[00:06.090 --> 00:08.550]  Hi, this is Tom Hartman, host of the Tom Hartman Program.
[00:08.850 --> 00:11.090]  Join me every weekday afternoon at 2 p.m.
[00:11.170 --> 00:16.450]  for feisty debates, my take on the news and issues of the day, and some of the smartest callers in radio.
[00:16.610 --> 00:20.990]  That's the Tom Hartman Program, every weekday afternoon at 2, right here on WBAI.
[00:21.150 --> 00:23.730]  Free Speech Radio, 99.5 FM.
[00:24.430 --> 00:25.590]  Pacifica Radio, New York.
[00:25.830 --> 00:26.990]  Tag, you're it.
[00:34.420 --> 00:41.840]  And you are listening to radio station WBAI 99.5 FM here in New York.
[00:42.840 --> 00:44.880]  WBAI.org, all over the place.
[00:45.140 --> 00:47.500]  The time is just about 7 p.m.
[00:47.500 --> 00:48.560]  on this Wednesday evening.
[00:49.040 --> 00:52.620]  And that means it's time for another exciting edition of Off the Hook.
[02:41.770 --> 02:43.450]  A very good evening to you.
[02:44.130 --> 02:47.410]  The program is Off the Hook, now on at 7 p.m.
[02:47.730 --> 02:48.130]  Wednesdays.
[02:48.310 --> 02:50.590]  We used to be on at 8 p.m., now we're on at 7 p.m.
[02:51.270 --> 02:57.590]  Everything is topsy-turvy, up is down, left is right, east is west, freedom is slavery, and you are listening to WBAI.
[02:57.590 --> 03:04.170]  And we are happy to be here back in our old slot, which we had for many, many years before moving to 8.
[03:04.950 --> 03:07.670]  And we're finding it just as we left it.
[03:07.770 --> 03:08.090]  Rob T.
[03:08.250 --> 03:09.850]  Firefly here with you.
[03:10.090 --> 03:14.070]  And I am joined in the studio by Voltaire.
[03:14.390 --> 03:14.870]  Hello.
[03:15.330 --> 03:16.030]  By Alex.
[03:16.350 --> 03:16.830]  Good evening.
[03:17.350 --> 03:19.030]  And a couple of special guests.
[03:19.150 --> 03:20.090]  We've got Neo.
[03:20.250 --> 03:23.270]  He transfers X to the accumulator and pushes it on the stack.
[03:23.910 --> 03:25.510]  And Night Owl is with us as well.
[03:25.690 --> 03:26.090]  Good evening.
[03:27.090 --> 03:28.130]  Can we hear you?
[03:28.530 --> 03:29.130]  Try that again.
[03:29.790 --> 03:30.150]  Good evening.
[03:30.450 --> 03:30.910]  There you are.
[03:31.070 --> 03:31.810]  Now the evening is good.
[03:32.970 --> 03:37.010]  So, yeah, we got kind of a full house here and a lot going on.
[03:37.210 --> 03:39.590]  We are still chugging our way through 2019.
[03:41.230 --> 03:43.090]  And, yeah, it's...
[03:44.850 --> 03:48.270]  According to my careful prosthesis, it's only 3% done.
[03:50.130 --> 03:51.410]  So far, so far.
[03:52.630 --> 03:54.110]  I want to start with...
[03:54.110 --> 03:55.490]  There's a whole bunch of news going on this week.
[03:55.570 --> 03:57.690]  And we can only scratch the surface.
[03:57.870 --> 04:01.330]  But first, I'd like to scratch at this story about Amazon.
[04:02.710 --> 04:16.150]  We've spoke about this previously on this program, where Amazon, the famous company that sells every darn thing over the internet to you, has opened up a couple of new headquarters, or is opening up a couple of new headquarters, one in Long Island City,
[04:16.290 --> 04:16.490]  Queens.
[04:17.990 --> 04:39.130]  And there is a story in which some council members from Seattle, which is Amazon's original home, came to New York to speak to the people of this city about what they did wrong with giving Amazon all sorts of concessions and stuff, and how they didn't respond fast enough.
[04:39.130 --> 04:41.970]  This story reported by The Guardian in the UK, interestingly.
[04:43.030 --> 04:43.930]  There's a lot going on.
[04:44.010 --> 04:45.610]  I know a lot of you guys have been following this story.
[04:47.070 --> 04:51.930]  Night Owl, can you give the short, short version for our listeners?
[04:52.410 --> 04:52.690]  Sure.
[04:52.970 --> 05:13.870]  So what happened was Amazon announced that they were opening a second headquarters, what they termed HQ2, and they sort of announced that they were going to be opening it up to competition from all of the different possible cities and host locations across the United States,
[05:13.870 --> 05:38.490]  which generated a huge amount of both PR for them and also a huge amount of contention between different cities with mayors and county officials and city councilors and local celebrities doing pitch videos for their respective areas, talking about how great their city would be.
[05:39.270 --> 05:42.850]  That got a lot of play on the late-night shows at the time.
[05:45.030 --> 05:55.830]  And eventually, I think late last year, Amazon announced their decision that they would finally, that they had finally decided on what they were going to do.
[05:55.830 --> 06:12.550]  And they announced that instead of just opening a single second headquarters, they were actually opening two second headquarters, that they would be splitting this HQ2 between Alexandria, Virginia, which is a sort of a suburb of Washington, and New York City,
[06:12.810 --> 06:36.530]  specifically a site in Long Island City, which is part of Queens, right near the East River, and New York City, specifically, but also Virginia, admitted that they were going to be giving huge tax breaks and various cash incentives to Amazon for this,
[06:36.710 --> 07:06.510]  where Amazon announced that they were planning for this office in Long Island City to hire 25,000 employees who would be making an average of $150,000, while the city and state of New York promised up to $3 billion in tax breaks, subsidies, and other inducements.
[07:06.690 --> 07:07.470]  Yes, thank you.
[07:09.290 --> 07:24.670]  Yeah, and as someone who does a lot of freelance work, a lot of freelancers sort of saw this coming when this whole thing started, because there's this whole subset of people asking for free work, basically, by making it a competition.
[07:24.930 --> 07:31.690]  Why don't a bunch of you out there, a bunch of you graphic artists or performers or whatever have you, out there, make it a competition.
[07:31.850 --> 07:37.030]  Just submit us for free your work that fits our description, and we'll choose the winner and give them some kind of prize.
[07:37.470 --> 07:39.970]  Yeah, and it's almost certain that it was a pre...
[07:39.970 --> 07:42.050]  the decision of the D.C.
[07:42.150 --> 07:55.470]  area and New York area was pre-ordained, because the CEO had, I guess what, his two second houses are both near there, and he's getting a free helipad as part of his package from New York City.
[07:56.670 --> 08:21.490]  But because so many cities across the country, like all these small and medium-sized towns, gave Amazon promised tax breaks, it's basically them admitting Amazon doesn't only need to make headquarters, they also need to make new factories, so they're basically just damaging themselves by revealing how much tax breaks they're willing to give for those factories and shipping centers.
[08:21.490 --> 08:27.150]  And this latest story involves the city council members who came up to speak with New Yorkers.
[08:27.230 --> 08:27.350]  Alex?
[08:27.830 --> 08:35.490]  Well, yeah, I mean, obviously this harkens back to one of our very recent guests and the dispute between New York City and The Strand as well.
[08:35.650 --> 08:50.510]  And Nancy Bass Wyden was on there, I think, just before our last public hearing on the issue, which is, you know, my law firm is representing The Strand, and we are battling the city with respect to the landmark designation of The Strand.
[08:50.510 --> 09:05.010]  And in fact, just yesterday, Nancy published on CNN a really wonderful opinion piece that really lambasts the city of New York for its decision to give all these inducements, all these incentives to $3 billion in tax breaks, etc.
[09:05.570 --> 09:10.570]  Including, in fact, to Voltaire's point, we mentioned the helipad as well in that particular article.
[09:11.410 --> 09:13.430]  And so that came out yesterday.
[09:14.510 --> 09:19.690]  And really, you know, the inequities of this Amazon situation are really just horrendous.
[09:19.690 --> 09:31.170]  I mean, I know that, you know, several weeks ago, I'm playing devil's advocate, of course, I was arguing both points, both sides of the story here, with respect to these tax breaks and the inducements, and that's how it's done.
[09:31.270 --> 09:41.710]  But, you know, the fact remains, and this is something I think that Emmanuel had mentioned several weeks ago, it's very easy to see that Amazon needs New York far more than New York needs Amazon.
[09:41.710 --> 09:51.630]  The fact that the city council members from Seattle came out and publicly stated, bizarrely to the Guardian, of all places, as you rightly know, Rob, that this is just...
[09:51.630 --> 09:52.570]  They do decent American reporting, too.
[09:53.070 --> 09:53.690]  Yes, yes.
[09:53.790 --> 09:57.890]  But this is just a completely raw deal for New Yorkers.
[09:59.150 --> 10:16.670]  And actually, just today, and we'll announce for the first time, here on WBAI, once again with regard to our dispute with the city and the Strand, our next public hearing date with regard to the landmark designation of the Strand Bookshop is going to be the 19th of February at 9.30 a.m.
[10:16.890 --> 10:18.330]  at 1 Center Street.
[10:18.730 --> 10:24.650]  And we hope to be the first item on the agenda, but we just confirmed today that that is going to be the next public hearing.
[10:24.830 --> 10:27.490]  We would love it for WBAI listeners to show up.
[10:27.550 --> 10:29.250]  We had a lot of listeners show up last time.
[10:29.410 --> 10:37.110]  It was great to see everybody, great to get your support, and we want to flood the hallways this time with the amount of supporters that we have.
[10:37.350 --> 10:44.530]  And given the public support of the Strand Bookshop and WBAI listeners, we think we can do that this time.
[10:44.910 --> 10:45.630]  Sounds good.
[10:45.770 --> 10:46.150]  Sounds good.
[10:46.530 --> 10:59.110]  Yeah, just to mention really quickly the updates in this story where Lisa Herbold and Teresa Mosqueda, who are members of Seattle City Council, basically attended a big summit that was going on, a summit of activist groups fighting Amazon's plans.
[10:59.910 --> 11:06.190]  And they, you know, among the things they said were, don't be the city or state that flinches every time a corporation flexes its muscles.
[11:06.210 --> 11:08.310]  You have the opportunity that Seattle didn't.
[11:08.470 --> 11:09.790]  We didn't respond fast enough.
[11:11.110 --> 11:32.310]  And this actually has been a very, very long-running issue for New York and for a great many other cities where anytime there is a representative from the city sitting down across the table from any property developer who's saying, oh, yeah, we're going to bring in this big office tower,
[11:32.450 --> 11:36.570]  we're going to bring in a new corporate headquarters, we're going to bring in a new factory, whatever it is.
[11:38.190 --> 11:47.590]  Cities and municipalities and public officials have always been extremely gun-shy about asking for too much.
[11:47.730 --> 11:56.130]  They always seem to lowball what their demands for concessions are while promising huge giveaways to these companies.
[11:56.130 --> 12:05.450]  I actually spoke to a city planner who's been working in the New York City area for well over 40 years who says that...
[12:05.450 --> 12:36.170]  who actually worked on a report that led to New York City's very, very, very recent adoption of inclusionary zoning rules which requires property developers to set aside affordable housing in new property developments that this has been the exact same issue with these types of negotiations for at least 40 years,
[12:36.370 --> 12:38.110]  if not much longer, going back to...
[12:38.110 --> 12:46.010]  they specifically cited experience in 1982 where they experienced the same sort of process.
[12:46.290 --> 13:17.090]  But another thing was that this whole competition between different cities really led to a really unprecedented issue of municipalities, the competing locations, sharing huge amounts of research and data with Amazon to help Amazon make their case for what they wanted from the city where every other time something like this has ever been done in the past,
[13:17.090 --> 13:24.210]  it was always the developers' responsibility to do their research and figure out, you know, what they could get, what they wanted.
[13:25.050 --> 13:31.550]  And in this case, it was the cities basically opening up their books, shoving them at Amazon saying, please take what you want.
[13:31.810 --> 13:38.450]  You would think with $150 billion worth of revenue per annum that these companies would be able to do the research themselves.
[13:38.450 --> 13:46.490]  They took it upon themselves to get the state to essentially kowtow and beg, please bring your jobs here.
[13:46.790 --> 14:01.130]  The other question that I have, and this is more open to the coming working person, is how many of these promises have been made previously to say we're going to hire X number of thousands of jobs and they're all going to be local and they turn out not to be even one?
[14:01.430 --> 14:11.150]  You know, to both of your points, this is exactly what Nancy wrote and I think in her excellent CNN opinion piece, in fact, the title of the piece actually has the word kowtow in it.
[14:11.330 --> 14:12.990]  So, yeah, you're right on point here.
[14:13.250 --> 14:24.330]  And the thrust of this really is, you know, that politicians, when they're sycophantically throwing themselves at these big tech companies, they're not thinking about local businesses.
[14:24.510 --> 14:25.890]  They're not thinking about local people.
[14:26.070 --> 14:39.390]  They're doing all they can to drag in these foreign corporations whose stated objectives, quite frankly, are very often the destruction of the very businesses that made cities like New York unique and interesting and great in the first place.
[14:39.470 --> 14:41.170]  So why are we bringing them in like this?
[14:41.250 --> 14:43.470]  Why are we giving them these major concessions?
[14:43.750 --> 14:48.630]  And we still don't have all the details about what was promised in these particular deals.
[14:48.850 --> 14:51.350]  And I don't think these details are going to come out for several months.
[14:51.450 --> 14:53.410]  And at that point, it may be too late to unwind this.
[14:53.870 --> 14:54.010]  Right.
[14:54.170 --> 15:04.430]  Just recently, we were dealing with the fact that Spectrum, the cable company, had promised the city a whole bunch of things that it completely failed to provide and was maybe going to suffer some sort of penalty for that.
[15:04.870 --> 15:07.530]  Same with Verizon delivering fiber to the city.
[15:07.530 --> 15:09.050]  all these concessions.
[15:10.050 --> 15:18.830]  But, yeah, I mean, for those unfamiliar with this program, I should mention, because we've just shifted time slots slightly, this is off the hook.
[15:19.010 --> 15:28.330]  And this is basically a program where members of the hacker community talk about news that jumps out at us and try and offer our perspective on it.
[15:28.590 --> 15:41.690]  And our perspective on this, we've been keeping an eye on Amazon because they are one of these massive companies that do heaven knows what with your data and basically have been accepted into a very prominent place in all of our lives.
[15:41.830 --> 15:50.290]  And it's worth keeping an eye on exactly how much sway we're giving them whether we want to or not.
[15:50.810 --> 16:06.710]  I mean, in the time it took you to pronounce the last letter of the sentence that you were just saying, I believe Jeff Bezos, the CEO and founder of Amazon, earned something like several times my annual income.
[16:07.670 --> 16:09.250]  Or others' lifetime's income.
[16:09.690 --> 16:09.870]  Yeah.
[16:10.190 --> 16:11.990]  So we're definitely keeping an eye on this.
[16:12.110 --> 16:19.050]  Another such company that seems to basically be the 800-pound gorilla that stomps around wherever it wants is Facebook.
[16:19.910 --> 16:26.090]  And this is something that we've definitely spoken about on this program in the past, but a story is just going around this week.
[16:26.450 --> 16:36.830]  It's reported by Bloomberg among other venues that users of the newest Samsung phone, the newest, fanciest Samsung phone, have found that they can't delete the Facebook app.
[16:38.290 --> 16:40.770]  And even if they want to, even if they don't want to use Facebook.
[16:41.230 --> 16:51.210]  And the question is now being raised that is that Facebook app, even if you don't sign into it, even if you're not a user of Facebook or you don't use it on your phone, what is that app doing on your phone?
[16:51.290 --> 16:52.410]  What's it doing taking up space?
[16:52.510 --> 16:53.890]  What's it doing over the networks?
[16:54.070 --> 16:57.610]  What's it sharing about you that you haven't consented to?
[16:57.750 --> 17:05.850]  Well, it's not only the question of whether or not you've deleted Many phones now come with it pre-programmed in as a feature to the user, which you can disable.
[17:06.210 --> 17:18.890]  But there's now questions, serious questions, about whether or not it remains dormant or whether there's some sort of backdoor or loophole or suggestion that maybe Facebook is not playing ball the way we would want to.
[17:20.230 --> 17:35.910]  I can say from personal experience that it has been an issue with these pre-installed apps, as they're often referred to, since at least the very first Android phones that became available.
[17:37.090 --> 17:48.430]  I don't really recall them being an issue with the earlier Palm and Windows or Windows Mobile devices, if you had those.
[17:48.430 --> 17:50.190]  So Facebook was that prolific then?
[17:50.850 --> 17:53.590]  Well, I don't think Facebook existed at the time.
[17:53.970 --> 18:00.270]  You know, I remember installing a new Windows 95 computer and getting a shortcut on my desktop to the Microsoft network, whether I wanted it or not.
[18:00.510 --> 18:00.790]  Yes, yes.
[18:01.390 --> 18:02.390]  Showing my age a little.
[18:03.010 --> 18:05.530]  Well, all this can be yours from the Internet Archive in an emulation.
[18:06.810 --> 18:11.970]  But there has been a very, very long-running issue with these pre-installed apps.
[18:11.970 --> 18:21.530]  But there's also been a very, very long-running issue with how Amazon tracks people, because it's not just the people who are signed into their service.
[18:22.170 --> 18:31.270]  It's they have admitted in the past, and they have been forced to acknowledge in the past, that they track people who are Facebook users who are logged out of their accounts.
[18:31.270 --> 18:35.190]  They also track people who are not Facebook users at all.
[18:36.130 --> 18:44.190]  Those little share-on-Facebook buttons that are embedded on websites all over the place, left, right, and center, still track you.
[18:44.190 --> 18:52.530]  Even if you don't have a Facebook account, they are still building a profile of you using cookies and other techniques to track your web browsing.
[18:52.530 --> 19:08.130]  And as I remember from about a month or two ago, there was some sort of exploit demonstrated where those tracking cookies could be accessed by anyone, not just Facebook, and determine who the individual was at the computer at the time.
[19:08.950 --> 19:21.370]  Yes, there have been multiple demonstrations of the fact that different websites can access cookies left by other websites and other services on your computer.
[19:21.670 --> 19:28.710]  As long as they have a reasonably good idea of what cookie they want, they can request it from your computer.
[19:28.890 --> 19:33.690]  And if your computer doesn't have a copy of that cookie, then, well, it doesn't get anything back.
[19:33.690 --> 19:45.550]  But, if you're requesting something as pervasive as the Facebook tracking cookie, they are going to get it from pretty much everyone that visits any news site in the world.
[19:46.250 --> 19:59.470]  Yeah, and these, like, so-called shadow profiles that they have about users that don't even have a Facebook account, it shows why the recent movement to, like, quote-unquote, delete Facebook.
[19:59.470 --> 20:08.830]  And, like, people are saying, oh, if you just, like, opt in and just decide on your volition to give it to Facebook, then that will somehow solve the problem of how pernicious Facebook is when...
[20:08.830 --> 20:17.990]  I think this shows that even if... the fact that even if you don't have an account that they still have tracking your data, it shows that we need a collective action response to it.
[20:18.130 --> 20:20.990]  I mean, this whole thing about Facebook is just so dispiriting.
[20:20.990 --> 20:31.330]  I just thought that, you know, they were great stewards of our personal data and wanted to connect me with my friends and allow me to see what my mom has to say every day.
[20:31.570 --> 20:33.050]  I mean, this is so dispiriting.
[20:33.170 --> 20:34.650]  I'm so disheartened by this whole thing.
[20:34.730 --> 20:39.430]  I mean, I just had no idea that they could be doing anything untoward with our data.
[20:39.450 --> 20:40.850]  This is the first I've heard of this.
[20:40.930 --> 20:42.730]  And for our users... I'm sorry, users.
[20:42.870 --> 20:45.850]  For our listeners who can't detect sarcasm, that was obvious.
[20:45.930 --> 20:46.650]  I envy a joke.
[20:46.650 --> 20:49.270]  Yeah, I'm sorry to ruin Christmas for you there.
[20:49.410 --> 20:54.130]  But, yeah, I mean, a quote from Facebook in this article on Bloomberg.com.
[20:54.310 --> 21:00.890]  Facebook spokesperson says the disabled version of the app, which is what you can do in Android, in stock Android, rather than deleting it.
[21:00.950 --> 21:01.990]  You don't have the option to delete.
[21:02.050 --> 21:02.690]  You can only disable.
[21:03.210 --> 21:10.010]  And a Facebook spokesperson said the disabled version of the app acts like it's been deleted, so it doesn't continue collecting data or sending information back to Facebook.
[21:10.910 --> 21:11.310]  But...
[21:11.310 --> 21:12.910]  A slight correction on that, Rob.
[21:13.090 --> 21:13.310]  All right.
[21:15.890 --> 21:17.390]  It's not stock Android.
[21:17.910 --> 21:30.390]  It is either the phone manufacturer's version or the carrier's modified version of the phone manufacturer's software that has the pre-installed Facebook app that you cannot delete.
[21:30.590 --> 21:37.870]  Yeah, I appreciate the correction because, yes, this isn't the stock version of the Android operating system in that, like, it's the pure version of the Android operating system.
[21:37.870 --> 21:43.270]  It's a version of the Android operating system that Samsung has cobbled together to put on their own phones.
[21:43.450 --> 21:47.090]  And in doing so, they make all sorts of deals with various businesses like Facebook.
[21:48.410 --> 21:59.090]  Facebook says, according to this article, whether the app is deleteable or not depends on various pre-installed deals that Facebook has made with phone manufacturers, operating systems, and mobile operators around the world over the years, including Samsung.
[21:59.630 --> 22:06.790]  So they wouldn't disclose the financial nature of the agreements, but they said they're meant to give the consumer, quote, the best phone experience right after opening the box.
[22:06.790 --> 22:28.310]  I would also note that shortly after that quote, the Facebook spokesperson then claims that they cannot provide a list of all of their pre-installed deals across carriers, device manufacturers, and various other intermediaries.
[22:28.310 --> 22:39.050]  So don't forget, kids, whenever you buy a phone, it's not just the phone, it's the manufacturer, the model maker, the operating system, that it also has been friended with.
[22:39.730 --> 22:55.690]  Yeah, I think it's actually more the fault of Samsung with their TouchWiz skin on, proprietary skin on Android, than it is with Facebook themselves, because the TouchWiz, Samsung's version of Android, doesn't let you delete apps.
[22:56.290 --> 23:04.430]  Yeah, and the interesting bit about this whole thing is that Samsung is being paid by Facebook to put a non-uninstallable version of their app on your phone.
[23:05.030 --> 23:09.670]  Basically, that's a little chunk of your phone that you don't seem to own, no matter how much you paid for your device.
[23:09.890 --> 23:14.050]  And it's not just Samsung, there are other manufacturers as well, so we're not just picking on one.
[23:14.350 --> 23:16.410]  Right, we're literally all of them, except for Google.
[23:16.950 --> 23:17.070]  Right.
[23:17.590 --> 23:18.830]  Well, Google already knows that.
[23:19.150 --> 23:20.450]  Google has their own things to answer for.
[23:20.450 --> 23:29.730]  But yeah, and obviously there are ways that you can install an alternative operating system on your phone, but that's very difficult to do, especially for new phones.
[23:30.510 --> 23:34.310]  It takes some time for those things to get cracked and opened up by the hacker community.
[23:34.390 --> 23:40.370]  Well, to Google's credit, all the Pixel phones are the bootloader to unlock, so you can run, like, Lineage OS very easily on them.
[23:40.370 --> 23:40.950]  Right.
[23:41.390 --> 23:57.590]  The fact that most phones are not unlocked by the manufacturer and carrier prevents that requiring you to do various hacks, cracks, and workarounds to be able to install your own operating system or software.
[24:02.050 --> 24:09.890]  And also, there's one other thing, which is, eventually, all material that is designed nowadays is designed to fail at a certain point in time.
[24:10.090 --> 24:11.470]  It becomes hand-me-downs.
[24:11.570 --> 24:21.810]  That information that has been collected or identified against, say, a phone number or a handset or just a user, that now gets handed off to another user down the chain.
[24:21.810 --> 24:33.930]  So, it creates the possibility for maybe exploiting this tracking, which is not really tracking, but it's following, but it's not really following, it's shadowing, but it's not really shadowing, and being able to be in a position where you could get, like,
[24:33.970 --> 24:41.770]  a charity hand-me-down and reverse-engineer the person and get that information and use that as a stepping stone to the next lowest-taking period.
[24:41.790 --> 24:50.950]  Well, these companies like Google and Facebook, they keep that tracking information very closely held because that's, like, their trade data.
[24:50.950 --> 24:52.050]  They make money from that.
[24:52.290 --> 24:56.130]  But at the same time, they're not supposed to be tracking because, of course, they're going to keep my information safe.
[24:56.350 --> 24:56.550]  Right.
[24:57.970 --> 25:05.770]  I would actually say that that sort of leads into some other stories that we have lined up for tonight.
[25:05.770 --> 25:12.370]  But the fact that they are collecting this data still means that someone has it.
[25:12.370 --> 25:27.870]  It has been collected, it has been collected, and you don't have any real guarantee that that information, that data that has been collected about you won't somehow find its way to a third party that you don't know about.
[25:28.370 --> 25:29.650]  Do you have an example?
[25:30.190 --> 25:30.810]  Yes.
[25:31.150 --> 25:32.170]  Yes, I do.
[25:32.170 --> 25:51.350]  There was a recent story published on Motherboard by Joseph Cox about an experiment that they ran with a volunteer using a T-Mobile cell phone and using a contact of theirs in, I believe it was the bounty hunter.
[25:51.350 --> 26:21.730]  I believe it was a bounty hunter that they somehow got in touch with who demonstrated that they were able to, without a warrant or any other sort of legal writ or any permission from the user, at the request of Motherboard, to track this person's phone down to within 500 meters through a sort of network of various third parties that purchase this information,
[26:22.230 --> 26:39.110]  this near real-time or even in some cases real-time location data of your phone, using nothing more than your phone number, the thing that you have to give out in order to be able to, you know, receive phone calls, they were able to track this person.
[26:39.470 --> 26:56.190]  And when they were asked for comment, basically every single middleman in this chain of companies that had been selling and reselling and reselling and reselling and reselling this access and this data, basically all said, oh, well, that's not allowed under our terms of service.
[26:56.350 --> 26:58.110]  We had no idea that this was going on.
[26:58.110 --> 27:01.070]  We will immediately terminate that company's access.
[27:01.930 --> 27:02.130]  Right.
[27:02.370 --> 27:05.150]  And this is a very good story on Vice Motherboard.
[27:05.630 --> 27:09.390]  The title of it is, I gave a bounty hunter $300, then he located our phone.
[27:09.570 --> 27:16.410]  And, you know, we can't go too deeply into this because we'll be out of time, but it's definitely a good read.
[27:16.590 --> 27:16.670]  Alex?
[27:16.830 --> 27:25.850]  Yeah, I mean, that's what I thought was a really great article, too, because it illustrates a just pervasive and pernicious problem, I think, with the collection of this massive amount of location data.
[27:26.430 --> 27:43.710]  And in fact, one of our listeners directed us to a separate article that I think is somewhat relevant to this as well, which had to deal with the city of Los Angeles suing essentially the maker of the Weather Channel application for collecting additional location information that had nothing to do with,
[27:43.810 --> 27:45.450]  you know, telling its users the weather.
[27:45.450 --> 27:48.470]  Because it shows you that this is extraordinarily valuable data.
[27:48.590 --> 27:53.770]  This location data is extremely profitable to sell to third parties, to data brokers.
[27:54.030 --> 28:02.350]  And if you read any of these companies' privacy policies, they always claim that they never sell personal information or personally identifying information.
[28:02.350 --> 28:07.750]  It's always anonymized first, or they'll only share it with third parties.
[28:07.750 --> 28:11.850]  And then those third parties are supposed to adhere to certain principles.
[28:12.630 --> 28:21.470]  But if you read their privacy policies, they always claim the same thing that the original person who collected the information said in their privacy policies, which is that they don't sell it.
[28:21.630 --> 28:26.870]  They may share it with their affiliates or their business partners, et cetera, and on and on and on and on it goes.
[28:27.310 --> 28:38.610]  All of this sharing is caring nonsense when it comes to location data is really a big problem, because it has to do with bridging the digital divide between our physical lives and our digital presences.
[28:38.890 --> 28:41.570]  And that's extraordinarily valuable to advertisers.
[28:41.570 --> 28:50.630]  And as we see now with this particular article, this information can end up in the hands of malicious actors and foreign intelligence.
[28:51.470 --> 28:59.170]  Anybody who has any kind of interest in tracking down somebody's location in real time can actually get their hands on this information.
[28:59.170 --> 29:00.610]  That's a really big problem.
[29:00.610 --> 29:23.310]  I will just note that in this motherboard story, some of the various industries and professions that they list as being customers of these data brokers include car salesmen, property managers, bail bondsmen, bounty hunters, any number of people requesting credit checks,
[29:23.590 --> 29:27.310]  including prospective employers.
[29:30.490 --> 29:33.250]  Just a quick question from local law here in New York City.
[29:33.430 --> 29:41.770]  If I remember correctly, are employers still allowed to use a credit check in order to investigate their potential employees or potential hires?
[29:41.950 --> 29:45.070]  You know, I'm not entirely sure about that issue of employment law.
[29:45.990 --> 29:47.610]  I think they may be able to.
[29:47.690 --> 29:49.450]  I'd have to look into it, but I don't want to give any erroneous advice.
[29:49.450 --> 29:51.310]  I remember there was some sort of hullabaloo a while ago.
[29:52.390 --> 30:08.350]  There has been a few cases, and the law is kind of one of those things where there are, as I understand it, and keeping in mind that I am not a lawyer, I am not admitted to the New York bar.
[30:08.350 --> 30:29.230]  But my understanding is that while there is a sort of on-the-surface prohibition on some of those practices, there are enough loopholes in those protections that you could drive a convoy of very large trucks through them.
[30:29.370 --> 30:30.970]  So we're talking wider than the Midtown Tunnel?
[30:31.750 --> 30:32.310]  Significantly.
[30:32.510 --> 30:32.710]  Okay.
[30:33.010 --> 30:37.330]  Right, and one of the basic facts of this whole deal is that this is in private industry.
[30:37.330 --> 30:39.290]  This is not in any way accountable.
[30:39.290 --> 30:40.470]  This is not due process.
[30:40.790 --> 30:46.830]  This is private companies throwing this data back and forth without governmental legal oversight.
[30:47.390 --> 30:48.850]  Well, that's the charge then.
[30:50.430 --> 30:52.590]  And we do have fun with all of this, don't we?
[30:53.590 --> 30:55.010]  There's that word fun again.
[30:55.210 --> 30:55.590]  Yes.
[30:56.430 --> 30:59.610]  I'm not sure that word means what you think it means.
[31:00.370 --> 31:13.990]  It could, but we were talking earlier about the dangers in using a brand new phone that's got all these uninstallable things on it and you can't unlock the bootloader easily and you can't install a new OS easily.
[31:14.130 --> 31:17.270]  So a lot of people might think, oh, well, I could just use an old phone.
[31:17.510 --> 31:19.830]  You know, I'll get one of those old iPhones.
[31:20.050 --> 31:21.430]  One of the, you know, I'll just buy it secondhand.
[31:21.430 --> 31:22.170]  It'll be cheaper.
[31:22.870 --> 31:40.530]  And then they find out things like Tim Cook, who just, the CEO of Apple, who had to announce to investors last week that one of the reasons that their numbers are down and their profits aren't as healthy as they would like, is that people are buying fewer new iPhones because they're repairing the old ones.
[31:40.750 --> 31:42.010]  And that's bad.
[31:42.270 --> 31:43.190]  That's hurting Apple.
[31:43.450 --> 31:47.030]  What, you expect everybody has $800 every year to put down on a new phone?
[31:47.730 --> 31:50.370]  I thought they just raised the price to $1,000.
[31:50.990 --> 31:51.610]  $1,200?
[31:52.790 --> 31:54.830]  They have to pay the guy who sits in line for you.
[31:55.030 --> 31:56.030]  $15 is a good number.
[31:56.290 --> 31:56.450]  $20.
[31:56.870 --> 31:57.370]  $2,000.
[31:57.890 --> 32:05.710]  I think this is a good reason to point out that Apple is one of the largest funders of lobbying for against right-to-repair legislation.
[32:06.670 --> 32:15.150]  And they spend, like, a ton of money also, like, I guess less money, but on PR initiatives about, like, oh, how Apple's going green and such and such.
[32:15.150 --> 32:25.250]  And whenever I see those articles, I always think of how much they're spending fighting right-to-repair, which is sending all these devices with toxic chemicals into dumps.
[32:25.850 --> 32:26.050]  Yeah.
[32:26.470 --> 32:28.750]  So, you know, right-to-repair hurts Apple's bottom line.
[32:29.130 --> 32:33.070]  Tim Cook is legally obligated to tell the truth to his shareholders about this.
[32:33.090 --> 32:35.050]  So that's how this came out.
[32:35.050 --> 33:00.610]  I will just note that as a locksmith, actually, oddly enough, this right-to-repair and the repairability of manufactured goods is actually a huge issue if you are concerned about sustainability, environmental impact of manufactured goods, and managing waste and environmental protections.
[33:00.610 --> 33:08.870]  Because every time I replace the lock, if I cannot get the right part to repair it, I have to replace that entire thing.
[33:09.070 --> 33:38.850]  And then what I get, generally, is a couple of pounds of scrap metal, usually with significant amounts of lead and potentially other hazardous waste material that I am not allowed to put through the normal recycling and waste recovery streams, I have to take it either to a private waste disposal company that claims that they will responsibly dispose of it or recycle it,
[33:38.910 --> 33:53.290]  or I have to take it to one of New York City's very, very, very few safe disposal events, which requires you to, like, once, like, one day every six months or so, somewhere in your burrow.
[33:53.430 --> 33:57.770]  You have to cart all of this stuff that you've stockpiled over the intervening time.
[33:57.890 --> 34:00.070]  All this toxic stuff that you've stockpiled in your own apartment.
[34:00.170 --> 34:00.330]  Right.
[34:01.070 --> 34:26.010]  All of my aerosol cans, all of my cans of paint and cleaning supplies, all of these toxic metals and metal shavings and things that I've stockpiled over in, actually, personally, in my case, I can say, I can admit that I have, in some cases, been carting this stuff around with me for over a decade.
[34:27.470 --> 34:28.810]  Don't tell the insurance company.
[34:29.030 --> 34:32.750]  If only I could describe how my eyes have just bugged out at your description of that.
[34:32.750 --> 34:46.670]  But, you know, having to cart this stuff around, old... I even have old electronics with lead acid batteries from the 1980s, 1970s, 1960s, in some cases.
[34:47.430 --> 34:49.790]  Actually, I... No, sorry, strike that.
[34:49.950 --> 35:05.130]  I did just recall a few pieces of old Bell system lineman's equipment that still had the original carbon-zinc acid batteries from the 1930s in them when I received them.
[35:05.330 --> 35:24.950]  I am still having to cart this stuff around because I cannot find someone that will, one, is willing to take it, and two, even if I do find someone who can take it, finding someone that I can actually guarantee is going to take it and dispose of it properly.
[35:24.950 --> 35:32.550]  I'm trying to remember of... I know there was a scandal recently or an expose showing what happens with e-waste.
[35:32.730 --> 35:36.050]  A lot of it was being shipped off to third-world nations.
[35:36.170 --> 35:38.270]  I won't name them because they might be looking out for me.
[35:38.430 --> 35:39.830]  They have their own variant of the NSA.
[35:40.150 --> 35:42.590]  But this is technology that would travel abroad.
[35:43.010 --> 36:09.930]  Yes, a lot of e-waste particularly, but even more traditional scrap metal recycling, a lot of it gets shipped off to China, to India, to various places in Africa, where local people, usually with little to no hazardous materials handling equipment, much less training,
[36:11.350 --> 36:12.670]  then basically...
[36:12.670 --> 36:14.950]  Dump it in an acid bath and wait for the gold to come out.
[36:14.950 --> 36:25.530]  Yeah, they dump it in an acid bath, they burn it, they do whatever they can to recover the small, extraordinarily small amounts of valuable metals in here.
[36:25.670 --> 36:37.230]  It would be a great idea if only we could take all of these broken parts and find enough sets together to create a working unit that we could then ship off and sell, heaven forbid.
[36:37.670 --> 36:42.150]  Well, that would require a right to repair and devices designed to be repaired.
[36:42.330 --> 36:43.450]  And we're back on that again.
[36:43.650 --> 36:45.190]  So yeah, we're definitely keeping an eye on this.
[36:45.290 --> 36:47.830]  And right to repair is a fascinating subject to get involved in.
[36:48.230 --> 36:53.270]  Do a web search for it if you're unfamiliar and keep an eye on.
[36:53.930 --> 36:55.310]  There's another story I want to talk about.
[36:55.470 --> 36:58.270]  And we have a guest who's joining us on the phone.
[36:58.490 --> 36:59.350]  Lorenzo, are you with us?
[37:00.430 --> 37:01.490]  Hi, how are you?
[37:02.090 --> 37:02.850]  Very good, thank you.
[37:02.910 --> 37:03.450]  Very good, thank you.
[37:05.490 --> 37:14.170]  We have this story that you wrote for Vice Motherboard about the title, I'll give the title, How a Simple Copy-Paste Revealed Explosive New Details in Manafort's Case.
[37:15.010 --> 37:19.770]  Could you explain just sort of what this is all about and what happened?
[37:21.210 --> 37:23.250]  Yeah, so, excuse me.
[37:23.450 --> 37:33.590]  Yeah, so yesterday, Paul Manafort's lawyers and, you know, for those who are not following it, Paul Manafort is Donald Trump's former campaign chairman.
[37:33.930 --> 37:37.590]  And he has a history of a little bit of a dirty lobbying, so to speak.
[37:38.710 --> 37:45.190]  And he's been recently convicted to bank and tax fraud as part of the Robert Mueller investigation.
[37:45.190 --> 37:54.890]  So, anyway, like yesterday, his lawyers made a filing in court responding to new allegations that he lied to the prosecutors.
[37:55.210 --> 37:58.390]  And they redacted a bunch of... a couple of paragraphs.
[37:58.890 --> 38:13.210]  The only problem was that if someone highlighted those paragraphs and copy-pasted them into a text editor or a word, you could read what was behind the redaction, the pseudo-redaction, I guess.
[38:14.130 --> 38:14.230]  Right.
[38:14.310 --> 38:30.010]  And so, yeah, this was clearly a pretty bad mistake because part of the redacted paragraph revealed that Manafort had a relationship with Konstantin Kilimnik, a former associate, who has ties to Russia.
[38:30.310 --> 38:38.850]  So this is a new detail that points to the fact that Manafort had, you know, established relationships with Russian officials, allegedly.
[38:39.750 --> 38:39.910]  Mm-hmm.
[38:40.510 --> 38:42.890]  And you wrote this... I should try and pronounce your name.
[38:43.010 --> 38:44.290]  Lorenzo Franceschi Bichurai?
[38:44.710 --> 38:45.350]  Is that close?
[38:45.530 --> 38:46.170]  Yeah, that's pretty good.
[38:46.350 --> 38:46.690]  Excellent.
[38:47.870 --> 38:50.610]  And you wrote this article, and it's a very good article.
[38:50.770 --> 38:51.470]  I highly recommend it.
[38:51.470 --> 38:57.630]  But one of your sources seems to be a shady individual called Alexander Rebellis, who is a lawyer here in New York City.
[38:57.730 --> 38:59.770]  Oh, he's right in front of me, isn't he?
[39:00.650 --> 39:01.250]  Very funny.
[39:01.430 --> 39:01.830]  Very funny.
[39:01.930 --> 39:03.010]  Hey, Lorenzo, how are you?
[39:03.070 --> 39:03.710]  Long time no speak.
[39:03.790 --> 39:04.210]  Hi, Alex.
[39:04.650 --> 39:05.290]  Yeah, how are you?
[39:05.590 --> 39:14.330]  You know, when I tweeted tonight saying that, you know, this was a smart article about dumb redactions and that we often talk about this, I actually didn't even know that you were going to be on the show tonight.
[39:15.250 --> 39:17.210]  So, yeah, coincidentally, hilarious, right?
[39:17.210 --> 39:19.030]  I only found that out when I got to the studio.
[39:19.270 --> 39:20.610]  It's a very small world, this program.
[39:20.610 --> 39:22.290]  Yeah, no doubt.
[39:22.430 --> 39:25.270]  But, yeah, so we ran through some redaction examples.
[39:25.570 --> 39:45.710]  And, you know, we've seen this in action many times where, and this is something that's quite interesting, too, that if you send a document to the federal court system through ECF, the electronic court filing system, it doesn't necessarily flatten the document so that when it becomes publicly available on the docket,
[39:45.710 --> 39:55.970]  if it's not redacted properly, you will be able to get at the information underneath these, you know, idiotically created redaction squares using preview or something like that.
[39:56.270 --> 40:01.130]  We've seen that happen actually quite a few times to our adversaries in particular cases.
[40:02.190 --> 40:17.430]  But what's kind of funny to me is that just the intention behind trying to redact something, if you fail at it, a judge is not necessarily going to hold that against the party who tried to redact it.
[40:17.430 --> 40:21.510]  It may still be difficult to actually use the information in court.
[40:21.690 --> 40:30.910]  And so, and I don't find that to be particularly fair to technically adept attorneys who know how to get at the information behind these idiotically created redaction boxes.
[40:31.890 --> 40:36.730]  So you're saying it would be, a lot of judges would consider it inadmissible if you get it through these methods?
[40:36.930 --> 40:41.650]  Right, or just something that you really shouldn't discuss as a matter of fairness, as a matter of equity.
[40:41.650 --> 40:43.890]  They tried to redact it.
[40:43.990 --> 40:44.810]  They may have failed.
[40:45.310 --> 40:55.350]  Oftentimes, you also see one of our adversaries against whom we were litigating for quite a while, he tried to redact things with a magic marker.
[40:55.690 --> 41:07.430]  But if you, and then once they were filed through ECF, we were able to, you know, zoom in tremendously into these, you know, attempted redactions and actually see the text that was printed underneath that.
[41:07.590 --> 41:12.790]  So even if you try to go a low-tech method of doing this, sometimes it can still result in a major fail.
[41:12.950 --> 41:27.190]  This kind of reminds me of how with DMCA laws, you can't, even if they have like a really, really weak DRM system, if you, you have to, it's illegal to circumvent that DRM system in most cases.
[41:27.430 --> 41:32.210]  So they don't really have an incentive to make a more powerful security system.
[41:32.330 --> 41:37.170]  So you have to honor the obscurity, even though that there is no security behind it.
[41:37.170 --> 41:42.290]  You have to honor the intent, you have to honor the intent to obscure the information.
[41:43.550 --> 41:44.410]  Yeah, that's true.
[41:44.490 --> 41:49.050]  But that being said, you know, obviously, if the information is still in your mind, you can use it in another way.
[41:49.150 --> 41:52.170]  And if you can get to that information in some kind of parallel methodology...
[41:53.710 --> 41:54.310]  Parallel construction.
[41:54.310 --> 41:58.710]  Parallel construction is what, you know, the government would call it if we were dealing with a FISA warrant or something like that.
[41:59.170 --> 42:03.650]  But, yeah, it's still obviously in your mind, it's still something you're going to keep in the back of your mind.
[42:03.870 --> 42:07.110]  Let's say if you're going to, you know, take a witness's deposition later on, something like that.
[42:07.250 --> 42:14.830]  But to go back to you, Lorenzo, you went through a bunch of different methodologies to test how to redact things.
[42:15.010 --> 42:23.230]  Do you want to describe to our listeners how, you know, what you tested and whether you came to any conclusions about the best methodologies to redact documents?
[42:24.910 --> 42:27.910]  Yeah, yeah, mostly thanks to your help.
[42:28.490 --> 42:36.930]  I went through a few ways to, you know, actually do this right without, you know, exposing what you were trying to obfuscate.
[42:37.550 --> 42:47.190]  And, you know, the most low-tech way, so to speak, is to print out documents, sorry, redact first using whatever you want as software.
[42:47.190 --> 42:53.170]  Print out the document and then rescan it with the redaction, basically creating a new file.
[42:54.650 --> 42:56.730]  That's pretty, like, bulletproof.
[42:57.030 --> 43:07.170]  You can do the same thing by taking screenshots and then converting the, you know, taking screenshots of the redacted document and then converting the images into a new PDF.
[43:07.170 --> 43:12.190]  Those are sort of the simplest ways and pretty bulletproof, almost fail-safe.
[43:13.390 --> 43:21.030]  There's also Acrobat Reader Pro or DC, I guess, offers a redaction tool.
[43:21.870 --> 43:27.790]  I haven't tried it myself, but it should be pretty easy to use and should work.
[43:30.130 --> 43:32.270]  And, yeah, I mean, these are the main ways.
[43:32.830 --> 43:38.870]  But, you know, I think in the article we basically suggest, like, just print it out, print it out, re-scan it.
[43:39.210 --> 43:41.930]  It's pretty quick and it's, you know, bulletproof.
[43:41.930 --> 43:45.970]  That's kind of the best way to make sure that you don't screw it up.
[43:49.590 --> 44:11.090]  Sorry, I would just say that, Lorenzo, in your story you noted a staffer who used to work for the Senate Homeland Security Committee offered their method for redacting documents, which was to actually delete the text that they wanted to redact and replace it with bracket,
[44:11.310 --> 44:24.990]  redacted, close bracket, which also has the advantage of obscuring the length of the redaction so that someone can't guess if it's just a short word or something.
[44:25.110 --> 44:27.230]  They can count characters and that sort of thing.
[44:28.470 --> 44:38.290]  Yeah, I think that's sort of the gold standard of redaction because, as you say, like, with black boxes or, yeah, stuff like that, you can still guess.
[44:38.470 --> 44:48.230]  And I think, I don't remember a specific example, but I remember doing the Snowden leaks, people would, like, figure out words that were redacted in the documents.
[44:48.650 --> 45:02.590]  So it has been done, especially if, like, you know, it's a very specific or technical document and it mentions a bunch of stuff that you can sort of, yeah, you can guess what this one little word in the middle of the document is.
[45:02.810 --> 45:09.930]  So the best way, as he said, is to replace the whole text with redacted, so you don't even know how much text was redacted.
[45:09.930 --> 45:15.950]  Right, because with your standard black box, you can take a look and see if it's a long word, a short word.
[45:16.250 --> 45:22.250]  If it's a non-proportional font, you can see exactly how many characters are in it and do all sorts of things to figure it out.
[45:22.370 --> 45:26.850]  But it comes down to the fact that you need to know how to actually delete things.
[45:26.850 --> 45:43.690]  I mean, this method that keeps failing basically amounts to your text is black and it changes the background to black or puts a black floating rectangle sort of in front of it on another layer but still leaves the text intact in the document electronically to where you could select it with the mouse and copy it.
[45:43.770 --> 45:55.910]  My favorite version of this is, oh, we're going to make the text transparent, give it a shadow that's black, a black background, and again, you highlight it with a different color on the screen, your cursor exposes what the content was there.
[45:56.530 --> 46:11.870]  I mean, that's basically the way that people for years now have been hiding spoilers on web forums, is to change the font color to the background color of the web page so that you have to highlight it in order to see it.
[46:12.390 --> 46:15.470]  One question I do have is, is there a different...
[46:15.470 --> 46:27.870]  This is going to sound like a strange question, but a methodology or workflow when you're working with a document that you know at some point may be redacted versus I have a document here that I need to obscure or hide the content from after the fact.
[46:28.090 --> 46:35.670]  Is there a way that people can write their documents so that they're easily redactable if the moment comes that they have to publicize?
[46:36.370 --> 46:38.230]  I mean, that's a very good question.
[46:38.550 --> 46:40.550]  To my knowledge, I don't think that there is.
[46:41.150 --> 46:46.090]  I haven't really given much thought to that process during the drafting phase.
[46:46.290 --> 46:52.950]  Even when I worked in classified environments, you basically just create your documents and deal with redaction afterwards.
[46:53.730 --> 46:57.670]  But it is definitely something that's an interesting concept.
[46:58.530 --> 47:08.630]  And perhaps, you know, could end up being some kind of function in Word, you know, that you're going to flag this particular text and note that this might be ripe for redaction later on.
[47:08.630 --> 47:10.590]  I mean, that's a really interesting point.
[47:10.730 --> 47:11.490]  I've never thought of that.
[47:12.350 --> 47:13.190]  You know, who knows?
[47:13.290 --> 47:19.750]  Maybe there'll be, you know, a plug-in that Facebook generates that you can never delete once you install it into Microsoft or something.
[47:19.850 --> 47:21.870]  But, I mean, it's a fascinating thing.
[47:21.950 --> 47:29.870]  And also, Lorenzo, I had one more question for you as well, which is, you know, to my knowledge, Manafort's lawyers have never commented on this.
[47:29.870 --> 47:31.230]  Have you heard otherwise?
[47:32.590 --> 47:33.030]  No.
[47:33.370 --> 47:37.390]  And we reached out to all three of them by email.
[47:37.710 --> 47:40.210]  And we also tried to call and we got no answer.
[47:40.770 --> 47:47.930]  And also, I don't know, maybe you actually know this, but, like, I guess we're not really actually sure that this mistake was made by them.
[47:48.270 --> 47:57.810]  Like, I'm not sure that this was, like, someone at the court who redacted after the lawyers filed or the lawyers at the, you know, the burden to redact.
[47:57.910 --> 47:58.210]  I don't know.
[47:58.210 --> 47:59.330]  We weren't sure.
[47:59.490 --> 48:01.030]  So, like, in the story, we sort of hedged.
[48:02.270 --> 48:02.710]  Yeah.
[48:02.850 --> 48:17.630]  In all likelihood, it happened sometime in their office, in Manafort's lawyers' offices, whether it was the lawyers themselves that screwed up the redaction process or perhaps, you know, one of their paralegals, some member of the staff.
[48:17.910 --> 48:24.950]  Somebody did this incorrectly and then in all likelihood filed it through the electronic court filing system known as ECF.
[48:25.650 --> 48:33.370]  They may have, in fact, noticed that this could have been an erroneous filing that would allow people to get at the redacted text.
[48:33.570 --> 48:41.250]  But I do have to say, if you file something erroneously on ECF and you want to remove it, it's a gigantic pain in the butt to do that.
[48:41.250 --> 48:53.110]  I mean, it's almost more effort than it's worth because you have to call the court clerk, you have to deal with the docketing people, you have to take, you know, all these extraordinary steps just to remove one document from the docket.
[48:53.290 --> 49:00.630]  And the burden to redact this was most likely on the lawyers themselves and was their own foul up.
[49:01.550 --> 49:22.750]  Now, Alex and Lorenzo, this may be erroneous, but I had at least heard that sometime after this story had originally been published that the version of the document with the faulty redactions had been replaced with a version with the redactions fixed.
[49:23.410 --> 49:29.210]  I'm not 100% sure that that was actually the case because I didn't personally investigate it, but I had heard that.
[49:30.590 --> 49:31.270]  Any comment?
[49:31.410 --> 49:32.490]  I don't know about that.
[49:32.650 --> 49:35.930]  I think it's likely that it would have been taken down.
[49:36.210 --> 49:37.610]  You know, once...
[49:37.610 --> 49:44.230]  Again, you know, once a federal judge realizes that there was an intent to redact this document, the only thing they can really do is take it down.
[49:44.330 --> 49:48.930]  But at that point, the horse is already out of the barn, you know, and Lorenzo's already going to write a story about it.
[49:49.070 --> 49:52.610]  So it's, you know, it's too bad for Manafort's lawyers.
[49:52.610 --> 49:53.390]  I have to say.
[49:54.650 --> 49:56.590]  Yeah, and at that point, it's already on Twitter.
[49:56.810 --> 50:01.290]  You know, like by the time I even notice it, it's already been tweeted by a lot of people.
[50:01.450 --> 50:05.130]  You know, this is one of the most high-profile cases in the world right now.
[50:05.510 --> 50:08.570]  One of those mistakes get noticed pretty quickly.
[50:09.070 --> 50:22.190]  Yeah, and I would like to say just one comment, too, is we're probably the only commenters who have really focused on the technical components of the redaction and not even mentioned what it was that was accidentally exposed to the world.
[50:22.190 --> 50:27.290]  So, you know, maybe we should keep that and not even get into the content and just focus on the technical issues.
[50:27.770 --> 50:30.410]  I'm going to assume that they redacted the phone number for WBAI.
[50:30.530 --> 50:32.390]  You know, I have no idea what the content is.
[50:32.570 --> 50:32.690]  Why not?
[50:34.010 --> 50:43.430]  I actually think, though, that this also brings up a really interesting thing about the difference in threat models when you are redacting a document.
[50:44.530 --> 51:03.210]  because, obviously, when you're traditionally, anyway, if you're a lawyer doing a court filing and you need to redact something, your primary concern is keeping your opposing counsel from seeing it or from, if it's being published in the public record,
[51:03.650 --> 51:08.570]  keeping the members of the public from seeing something that is, for some reason, sensitive.
[51:10.370 --> 51:43.910]  But personally, in my time as a contractor and a private business owner, if I've had to file receipts for expenses from a business trip or something, I will often take the time to redact unrelated items from a receipt or irrelevant information such as a lot of receipts from stores will automatically print part of your credit card number if you use a card to pay.
[51:44.030 --> 52:00.910]  And I will redact that from a receipt that I have to file with a third party for reimbursement or for some other purpose where they don't need that information in order to complete whatever I'm filing that information for.
[52:01.210 --> 52:11.550]  And it's not in my interest to disclose that because it may allow someone else to find out something about me that they have no right to know.
[52:12.730 --> 52:15.730]  Yeah, and that raises an issue, too.
[52:16.050 --> 52:18.670]  You know, we're talking about threat modeling with respect to redactions.
[52:19.350 --> 52:21.210]  But think about this, too.
[52:21.350 --> 52:28.310]  I mean, older generation attorneys, you know, never really had to face this issue in the past.
[52:28.470 --> 52:35.390]  You know, somebody who's been practicing for 40 or 50 years was, you know, used to dealing with protective orders, maybe using redaction tape.
[52:35.610 --> 52:37.510]  You know, tape would be another way to deal with this.
[52:37.710 --> 52:43.890]  You know, blacking things out like our idiotic opposing counsel did, you know, with his magic marker that allowed us to do this.
[52:44.270 --> 52:47.190]  But, you know, people aren't generally trained on this.
[52:47.250 --> 52:48.710]  You don't learn this in law school.
[52:48.990 --> 52:54.670]  And now, as you mentioned in your article, Lorenzo, there are so many different ways to go about doing this.
[52:54.830 --> 52:56.150]  Nobody really tests them.
[52:56.350 --> 53:02.090]  And you're more concerned with getting the information to the court in a timely manner, not missing that deadline.
[53:02.290 --> 53:06.610]  The ECF filing process itself is also a huge pain in the butt.
[53:06.770 --> 53:07.650]  It's very difficult.
[53:07.830 --> 53:08.770]  It's very complicated.
[53:09.690 --> 53:14.730]  And, you know, whether or not your redaction could be unredacted is very often an afterthought.
[53:14.970 --> 53:23.590]  You're thinking much more about your motion, your filing, you know, whether you have your case sites correctly, not necessarily thinking about whether something you're putting in there could be unredacted.
[53:23.770 --> 53:41.390]  Now, what I think would be really interesting is if reporters like yourself, Lorenzo, and your colleagues over at Motherboard who do all this excellent work, if they went back and looked at a whole bunch of previous cases, you know, where redacted documents were filed and see if anybody else made such idiotic mistakes.
[53:41.630 --> 53:43.810]  Have you thought about doing that by any chance?
[53:44.230 --> 53:46.070]  I haven't, but that's a good idea, yeah.
[53:46.350 --> 53:47.130]  Maybe we should do that.
[53:47.710 --> 53:48.110]  Yeah.
[53:48.270 --> 53:48.710]  Why not?
[53:48.850 --> 53:49.790]  I'd happily help out.
[53:50.030 --> 53:53.650]  I think that's a project ripe for starting, if anyone out there wants to get on that.
[53:55.150 --> 53:56.410]  And that'll be a lot of fun.
[53:57.030 --> 54:02.290]  Well, we're going to wrap things up for the evening, but Lorenzo, thank you very much for joining us.
[54:02.370 --> 54:03.710]  Lorenzo, Franceschi, BCRI.
[54:04.250 --> 54:05.910]  Where can people find more from you?
[54:07.110 --> 54:07.510]  Yeah.
[54:07.910 --> 54:13.010]  They can follow me on Twitter at LorenzoFP or read the motherboard.vice.com.
[54:13.390 --> 54:14.250]  Thanks very much.
[54:14.630 --> 54:15.270]  Always a pleasure.
[54:15.930 --> 54:16.790]  Thank you, Lorenzo.
[54:17.470 --> 54:25.830]  And, yeah, with that, we've just got a couple of minutes left to say, yeah, I'm enjoying being back in this comfortable old time slot.
[54:26.070 --> 54:27.670]  Have we squandered another perfectly good hour?
[54:27.870 --> 54:29.090]  I think we may.
[54:29.110 --> 54:29.430]  Very nearly.
[54:29.430 --> 54:29.630]  Yeah.
[54:29.850 --> 54:30.430]  Very nearly.
[54:30.830 --> 54:32.750]  But I want to thank everyone.
[54:33.330 --> 54:35.930]  Thank you, Lorenzo, from Vice Motherboard.
[54:36.990 --> 54:42.630]  Emmanuel and Kyle are still out on their adventures, going all over the place, but we should be hearing back from them soon.
[54:43.750 --> 54:45.430]  Or, you know, maybe not.
[54:45.570 --> 54:45.890]  I don't know.
[54:46.030 --> 54:47.450]  But, no, we probably will.
[54:47.590 --> 54:49.870]  We'll put them on the back of the milk cartons if the time runs out.
[54:49.990 --> 54:50.150]  Yeah.
[54:50.210 --> 54:53.290]  I mean, I'm warming up the bumper sticker printer as we speak, in case something has happened.
[54:53.290 --> 54:53.830]  Coup d'etat!
[54:54.050 --> 54:54.450]  Coup d'etat!
[54:55.550 --> 54:56.270]  But, yes.
[54:56.550 --> 54:58.090]  So, yes, thank you.
[54:58.090 --> 55:00.110]  Thank you very much to Lorenzo.
[55:00.250 --> 55:05.410]  Thank you to you guys, Voltaire and Alex, and our guests Neo and Night Owl.
[55:05.630 --> 55:08.230]  Thank you to the Off The Hook Studio audience.
[55:09.590 --> 55:11.270]  And thank you to all of you listeners.
[55:11.650 --> 55:23.030]  If you listened to our show last week, we were talking about Public Domain Day and how there's a bunch of juicy new material out there that we all own now from 1923, things that were published in 1923 hitting the public domain.
[55:23.370 --> 55:30.030]  And so when we close the show with the music that we do, I've decided I'd like to keep mining that for a bit.
[55:30.190 --> 55:32.970]  So I'm going to play a little something else from 1923 tonight.
[55:33.150 --> 55:34.930]  This is The Mean Blues by David H.
[55:35.030 --> 55:35.310]  Silverman.
[55:35.430 --> 55:36.490]  I'd also like to invite our listeners.
[55:36.790 --> 55:47.270]  If you're going through any of these archives that have just been released to the public domain and you hear or see anything that's of particular interest to you that was published in 1923, let us know.
[55:47.450 --> 55:50.470]  Send us email, OTH at 2600.com.
[55:50.670 --> 55:55.270]  Or get us at Hacker Radio Show on Twitter or at Hacker Radio Show on Mastodon.social.
[55:55.970 --> 55:57.610]  And let us know what you think.
[55:58.270 --> 56:00.250]  For Off The Hook, this is Rob T.
[56:00.370 --> 56:00.710]  Firefly.
[56:01.230 --> 56:02.930]  Have a very good night.
[56:02.930 --> 56:03.010]  We'll see you next week.
[56:03.590 --> 56:04.150]  Bye.
[59:17.320 --> 59:17.880]  Bye.
[59:18.260 --> 59:18.740]  Bye.
[59:18.740 --> 59:19.040]  Bye.