[00:00.000 --> 00:04.180] [SPEAKER_00]: Soledad O'Brien and Bill Moyers will present.
[00:04.480 --> 00:11.360] [SPEAKER_00]: And Riverside Church Minister Emeritus, Reverend Dr. James Forbes Jr. will host.
[00:11.560 --> 00:12.500] [SPEAKER_00]: Tickets are free.
[00:12.680 --> 00:18.840] [SPEAKER_00]: And for more information, go to juneteenth-ny.com.
[00:18.980 --> 00:22.060] [SPEAKER_00]: That's Wednesday, June 19th at 7 p.m. at Carnegie Hall.
[00:23.200 --> 00:25.020] [SPEAKER_00]: And broadcast from 9 p.m. to midnight on listener-sponsored WBAI New York.
[00:31.080 --> 00:34.300] [SPEAKER_01]: And this is radio station WBAI in New York.
[00:34.540 --> 00:35.880] [SPEAKER_01]: The time is 7 o'clock.
[00:35.980 --> 00:38.160] [SPEAKER_01]: That means it's time for Off The Hook.
[02:24.700 --> 02:26.380] [SPEAKER_01]: And a very good evening to everybody.
[02:26.380 --> 02:28.240] [SPEAKER_01]: The program is Off The Hook.
[02:28.400 --> 02:31.020] [SPEAKER_01]: Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
[02:31.100 --> 02:32.540] [SPEAKER_01]: Joined tonight by Alex.
[02:32.720 --> 02:33.100] [SPEAKER_02]: Good evening.
[02:33.340 --> 02:33.740] [SPEAKER_01]: And Kyle.
[02:34.420 --> 02:35.100] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I'm here.
[02:35.100 --> 02:36.180] [SPEAKER_01]: Good driving, Kyle.
[02:36.660 --> 02:36.820] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[02:36.820 --> 02:38.520] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, 10 minutes ago, we were on the BQE.
[02:38.620 --> 02:39.660] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how we even did it.
[02:40.620 --> 02:42.300] [SPEAKER_01]: But I hope nobody got in our way.
[02:42.420 --> 02:43.380] [SPEAKER_01]: I just know we're here now.
[02:43.660 --> 02:47.980] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, ways, you have to sometimes override ways.
[02:48.260 --> 02:51.020] [SPEAKER_01]: Because it directs you onto roads that you know are going to be crowded.
[02:51.020 --> 02:52.100] [SPEAKER_01]: And, um...
[02:52.100 --> 02:54.040] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, remember when you used intuition to drive?
[02:54.180 --> 02:54.620] [SPEAKER_03]: Intuition.
[02:55.180 --> 02:55.600] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[02:55.840 --> 02:56.900] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a good thing.
[02:57.020 --> 02:57.900] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a throwback.
[02:58.100 --> 03:00.780] [SPEAKER_02]: You might want to explain what the BQE stands for.
[03:01.060 --> 03:01.080] [SPEAKER_02]: Really?
[03:01.080 --> 03:02.580] [SPEAKER_02]: For a non-New York listener.
[03:02.740 --> 03:02.760] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[03:02.760 --> 03:06.760] [SPEAKER_01]: If anybody doesn't know what the BQE stands for, call in and tell us that.
[03:06.840 --> 03:07.120] [SPEAKER_01]: No, wait.
[03:07.200 --> 03:08.200] [SPEAKER_01]: How could they... Okay.
[03:08.300 --> 03:09.160] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyone can say that, I guess.
[03:09.160 --> 03:12.540] [SPEAKER_03]: If a listener wants to tell someone what it is, call in.
[03:12.840 --> 03:14.000] [SPEAKER_03]: It's basically hell.
[03:14.560 --> 03:15.700] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, yeah, really.
[03:15.820 --> 03:16.300] [SPEAKER_01]: I guess people...
[03:16.300 --> 03:17.900] [SPEAKER_01]: There are people that probably don't know what it is.
[03:18.000 --> 03:19.280] [SPEAKER_01]: But, I mean, like the LIE.
[03:19.460 --> 03:20.900] [SPEAKER_01]: You think there are people that don't know what the LIE is?
[03:21.880 --> 03:23.160] [SPEAKER_02]: I would imagine so.
[03:23.220 --> 03:23.820] [SPEAKER_02]: I hope so.
[03:23.980 --> 03:27.860] [SPEAKER_02]: I really hope that not everybody in the world has experienced the Long Island Expressway.
[03:27.900 --> 03:31.200] [SPEAKER_03]: It's basically a highway with a confluence of many other roads.
[03:32.860 --> 03:42.900] [SPEAKER_03]: And those on and off ramps, those junctions can be, well, very active, especially this time of day.
[03:42.900 --> 03:43.120] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[03:43.140 --> 03:46.080] [SPEAKER_02]: So, there's a very high density of idiots as well.
[03:46.520 --> 03:46.880] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[03:47.080 --> 03:47.260] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[03:47.320 --> 03:55.800] [SPEAKER_03]: I think the over 80 degree weather is definitely... That might be starting to get people, especially if you get slowed down.
[03:55.800 --> 03:57.620] [SPEAKER_03]: You're kind of sitting there and the traffic gets warm.
[03:57.620 --> 03:58.400] [SPEAKER_03]: I have to take exception.
[03:58.520 --> 03:59.320] [SPEAKER_01]: I have to take exception to that.
[03:59.360 --> 04:02.880] [SPEAKER_01]: I think people, for the most part, on the BQE drive very well.
[04:02.880 --> 04:04.440] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just they don't have much to work with.
[04:04.800 --> 04:05.280] [SPEAKER_01]: You know?
[04:05.440 --> 04:06.960] [SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't hear much honking.
[04:07.340 --> 04:12.120] [SPEAKER_01]: I know if you were driving on a freeway in LA, that's when the word idiot, I think, would come up a lot.
[04:12.120 --> 04:12.120] Yeah.
[04:12.620 --> 04:14.400] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just saying it from personal experience.
[04:15.100 --> 04:15.940] [SPEAKER_01]: This is what happens.
[04:16.460 --> 04:16.780] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[04:16.840 --> 04:17.200] [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't know.
[04:17.340 --> 04:21.540] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, if we're going to bring California into it, that's a different conversation.
[04:21.840 --> 04:25.160] [SPEAKER_01]: For those who are dying to know, it stands for Brooklyn, Queens, Expressway.
[04:25.360 --> 04:31.060] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know who the wise guy was to put Expressway in there, but it certainly isn't fast, at least not now.
[04:31.740 --> 04:33.140] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, there are a lot of improvements.
[04:33.320 --> 04:34.000] [SPEAKER_03]: That's all I'm going to say.
[04:34.000 --> 04:39.860] [SPEAKER_03]: And they are promising, but not a moment too soon, really.
[04:40.320 --> 04:41.600] [SPEAKER_01]: The new Kosciuszko Bridge, yeah.
[04:41.680 --> 04:49.420] [SPEAKER_03]: It's coming along really nicely, and it's, I think, going to help with some of the bottlenecks and hang-ups.
[04:49.620 --> 04:51.300] [SPEAKER_01]: I have a question, Governor Cuomo.
[04:51.620 --> 04:55.580] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, you built this great bridge, or got this bridge built.
[04:55.580 --> 04:59.960] [SPEAKER_01]: It's got five lanes going one way, four lanes going another, when it opens up in September.
[05:00.440 --> 05:01.600] [SPEAKER_01]: Four years ahead of schedule.
[05:01.680 --> 05:02.300] [SPEAKER_01]: Congrats on that.
[05:02.440 --> 05:06.720] [SPEAKER_01]: But what happens when those five lanes merge back into two or three lanes?
[05:06.880 --> 05:08.060] [SPEAKER_01]: Isn't that going to cause a bottleneck?
[05:08.240 --> 05:09.340] [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I'm worried about.
[05:10.180 --> 05:11.540] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, yeah, exactly.
[05:11.760 --> 05:17.100] [SPEAKER_03]: And something that crosses a body of water, I think, becomes the first thing to address.
[05:17.220 --> 05:23.480] [SPEAKER_03]: Because, you know, what was there was a pretty immense engineering feat in and of itself.
[05:23.480 --> 05:33.760] [SPEAKER_03]: But a lot of the connected parts of that particular road will, I would assume, be widened in some way or improved along with this.
[05:34.100 --> 05:40.920] [SPEAKER_03]: But were you not to have addressed the bridge, it would then itself languish and become the bottleneck.
[05:41.020 --> 05:45.160] [SPEAKER_03]: So I guess it's part of a grander vision and something that is connected.
[05:46.540 --> 05:53.600] [SPEAKER_03]: But as it's being prioritized and implemented, this is the first sort of part of that.
[05:53.760 --> 05:57.340] [SPEAKER_03]: And the other bottlenecks you noted have yet to get the attention they need.
[05:57.560 --> 05:59.980] [SPEAKER_01]: So we have some listener mail.
[06:00.140 --> 06:03.060] [SPEAKER_01]: Speaking of improvements, I think this is from Jerry.
[06:03.340 --> 06:06.320] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't sign the name and we don't have the headers here.
[06:06.460 --> 06:07.820] [SPEAKER_01]: So thanks for writing.
[06:07.920 --> 06:13.520] [SPEAKER_01]: In case you didn't know, on May 31st at noon, the MTA launched a pilot program of its new tap-to-pay system.
[06:13.680 --> 06:14.360] [SPEAKER_01]: You know about this, Alex?
[06:15.000 --> 06:16.120] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I've heard of it.
[06:16.220 --> 06:17.200] [SPEAKER_01]: It's called OMNY.
[06:17.560 --> 06:18.300] [SPEAKER_01]: Spelled wrong.
[06:18.440 --> 06:19.200] [SPEAKER_01]: O-M-N-Y.
[06:20.100 --> 06:24.420] [SPEAKER_01]: And I guess that means One Metro New York.
[06:24.580 --> 06:25.580] [SPEAKER_01]: That's what it stands for.
[06:25.800 --> 06:26.060] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[06:26.300 --> 06:28.400] [SPEAKER_01]: It will replace the MetroCard.
[06:28.560 --> 06:35.800] [SPEAKER_01]: So the MetroCard that we talked about on this show when it was new is going to be extinct soon.
[06:35.800 --> 06:46.940] [SPEAKER_01]: The Transit Authority is starting with 16 subway stations on the 4, 5, and 6 lines in Manhattan and Brooklyn between Grand Central, 42nd Street, and Atlantic Avenue, Barclay Center, right near us.
[06:47.540 --> 06:51.180] [SPEAKER_01]: Riders can also try out OMNY on all Staten Island buses.
[06:51.460 --> 06:52.940] [SPEAKER_01]: Downside is you've got to go to Staten Island.
[06:53.180 --> 06:55.140] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm kidding, Staten Island listeners.
[06:55.140 --> 06:55.960] [SPEAKER_01]: Take things too seriously.
[06:56.140 --> 06:57.140] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm kidding about that too.
[06:57.760 --> 06:58.320] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[06:58.540 --> 07:06.560] [SPEAKER_01]: So we'll be joining all kinds of other modern cities in having this contactless system.
[07:06.820 --> 07:08.360] [SPEAKER_01]: Kyle, I know we've been to a number of those cities.
[07:08.720 --> 07:09.480] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, indeed.
[07:09.680 --> 07:15.600] [SPEAKER_03]: And the integration with handsets is something beyond, I think, what we've tried in some places.
[07:15.780 --> 07:23.820] [SPEAKER_03]: But it's a little bit further because you can't buy a separate card or a paper ticket that has a chip of some sort.
[07:23.960 --> 07:29.540] [SPEAKER_03]: Or otherwise, you're able to run it across as though it's like a mag stripe setup.
[07:29.540 --> 07:35.840] [SPEAKER_03]: This new system requires software, requires you associating your accounts.
[07:35.920 --> 07:43.660] [SPEAKER_03]: And we've played around with this a little bit on some of the other railways, in particular the LIRR and that stuff.
[07:43.780 --> 07:51.020] [SPEAKER_03]: So as they rely more on this, because it's kind of like the boarding passes at an airport or like a flatbed scanner.
[07:51.280 --> 07:54.620] [SPEAKER_03]: You basically hold a device to it and it scans it.
[07:54.620 --> 08:06.180] [SPEAKER_03]: And if you've been to any of those 16 or 14 stations, you would see basically one turnstile that instead of having a mag stripe reader that we're used to with the MetroCard, it has this sort of...
[08:06.180 --> 08:10.220] [SPEAKER_03]: It looks like a grocery checkout, as I said, or like a boarding pass thing.
[08:10.340 --> 08:14.220] [SPEAKER_03]: And it basically scans whatever you put over the glass part.
[08:14.460 --> 08:18.840] [SPEAKER_03]: And that account is then linked to your trip.
[08:18.840 --> 08:25.220] [SPEAKER_01]: The thing that's somewhat unique about New York is that I believe it's only going to be used going in, not going out.
[08:25.360 --> 08:29.980] [SPEAKER_01]: In London, you tap going in and going out, and it calculates your fare based on that.
[08:30.020 --> 08:37.300] [SPEAKER_01]: But here in New York, we have a passionate tradition of only having one fare, not raising it during rush hour, not raising it because of distance.
[08:38.120 --> 08:42.960] [SPEAKER_01]: And I hope that this isn't going to lead to sneaking that change in in any way.
[08:43.100 --> 08:44.360] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think that it will.
[08:44.380 --> 08:52.060] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's been a hallmark of the New York City subway station is that it is sort of designed to be what's known as egalitarian or this great equalizer.
[08:52.260 --> 09:02.000] [SPEAKER_02]: And that, you know, for the same fare as, you know, if you were taking a train from 14th Street to 18th Street, you know, like on the one train, it's one of the only lines that still has an 18th Street station.
[09:02.260 --> 09:06.920] [SPEAKER_02]: It's the same fare as if you were taking it all the way up to, you know, the end of the 456.
[09:07.100 --> 09:10.860] [SPEAKER_01]: You got to respect somebody who does that, who goes one stop and pays full fare.
[09:11.480 --> 09:12.300] [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely you do.
[09:12.660 --> 09:14.620] [SPEAKER_02]: So I don't think it will change that.
[09:14.720 --> 09:18.060] [SPEAKER_02]: If it does change that, I think there should be, you know, riots in the street.
[09:18.160 --> 09:24.920] [SPEAKER_01]: But you can go from Washington Heights all the way to Rockaway for the same fare as your friend going from 14th Street to 18th Street.
[09:25.020 --> 09:26.160] [SPEAKER_01]: But it wasn't always that way.
[09:26.300 --> 09:32.940] [SPEAKER_01]: Actually, if you look at the really old subway maps, you'll see that south of Broad Channel, it says extra fare applies beyond this point.
[09:33.020 --> 09:34.560] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, I don't know how that worked.
[09:34.980 --> 09:43.260] [SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't around then, but maybe one of our listeners can help us with a memory of how they collected the extra fare on the New York City subway system back then.
[09:43.260 --> 09:46.300] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I have a question about this new OMNY system as well.
[09:46.540 --> 09:47.700] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, you mentioned London...
[09:47.700 --> 09:48.980] [SPEAKER_01]: Sounds so cool, the OMNY system.
[09:49.160 --> 09:50.240] [SPEAKER_01]: Wow, what's so cyber?
[09:50.660 --> 09:57.100] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, weirdly enough, Omni is what I named our DNS intelligence platform that I had designed over the last few years.
[09:57.100 --> 10:01.780] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you can expect a letter from their legal team then because I think this is going to take priority over your Omni.
[10:01.920 --> 10:05.960] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, no, and mine is actually spelled correctly, so there's no chance of confusing similarity.
[10:05.980 --> 10:08.300] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, and the Omni magazine is no longer around.
[10:08.520 --> 10:08.940] [SPEAKER_02]: Remember them?
[10:09.020 --> 10:09.440] [SPEAKER_02]: They were great.
[10:09.440 --> 10:10.260] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I do, actually.
[10:10.360 --> 10:11.960] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I haven't thought about that in a while.
[10:12.080 --> 10:15.300] [SPEAKER_02]: Mine actually stands for Open-Source Multidisciplinary Network Intelligence.
[10:15.360 --> 10:17.600] [SPEAKER_02]: It's totally different, different acronym.
[10:18.080 --> 10:21.400] [SPEAKER_02]: In any event, to go back to my original question, though, you brought up London.
[10:21.480 --> 10:28.820] [SPEAKER_02]: I used to live in London, obviously, and whenever I go back, I use the same Oyster card that I've been using for, I don't know, about six years now.
[10:28.980 --> 10:30.820] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that it's absolutely amazing.
[10:30.960 --> 10:36.060] [SPEAKER_02]: It's one of the things that really annoys me about New York is that the MetroCards here expire after a while.
[10:36.060 --> 10:36.520] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[10:36.680 --> 10:37.320] [SPEAKER_02]: It's so annoying.
[10:37.480 --> 10:38.220] [SPEAKER_02]: It's so wasteful.
[10:38.380 --> 10:42.920] [SPEAKER_02]: You go to try to re-up your MetroCard, and then it says, oh, it's expired.
[10:43.020 --> 10:44.940] [SPEAKER_02]: It can't be, you know, you can't add value to it.
[10:45.180 --> 10:46.060] [SPEAKER_02]: It's idiotic.
[10:46.460 --> 10:51.260] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, I wonder if these OMNY Cards are going to have an expiration date.
[10:51.380 --> 10:52.040] [SPEAKER_02]: Does anybody know that?
[10:52.580 --> 10:56.800] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think it's a card, necessarily, because it's using a handset.
[10:56.960 --> 10:57.240] [SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
[10:57.340 --> 10:58.840] [SPEAKER_03]: Or like, not an NFC.
[10:58.840 --> 10:59.660] [SPEAKER_01]: What if you don't have a phone?
[10:59.800 --> 11:01.360] [SPEAKER_01]: You have to have cards of some sort.
[11:02.020 --> 11:03.160] [SPEAKER_03]: That's exactly right.
[11:03.160 --> 11:11.240] [SPEAKER_03]: I think maybe the machines themselves will print some kind of ticket with a QR, perhaps, or some kind of optical code.
[11:11.520 --> 11:17.360] [SPEAKER_03]: But the oysters, going back to what you said about London, those do expire, but you have to use them.
[11:17.440 --> 11:21.140] [SPEAKER_03]: You have to continually load onto them.
[11:21.160 --> 11:29.940] [SPEAKER_03]: I know because we've tried to reuse them before, and you basically, you aren't able to re-up the oyster after a certain point.
[11:29.940 --> 11:38.080] [SPEAKER_01]: Actually, what happened there was, we had two Oyster cards, because we got our deposit back for one trip.
[11:38.260 --> 11:40.460] [SPEAKER_01]: And for some reason, it let us keep the Oyster card.
[11:40.520 --> 11:44.420] [SPEAKER_01]: I thought the deposit was for the actual physical card, but we wound up keeping it.
[11:44.660 --> 11:50.520] [SPEAKER_01]: And then another time, we wound up giving it back and getting the same, what, five pounds back as a deposit.
[11:50.520 --> 11:56.600] [SPEAKER_01]: So when I tried to re-up the one that I got back after getting the deposit back, it wouldn't work.
[11:56.720 --> 11:58.460] [SPEAKER_01]: So I think that's when it expires.
[11:58.580 --> 11:59.520] [SPEAKER_01]: But it seems like a real waste.
[11:59.520 --> 12:01.880] [SPEAKER_01]: They should just take it back and reuse the actual physical card.
[12:02.360 --> 12:02.720] [SPEAKER_03]: I see.
[12:02.800 --> 12:04.940] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's what I was referring to exactly.
[12:05.500 --> 12:08.680] [SPEAKER_03]: That if you do the deposit process, it becomes inactive.
[12:08.860 --> 12:11.920] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, speaking of London, our president is over there right now.
[12:12.360 --> 12:14.820] [SPEAKER_01]: Actually, I don't know if he's in London right now, but he was in London.
[12:15.280 --> 12:16.200] [SPEAKER_01]: He's your president.
[12:16.260 --> 12:16.880] [SPEAKER_02]: He's not mine.
[12:17.280 --> 12:19.040] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, how is he my president and not yours?
[12:19.040 --> 12:20.280] [SPEAKER_02]: You just said he's our president.
[12:20.520 --> 12:23.080] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, technically, legally, I'm not going to get into this right now.
[12:23.180 --> 12:23.780] [SPEAKER_01]: We don't have enough time.
[12:24.120 --> 12:27.940] [SPEAKER_01]: But he was over there, and he got really flustered and angry.
[12:28.040 --> 12:30.540] [SPEAKER_01]: First of all, he was flustered and angry while he was on the plane.
[12:30.680 --> 12:35.540] [SPEAKER_01]: He was tweeting on the plane, which I guess you can do if you have Wi-Fi on the plane and you're the president.
[12:36.000 --> 12:49.220] [SPEAKER_01]: But literally, you could see him coming into London in the sky on TV, and he's tweeting as that's happening, criticizing the mayor of London, criticizing the mayor of New York City, whatever.
[12:49.500 --> 13:02.400] [SPEAKER_01]: But by the time he was on the ground and had gotten somewhat familiar with the area, he got himself into a big tizzy because he was upset at what was being said over CNN.
[13:02.400 --> 13:09.580] [SPEAKER_01]: So he advised everybody to boycott AT&T, which now owns CNN, and he was against that.
[13:10.220 --> 13:13.720] [SPEAKER_01]: And in a way, I can't really defend that.
[13:13.860 --> 13:20.180] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't say that having AT&T owning CNN or owning Time Warner or however it works.
[13:20.180 --> 13:22.800] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm still upset over time merging with Warner.
[13:23.000 --> 13:25.500] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm not really into these big corporate mergers.
[13:25.920 --> 13:31.520] [SPEAKER_01]: But he's saying that because CNN is critical of him that everybody should boycott AT&T.
[13:32.460 --> 13:34.480] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's really interesting.
[13:34.680 --> 13:40.620] [SPEAKER_01]: I believe that if people stopped using or subscribing to AT&T, they would be forced to make big changes at CNN, which is dying in the ratings anyway.
[13:40.860 --> 13:42.980] [SPEAKER_01]: It is so unfair with such bad fake news.
[13:43.020 --> 13:44.180] [SPEAKER_01]: Why wouldn't they act?
[13:44.300 --> 13:47.300] [SPEAKER_01]: When the world watches CNN, it gets a false picture of USA.
[13:48.080 --> 13:48.320] [SPEAKER_01]: Sad.
[13:48.580 --> 13:49.360] [SPEAKER_01]: All negative.
[13:49.360 --> 13:50.180] [SPEAKER_01]: So much fake news.
[13:50.280 --> 13:50.980] [SPEAKER_01]: Very bad for U.S.
[13:51.000 --> 13:52.820] [SPEAKER_01]: Why doesn't owner AT&T do something?
[13:53.320 --> 13:54.240] [SPEAKER_01]: Et cetera, et cetera.
[13:54.340 --> 13:58.720] [SPEAKER_01]: What happened was he found out that he couldn't watch Fox News in England.
[13:58.820 --> 14:00.320] [SPEAKER_01]: Because I didn't know this.
[14:00.420 --> 14:04.900] [SPEAKER_01]: As of 2017, Fox News is no longer in the U.K.
[14:04.900 --> 14:07.980] [SPEAKER_01]: They only had a small list of viewership.
[14:08.100 --> 14:11.420] [SPEAKER_01]: I think a couple of thousand people, which is tiny in the broadcast world.
[14:11.720 --> 14:16.220] [SPEAKER_01]: So they discontinued having that be available anywhere.
[14:16.800 --> 14:22.780] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, the thing this tells me is that nobody is showing him how to use a VPN.
[14:23.440 --> 14:27.320] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, when we travel, we can see anything we want to see because we use VPNs.
[14:27.480 --> 14:30.020] [SPEAKER_01]: How does the president of the United States not know how to do that?
[14:30.080 --> 14:36.980] [SPEAKER_01]: How does nobody in his entourage telling him that, yeah, you know, all you have to do is go on the Internet and there you are, Fox News.
[14:36.980 --> 14:42.440] [SPEAKER_01]: Because it tells me they're not sharing this information with him just to kind of see how much of a tantrum he'll throw.
[14:43.060 --> 14:48.600] [SPEAKER_02]: I heard that his VPN that he uses actually only allows him to view Russia today.
[14:48.820 --> 14:49.160] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh-huh.
[14:49.300 --> 14:49.780] [SPEAKER_02]: That's it.
[14:49.920 --> 14:50.740] [SPEAKER_02]: That was a joke.
[14:50.860 --> 14:51.260] [SPEAKER_02]: Very funny.
[14:51.260 --> 14:51.420] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm kidding.
[14:51.480 --> 14:51.900] [SPEAKER_01]: Very funny.
[14:51.980 --> 14:53.120] [SPEAKER_01]: We need humor in days like this.
[14:53.120 --> 14:54.060] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we really do.
[14:54.140 --> 14:59.120] [SPEAKER_01]: But technically, it's, you know, I remember when there was a presidential campaign.
[14:59.260 --> 15:00.560] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it was Al Gore that was doing this.
[15:01.320 --> 15:06.280] [SPEAKER_01]: He was watching all the local TV channels from DirecTV, which you're not allowed to do.
[15:06.400 --> 15:07.120] [SPEAKER_01]: But you know what?
[15:07.120 --> 15:09.420] [SPEAKER_01]: When you're running for president, there are exceptions that are made.
[15:09.520 --> 15:12.620] [SPEAKER_01]: And I imagine when you are president, there are also exceptions that are made.
[15:12.640 --> 15:15.620] [SPEAKER_01]: He should be able to watch whatever network he wants, just like we all should.
[15:15.780 --> 15:21.520] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, so are you arguing that the president should violate the rules here, that he should breach and bend the terms of service?
[15:21.520 --> 15:22.160] [SPEAKER_02]: But there are no rules.
[15:22.220 --> 15:22.980] [SPEAKER_02]: What are the rules?
[15:23.220 --> 15:24.220] [SPEAKER_01]: What rules are there?
[15:24.280 --> 15:28.280] [SPEAKER_01]: What rules prevent us from going to London, getting on a VPN, and watching U.S.
[15:28.360 --> 15:28.580] [SPEAKER_01]: television?
[15:28.580 --> 15:33.860] [SPEAKER_02]: These are very clear rules about what you can watch and what you can't watch, and all dependent upon where you are.
[15:33.960 --> 15:36.660] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that the law should apply to everybody equally.
[15:36.700 --> 15:37.720] [SPEAKER_02]: The president should not...
[15:37.720 --> 15:39.720] [SPEAKER_01]: These are corporate rules you're quoting.
[15:39.860 --> 15:43.680] [SPEAKER_01]: We're not even quoting, but it's VPNs have existed.
[15:43.840 --> 15:44.240] [SPEAKER_01]: They're legal.
[15:44.580 --> 15:48.460] [SPEAKER_01]: We pay for a VPN, and it allows us to...
[15:48.460 --> 15:52.420] [SPEAKER_01]: If we need to be in Canada, for instance, all of a sudden, we can do that.
[15:52.760 --> 15:54.560] [SPEAKER_01]: If we need to be in England, we can do that.
[15:55.320 --> 15:56.180] [SPEAKER_02]: You've played with this, too.
[15:56.320 --> 15:57.180] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, of course I have.
[15:57.180 --> 16:04.440] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just trying to reconcile the argument that, you know, you criticized the president for breaking the rules and breaking the law, and now you're advocating for the president.
[16:04.440 --> 16:06.520] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, no, I'm criticizing him for not knowing how to do this.
[16:06.520 --> 16:06.840] [SPEAKER_01]: I know.
[16:06.860 --> 16:08.020] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm only kidding with you, obviously.
[16:08.220 --> 16:12.220] [SPEAKER_02]: But, yeah, I mean, it should be a really, really simple fix for him to be able to do something like this.
[16:12.300 --> 16:13.220] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think it's that serious.
[16:13.360 --> 16:14.000] [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's more...
[16:14.000 --> 16:14.800] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think it's that deep.
[16:14.800 --> 16:19.560] [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's more about him just not being able to, like, flip, like, ChannelSurf with a remote.
[16:20.020 --> 16:32.280] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, you'd have to sit with a browser or use some kind of computer or have some more substantial setup engineered such that you could just sit there and flip with a remote control.
[16:32.280 --> 16:42.580] [SPEAKER_03]: But given the service that he has on, you know, government accounts and all that, it's probably just, you know, one set of satellite channels that's there.
[16:43.140 --> 16:54.540] [SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, or actually, yeah, at whatever venue the government deems is okay for his visit or whatever the British hosts are providing him.
[16:54.540 --> 17:09.440] [SPEAKER_01]: Look, all I'm saying is if I was somehow in charge of Trump, I had to, you know, keep him happy and entertained and, you know, within reach of whatever he demands at a moment's notice, I would set it up so that he can just press a button and watch Fox News at any time.
[17:09.440 --> 17:10.760] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not hard to do that.
[17:10.820 --> 17:13.540] [SPEAKER_01]: The fact is people in his administration are not doing that for him.
[17:13.640 --> 17:14.880] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's hilarious.
[17:15.140 --> 17:16.160] [SPEAKER_02]: It's probably a good thing.
[17:16.320 --> 17:23.300] [SPEAKER_02]: Frankly, we'd have just constant fluctuations in our foreign and domestic policy if he was able to access Fox News at the flip of a switch.
[17:23.300 --> 17:26.600] [SPEAKER_02]: Let's keep him away from it as much as possible, especially when he's overseas.
[17:26.880 --> 17:28.040] [SPEAKER_01]: No, that's what we're saying.
[17:28.060 --> 17:30.540] [SPEAKER_01]: But people in his own administration are doing this.
[17:30.700 --> 17:31.780] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe they're doing that deliberately.
[17:32.120 --> 17:33.200] [SPEAKER_02]: That's what I'm getting at.
[17:33.200 --> 17:39.020] [SPEAKER_01]: It just seems very bizarre knowing technically what's possible that he's unable to do this.
[17:39.220 --> 17:41.900] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you mentioned that Fox News wasn't available in the UK.
[17:42.280 --> 17:51.160] [SPEAKER_02]: Coincidentally, I was on a plane coming back from Florida on Monday evening, and I was forced to watch Fox News for a little bit on the way back on a JetBlue flight.
[17:51.340 --> 17:53.040] [SPEAKER_01]: Wait, wait, how do you mean forced to watch Fox?
[17:53.040 --> 17:54.720] [SPEAKER_01]: What, they made everybody sit and pay attention?
[17:55.080 --> 17:57.240] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you know, there wasn't really much else on.
[17:57.340 --> 18:01.440] [SPEAKER_02]: It was that or reruns of The Office and, you know, got kids trying to sleep.
[18:01.580 --> 18:08.820] [SPEAKER_02]: And anyway, I was flipping between news stations, and I was sort of bored with Rachel Maddow, flipped over to Fox News because they had Nigel Farage on.
[18:09.140 --> 18:13.940] [SPEAKER_02]: And they were speaking at, it was equivalent of probably about 3 o'clock in the morning, London time.
[18:13.940 --> 18:19.820] [SPEAKER_02]: And they were making a big stink about the fact that Fox News was not available in the UK.
[18:20.220 --> 18:23.040] [SPEAKER_02]: And Nigel Farage was saying, oh, it's such a travesty.
[18:23.160 --> 18:25.380] [SPEAKER_02]: We need to make sure that this, you know, gets corrected.
[18:25.420 --> 18:27.880] [SPEAKER_02]: We need Fox News more than ever now in the UK.
[18:28.160 --> 18:34.540] [SPEAKER_02]: And what was very interesting to me, too, is that he was listed as a Fox News contributor, which means that he's on their payroll.
[18:34.660 --> 18:35.880] [SPEAKER_02]: That's why he needs it over there.
[18:36.080 --> 18:36.380] [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[18:36.820 --> 18:37.060] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[18:37.180 --> 18:43.220] [SPEAKER_01]: People in the UK really don't care about domestic news in the US, and that's pretty much all that Fox News is concerned with.
[18:44.020 --> 18:46.200] [SPEAKER_01]: Whereas CNN has different divisions.
[18:46.380 --> 18:47.020] [SPEAKER_01]: They have international.
[18:47.020 --> 18:48.340] [SPEAKER_01]: They have domestic as well.
[18:48.500 --> 18:49.220] [SPEAKER_01]: It's smart to do that.
[18:49.220 --> 18:49.720] [SPEAKER_01]: It is.
[18:51.000 --> 18:58.760] [SPEAKER_01]: Moving on, though, there are other things going on, obviously, in the technical world and things having to do with privacy.
[18:59.380 --> 19:15.140] [SPEAKER_01]: And New York, apparently, is on its way to introducing or passing the New York Privacy Act It was introduced last month by State Senator Kevin Thomas, and it would give residents in this state more control over their data than in any other state.
[19:15.140 --> 19:19.360] [SPEAKER_01]: It would also require businesses to put their customers' privacy before their own profits.
[19:19.940 --> 19:29.840] [SPEAKER_01]: The bill is still seeking a co-sponsor in the state assembly, but Thomas says he is confident that he has majority support in the Senate and hopes to pass the bill this summer.
[19:29.880 --> 19:33.260] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we know some people in the state assembly, so maybe we can just get them to co-sponsor.
[19:33.320 --> 19:34.700] [SPEAKER_01]: What does it take to co-sponsor a bill?
[19:34.700 --> 19:36.560] [SPEAKER_01]: You just basically say you co-sponsor it?
[19:36.640 --> 19:38.400] [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's pretty much it.
[19:38.460 --> 19:41.240] [SPEAKER_02]: You sign your name somewhere and you're a co-sponsor.
[19:41.380 --> 19:42.060] [SPEAKER_02]: Don't have to pay anything?
[19:42.820 --> 19:46.440] [SPEAKER_02]: There may be some kind of fee associated with that.
[19:46.600 --> 19:48.120] [SPEAKER_02]: Is there a fee associated with introducing a bill?
[19:48.160 --> 19:48.940] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I have no idea.
[19:48.940 --> 19:49.820] [SPEAKER_02]: I wouldn't be surprised.
[19:49.820 --> 19:51.220] [SPEAKER_03]: I think you have to stand and say it.
[19:51.700 --> 19:52.580] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, that's right.
[19:52.580 --> 19:53.220] [SPEAKER_03]: I think so.
[19:53.380 --> 20:00.480] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, the Committee on Consumer Protection, which Thomas happens to chair, is scheduled to hold a hearing on the bill this week.
[20:00.960 --> 20:06.180] [SPEAKER_01]: And with it, New York is poised to become the next battleground in the fight for state privacy laws.
[20:06.360 --> 20:11.380] [SPEAKER_01]: California became the first state to pass such a law last year with the California Consumer Protection Act.
[20:11.560 --> 20:15.560] [SPEAKER_01]: Industry groups and consumer advocates have been sparring over its language ever since.
[20:15.840 --> 20:25.660] [SPEAKER_01]: And of course, businesses argue that CCPA is overly broad and that complying with different laws in every state is unworkable, preferring instead a lighter touch regulation at the federal level.
[20:25.780 --> 20:26.260] [SPEAKER_01]: How about this?
[20:26.260 --> 20:28.240] [SPEAKER_01]: How about a heavier touch at the federal level?
[20:28.420 --> 20:32.020] [SPEAKER_01]: That way, you all know what the rules are and consumers are happy.
[20:32.160 --> 20:33.600] [SPEAKER_01]: And don't you want happy consumers?
[20:34.000 --> 20:34.940] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, certainly.
[20:35.220 --> 20:37.160] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you mentioned CCPA.
[20:37.340 --> 20:39.960] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's supposed to come into effect in January of 2020.
[20:40.320 --> 20:48.360] [SPEAKER_02]: And it has caused such an uproar because it applies to businesses, I believe, that make over $25 million a year annually.
[20:48.740 --> 20:57.660] [SPEAKER_02]: And similar to the New York bill, gives consumers access to information about what data is being collected about them, what data is being shared about them.
[20:57.960 --> 21:09.140] [SPEAKER_02]: My problem with the CCPA, the California Consumer Privacy Act, however, is that the data that is given back to you about where your information has gone is not very specific.
[21:09.380 --> 21:18.400] [SPEAKER_02]: The companies that are sharing your data only have to give you categories of companies to which they have provided your information.
[21:18.640 --> 21:20.720] [SPEAKER_02]: And what those categories are is very unclear.
[21:20.720 --> 21:25.860] [SPEAKER_02]: This New York law is arguably going much further than the California law.
[21:26.380 --> 21:38.520] [SPEAKER_02]: And most notably, in my opinion, and I think this is a real innovation, and it's why the tech companies are very much up in arms against this particular bill, is that it gives consumers what's known as a private right of action.
[21:39.020 --> 21:51.200] [SPEAKER_02]: That means that consumers can sue tech companies or any company that misuses its data, that they have the right to go into court in New York State Court and bring a lawsuit for violation of their privacy.
[21:52.440 --> 21:54.160] [SPEAKER_02]: That's a really, really big change.
[21:54.160 --> 22:00.620] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm sure that the plaintiff's bar, meaning, you know, plaintiff's lawyers, are very much in favor of this.
[22:00.760 --> 22:01.800] [SPEAKER_02]: They're a very powerful lobby.
[22:01.920 --> 22:05.280] [SPEAKER_02]: So we're going to see the plaintiff's bar pitting off against the technology lobby.
[22:05.340 --> 22:07.260] [SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be a very interesting legislative session.
[22:08.020 --> 22:17.240] [SPEAKER_02]: The other innovation with this bill, and this is something that's been kicking around in academic circles for a few years, is this concept of data fiduciaries.
[22:18.740 --> 22:24.900] [SPEAKER_02]: So companies that are holding your private data, well, under this law, have to act as a fiduciary.
[22:25.160 --> 22:29.360] [SPEAKER_02]: Fiduciary, of course, meaning, coming from the Latin word, fittus, or faith, right?
[22:29.540 --> 22:34.300] [SPEAKER_02]: So they have to, they have an obligation to safeguard that particular data.
[22:34.300 --> 22:45.120] [SPEAKER_02]: And that fiduciary obligation under the law, under the text of the bill itself, right now, trumps the fiduciary obligation that companies have to shareholders.
[22:45.380 --> 22:52.440] [SPEAKER_02]: That means that safeguarding your data under this New York state law is more important than profit.
[22:52.660 --> 22:53.660] [SPEAKER_02]: That is really interesting.
[22:53.820 --> 22:55.780] [SPEAKER_01]: How can anybody oppose that statement?
[22:56.040 --> 23:00.500] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, it creates a conundrum for companies, because they're going to have conflicting obligations.
[23:00.500 --> 23:11.840] [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of these companies are registered in Delaware or elsewhere, which means that their fiduciary obligation to their shareholders and their fiduciary obligations to their customers could arguably come into conflict.
[23:11.840 --> 23:17.880] [SPEAKER_02]: How the conflict is going to be resolved is going to be rather interesting, probably in the courts.
[23:18.020 --> 23:22.900] [SPEAKER_01]: But if you're violating the privacy of your customers, doesn't that take priority over anything else?
[23:23.200 --> 23:25.680] [SPEAKER_01]: How can you say that profits mean more than that?
[23:25.760 --> 23:26.900] [SPEAKER_01]: That makes you guilty right there.
[23:26.900 --> 23:30.700] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, liable, I think, maybe might be the right word, right?
[23:30.920 --> 23:33.420] [SPEAKER_02]: Guilty in my eyes.
[23:33.920 --> 23:34.320] [SPEAKER_02]: Perhaps.
[23:34.540 --> 23:36.500] [SPEAKER_02]: But, I mean, look, I think you're right about that.
[23:36.680 --> 23:59.460] [SPEAKER_02]: And that, you know, if you're violating the privacy of your customers or you're using their data in a way for which, or rather in a way for which you haven't been given consent to use it, that could be considered a privacy violation under this particular bill that could give rise to a private right of action and then allow you to sue in New York State court.
[23:59.740 --> 24:04.140] [SPEAKER_02]: So this is going to play out, I think, in rather interesting ways.
[24:05.740 --> 24:15.640] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think, like we saw in California, there's going to be a lot of horse trading with the technology companies coming into the New York State legislature, trying to lobby, trying to remove the teeth from this particular bill.
[24:15.980 --> 24:27.780] [SPEAKER_02]: The other thing I think that's really interesting here is that the tech companies, they're all making the argument now that, you know, complying with these laws, you know, you've got the California law, which is different from the New York law.
[24:27.880 --> 24:30.420] [SPEAKER_02]: If the New York law passes, it's going to have more teeth than California.
[24:30.780 --> 24:42.180] [SPEAKER_02]: We saw the same arguments about this conundrum of compliance when it came to state data breach notification laws, of which, you know, there really isn't a gigantic amount of harmony.
[24:42.180 --> 24:50.660] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, for the most part, what companies have done is they regulate themselves to the most restrictive common denominator, right?
[24:50.780 --> 24:56.580] [SPEAKER_02]: So for a long time, Massachusetts had the most rigorous data breach notification laws.
[24:56.600 --> 25:00.500] [SPEAKER_02]: So what we would advise companies to do is to comply with Massachusetts' laws.
[25:00.900 --> 25:03.280] [SPEAKER_02]: And this could have a spillover effect.
[25:03.400 --> 25:16.120] [SPEAKER_02]: This New York law could require these tech companies, unless they want to have separate compliance programs, to, across the board, regulate themselves, or rather conduct themselves in a manner that would comply with New York state law.
[25:16.280 --> 25:17.500] [SPEAKER_02]: That's really quite interesting.
[25:17.680 --> 25:35.860] [SPEAKER_02]: But the technology companies are now using this as an argument with Congress so that Congress will have to step in and save them from this dreaded mess of compliance that they are now faced with by passing federal legislation, that is, as you noted earlier,
[25:36.040 --> 25:46.600] [SPEAKER_02]: Emmanuel, a lighter touch than what we would have under New York state law, and federal law that touches the same subjects as state law generally preempts state law.
[25:46.620 --> 25:51.880] [SPEAKER_02]: So it would essentially make the state law null and void if Congress decides to preempt that legislation.
[25:52.020 --> 25:57.440] [SPEAKER_02]: And if they do so explicitly, the New York state law would essentially be completely void.
[25:58.020 --> 26:10.420] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, just to outline how this proposed law differs from California, as you already pointed out some of the changes, some of the differences, California law leaves enforcement to the state's attorney general.
[26:10.520 --> 26:18.240] [SPEAKER_01]: New York Privacy Act would give New Yorkers the right to sue companies directly over privacy violations, possibly setting up a barrage of individual lawsuits.
[26:18.920 --> 26:25.320] [SPEAKER_01]: Industry groups, of course, vehemently opposed a similar provision, also known as a private right of action in California.
[26:25.320 --> 26:29.780] [SPEAKER_01]: And they succeeded in driving it out of the bill when it was finally signed into law last year.
[26:30.240 --> 26:36.680] [SPEAKER_01]: And California's law, as you mentioned, applies only to businesses that make more than $25 million annual gross revenue.
[26:36.920 --> 26:39.460] [SPEAKER_01]: New York bill would apply to companies of any size.
[26:39.940 --> 26:40.960] [SPEAKER_01]: And you know what?
[26:41.180 --> 26:48.160] [SPEAKER_01]: I own a company, and if I violated somebody's privacy, it doesn't matter that, you know, we only make, you know, a few hundred bucks a year.
[26:49.120 --> 26:50.180] [SPEAKER_01]: I should be sued for that.
[26:50.500 --> 26:51.540] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, sure.
[26:51.800 --> 26:59.460] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think any privacy violation should give a plaintiff the right to sue for that particular violation.
[26:59.460 --> 27:02.280] [SPEAKER_02]: Whether it makes sense to sue depends on what the damages are, right?
[27:02.400 --> 27:05.560] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if it's $50 worth of damages, nobody's going to go to court over that.
[27:05.640 --> 27:14.040] [SPEAKER_02]: But if this causes you an enormous headache, you know, and thousands and thousands of dollars worth of your time or expenses, then yeah, sure, you should be able to recoup that.
[27:14.100 --> 27:15.060] [SPEAKER_02]: I completely agree.
[27:15.060 --> 27:21.460] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, the other bit, I think, that the big difference here between the California law and the New York law is the concept of the data fiduciary.
[27:22.220 --> 27:34.580] [SPEAKER_02]: And some of the literature that I was reading about this particular bill, you know, mentioned that, well, there are plenty of other professions that hold a lot of information about people and already have to act as data fiduciaries.
[27:34.580 --> 27:38.020] [SPEAKER_02]: And those professions are most notably doctors and lawyers.
[27:38.260 --> 27:48.700] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if I were to take the client information that people give me, lots of their personal information and monetize it somehow, I could be disbarred for that.
[27:48.880 --> 28:10.700] [SPEAKER_02]: So, I mean, I applaud Senator Thomas for coming forward with such a comprehensive bill here and making these broad rules that have already applied to certain professions where it's obviously important to safeguard the privacy of client information to apply more generally across the board to every single company.
[28:11.160 --> 28:18.480] [SPEAKER_02]: This is going to be a really, really interesting battle to watch, I think, come the summer and over the fall.
[28:18.720 --> 28:23.560] [SPEAKER_01]: And as you mentioned, it's already facing some staunch opposition from the tech industry.
[28:23.940 --> 28:37.880] [SPEAKER_01]: Here's a quote, the New York Privacy Act in its current form is unworkable for businesses that want to comply and fails, which is grammatically incorrect, and fails to provide New York residents meaningful control over how their data is collected, used,
[28:37.920 --> 28:38.500] [SPEAKER_01]: and protected.
[28:38.940 --> 28:43.320] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, if you want to comply and you fail, then yeah, I guess you are liable.
[28:43.440 --> 28:45.000] [SPEAKER_01]: That's, that's, you got a problem with that?
[28:45.360 --> 28:52.320] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, apparently, John Olson, a director for the Internet Association, represents the likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, you name it.
[28:53.200 --> 28:54.140] [SPEAKER_01]: That's his take on it.
[28:54.280 --> 28:55.580] [SPEAKER_01]: Internet Association, who are these guys?
[28:55.680 --> 28:56.880] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not the Internet Society, right?
[28:57.000 --> 28:57.940] [SPEAKER_01]: Those are, those are the good guys.
[28:58.080 --> 28:58.280] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, no, no.
[28:58.340 --> 28:58.980] [SPEAKER_01]: Those are the good guys.
[28:59.060 --> 28:59.560] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
[28:59.560 --> 29:00.600] [SPEAKER_01]: Those are the Internet Association.
[29:01.040 --> 29:07.780] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, again, it's an industry trade group that represents the interests of big technology companies and, and fights legislation like this.
[29:07.900 --> 29:17.600] [SPEAKER_02]: It tries to remove the teeth from any legislation that would require these particular companies to spend enormous amounts of money on compliance programs that would vary from state to state.
[29:17.760 --> 29:20.980] [SPEAKER_02]: And look, on the other hand, I understand their plight.
[29:21.100 --> 29:25.200] [SPEAKER_02]: I was a chief compliance officer of a very large multinational corporation for a while.
[29:25.500 --> 29:28.000] [SPEAKER_02]: And compliance is, is a very tricky issue.
[29:28.060 --> 29:29.380] [SPEAKER_02]: And it gets extraordinarily expensive.
[29:29.380 --> 29:31.900] [SPEAKER_02]: And you have to budget more and more for it every single year.
[29:32.000 --> 29:33.520] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's a giant pain in the butt.
[29:33.520 --> 29:46.880] [SPEAKER_02]: But, but if you're making money hand over fist by monetizing user data, client data, whatever kind of personal information it is that you're collecting, you are going to have to be responsible for that information.
[29:47.120 --> 29:49.420] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there's no wiggling out of this right now.
[29:49.560 --> 29:54.300] [SPEAKER_02]: I think what most of the tech companies are hoping for is that New York passes this law.
[29:54.420 --> 29:55.780] [SPEAKER_02]: California passes another law.
[29:55.900 --> 29:57.720] [SPEAKER_02]: Missouri might pass a different law.
[29:58.120 --> 30:01.720] [SPEAKER_02]: Massachusetts could pass something that, that goes even farther beyond this.
[30:01.720 --> 30:05.340] [SPEAKER_02]: And then we'll have this real morass of compliance.
[30:05.750 --> 30:09.380] [SPEAKER_02]: They'll go and cry to Congress that we need federal legislation.
[30:09.380 --> 30:33.340] [SPEAKER_02]: And then at some point in 2021 or 2022, they'll have preemptive federal legislation that relies on the FTC to enforce users' rights or the Attorney General of the United States to bring private, to bring civil enforcement action, something like that, that essentially removes the teeth and removes the potential for gigantic legal liability here.
[30:33.520 --> 30:42.420] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, speaking of people having their data intercepted, pilfered, leaked, whatever, this really blew me away, this story.
[30:42.640 --> 30:46.600] [SPEAKER_01]: The companies that sell car license plate readers used by U.S.
[30:46.960 --> 30:54.080] [SPEAKER_01]: authorities to track drivers within its borders collect far more information than, than any of us even imagined.
[30:54.080 --> 30:59.360] [SPEAKER_01]: And of course, they fail to adequately protect that personal data as a recent investigation.
[30:59.700 --> 31:01.900] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, maybe a recent hack showed.
[31:02.120 --> 31:05.120] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's why you need hackers, because they reveal things like this.
[31:05.320 --> 31:16.300] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, these license plate readers collect and store information, including people's locations, ZIP Codes, even MP3 files, presumably from individuals' computers.
[31:16.300 --> 31:21.800] [SPEAKER_01]: Invasive technologies and the surveillance state they reveal are a major privacy concern.
[31:22.100 --> 31:34.100] [SPEAKER_01]: On Thursday, last Thursday, a hacker using the name Boris Bullet Dodger contacted Technology News' website to register, providing internal data belonging to a company known as Perceptics.
[31:34.340 --> 31:35.200] [SPEAKER_01]: They're in the U.S.
[31:35.220 --> 31:44.840] [SPEAKER_01]: They design vehicle identification and license plate recognition products to serve border control, commercial vehicle enforcement, electronic toll collection, and security industries.
[31:44.840 --> 31:46.840] [SPEAKER_01]: That's according to its website.
[31:47.440 --> 31:57.460] [SPEAKER_01]: These license plate readers, they're terrifying, according to Chris Garrafa, a technologist who spoke with Radio Sputnik.
[31:58.020 --> 31:59.780] [SPEAKER_01]: They exist when you go through a toll.
[32:00.120 --> 32:02.060] [SPEAKER_01]: If you don't have to stop, they have them on there.
[32:02.280 --> 32:03.900] [SPEAKER_01]: Cops have license plate readers on their cars.
[32:04.060 --> 32:05.960] [SPEAKER_01]: Truck companies have these license plate readers.
[32:06.140 --> 32:09.520] [SPEAKER_01]: They all have to connect back to DMV, the Department of Motor Vehicle Databases.
[32:09.520 --> 32:19.520] [SPEAKER_01]: So, these license plate generator readers are constantly taking data from your car when you're going down the street or when law enforcement drives down your street and you're parked at home.
[32:20.180 --> 32:21.560] [SPEAKER_01]: It's simply incredible.
[32:21.780 --> 32:32.800] [SPEAKER_01]: So, what the unidentified hackers found online is hundreds of thousands of files relating to ZIP Codes, locations, even images from these license plate readers.
[32:32.800 --> 32:39.480] [SPEAKER_01]: It's an unbelievable cache of files and it shows exactly what these devices are tracking and keeping on us.
[32:40.020 --> 32:41.980] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's say they go and see my license plate.
[32:42.120 --> 32:43.100] [SPEAKER_01]: They're storing that information.
[32:43.240 --> 32:46.380] [SPEAKER_01]: They could correlate that with when they see my license plate later on.
[32:46.460 --> 32:49.880] [SPEAKER_01]: You do that enough, you can figure out that so-and-so works here.
[32:50.020 --> 32:50.580] [SPEAKER_01]: He lives there.
[32:50.800 --> 32:55.980] [SPEAKER_01]: So many different things that you can figure out by spying on people in this particular way.
[32:57.100 --> 33:06.460] [SPEAKER_01]: And this company, according to this security expert, has been so derelict in its responsibility to protect that data that they left it online, open for folks to see.
[33:07.940 --> 33:10.120] [SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, they get sued, don't you think, Alex?
[33:10.460 --> 33:11.260] [SPEAKER_01]: They're liable.
[33:11.400 --> 33:11.880] [SPEAKER_01]: They're guilty.
[33:12.080 --> 33:12.820] [SPEAKER_02]: Come on.
[33:13.000 --> 33:19.700] [SPEAKER_02]: I think that that might give rise to some sort of class action is what my best guess would be here.
[33:20.560 --> 33:34.740] [SPEAKER_02]: And certainly, this is the type of action, you know, where a company doesn't even reasonably secure its data, you know, that this is why private rights of action exist in these types of legislation is to enforce this and to discourage this kind of negligent behavior.
[33:34.900 --> 33:36.700] [SPEAKER_02]: But we didn't even know they were storing that kind of data.
[33:37.320 --> 33:38.480] [SPEAKER_01]: Why don't we know this?
[33:38.580 --> 33:40.960] [SPEAKER_01]: Why don't we know they're storing our MP3 files?
[33:41.080 --> 33:46.780] [SPEAKER_01]: They know things like that, things that are on our internal machines attached to cars?
[33:47.200 --> 33:48.780] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, did anybody bother asking them?
[33:48.780 --> 33:52.020] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, do you have to ask exactly what it is that they might be doing?
[33:52.140 --> 33:52.740] [SPEAKER_01]: You never know.
[33:52.840 --> 33:53.040] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[33:53.200 --> 33:55.260] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, they might just tell you, this is what we're doing.
[33:55.420 --> 33:56.580] [SPEAKER_02]: You didn't have to hack us.
[33:56.720 --> 33:57.880] [SPEAKER_02]: We would have just told you.
[33:58.020 --> 33:58.960] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm glad they were hacked.
[33:59.120 --> 33:59.680] [SPEAKER_01]: I really am.
[33:59.820 --> 34:00.680] [SPEAKER_01]: And they weren't even hacked.
[34:00.780 --> 34:02.420] [SPEAKER_01]: They left data lying around.
[34:02.440 --> 34:03.900] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's not really being hacked.
[34:04.000 --> 34:04.580] [SPEAKER_01]: That's being discovered.
[34:04.840 --> 34:05.940] [SPEAKER_02]: I agree with that.
[34:06.080 --> 34:14.520] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this is beyond the pale negligence when it comes to personally identifying information and license plate data like this is extraordinarily valuable.
[34:14.520 --> 34:21.780] [SPEAKER_02]: people, where this data, or rather, if the hackers or the explorers, whatever we want to call them, found this.
[34:21.880 --> 34:31.440] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm really curious to know whether the company has been able to identify whether others have seen this in the past as well.
[34:31.480 --> 34:40.520] [SPEAKER_02]: Because if someone like this was able to find it, who knows whether a foreign intelligence agency or some other malicious actor or threat actor was able to identify this information before.
[34:40.520 --> 34:42.760] [SPEAKER_01]: That's always the foreign intelligence agencies that we're afraid of.
[34:42.840 --> 34:45.640] [SPEAKER_01]: I think we should be afraid of people a lot closer to us.
[34:45.960 --> 34:47.940] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like we're talking about Chinese phones.
[34:48.400 --> 34:50.800] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't care if the Chinese government is spying on me.
[34:50.860 --> 34:52.520] [SPEAKER_01]: I care if my government is spying on me.
[34:52.600 --> 34:53.600] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that too.
[34:53.800 --> 34:57.920] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, for overseas listeners, a foreign intelligence agency might be our own intelligence agencies.
[34:58.040 --> 35:07.640] [SPEAKER_02]: But certainly, you know, local law enforcement, you know, any governmental power that has access to that information, I think it could be, you know, used for malicious purposes.
[35:07.640 --> 35:15.760] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, they could get this information anyhow using legal process just because this third-party company is storing it.
[35:16.800 --> 35:17.600] [SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[35:17.880 --> 35:18.680] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, get this.
[35:18.920 --> 35:19.560] [SPEAKER_01]: The U.S.
[35:19.660 --> 35:27.060] [SPEAKER_01]: government will now require most visa applicants to provide details of their social media accounts before they're allowed into the country.
[35:27.260 --> 35:30.800] [SPEAKER_01]: This controversial policy came into force on Friday.
[35:31.180 --> 35:34.840] [SPEAKER_01]: And this comes from the Register, another amazing piece from them.
[35:34.840 --> 35:42.840] [SPEAKER_01]: As far as we can tell, it will require people to provide the URLs or handles of social media accounts from Twitter and Tumblr to LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.
[35:44.480 --> 35:46.000] [SPEAKER_01]: No passwords were requested.
[35:46.080 --> 35:46.880] [SPEAKER_01]: That would be kind of weird.
[35:47.020 --> 35:56.880] [SPEAKER_01]: But the information must be declared on the DS-160 application form, which needs to be completed to apply for non-permanent visas to stay and work in the United States.
[35:57.440 --> 36:01.760] [SPEAKER_01]: Those are the forms on which you normally fill out your personal information, such as your passport details.
[36:01.760 --> 36:10.940] [SPEAKER_01]: So these new online forums asking for email addresses and social media handles are something that has just come into effect.
[36:12.200 --> 36:25.720] [SPEAKER_01]: But what's weird about this is a startling lack of detail over how exactly the policy will be enforced, how any data gathered from social media profiles will be used, despite more than a year of debate, including public comment periods and lawsuits seeking more detail.
[36:26.360 --> 36:31.420] [SPEAKER_01]: The policy covers visa applicants, which should mean that tourists from the 38 countries the U.S.
[36:32.060 --> 36:40.520] [SPEAKER_01]: allows foreigners to visit for 90 days via the electronic system for travel authorization, known as ESTA, scheme, are not impacted by this latest change.
[36:41.240 --> 36:46.800] [SPEAKER_01]: Since December, at least some ESTA applicants have been asked to provide online handles, so it's not mandatory, apparently, to comply.
[36:47.540 --> 37:02.060] [SPEAKER_01]: It gets really kind of confusing there, but it's disturbing to think that you will be judged and analyzed based on what is in your social media accounts.
[37:02.440 --> 37:05.500] [SPEAKER_01]: And I also wonder, how do they know if you're not telling them?
[37:05.980 --> 37:08.740] [SPEAKER_01]: That tells me they already know everything about your social media.
[37:09.820 --> 37:18.800] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, that's a perfectly legitimate question, and I think it just... it really raises the issue of what the point of all of this is, anyhow.
[37:18.960 --> 37:25.880] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's certainly not all that difficult to discover any person's social media profile if you know what their name is, right?
[37:25.960 --> 37:31.020] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's very, very simple open-source intelligence gathering techniques that could discover this.
[37:31.120 --> 37:36.860] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, why the government requires you to disclose it, on one hand, is somewhat silly.
[37:36.860 --> 37:39.580] [SPEAKER_01]: But why do you have to use your name on social media?
[37:39.720 --> 37:41.500] [SPEAKER_01]: Why can't you just become somebody else?
[37:41.640 --> 37:42.920] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you can, absolutely.
[37:43.080 --> 37:44.080] [SPEAKER_02]: And they want to know that.
[37:44.260 --> 37:47.060] [SPEAKER_02]: If you're coming here and you have some kind of alter ego.
[37:47.460 --> 37:49.220] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, it raises the issue, too.
[37:49.320 --> 38:01.060] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, are bad actors who are coming into the country really, you know, that have been posting on social media, on Twitter, you know, whatever kind of nationalist, jingoistic, terrorist-related dialogue that they've been engaging in?
[38:01.300 --> 38:02.180] [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't matter what it is.
[38:02.360 --> 38:04.540] [SPEAKER_02]: Are they really going to put that down on the form?
[38:04.540 --> 38:06.900] [SPEAKER_02]: Is there any way to ensure that this is going to be accurate?
[38:07.120 --> 38:12.360] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I have a theory about this particular obligation here.
[38:12.520 --> 38:17.720] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think, you know, maybe we're giving the administration...
[38:17.720 --> 38:20.160] [SPEAKER_02]: Or rather, maybe I'm giving the administration a little bit too much credit here.
[38:20.280 --> 38:22.040] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think that there's a long game here.
[38:22.140 --> 38:28.540] [SPEAKER_02]: I think that this will become a mandatory requirement for people entering the country, that this is the test pilot program that we're dealing with right now.
[38:28.540 --> 38:45.540] [SPEAKER_02]: And that noncompliance with this requirement, or an incomplete disclosure, or an inaccurate disclosure of your social media profiles, handles, etc., if you're entering this country, and let's say you are here on a visa, a work visa, you know, a spousal visa,
[38:45.640 --> 38:57.460] [SPEAKER_02]: whatever it is that requires you to be here, whatever noncompliance or incomplete disclosure is, will ultimately become grounds, or perhaps one factor in determining whether or not to deport you.
[38:57.760 --> 39:08.140] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think what they're trying to do is make it more burdensome, and more costly, and more administrative for people to stay in this country.
[39:08.420 --> 39:15.400] [SPEAKER_02]: And the corollary to that is, it gives the administration more ammunition to try to deport individuals later on.
[39:15.640 --> 39:35.680] [SPEAKER_03]: What I think we need to also look at with this is the tools that we're talking about here are part of a larger system of surveillance, and they're being used in different ways than say, an officer would use a speedometer, or I'm sorry, a radar detector,
[39:35.980 --> 39:37.720] [SPEAKER_03]: or some sort of speed measurement device.
[39:37.820 --> 39:57.660] [SPEAKER_03]: That is sort of a disparate and disconnected tool that they would use as an investigative thing, you know, to say, I suspect this person was speeding, I've now verified it, the tools in these different ways, the automatic license plate reader, their network,
[39:57.820 --> 40:03.860] [SPEAKER_03]: they're creating data and databases that are used in a much bigger form of surveillance.
[40:04.080 --> 40:19.340] [SPEAKER_03]: Like in that case, I would say that's likely just, you know, if someone's being tracked and surveilled for an investigation, that's likely just going to verify, yeah, and we've had them picked up on this license plate reader, in conjunction with a lot of other forms of surveillance.
[40:19.580 --> 40:35.120] [SPEAKER_03]: But I think what's being lost here is the human dignity and the right to a presumption of innocence, because the amount of data that this connected stuff collects and paint, like what it actually paints, would be the product of like maybe months, weeks,
[40:35.340 --> 40:41.820] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know what it is, but would be the product of an investigation where there was a suspicion of a crime being done.
[40:42.020 --> 40:47.520] [SPEAKER_03]: This treats all of us as though we have done something, just by default.
[40:47.520 --> 40:55.360] [SPEAKER_03]: There's no trigger, there's no judgment, there's nothing that is brought to bear that would warrant it.
[40:55.480 --> 40:57.020] [SPEAKER_03]: It's just warranted by default.
[40:57.200 --> 41:06.180] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think that really gets at socially this right that I think we should have, that we're not presumed to be criminals.
[41:06.360 --> 41:09.100] [SPEAKER_01]: We have that right, but this is for people getting visas.
[41:09.100 --> 41:10.440] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, if it's...
[41:10.440 --> 41:13.400] [SPEAKER_01]: And do they have the same right, a presumption of innocence before guilt?
[41:13.880 --> 41:15.380] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not sure that it's the same.
[41:15.560 --> 41:17.700] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, this would be maybe something Alex could speak to.
[41:17.880 --> 41:35.920] [SPEAKER_03]: But I think if it was being tested as something they would roll out to everyone as though he, as he was hypothesizing, or, you know, putting forward as a potential route that this could go, and this is just being used on people that are non-citizens applying for visas,
[41:35.920 --> 41:38.960] [SPEAKER_03]: because as you said, they don't have exactly the same rights at the border.
[41:39.180 --> 41:40.380] [SPEAKER_01]: And they can be turned away from the country.
[41:40.520 --> 41:42.040] [SPEAKER_01]: They can't turn us away from the country.
[41:42.140 --> 41:45.040] [SPEAKER_01]: They can investigate us, but they can do that without even asking us.
[41:45.160 --> 41:49.940] [SPEAKER_01]: They can simply, if we use our real names on social media, they can be looking into us right now.
[41:50.220 --> 41:51.160] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, well, certainly.
[41:51.340 --> 42:02.680] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think Kyle is really onto something here because this is just another data point and this panoply of data points that may be used for predictive analytics about what somebody may or may not do.
[42:03.020 --> 42:09.680] [SPEAKER_02]: And let's say their social media profile indicates that they, you know, we're engaging in dialogue and subjects X, Y, and Z.
[42:09.820 --> 42:14.100] [SPEAKER_02]: Those subjects, you know, relate to naturally to something else.
[42:14.240 --> 42:24.420] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, they may be rabble rousers, they may be troublemakers, and therefore they may not be led into the country on the basis of speech that they made, God knows when, so many years ago.
[42:24.580 --> 42:36.400] [SPEAKER_02]: And that, to me, is really scary, not only because of the implications that Kyle had identified, but because this could encourage some kind of tit-for-tat type system where countries are going to say, well, if America is requiring that of our citizens,
[42:36.400 --> 42:37.900] [SPEAKER_02]: we're going to require that of Americans.
[42:38.120 --> 42:42.100] [SPEAKER_02]: And then you have a foreign government asking for the same information.
[42:42.340 --> 42:44.620] [SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, how are we going to feel about that?
[42:44.720 --> 42:46.060] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not going to make anybody feel comfortable.
[42:46.380 --> 42:55.280] [SPEAKER_03]: That's exactly where I'm going, is that this then becomes a diplomatic and a, you know, a new normal for normalized relations.
[42:55.280 --> 43:08.840] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think anybody that has traveled maybe to Canada or traveled to the UK or in these other places would maybe say, yeah, the border seems a little different or, you know, people are less inclined to be accommodating or they're going to be, you know,
[43:08.920 --> 43:17.540] [SPEAKER_03]: as vigilant as we are and doing all the things that they have to do and treat us in kind the way we're treating other people.
[43:17.620 --> 43:22.700] [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm just, I'm critical of this as a way to vet people who are applying for visas.
[43:22.820 --> 43:25.720] [SPEAKER_03]: I think that's not the country we are or should be.
[43:25.960 --> 43:31.940] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, the way I see it, it's yet another reason not to use social media so much, not to take it so seriously.
[43:32.320 --> 43:37.680] [SPEAKER_01]: And maybe we can go back to living lies where we're not judged based on someone's online detective work.
[43:38.340 --> 43:42.560] [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, we're going to open up our phone lines, 212-209-2877.
[43:42.680 --> 43:47.000] [SPEAKER_01]: We haven't heard from our listeners in a while because we've been in fundraising mode and now we're not.
[43:47.160 --> 43:48.720] [SPEAKER_01]: So it'd be great to hear from you.
[43:48.860 --> 43:51.980] [SPEAKER_01]: You can also write to us, oth@2600.com.
[43:52.080 --> 43:52.880] [SPEAKER_01]: That's our email address.
[43:53.320 --> 43:55.180] [SPEAKER_01]: A couple other interesting stories.
[43:55.320 --> 44:07.060] [SPEAKER_01]: Ryan Morales, a Democratic candidate who's running for a Florida House seat that covers much of Lake County, has claimed in a Facebook post on Friday that his campaign website had been accessed by Russian hackers.
[44:07.520 --> 44:08.200] [SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[44:08.320 --> 44:21.140] [SPEAKER_01]: Morales, who's challenging Republican incumbent state representative, that is, Anthony Sabatini, said his website was visited by an intruder.
[44:21.260 --> 44:28.600] [SPEAKER_01]: He learned soon after that the hacker had registered as an administrator on the site too, which is impossible, said Morales.
[44:28.940 --> 44:30.720] [SPEAKER_01]: My security doesn't allow for that.
[44:31.920 --> 44:32.800] [SPEAKER_01]: You know what?
[44:32.920 --> 44:35.840] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it does because otherwise we wouldn't be reading the story.
[44:36.040 --> 44:41.260] [SPEAKER_01]: The hacker changed some coding in the website's backend, which blocked Morales, couldn't even get into his own site.
[44:41.400 --> 44:44.520] [SPEAKER_01]: He says another website he manages was also tampered with.
[44:44.640 --> 44:48.280] [SPEAKER_01]: No personal information was accessed, which he somehow seems to know.
[44:48.780 --> 44:51.960] [SPEAKER_01]: He says the hacker's email address, Tony Sunshine.
[44:52.920 --> 44:54.940] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry, these stories are just so funny.
[44:55.360 --> 45:02.680] [SPEAKER_01]: At yandex.ru, an IP address were traced back to Russia by both him and his host platform, WP Engine.
[45:02.960 --> 45:05.320] [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, you do realize that can be faked as well.
[45:06.040 --> 45:17.220] [SPEAKER_01]: Yandex, per their website, is a Russia-based company that specializes in Internet-related products and services, including search and information searches, navigation, online advertising, influencing elections, among others.
[45:17.640 --> 45:19.240] [SPEAKER_01]: No, they don't say that, but yeah.
[45:19.240 --> 45:23.560] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if they were just trying to shut me down or whatever they were trying to do, but they were messing with me.
[45:24.480 --> 45:26.440] [SPEAKER_01]: And I guess you don't want to mess with this guy.
[45:27.700 --> 45:33.000] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so it's basically the question being asked is, why would the Russians care about this?
[45:33.120 --> 45:34.400] [SPEAKER_01]: They don't care about this.
[45:34.900 --> 45:38.640] [SPEAKER_01]: Basically, if a machine is out there, it's going to get touched by somebody.
[45:38.900 --> 45:40.100] [SPEAKER_01]: Somebody's going to try to get in.
[45:40.240 --> 45:41.480] [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter who you are.
[45:42.100 --> 45:47.040] [SPEAKER_01]: So don't think that they're debating in the Kremlin how they're going to flip the house in Florida.
[45:47.460 --> 45:48.440] [SPEAKER_01]: They don't care.
[45:48.680 --> 45:49.540] [SPEAKER_01]: They don't really care.
[45:50.280 --> 45:54.560] [SPEAKER_01]: People all over the place, machines all over the place, are constantly trying security holes.
[45:54.700 --> 45:56.720] [SPEAKER_01]: And if there are any, they will find them.
[45:57.500 --> 46:05.280] [SPEAKER_02]: And this raises an interesting issue, too, with regard to the attribution of these particular types of activities when it comes to Russia.
[46:05.680 --> 46:18.320] [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody is so up in arms right now and so concerned about Russian interference in election activities that anything untoward that happens on anybody's side that could potentially point back to Russia is blamed on the Russians.
[46:19.180 --> 46:24.360] [SPEAKER_02]: Look, there was some very serious election interference going on in 2016, as the Mueller report documented.
[46:24.500 --> 46:25.780] [SPEAKER_02]: We believe this is still going on.
[46:25.900 --> 46:40.140] [SPEAKER_02]: But one thing I know for sure is that if the GRU is interfering in election-related activities, they're not going to register for a WordPress website with a Yandex.ru address that goes back to Tony Sunshine.
[46:40.140 --> 46:51.420] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, unless, of course, the Russians would be so smart as to think that nobody would think that we would ever be so stupid as to do that, that they actually do put in a Yandex.ru email address.
[46:51.820 --> 46:57.020] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, one of the other things I should mention is part of what we do in my law firm is we do some threat hunting.
[46:57.160 --> 47:00.700] [SPEAKER_02]: We track a lot of APT, or Advanced Persistent Threat Activity.
[47:01.100 --> 47:15.440] [SPEAKER_02]: We've seen a lot of interesting things happening lately where we know Russia certainly is not involved in certain activities, but people are using Yandex.ru addresses after a company or an organization is compromised to raise a false flag that, you know,
[47:15.560 --> 47:19.160] [SPEAKER_02]: that untrained eyes might believe that Russia is involved.
[47:19.740 --> 47:26.060] [SPEAKER_02]: I would go so far as to bet, you know, I don't know, 10 or 20 bucks that this was certainly not the Russians.
[47:26.260 --> 47:32.840] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, when I email people from my Yandex.ru account, I notice that they're a lot more suspicious and not as friendly as they usually are.
[47:33.140 --> 47:33.440] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[47:33.580 --> 47:33.700] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[47:33.840 --> 47:37.040] [SPEAKER_02]: I would imagine that's true, actually, but it's probably a good thing for you.
[47:37.120 --> 47:38.640] [SPEAKER_01]: You can't judge somebody by their email address.
[47:38.820 --> 47:39.280] [SPEAKER_01]: Totally agree.
[47:39.560 --> 47:42.200] [SPEAKER_01]: 212-209-2877 is our phone number.
[47:42.340 --> 47:45.560] [SPEAKER_01]: Opening up the phones to our listeners who we have not heard from in a while.
[47:45.660 --> 47:46.340] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd like to hear from you again.
[47:47.020 --> 47:57.980] [SPEAKER_01]: The Twitter accounts of several Kraft Heinz-owned brands were hacked Friday as the handles for Planters, Kool-Aid, and Capri Sun all began churning out nonsensical and even obscene tweets.
[47:58.160 --> 48:16.140] [SPEAKER_01]: The Planters' Twitter account, Mr. Peanut, followed by 36,000... gets these stories... 36,200 people and named after Planters' monocled mascot, rattled off a series of nonsensical tweets and a thread that included language that ranged for inappropriate to obscene for a legume brand.
[48:16.680 --> 48:21.760] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know that was a qualification there, but yeah, obscene for a legume brand there.
[48:23.180 --> 48:24.660] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm not going to read the tweets.
[48:24.700 --> 48:30.420] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to read what words they used, but they were nasty words and they did gather more attention than they usually get.
[48:30.980 --> 48:38.460] [SPEAKER_01]: One of the tweets seemed to out the hacker, claiming this is why Max speaking, and that Twitter account was suspended late Friday.
[48:39.400 --> 48:47.980] [SPEAKER_01]: And basically, the Kraft Heinz spokesperson said, we are aware that several of our brand Twitter accounts were hacked by an external source.
[48:48.000 --> 48:53.580] [SPEAKER_01]: We apologize for inappropriate content that was posted through our accounts that may have offended our fans.
[48:54.040 --> 49:00.800] [SPEAKER_01]: We've taken swift action to remove these posts and are investigating the situation with Twitter to ensure it doesn't happen again.
[49:01.020 --> 49:03.680] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, actually, that is a very smart statement.
[49:03.920 --> 49:05.780] [SPEAKER_01]: You're investigating it with Twitter.
[49:05.980 --> 49:10.840] [SPEAKER_01]: You didn't call in the FBI to investigate why Mr. Peanut's Twitter account was hacked.
[49:11.060 --> 49:11.640] [SPEAKER_01]: Who cares?
[49:11.960 --> 49:15.220] [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, why in God's name is anybody following Mr. Peanut on Twitter anyway?
[49:16.200 --> 49:23.100] [SPEAKER_01]: The Mr. Peanut account, by the way, it's typically embraced a casual voice in the past that has made it a target of some followers.
[49:24.000 --> 49:29.920] [SPEAKER_01]: On Thursday, the account published a tweet that read, to be or not to be, that is the Thursday thought.
[49:30.520 --> 49:35.020] [SPEAKER_01]: And that prompted 78 comments, including a few making smutty references to the brand's namesake.
[49:35.100 --> 49:35.460] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, fine.
[49:35.560 --> 49:36.720] [SPEAKER_01]: That's on the users.
[49:36.900 --> 49:39.240] [SPEAKER_01]: But Mr. Peanut, that's what I expect.
[49:39.440 --> 49:41.400] [SPEAKER_01]: I expect something a little informal.
[49:41.620 --> 49:49.220] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, what I also expect from these brands is that they are smart enough now to establish two-factor authentication for these social media accounts.
[49:49.380 --> 49:54.720] [SPEAKER_02]: It's amazing to me that Mr. Peanut does not have 2FA established on Twitter.
[49:54.880 --> 49:57.240] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not very difficult to set up whatsoever.
[49:57.700 --> 50:11.560] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, when they're investigating this with Twitter, I'm sure Twitter is going to come back to them and say, well, had you had established two-factor authentication, this probably would not have happened unless somebody was going to simjack whoever the social media representative is that's running the Mr. Peanut account.
[50:11.720 --> 50:18.620] [SPEAKER_02]: And I don't think people are going to really take that much effort to do something like that just to have Mr. Peanut make some lascivious comments.
[50:18.620 --> 50:21.520] [SPEAKER_01]: And that is all we are going to say about the Mr. Peanut Twitter account.
[50:21.660 --> 50:22.880] [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, do we have any listeners left?
[50:23.740 --> 50:24.360] [SPEAKER_01]: Nobody's calling.
[50:24.720 --> 50:28.540] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you remember when we used to get a full switchboard just in a second?
[50:29.040 --> 50:30.420] [SPEAKER_01]: 212-209-2877.
[50:30.640 --> 50:32.740] [SPEAKER_01]: Don't make us check to see if the phone's plugged in again.
[50:33.820 --> 50:35.160] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, here's another story.
[50:35.340 --> 50:40.140] [SPEAKER_01]: This is titled, My Instagram Was Hacked and It Changed My Lazy Online Habits for Good.
[50:40.600 --> 50:42.320] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we have an infinite number of stories like this.
[50:42.860 --> 50:45.480] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd just taken a cute picture of my Doc's Hunt to Merlin.
[50:45.660 --> 50:50.080] [SPEAKER_01]: So like any owner with a social media addiction, I decided to pop it onto my Instagram.
[50:50.740 --> 50:56.480] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm no Kylie Jenner, but Instagram full of dogs and interiors, frocks and skincare was my happy place.
[50:56.600 --> 51:01.480] [SPEAKER_01]: I clicked on the app and instead of diving into the site as usual, I hit a page asking for my email and password.
[51:01.680 --> 51:02.500] [SPEAKER_01]: I entered both.
[51:02.720 --> 51:03.180] [SPEAKER_01]: Rejected.
[51:03.300 --> 51:03.840] [SPEAKER_01]: Tried again.
[51:04.000 --> 51:04.420] [SPEAKER_01]: No luck.
[51:04.680 --> 51:06.900] [SPEAKER_01]: Time, I thought, to send a forgotten password request.
[51:07.080 --> 51:11.700] [SPEAKER_01]: At this point, Instagram informed me that my email address was not linked to any account.
[51:12.180 --> 51:14.140] [SPEAKER_01]: I googled my account and found it.
[51:14.220 --> 51:18.400] [SPEAKER_01]: My grid was as I'd left it with pictures of my family, my home, me, and my work.
[51:18.940 --> 51:23.370] [SPEAKER_01]: But... She couldn't get in.
[51:23.650 --> 51:24.730] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, first of all, how do you know it's a she?
[51:26.070 --> 51:29.010] [SPEAKER_02]: I just assumed, I don't know, when she talked about frocks and things like that.
[51:29.010 --> 51:29.550] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's something else.
[51:29.610 --> 51:30.550] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll discuss that later.
[51:30.770 --> 51:30.830] [SPEAKER_02]: Good point.
[51:30.910 --> 51:35.170] [SPEAKER_01]: But second of all, you're both sitting on the edge of your seats.
[51:35.230 --> 51:36.150] [SPEAKER_01]: You want to hear more, don't you?
[51:36.590 --> 51:38.390] [SPEAKER_02]: Not really, but I'll humor you.
[51:38.510 --> 51:48.390] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you're going to have to pay if you want to hear more because this is one of my biggest complaints about Google News is that it keeps forwarding you to sites that want money for reading all the damn stories.
[51:48.610 --> 51:50.110] [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't... Am I supposed to pay for this?
[51:50.110 --> 51:51.650] [SPEAKER_01]: This comes from the Telegraph in the UK.
[51:51.890 --> 51:55.190] [SPEAKER_01]: Am I supposed to pay every single newspaper in the world to read their stories?
[51:55.390 --> 51:56.010] [SPEAKER_01]: You know what?
[51:56.390 --> 51:57.090] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't care.
[51:57.270 --> 51:58.530] [SPEAKER_01]: We won't know how this turns out.
[51:58.810 --> 51:59.950] [SPEAKER_01]: And how about Google?
[52:00.050 --> 52:05.030] [SPEAKER_01]: How about you only direct people to stories that they can actually read instead of just paywalls constantly?
[52:05.170 --> 52:05.990] [SPEAKER_01]: It's useless.
[52:06.350 --> 52:19.230] [SPEAKER_01]: And if anyone has a substitute for them, I'd like to know what it is because I miss the days where you had a news aggregator that actually directed you to news and not to all kinds of ads and demands for money.
[52:19.850 --> 52:19.950] [SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[52:20.010 --> 52:20.470] [SPEAKER_01]: We have a listener.
[52:20.630 --> 52:20.910] [SPEAKER_01]: Good evening.
[52:21.030 --> 52:22.030] [SPEAKER_01]: You're on off the hook.
[52:22.090 --> 52:22.310] [SPEAKER_01]: Go ahead.
[52:22.770 --> 52:24.990] Hey, something is definitely up with your phone.
[52:25.130 --> 52:26.510] [SPEAKER_01]: Something's definitely up with our... Hold on a second.
[52:26.570 --> 52:27.610] [SPEAKER_01]: Something's definitely up with this board.
[52:28.010 --> 52:28.970] [SPEAKER_01]: Speak up a little bit more.
[52:29.230 --> 52:29.550] [SPEAKER_01]: Go ahead.
[52:29.650 --> 52:29.850] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[52:30.090 --> 52:30.850] [SPEAKER_10]: Is this better?
[52:38.190 --> 52:39.430] [SPEAKER_10]: It's a rapid, busy signal.
[52:39.610 --> 52:39.930] [SPEAKER_01]: Really?
[52:40.170 --> 52:43.050] [SPEAKER_10]: And then finally, I just got on now.
[52:43.910 --> 52:46.930] [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to telecommunications in the 21st century here at B&R.
[52:47.050 --> 52:47.310] [SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[52:48.250 --> 52:49.130] [SPEAKER_01]: That is something.
[52:49.290 --> 52:51.990] [SPEAKER_01]: And you are calling that number, 212-209-2877.
[52:52.250 --> 52:54.570] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, folks, call that number if you want to hear some weird sounds, I guess.
[52:55.270 --> 52:56.170] [SPEAKER_10]: Yes, indeed.
[52:56.530 --> 52:57.670] [SPEAKER_01]: And where are you calling from?
[52:58.230 --> 52:58.670] [SPEAKER_10]: Manhattan.
[52:58.950 --> 52:59.710] [SPEAKER_10]: Lower Manhattan.
[52:59.850 --> 53:01.390] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's kind of far away.
[53:01.390 --> 53:03.070] [SPEAKER_01]: I think our phone only works in Brooklyn.
[53:05.030 --> 53:09.870] [SPEAKER_10]: And I'm calling you on an old copper line, which I'm fighting hard to retain.
[53:10.430 --> 53:11.290] [SPEAKER_01]: An old what?
[53:12.070 --> 53:12.950] [SPEAKER_10]: Copper wire.
[53:13.030 --> 53:13.650] [SPEAKER_10]: Oh, copper.
[53:13.870 --> 53:14.230] [SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[53:14.530 --> 53:14.690] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes.
[53:14.810 --> 53:17.790] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, why do you sound... No offense, you sound terrible.
[53:18.050 --> 53:20.070] [SPEAKER_01]: Why... You're calling from a copper line.
[53:20.290 --> 53:28.050] [SPEAKER_10]: Because as you know, as I have said on the show before, the Ryzen is letting the copper wire lines decay.
[53:28.310 --> 53:29.670] [SPEAKER_01]: Wow, they're playing hardball, aren't they?
[53:29.990 --> 53:30.830] [SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, they are.
[53:30.990 --> 53:31.530] [SPEAKER_01]: Good time.
[53:31.530 --> 53:34.910] [SPEAKER_01]: You hang on to that copper line like grim death because...
[53:34.910 --> 53:39.250] [SPEAKER_10]: And I'm going to get on the non-migration list.
[53:40.770 --> 53:41.490] [SPEAKER_10]: I am.
[53:41.610 --> 53:41.930] [SPEAKER_10]: All right.
[53:42.030 --> 53:43.110] [SPEAKER_07]: I do want my copper.
[53:43.310 --> 53:47.150] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, we admire your spirit and your tenacity, and we hope it works out.
[53:47.290 --> 53:48.050] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's take another phone call.
[53:48.230 --> 53:48.790] [SPEAKER_01]: Good evening.
[53:49.090 --> 53:49.670] [SPEAKER_01]: You're on off the hook.
[53:50.590 --> 53:51.230] [SPEAKER_01]: Speak up.
[53:52.070 --> 53:54.090] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, this must be one of those new fiber lines.
[53:54.810 --> 53:56.230] [SPEAKER_01]: So clean, you can't hear anything.
[53:56.830 --> 53:58.830] [SPEAKER_01]: We had all these lines ringing, and they all disappeared.
[53:58.830 --> 53:58.910] [SPEAKER_01]: Weird.
[54:00.050 --> 54:02.110] [SPEAKER_03]: That's what optical communication gets you.
[54:02.230 --> 54:06.910] [SPEAKER_01]: I think all those lines got transferred to our general manager because they still haven't fixed the phone where it doesn't do that.
[54:07.630 --> 54:12.070] [SPEAKER_01]: So if you just called up, well, you have to call immediately back because we only have a minute left.
[54:12.370 --> 54:14.530] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, at least we got to talk to a guy in a copper mine.
[54:15.330 --> 54:15.690] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[54:15.850 --> 54:16.550] [SPEAKER_01]: That's what it sounded like.
[54:16.590 --> 54:16.830] [SPEAKER_01]: Good evening.
[54:16.970 --> 54:17.530] [SPEAKER_01]: You're on off the hook.
[54:17.630 --> 54:18.390] [SPEAKER_03]: That's what I thought he said.
[54:18.850 --> 54:19.090] [SPEAKER_06]: Yes.
[54:19.370 --> 54:23.870] [SPEAKER_06]: Verizon called me up and said they're going to disconnect the phone if I don't switch the BIOS.
[54:24.090 --> 54:24.390] [SPEAKER_07]: Wow.
[54:24.510 --> 54:24.990] [SPEAKER_06]: On a certain date.
[54:25.570 --> 54:26.610] [SPEAKER_06]: And we had to do it.
[54:26.690 --> 54:31.370] [SPEAKER_06]: Around the corner from somebody, the guy didn't switch, and they cut off his number.
[54:31.490 --> 54:32.550] [SPEAKER_06]: Only 911 was working.
[54:32.910 --> 54:33.230] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[54:33.270 --> 54:39.930] [SPEAKER_01]: It sounds like the mob, the way that they're calling people up and giving them dark threats over the phone and then enforcing those threats.
[54:41.010 --> 54:41.890] [SPEAKER_06]: Nothing can be done.
[54:42.030 --> 54:43.210] [SPEAKER_06]: I called the Public Service Commission.
[54:43.370 --> 54:44.630] [SPEAKER_06]: They said it's in Verizon's hands.
[54:45.170 --> 54:46.890] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm really sorry about that.
[54:47.010 --> 55:00.650] [SPEAKER_01]: And the only thing I can suggest then is, you know, I can't believe I'm saying this, but maybe go to the cable company and it's not copper, but it's also not wireless and you're not giving in to Verizon that way.
[55:01.230 --> 55:02.150] And it's cheaper.
[55:02.470 --> 55:03.070] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's cheaper.
[55:03.270 --> 55:03.590] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[55:03.630 --> 55:05.870] [SPEAKER_03]: We've suggested looking into smaller carriers.
[55:05.870 --> 55:16.050] [SPEAKER_03]: You might be able to transfer your phone number and maybe those smaller carriers are able to keep the connections up, given their large customer base.
[55:16.270 --> 55:20.610] [SPEAKER_03]: The other thing is, maybe you could go out with some tree pruners and help them cut.
[55:20.810 --> 55:21.770] [SPEAKER_01]: We have one more listener.
[55:21.890 --> 55:22.150] [SPEAKER_01]: Good evening.
[55:22.330 --> 55:22.710] [SPEAKER_01]: You're on Off The Hook.
[55:22.790 --> 55:22.970] [SPEAKER_01]: Go ahead.
[55:22.990 --> 55:23.110] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[55:23.190 --> 55:23.430] [SPEAKER_05]: Hi.
[55:23.570 --> 55:24.950] [SPEAKER_05]: It's Tom from the Bronx here.
[55:24.950 --> 55:25.250] [SPEAKER_05]: Hey, Tom.
[55:25.970 --> 55:34.070] [SPEAKER_05]: I'd like to say that where the subways are concerned, I wish they wouldn't put in this new system.
[55:34.290 --> 55:42.770] [SPEAKER_05]: Because I think it's another wacky logic that they've come up with.
[55:43.810 --> 55:46.910] [SPEAKER_05]: There's a lot of people not paying fares.
[55:47.150 --> 55:48.410] [SPEAKER_05]: They're mad at people.
[55:48.590 --> 55:52.670] [SPEAKER_05]: They keep raising the fares to go up.
[55:54.410 --> 55:57.830] [SPEAKER_05]: There's a lot of people that are just desperate.
[55:58.430 --> 56:00.250] [SPEAKER_05]: And then they go to blame.
[56:00.690 --> 56:05.290] [SPEAKER_05]: They say, well, we just got to put in this new system to make things go right.
[56:05.590 --> 56:12.790] [SPEAKER_05]: And the more things they put in these items, the more chaos evolves here.
[56:12.910 --> 56:13.810] [SPEAKER_05]: That's all I can see.
[56:14.130 --> 56:14.370] [SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[56:14.430 --> 56:14.770] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, thanks.
[56:14.890 --> 56:15.770] [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for the insight.
[56:15.910 --> 56:20.570] [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to reflect on those words and check back in a few years and see if that is, in fact, what happened.
[56:20.750 --> 56:25.010] [SPEAKER_01]: But the technology marches on, sometimes into the fire, sometimes into a better place.
[56:25.330 --> 56:25.850] [SPEAKER_01]: We'll see.
[56:26.350 --> 56:27.730] [SPEAKER_01]: That's going to do it for us here tonight.
[56:27.730 --> 56:30.290] [SPEAKER_01]: You can write to us, oth@2600.com.
[56:30.390 --> 56:32.890] [SPEAKER_01]: And remember, there are 2600 meetings this Friday everywhere.
[56:33.810 --> 56:35.130] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's D-Day tomorrow.
[56:35.170 --> 56:37.190] [SPEAKER_01]: So here's a special tribute to that.
[56:37.330 --> 56:37.530] [SPEAKER_01]: Good night.