your vulnerabilities, and let's say you only have the budget to address 10 of them,
[32:14.340 --> 32:21.660]  and you did not do this through, let's say, a law firm that engaged that particular pen tester, that's not a privileged document.
[32:21.660 --> 32:33.180]  So if you get breached and you find yourself staring down the wrong end of a lawsuit, let's say a plaintiff's class action for a data breach, you're probably going to have to hand over those documents that listed all of your vulnerabilities.
[32:33.600 --> 32:35.980]  And that's what the plaintiff's bar looks for now.
[32:36.100 --> 32:48.600]  And that's actually, people are really waking up that, um, well, very often companies do the work of the plaintiff's bar for them when they have these risk assessments done without a law firm as being an intermediary.
[32:48.700 --> 33:00.220]  So that actually is one of the things that we could help do for people, is if they are about to perform a risk assessment or a pen test, uh, we would happily engage that pen tester for you.
[33:00.220 --> 33:05.240]  You could engage us, and then we could engage that pen tester, and then they would be operating as our agent.
[33:05.440 --> 33:09.400]  And actually we do this a lot with private investigators, with people like Steve Rombaum.
[33:09.980 --> 33:13.900]  Um, and their work product then is privileged as well.
[33:14.040 --> 33:19.620]  So you could resist having to hand that over to, let's say, the government, if it's a regulator, if it's the FTC.
[33:19.620 --> 33:23.900]  No, it's three hours, it's three hours enough time, uh, for somebody engaged in a pen test.
[33:24.120 --> 33:26.900]  It depends on what the scope of the engagement is for the pen test.
[33:27.060 --> 33:28.840]  Sometimes it may be, sometimes it isn't.
[33:29.400 --> 33:48.600]  Um, you know, another thing that we do as well is we actually have developed our own internal systems over the last year and a half or so about, uh, domain-related intelligence and DNS-related intelligence where we perform an assessment of an organization and determine whether there are any threats or mounted threats against them in the domain name space.
[33:48.900 --> 33:55.780]  And we have developed a lot of proprietary systems to determine what are the full universe of cyber squatters around you.
[33:56.200 --> 34:03.160]  Um, and we produce that basically on a, uh, generally on a bi-monthly basis for a lot of our clients.
[34:03.580 --> 34:05.540]  That's a, it can be pretty expensive.
[34:05.700 --> 34:10.040]  We would probably be able to do that for one of these particular premiums.
[34:10.120 --> 34:13.440]  I'm gonna ask you for, for some more info on that in just a second.
[34:13.560 --> 34:16.700]  But the, the number is 516-620-3602.
[34:16.800 --> 34:23.240]  What Alex is offering is three hours of legal consultation with one of the leading law firms, Blackstone Law Group.
[34:23.440 --> 34:27.740]  Um, uh, pledge of $300, 516-620-3602.
[34:27.840 --> 34:40.060]  Now, uh, what you're talking about here with domain names, can you give me, um, a scenario where a listener might find themselves involved, uh, with a domain that they would need this kind of service?
[34:40.500 --> 34:40.600]  Sure.
[34:40.720 --> 34:47.260]  Let's say you, your organization has been attacked, you know, with, uh, some kind of attempt at spear phishing.
[34:47.440 --> 34:52.000]  A lot of times spear phishers will use a confusingly similar domain name to your actual domain name.
[34:52.400 --> 34:56.900]  So if it's, let's say... So wabi.org instead of WBAI.
[34:56.900 --> 34:57.140]  Exactly.
[34:57.420 --> 34:59.100]  That would be 2600 out of it, but okay.
[34:59.240 --> 34:59.380]  Yeah, sure.
[34:59.600 --> 34:59.660]  Yeah.
[34:59.760 --> 35:06.460]  W-A-B-I or W-B-A-I radio dot dot org or something or W-B-A-I dash radio dot org.
[35:06.580 --> 35:08.080]  I mean... Don't give our listeners ideas.
[35:08.460 --> 35:10.040]  People are registering there as we speak now.
[35:10.380 --> 35:10.640]  Probably.
[35:10.860 --> 35:16.000]  I mean, we'd sort of had this problem with the old, uh, website for, uh, pledges, if I recall.
[35:16.020 --> 35:17.320]  Yeah, no need to get into that.
[35:17.480 --> 35:17.980]  We don't have to go into that.
[35:18.120 --> 35:20.920]  I agree that maybe we're talking about confusingly similar.
[35:21.040 --> 35:21.180]  Yes.
[35:21.320 --> 35:21.680]  Okay.
[35:21.820 --> 35:27.640]  So, so somebody spear phishing, somebody registers something very similar and, uh, with the intent of confusing people.
[35:27.780 --> 35:27.960]  Right.
[35:28.040 --> 35:29.120]  So how do you know about this?
[35:29.200 --> 35:31.980]  How, you know, you don't get a notification every time something is registered.
[35:32.160 --> 35:32.320]  Right.
[35:32.540 --> 35:34.680]  So you need to perform some kind of assessment.
[35:34.680 --> 35:42.200]  So what we do is we, we actually have in-house about 400 million records that are updated daily within our law firm that we scour.
[35:42.720 --> 35:59.580]  And then we've developed certain proprietary methodologies where we go out and perform assessments of variations all around the internet, around GTLDs, the generic top level domains, the .com, .net, .orgs, and the .dogs, .cats, .websites that have been recently released by ICANN,
[35:59.780 --> 36:00.980]  along with all the... .dogs?
[36:01.240 --> 36:01.540]  Really?
[36:01.720 --> 36:02.160]  .dog.
[36:02.420 --> 36:02.860]  That's right.
[36:03.060 --> 36:03.160]  Yeah.
[36:03.360 --> 36:03.780]  In fact...
[36:03.780 --> 36:04.380]  This is out of control.
[36:04.500 --> 36:06.880]  You remember, I actually own a couple .dog websites.
[36:07.000 --> 36:07.260]  Okay.
[36:07.340 --> 36:07.880]  And, um...
[36:07.880 --> 36:08.040]  Wow.
[36:08.320 --> 36:09.200]  Um, all right.
[36:09.320 --> 36:13.980]  So now, uh, so you would, uh, basically be on the lookout for things.
[36:14.300 --> 36:14.780]  That's right.
[36:14.920 --> 36:20.560]  What we can do is we can provide a full listing of every single squatter that's around you in that space.
[36:20.680 --> 36:25.720]  You know, whether it contains the string of your particular domain name, or if it's a variation of that string.
[36:25.940 --> 36:44.180]  And then what we do is we collect about 20 different data points on each individual domain and tell you whether or not it has been, it has ever been reported for things like domain abuse, um, malware, uh, spam, interesting things like that, looking at both the IP address and the domain itself.
[36:44.660 --> 36:48.060]  So a lot of this actually takes quite a long time to run.
[36:48.220 --> 36:53.460]  Um, but we would be willing to do, I think, one off for these for a particular company.
[36:53.640 --> 36:55.520]  Um, it wouldn't be the subscription services.
[36:55.520 --> 36:58.740]  Subscription service actually is, is a, monthly fee.
[36:58.960 --> 36:59.680]  It's an ongoing thing.
[36:59.840 --> 37:00.360]  It's an ongoing thing.
[37:00.400 --> 37:01.040]  You can't do this forever.
[37:01.400 --> 37:02.320]  No, you can't do it forever.
[37:02.340 --> 37:05.140]  You'd need to do it continually to monitor this particular space.
[37:05.260 --> 37:12.520]  But, um, what we do after we find one of these squatters, if it's a particular threat, then we file something called a UDRP.
[37:12.840 --> 37:13.940]  It's, that's called the uniform.
[37:14.220 --> 37:20.240]  It's actually a bit of a misnomer because it should be UDNRP, but it stands for the uniform domain name resolution policy.
[37:20.380 --> 37:23.920]  And these are little mini arbitrations that are done on the papers themselves.
[37:23.940 --> 37:25.560]  It's all actually electronic.
[37:25.920 --> 37:26.340]  It's all filed.
[37:26.480 --> 37:27.980]  There's no court proceedings.
[37:28.120 --> 37:32.880]  And these happen in either the National Arbitration Forum or the World Intellectual Property Organization out of Geneva.
[37:33.120 --> 37:44.680]  And you file, um, paperwork and it's essentially a legal brief alleging that, um, somebody who registered this particular domain name is infringing on your intellectual property rights.
[37:44.820 --> 37:46.820]  And it's bad faith registration and use.
[37:46.980 --> 37:48.600]  Those are the three things you need to prove.
[37:48.760 --> 37:51.100]  Rights to the name, and bad faith registration and use.
[37:51.560 --> 37:57.800]  And if you are found to have proved that, then you can have the domain name transferred over to you.
[37:57.900 --> 38:03.800]  You can have it canceled, which is sort of idiotic because when you cancel a domain name, it just goes right back out into circulation.
[38:03.820 --> 38:05.200]  And somebody else can get it.
[38:05.260 --> 38:10.740]  So you transfer it into your own portfolio and configure it to let's say, you know, redirect to your actual website.
[38:11.320 --> 38:21.060]  Um, part of also what we do is we try to teach people and organizations how to manage their portfolios properly because a lot of people are doing this so incredibly poorly.
[38:21.300 --> 38:34.580]  They may use services like CSC or, um, Mark Monitor to, to look for particular, uh, squatters and things, but then they configure their domain names all wrong because part of this process is deterring people from doing this.
[38:34.660 --> 38:37.100]  If you look like a target, you're going to be targeted.
[38:37.280 --> 38:42.960]  And there are certain ways that you can configure your servers, uh, to deter future cyber squatters.
[38:43.100 --> 38:44.400]  And we help a lot of people with that.
[38:44.740 --> 38:47.920]  So that's, that's just one component of what we can do.
[38:48.160 --> 38:57.280]  Uh, filing a UDRP would, you know, if you have one in mind, we could definitely knock off three or four hours worth of the price to do a UDRP.
[38:57.400 --> 39:03.060]  But those are generally around, they started around 5,000 and go up to around 10,000 for talking about...
[39:03.060 --> 39:06.140]  And this is a major deal, uh, in, in the business world.
[39:06.140 --> 39:10.660]  And I imagine even on a personal level, uh, people are very concerned about this.
[39:10.800 --> 39:16.480]  So what you're offering tonight is really, uh, a necessity for, for very many people on a daily basis.
[39:17.060 --> 39:19.600]  Uh, so it's not just a theoretical thing.
[39:19.740 --> 39:21.480]  People are doing this constantly.
[39:21.560 --> 39:29.380]  And let me just ask Alex, is this something that, uh, you're limited geographically if the person, uh, is in Sweden or something or, you know?
[39:29.520 --> 39:36.860]  Well, that's, that's a good point here because, uh, as a lawyer, I should mention that I'm admitted to practice in New York and Washington, D.C.
[39:37.140 --> 39:52.460]  And my partners in my firm, uh, if I could list all of the jurisdictions, I think really quickly, I think it's New York, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., Virginia, Maryland, and, uh, I think one other spot, maybe, maybe Illinois, I'm not entirely sure, but,
[39:52.560 --> 39:53.140]  oh, Wisconsin.
[39:53.440 --> 39:53.760]  That's right.
[39:54.320 --> 40:02.520]  Uh, so we, we have quite a few jurisdictions, but we're not, if you want us to go to court, those are the jurisdictions where we can do that.
[40:02.780 --> 40:07.140]  Uh, we cannot go to court on your behalf if it's outside one of those jurisdictions.
[40:07.600 --> 40:12.160]  Uh, but we can provide you legal advice regardless of wherever you are.
[40:12.280 --> 40:14.100]  And in fact, I'm not saying where they are.
[40:14.160 --> 40:16.520]  I'm saying where the person registering the domain is.
[40:16.660 --> 40:18.000]  Oh, no, that doesn't matter at all.
[40:18.140 --> 40:18.320]  That doesn't matter.
[40:18.680 --> 40:19.220]  That doesn't matter at all.
[40:19.420 --> 40:20.080]  Absolutely not.
[40:20.080 --> 40:23.180]  We deal a lot with domains that are registered out of Russia and China.
[40:23.540 --> 40:34.300]  So as you can imagine, 516-620-3602, the premium, if they still exist, uh, for $300 is a legal consultation with Blackstone Law Group, three hours.
[40:34.580 --> 40:37.500]  And, uh, quite a lot can get done in three hours in the legal world.
[40:37.680 --> 40:51.740]  And as Alex has explained, this is something that, um, uh, affects almost anyone who owns a domain, any business that, uh, is looking to, uh, uh, keep its image from being tarnished by, uh, um, ne'er-do-wells, I guess.
[40:52.060 --> 40:53.580]  Why do people do this in the first place?
[40:53.720 --> 40:56.260]  Just that they're looking for, for a payout or?
[40:56.500 --> 41:03.360]  Well, it's interesting too, because a lot of these cyber squatters, they monetize the domains with pay-per-click advertisements or redirection of traffic.
[41:03.880 --> 41:09.280]  Um, and some of them have portfolios of, let's say 50, 60,000 domains.
[41:09.520 --> 41:17.780]  And if they make three or four dollars a domain per year over 50,000, 60,000, that's not a bad living for doing absolutely nothing.
[41:17.780 --> 41:18.360]  No, it's not.
[41:18.500 --> 41:19.720]  No, it's not, not a bad idea.
[41:19.860 --> 41:23.440]  How do you get started in, well, I'll talk to you after the show.
[41:23.660 --> 41:24.720]  Well, uh, so, wow.
[41:25.020 --> 41:33.400]  But the thing with these domainers or these, these cyber squatters that do it on a large scale basis is they were willing to sell these domains to whoever wants to buy them.
[41:33.500 --> 41:40.640]  If they can sell them to, uh, somebody for a hundred bucks, then that might be 20 years worth of profit made out of one sale.
[41:40.780 --> 41:44.480]  And then that domain is sold to somebody who may do something more malicious with it.
[41:44.540 --> 41:47.620]  And you have no idea unless you're tracking these domains themselves.
[41:47.620 --> 41:50.880]  So it's, uh, it's a big problem for a lot of organizations.
[41:51.380 --> 42:03.600]  And what people don't realize is that the same methodologies that were used in the past to protect intellectual property, like your trademarks, really can be repurposed today to protect the information security posture of an organization.
[42:03.800 --> 42:07.860]  And that's what we're doing a lot with this domain-related intelligence in the domain name space.
[42:08.500 --> 42:17.340]  I should point out that, uh, if you would, uh, if you would like to support the show by calling 516-620-3602 or by going to give2wbai.org.
[42:17.340 --> 42:30.560]  Um, if you're not interested in what Alex is offering, you're still more than welcome and it would be totally appreciated for you to contribute, um, any amount that, uh, you're willing and able to, um, if you select off the hook as the show you're donating in the name of,
[42:30.680 --> 42:31.880]  we'd very much appreciate that.
[42:32.220 --> 42:37.080]  And, uh, you can also become a BAI buddy, um, and all that sort of, uh, exciting things.
[42:37.220 --> 42:41.800]  So 516-620-3602 and give2wbai.org.
[42:41.800 --> 42:47.920]  And you can also send a text by the way to, uh, uh, 41444 and just put WBAI in that text.
[42:47.920 --> 43:02.680]  And you can pledge that way, uh, if, if you're just interested in pledging period, um, to get the premium though, call 516-620-3602, 516-620-3602, uh, or visit give2wbai.org.
[43:02.840 --> 43:07.740]  You can find the premium there under legal consultation, uh, with Blackstone Law Group.
[43:08.180 --> 43:18.980]  Um, and, uh, this is really an incredible deal, I think, because it's something that I really can see people needing, uh, organizations needing, uh, non-profit, profit, you name it.
[43:19.260 --> 43:21.640]  And a lawyer can be a very handy thing to have.
[43:21.840 --> 43:24.620]  Just a lawyer, um, can be a very handy person to have on your side.
[43:24.800 --> 43:33.880]  But, uh, if you're a listener to this program and you're interested in the things we're interested in, then you've heard Alex talk about so many things that we talk about here, and he's a contributor to the show, has been for a very long time.
[43:34.220 --> 43:49.800]  And, uh, if you're interested in things like, uh, hacking-related things, computer-related things, InfoSec things, um, whistleblowing-related things, if you have questions in any of these fields that you would like to ask a lawyer, um, this is your chance to get one who knows what the hell he's talking about regarding this stuff,
[43:50.240 --> 43:52.380]  um, who will not glaze over when you mention computers.
[43:52.880 --> 43:59.000]  516-620-3602 or give2wbai.org to get hold of, uh, a really kick-ass lawyer.
[43:59.000 --> 43:59.760]  What's the computer?
[44:02.140 --> 44:02.760]  Make it stop.
[44:02.840 --> 44:03.220]  Make it stop.
[44:03.420 --> 44:03.720]  Sorry.
[44:04.920 --> 44:06.780]  I hate that commercial so much.
[44:07.000 --> 44:07.500]  Oh, God.
[44:07.840 --> 44:14.140]  Well, you know, Rob brings up some interesting stuff, and, and to sort of bounce off what you said as well, Emmanuel, which is a lot can be done in three hours.
[44:14.300 --> 44:24.340]  And especially when you have a lawyer who actually knows what you're talking about, because there's a lot of these cyber security lawyers, a lot of them are big international firms, and they frankly have no idea what the hell they're talking about.
[44:24.420 --> 44:28.320]  They have no history in the community, no background, no technical chops.
[44:28.920 --> 44:29.260]  Um...
[44:29.260 --> 44:29.960]  Oh, it's a throw down.
[44:30.320 --> 44:30.680]  It is.
[44:30.680 --> 44:33.060]  You're gonna, you're gonna, uh, get some responses from that, I'll bet.
[44:33.240 --> 44:33.920]  I hope so.
[44:33.920 --> 44:34.800]  Give us an idea.
[44:34.940 --> 44:37.120]  What, what are people trying to, trying to get away with?
[44:37.360 --> 44:37.800]  Oh, my goodness.
[44:37.800 --> 44:39.480]  They have no conception of the technology at all.
[44:39.620 --> 44:40.700]  A lot of them don't.
[44:40.800 --> 44:43.000]  A lot of them have no idea about the technology that goes into I've seen this.
[44:43.120 --> 44:45.540]  I've dealt with the media, I've dealt with legal people who don't have a clue.
[44:45.800 --> 44:46.020]  Yes.
[44:46.120 --> 44:51.040]  And I can honestly say you're somebody that has been in the community for a long time, and you know what you're talking about.
[44:51.040 --> 44:52.180]  Yeah, it's, it's true.
[44:52.340 --> 44:56.040]  And so, you know, in three hours, we're not gonna lose anything in translation.
[44:56.340 --> 45:02.940]  That's the point I'm trying to get across, is that when you have somebody who actually understands the language in which you're speaking, um, a lot can be done.
[45:03.140 --> 45:10.420]  The other thing I should mention too is, if your thing, if your matter lasts four hours, we're not gonna cut you off right at the three hour mark.
[45:10.560 --> 45:13.580]  I mean, we're, we don't run the meter on these types of things either.
[45:14.200 --> 45:19.700]  Um, and to, to bounce off what Rob said, uh, it is a good idea to have a lawyer on your side.
[45:19.700 --> 45:20.680]  You can buy this package.
[45:20.840 --> 45:22.700]  You can hold it in your pocket until you need it.
[45:22.720 --> 45:23.000]  That's right.
[45:23.080 --> 45:23.380]  As well.
[45:23.500 --> 45:23.820]  That's right.
[45:24.360 --> 45:26.740]  Can you know, if you can contact me, I'll send you my card.
[45:26.940 --> 45:28.020]  You keep it in your wallet.
[45:28.440 --> 45:32.080]  If it proverbially hits the fan, then you give me a call.
[45:32.240 --> 45:35.200]  And you, the way things are going, it's going to hit the fan at some point.
[45:35.320 --> 45:37.480]  So this is a definitely a good thing to have in your pocket.
[45:37.640 --> 45:37.980]  Absolutely.
[45:38.240 --> 45:39.620]  That's, that's absolutely true.
[45:39.900 --> 45:43.620]  And the people who have pledged for this in the past are, are, are very happy with it.
[45:43.740 --> 45:46.140]  So I think that's, um, uh, endorsement enough.
[45:46.620 --> 45:49.360]  Uh, but, uh, you can be one of those people, $300 pledge.
[45:49.360 --> 45:59.260]  I know $300 sounds like a lot, but when you consider what you're getting for that, and it's not something that, um, expires, uh, next week, it's something that you can, you can, uh, use when you need it.
[45:59.680 --> 46:02.540]  Uh, it's, it's really an amazing bargain.
[46:03.040 --> 46:05.520]  516-620-3602.
[46:05.840 --> 46:08.300]  Alex, can, can you give us another scenario?
[46:08.580 --> 46:10.260]  Uh, maybe people don't have domain names.
[46:10.360 --> 46:15.680]  Maybe, uh, there's something else that, uh, maybe non-technical people, how would they benefit from this?
[46:15.680 --> 46:16.400]  Sure, sure.
[46:16.620 --> 46:28.000]  Well, let me, let me go back to the non-domain name issue and then go into the non-technical thing too, is one of the things that a lot of people and probably a lot of our listeners are interested in these days is blockchain and cryptocurrency related issues.
[46:28.220 --> 46:32.720]  That's actually something we've been dealing a hell of a lot with over, I would say the last six months.
[46:33.040 --> 46:46.540]  Uh, so we work quite regularly in that space when it comes to ICOs, launching ICOs, founding ICOs, uh, the regulation of cryptocurrencies, the formation of entities, all this kind of stuff is stuff that we deal with on a daily basis.
[46:46.960 --> 46:52.360]  So if you're interested in that, contact us 516-620-3602.
[46:52.640 --> 46:54.720]  Um, and we can help you out with that.
[46:54.820 --> 47:02.380]  Even if you want to just have sort of exploratory talks about what goes into launching an ICO and the types of things that need to be done preliminarily, we can help with that.
[47:02.560 --> 47:08.820]  On the non-technical side, Rob also mentioned something that we deal with, uh, on a regular basis, which is whistleblowing issues.
[47:09.060 --> 47:15.720]  Um, I mentioned before I was the chief compliance officer of a 30,000 person organization that spanned the world and I was based in London.
[47:16.320 --> 47:22.120]  And, um, we had operations in every major country, every major region of the world.
[47:22.420 --> 47:26.220]  Uh, and I also ran the whistleblowing line for the entire planet.
[47:26.420 --> 47:29.180]  And so that was really quite an ordeal.
[47:29.300 --> 47:33.840]  There were actually lots of privacy related issues, obviously privacy laws, something we deal with quite regularly too.
[47:34.060 --> 47:52.480]  But if you are an employee at an organization and you have, uh, whistleblowing matter, you have concerns about the ethics of, in which your company is doing business or perhaps insider trading or kickbacks, and you want to be sure that you are protected when you report this.
[47:52.660 --> 47:59.000]  Harassment of one sort or another, which you're able to help with that as well.
[47:59.300 --> 48:01.140]  Um, and we can counsel you on that.
[48:01.260 --> 48:06.260]  You know, we may not be employment lawyers, but we are very familiar with whistleblowing matters.
[48:06.600 --> 48:12.920]  And I think within a couple of hours, we can probably give you some very sound guidance about what to do.
[48:13.000 --> 48:18.520]  We can take a look at your employee handbook if there is one and give you the proper guidance about how to handle this.
[48:18.680 --> 48:26.980]  And whether we think that, um, you know, going to HR or we can help you draft a statement, you know, whatever the right course of action is, depending upon the circumstances.
[48:27.380 --> 48:32.300]  So that, you know, that's something I think that is probably on the forefront of a lot of our listeners is mine.
[48:32.400 --> 48:36.580]  And everything that is said to you guys is attorney-client privilege.
[48:36.580 --> 48:38.140]  Everything is attorney-client privilege.
[48:38.320 --> 48:38.620]  That's right.
[48:38.680 --> 48:43.900]  So legally privileged, we will never reveal it no matter how much money Emanuel offers me after the show.
[48:43.900 --> 48:45.900]  I tried before and you're pretty resolute.
[48:46.140 --> 48:46.260]  It's true.
[48:46.460 --> 48:47.820]  He doesn't carry enough cash with him.
[48:48.300 --> 48:49.740]  So if I carried more cash, you would?
[48:49.980 --> 48:50.800]  Absolutely not.
[48:50.980 --> 48:54.020]  Yeah, no, no, not enough cash in the world, frankly.
[48:54.360 --> 48:54.600]  Wow.
[48:54.720 --> 48:57.600]  For most, it's just not worth losing our license over.
[48:58.020 --> 49:02.760]  Um, but you know, this is one of the last bastions of privacy here.
[49:02.980 --> 49:26.760]  And, and I think, you know, this is why back in 2013, when the Snowden revelations came out and we realized that there was this, you know, sort of blanket FISA authorization to Snoop on Verizon Business Network subscribers that a lot of the lawsuits focused on the surveillance of attorneys and how that was just so beyond the pale and unseemly because the attorney-client privilege is so important
[49:26.760 --> 49:31.940]  to our legal system and the legal process that it is, is held very much sacrosanct.
[49:32.080 --> 49:35.340]  It's, it's like the opposite of a border in this country.
[49:35.340 --> 49:35.980]  Wow.
[49:36.400 --> 49:41.500]  The number is 516-620-3602.
[49:41.640 --> 49:49.480]  And the premium is a legal consultation with Blackstone Law Group, three hours of, uh, of, uh, legal consultation.
[49:50.100 --> 49:51.340]  Uh, this is something valuable.
[49:51.480 --> 49:57.500]  This is something, uh, truly amazing that, uh, I think all of our listeners can benefit from in, in, in one form or another.
[49:57.760 --> 50:04.680]  You know, another, another thing that I should mention too is, uh, financial frauds, people that have been the victims of financial frauds.
[50:04.780 --> 50:05.880]  We investigate these.
[50:06.040 --> 50:15.840]  We use a lot of open source intelligence collection techniques to get at the root of these particular issues and, uh, and figure out who's behind them.
[50:15.920 --> 50:29.640]  In fact, we had two, uh, trials this past year, one in federal court in the Southern District of New York and another in, in state court in Queens County, uh, both of which went to a jury and, uh, we won both of them.
[50:29.780 --> 50:36.560]  In fact, one of them, uh, one of these cases was actually against an attorney who appeared to be part of a scam.
[50:36.560 --> 50:51.660]  And we were able to, uh, have a jury within 45 minutes fine for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary liability with regard to, uh, several hundred thousand dollars that was being safeguarded in this attorney's account, uh, and this attorney's escrow account that,
[50:51.840 --> 50:54.040]  uh, was then shuffled around the world.
[50:54.220 --> 50:59.080]  Uh, and that was a very complex case that required a huge amount of time.
[50:59.500 --> 51:06.180]  And, uh, it was something that really, we, we fought a lot on principle because we did not like the ethics of what this particular attorney was up to.
[51:06.860 --> 51:12.460]  Um, what I'm trying to say is, you know, we're one of the good guys here and we like to go after the bad guys.
[51:12.600 --> 51:19.760]  So if you're the victim of a financial fraud, and in fact, another friend of the show, uh, was our expert witness in this and that was, uh, Steve Rombaum.
[51:19.900 --> 51:24.420]  So we work a lot with him and, uh, and, and dealing and investigating with these particular issues.
[51:24.420 --> 51:27.400]  It's probably safe to say that you're, you're up for the challenge.
[51:27.680 --> 51:37.960]  So our listeners, yeah, if you're out there and you have something interesting and, um, some, or maybe you think you might in the future, this premium package is for you for sure.
[51:38.080 --> 51:40.100]  I've never known Alex to back down from a fight.
[51:40.100 --> 51:43.680]  I would not, I would not bet that he, he would even think of that.
[51:43.840 --> 51:48.320]  No, if you, if you're looking for somebody to be in your corner, uh, I don't think you could, you could pick better.
[51:48.700 --> 51:59.660]  And, uh, also keep in mind that, uh, your pledge is, uh, is going straight to WBAI and, uh, five of these $300 each is 1500 bucks that you're donating to the station right now.
[52:00.040 --> 52:04.480]  Uh, Alex and, and our listeners combined are getting something amazing for that.
[52:04.740 --> 52:06.040]  And the station becomes stronger.
[52:06.260 --> 52:09.020]  It's win, win, win for everybody.
[52:09.220 --> 52:11.520]  516-620-3602.
[52:11.640 --> 52:14.400]  Actually, it's not win for the people that are trying to take advantage of you.
[52:14.520 --> 52:21.300]  The, the, the criminal element out there, um, those who are trying to, uh, steal from you or, or just, uh, do bad things.
[52:21.640 --> 52:24.960]  Uh, that is how, uh, this particular premium can help you.
[52:25.040 --> 52:28.840]  516-620-3602 or give to WBAI.org.
[52:29.400 --> 52:32.680]  The legal consultation with Blackstone Law Group, $300 pledge.
[52:32.900 --> 52:33.480]  Three hours.
[52:33.660 --> 52:36.400]  Three hours of technical legal advice.
[52:36.940 --> 52:40.940]  And, um, yeah, we're accepting donations over SMS as well.
[52:41.300 --> 52:43.920]  Uh, text the number 41444.
[52:44.380 --> 52:47.780]  Uh, just simply type W-B-A-I.
[52:47.980 --> 52:48.700]  And you'll get a response.
[52:49.180 --> 52:49.420]  You'll get a link.
[52:49.560 --> 52:49.720]  Yeah.
[52:49.800 --> 52:54.360]  And, uh, that'll send you to, uh, the site that, uh, where you can, uh, choose premiums.
[52:54.440 --> 52:55.780]  I don't think you can choose premiums that way.
[52:55.860 --> 52:56.880]  I think you can only pledge that.
[52:56.940 --> 52:57.640]  I'm not sure though.
[52:58.020 --> 53:01.000]  Uh, choose the, uh, pledge level, uh, through the website.
[53:01.020 --> 53:06.180]  Uh, if you're calling, uh, ask for legal consultation with Blackstone Law Group.
[53:06.520 --> 53:09.660]  Uh, these contributions are tax deductible as well.
[53:10.240 --> 53:24.060]  Uh, one other point that I don't think is on that particular site is, you know, if you want to find out more information about our firm, if you want to look us up before you, you pledge, uh, you can go to B-L-G, that's Bravo, Lima, gulf.nyc.
[53:24.560 --> 53:29.740]  And you can read all about me, my background and my partners on our website at B-L-G.nyc.
[53:29.860 --> 53:33.780]  If there are any premiums left after the show airs, you'll be able to pledge for them.
[53:34.020 --> 53:36.920]  So you don't have to panic if, uh, if there are still some available.
[53:37.580 --> 53:40.340]  Um, otherwise, uh, uh, we have to limit this.
[53:40.520 --> 53:43.140]  Uh, but thanks Alex for this amazing donation.
[53:43.400 --> 53:46.800]  And thanks to the listeners calling in 516-620-3602.
[53:47.100 --> 53:49.300]  Uh, we're at the end, or close to the end of the program.
[53:49.500 --> 53:54.900]  Now, uh, Rob, you, you, uh, hit me with this news right at the beginning of the show and I'm just, uh, pretty devastated by it.
[53:55.000 --> 54:04.020]  Uh, it's, it's the loss of an old friend, uh, who has been on this show and so many in the community, uh, have, have known about, uh, for, for many, many years.
[54:04.240 --> 54:04.580]  Yes.
[54:04.720 --> 54:16.200]  The, the internet at large is, uh, is mourning the passing of John Perry Barlow, um, founder of the EFF, uh, founder of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, um, activist, uh, essayist, poet, lyricist.
[54:16.320 --> 54:17.440]  He wrote lyrics for the Grateful Dead.
[54:17.740 --> 54:18.700]  The guy was amazing.
[54:18.880 --> 54:26.520]  He just, there was nothing he wasn't involved in and so sharp and, and just, uh, involved in the, you talk about somebody who doesn't back down from a fight.
[54:26.740 --> 54:28.600]  John Perry Barlow was certainly one of those people.
[54:28.980 --> 54:29.380]  Absolutely.
[54:29.760 --> 54:36.120]  And, uh, the internet, uh, as many people have noted, would not be the place it is today if not for his work in its, uh, in its early days.
[54:36.240 --> 54:39.080]  We could only barely scratch the surface of, uh, the impact he's had.
[54:39.180 --> 54:44.480]  If you go to EFF.org, um, they've got an obituary there with, uh, with a lot of information.
[54:44.480 --> 54:52.900]  If you look him up on Wikipedia, John Perry Barlow, he wrote the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace in 1996, which is an amazing read and very inspiring.
[54:53.180 --> 54:54.880]  And the world is poorer for his loss.
[54:55.100 --> 55:07.360]  I spent many, many evenings, uh, hanging out with him, uh, in the early years of, of the EFF and before the EFF actually, because it was, um, actually a lot of it was documented on these very airwaves.
[55:07.460 --> 55:14.880]  In fact, if you go to the, um, May 17th, 1990 edition of this show on, uh, 2600.com, you can find all of our shows.
[55:15.260 --> 55:23.360]  Uh, that is where you'll, you'll hear an in-depth interview with John Perry Barlow, uh, as well as, uh, Steve Jackson from Austin, Texas, who had been raided by the Secret Service.
[55:23.740 --> 55:34.740]  And that's, that's kind of what, um, got John Perry Barlow and others, uh, Mitch Capor and John Gilmore, uh, involved and, and interested enough to form the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
[55:34.740 --> 55:37.620]  It all unfolded, uh, right in front of us.
[55:37.720 --> 55:39.980]  It was, it was an incredible time just to be around.
[55:40.120 --> 55:43.980]  And always when you were with John, uh, it was an interesting conversation.
[55:43.980 --> 55:45.380]  It was a thoughtful conversation.
[55:45.380 --> 55:58.760]  It was something where, uh, he, um, he, he basically, uh, wanted to understand it all, wanted to challenge the injustice and wanted to do something to make it all better, make the world a better place.
[55:59.000 --> 56:13.160]  Um, and also what's interesting about that show, we, um, um, we, we had, um, uh, I think it was a very long show, but the show that followed us on that, uh, overnight period, uh, back in 1990 was the Grateful Dead show.
[56:13.300 --> 56:15.140]  And they wanted to interview John Perry Barlow too.
[56:15.240 --> 56:19.980]  So I think it's the only time where a guest, uh, basically stayed on for two, two shows.
[56:20.220 --> 56:21.680]  So I left, he stayed.
[56:21.840 --> 56:26.940]  I don't know if we have a recording of, of that part of the interview, but, uh, the off the hook part, well, actually it wasn't off the hook.
[56:27.080 --> 56:29.140]  It was, it was a different program called the fifth corner back then.
[56:29.620 --> 56:36.780]  Uh, and, uh, yeah, it's, um, it's something to listen to, but I'm just, uh, completely blown away by this.
[56:36.940 --> 56:47.040]  It's really, really sad, heartbreaking news because he was such, such a, um, a pillar of the community and, uh, not having him around is, it's almost, uh, impossible to conceive of.
[56:47.700 --> 56:48.100]  Absolutely.
[56:48.240 --> 56:59.700]  But he's, uh, left quite a legacy online and there's, uh, so much of his work you can, uh, still look up, uh, check out and be inspired by, um, just use your web search of choice for John Perry Barlow and begin to learn about him.
[57:00.080 --> 57:04.180]  Now we have, uh, a piece that, uh, he, um, he wrote the lyrics for, I believe.
[57:04.380 --> 57:04.600]  Yes.
[57:04.660 --> 57:12.960]  We were closing with a song called, uh, the music never stopped, um, which the Grateful Dead performed and the lyrics were written by Barlow and I feel it's appropriate tonight.
[57:13.780 --> 57:14.000]  All right.
[57:14.100 --> 57:15.460]  Rest in peace, John Perry Barlow.
[57:16.360 --> 57:18.720]  Write to us, OTH at 2600.com.
[57:19.020 --> 57:19.480]  We'll see you next week.
[57:19.600 --> 57:19.720]  Good night.
[58:58.190 --> 59:06.170]  We'll see you next week.
[59:13.990 --> 59:15.390]  Bye.
[59:21.480 --> 59:22.880]  Bye.