Performers will be David Amram, Malachy McCourt, the New York City Raging
Grannies, Joel Andy, and Lindsay Wilson and Mike Glick. That's Saturday, January
4th at 8 p.m. at the People's Voice Cafe, 40 East 35th Street in Manhattan. Only
$20 for a great evening. $15 for BAI buddies. Reserve a ticket at
www.givetowbai.org.
And you're listening to The Mighty WBAI in New York at 99.5 FM. The time is just
about 7 o'clock and that means it's time for another exciting edition of Off the Hook.
I ripped it off the wall. I cut myself while shaving. Now I can't make a cop. We couldn't get much worse. But if they could, they would.
Bum-diddly-bum for the best, expect the worst. I hope that's understood. Bum-diddly-bum!
And a very good evening to everybody. The program is Off the Hook. Everybody please calm down. I know you're expecting to hear Rachel at this hour, but
she's moved. She's moved to another day and another time. Rob T. Firefly is here with the details.
She has indeed. Our colleague here at WBAI, Rachel Salong, and her program Women Fight Back, which until recently was on in this time slot, has moved to Fridays from 3 to 5 p.m.
And if you're looking at one of those digital displays, you might actually see that show still being listed as on now. But we are not that show. We are Off the Hook. And Rob T. Firefly is joined by Kyle.
Yes, it is.
And by Gila.
Hello.
How you doing? It's a very special day. It's a very, so it doesn't happen all that often, but it happens enough times for it to be recognized with cards and celebrations and music and things like that.
And of course, I'm talking about Impeachment Day. It's Impeachment Day.
We have a two, oh.
And we have a two hour show.
Oh, OK.
Not because of that.
Oh.
Well, at least I don't think so. We planned this a while ago.
That's what I thought you were saying.
We found out about a week ago, but yeah, so sort of the same, I guess, same amount of time warning that impeachment is coming in and the two hour edition of Off the Hook.
But we're kind of we're sort of adjusting.
We're moving into our new time slot, which was our old time slot a couple of times, and we're keeping the hour that we abandoned by having a two hour show.
But I imagine next week we'll just be on from 7 to 8.
Does that make sense?
That does make sense.
Well, our permanent forever home now is 7 to 8 p.m.
Fridays, 7 to 8 p.m.
Wednesdays.
Sorry, I was following.
This is what happens when you move us around so much.
We don't know what day it is, but it's it's Wednesday.
It's Wednesday, Wednesday, Impeachment Day, December the 18th, 2019.
Yes, just for a little longer.
All right. And yeah, we're here to our show.
It's still the fundraiser because we're recovering from the the nasty coup that we were hit with in October.
And the reason we have to do that is because so many people got upset and they canceled their subscriptions.
And here's the thing that's kind of ironic is they don't know we're back on the air.
They don't know we got the radio station back.
And since they stopped listening to the radio station, how do you tell them?
You know, I guess we could have a blimp or something going over New York City and let people know that way.
But so far, nothing has really worked as far as getting everybody back.
But the good news is we're doing pretty well.
We were told that we're doing well with them.
Here's what here's what's popular now for off the hook and in particular, the Hacker Digest full set and lifetime subscription for a pledge of one hundred dollars.
Those are apparently flying off digital shelves.
So if you call five one six six two zero three six zero two and demand the Hacker Digest full set and lifetime subscription, you will likely be able to get that unless unless we run out.
Hopefully we won't. Well, no, hopefully we will.
That's what we want, I guess.
But for the sake of people who want them, I hope you are able to call in in time and get it.
Five one six six two zero three six zero two.
Pledge one hundred dollars gets you the Hacker Digest full set and lifetime subscription.
What that is, it's every edition of twenty six hundred magazine going back to nineteen eighty four in digital format and presented as a digest year by year.
And you get that well into the future as long as either you or us are around to put these things out.
As long as they come out, you will keep getting them.
As long as you have an email address, you'll keep getting them simple as that.
And it's a great deal.
I mean, if you think about it, if you amortize it out, I love saying this.
Amortize it out. Thirty five years.
It's a quarterly.
So four thirty five times four is one hundred and forty.
So it's less than a dollar an issue.
And that's not even taking into account the future.
Now, if you pay it down early, you wind up saving and you can pass it on to your children.
Exactly. Yeah, I think it's totally worth it.
It's just like a mortgage, except it's Hacker News instead and all kinds of fun technological issues.
It's really fascinating to read, though.
I'm not kidding, because I spent a lot of time working on compiling all this.
And you find yourself entranced by stories from the 1980s and the 1990s about technology, about new services that are being offered,
services that have since disappeared and nobody remembers them or services that have since gone on to become really terrible or or sometimes nice,
you know, sometimes good services.
But it's just it's if you want an education on how it all happened, how it all came to be.
I can't think of a better way than to simply dive into this and have it all at your fingertips at all times.
And it's DRM free, too.
You can copy it as many times you want and share it with people.
You know, we don't have any of that limited use nonsense that so many other publications and services and radio stations have.
No, this is something we want to get out there.
We want people to be able to benefit from it.
And by pledging to the radio station, you're helping this place stay alive at ninety nine point five FM in the middle of New York City, which I think is pretty awesome.
We're here in our brand new Atlantic Avenue studios looking out over the over the street.
Look at that. It's we had a snow squall today.
Anybody, anybody experience that?
I was caught in a little bit of it.
That was scary.
It was fun.
Terrifying. It wasn't terrifying.
It was amazing.
Did your phone go off?
You found have a little emergency alert tone.
Mine didn't. My office mates did.
I don't get any emergency contact emergency alerts.
I didn't get an Amber alert on Tuesday.
I didn't get any of the weather alerts.
There was an Amber alert yesterday.
Or was it Monday?
There's an Amber alert recently.
I missed it.
Oh, yeah.
Wow.
Yeah, it was a it was a thing.
I got it on a couple of phones and one of them gave it to in two languages, French and English, because it's a Canadian.
I think I have a Canadian phone.
You think you have a Canadian phone?
What do you mean you think you have a Canadian phone?
You either have it or you don't.
I mean, you had to buy it, right?
Well, I think the reason is that I had a Canadian SIM in the phone, but it's an unlocked phone.
OK, right.
So that's what I meant.
But I think the reasoning behind it behind the two languages was because it was Canadians.
Uh-huh.
Our Waze system was speaking Chinese to us on the way in today, but that's only because we selected it.
It was a good way to learn.
But yeah, so snow squalls that it passed pretty quickly.
But it was just that there's some good video of it that's out there just kind of passing over New York City, which I find it really interesting.
Weather is exciting.
It can be.
In fact, one of our hope talks, I think, was entitled Weather is Not Boring.
And it was it was done by our friend John Huntington.
And it's true.
Weather is not boring.
How can anybody say weather is boring?
Well, I guess if you live somewhere where it never changes, then maybe it's not boring.
Maybe it is boring then.
But speaking of hope, we've had a deluge of people interested in becoming a part of that.
And we had two ticket sales so far and we'll have another one in January.
And people are really super enthused at the new location, St.
John's University, July 31st, August 1st and August 2nd.
There are so many things that we can possibly do with the amount of space that we have now.
So we'll be looking for volunteers, be looking for people with ideas.
If you have any kind of info or things you'd like to share, feedback at hope.net is an email address you can write to and tell us what you'd be interested in doing.
And we'll be obviously updating the website and adding all kinds of features and telling people what's going on.
And opening it up for speaker submissions.
That's probably sometime next month.
So the fun is about to begin.
Right.
And am I, am I right in thinking where we're going to need significantly more help than we have in the past with all this new space and all this new stuff that's going to be going on?
Well, more space, more projects and activities.
Yeah.
Translates to, we need more people to help put it together.
And mostly we need more people to come up with ideas for things to do, because this is your conference.
This is how, how the magic happens.
I might, I might, I say that perhaps we won't need quite as many depending on the enthusiasm level.
And so we're also interested in folks who are enthusiastic about learning, about working with, with other people, meeting other hackers and being able to collaborate on things that support the event.
And that's a big part of volunteering at Hope.
So, yeah, it's, it's, it takes a lot more people if, if it's, if it's harder to wrangle, but if people are as excited as we think they will be when they see the possibility for that change, I think it's, it's going to be really not quite as much about numbers, but it really depends on, on how people, what people bring to it.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Hope has been always a, a direct product of the people there.
And, and, you know, rather than kind of being married to a preexisting structure, I mean, we want to do new things.
We want to see what cool ideas people have for stuff to do.
And we're, we're all about that.
So get in touch.
Yes.
We've met outstanding, talented individuals over the years through this process who seem to be able to take on the tasks of, of tons and tons.
You know, you know, 50 or a hundred volunteers, it seems like sometimes.
So anyway, just absolutely get involved and you won't regret it.
No, it's going to be pretty amazing.
For those that don't know, Hope is hackers on planet earth.
It's the biannual conference in New York city.
Biannual, not biannual.
Biannual means once every two years.
And we've been doing it since 1994.
This will be our, our 13th, 13th conference.
Yes.
For all you Triskaidekaphiles out there.
Number 13, lucky number 13.
Wow.
And for the Triskaidekaphobes, there's nothing to be afraid of.
No, I don't think so.
Come on out to New York city.
That's right.
That's right.
And we'll have all kinds of lodging information as well, both on and off campus that we'll be sharing with people.
And the fun really starts in earnest next month.
So we'll have many updates here on the radio station as well.
Here's something interesting.
There's a new phone number that is about to be implemented nationwide.
New three digit code for a suicide prevention hotline number.
And guess what this is?
Anybody know?
No.
Yes.
You want to guess?
I mean, come on.
It's.
I already know.
Okay.
So then don't guess.
No, I'm not.
That's why I just said I disqualify myself, but I'm letting you know while you're taking account of everyone else.
I told you, Kyle, I told you what it was.
So I know that you know.
That was you that said that.
Yes.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
Don't look it up, Rob.
That's cheating.
I think I know.
All right.
Go ahead.
988.
That's right.
I hope you weren't reading my story upside down.
That's right here.
It says 988 in big numbers.
No, I couldn't see it.
Okay.
So basically federal regulators are setting up a new three digit number to reach a suicide prevention hotline in order to make it easier to seek help and reduce the stigma associated with mental health.
Now, once it's implemented, people will just need to dial 988 to seek help, similar to calling 911 for emergencies or 311 for city services.
And it's interesting.
But, you know, there's also something rather unique about this.
We've never had this kind of a three digit code.
All the three digit codes before have pretty much ended in one one.
And this is something that what happens if you live in a 988 exchange?
Has anyone thought of this?
Is there a 988 exchange?
Well, there's so many area codes you have to check every single one.
Yes, I can tell you there are 988 exchanges.
Absolutely.
I guess my question is, are there 988 exchanges in metropolitan areas that haven't gone to 10 digit dialing?
That's a very good point, because there are so many places now that 10 digit dialing is the norm, including New York City.
I'm not happy about it because it doesn't make sense that you have to dial your own area code if you're calling a number within your own area code.
But the reason they did that was so that people could get phone numbers in different area codes and not feel like they were getting cheated.
So if, say, what's the substitute for 212 area code that nobody wants?
What's that other area code?
See, that's exactly it.
646.
OK, let's just go with 646, because that's fairly easy.
Let's say you got hoodwinked into getting a 646 phone number, right?
You wanted a 212, but there's no 212 numbers available.
So, yeah, 646 is just as good.
Well, to make it more appealing, you have to dial 10 digits to get to a 212 number.
But then so does somebody who's already in the 212 area code.
So you just make it equally unpleasant for everybody.
And that's the selling point.
Yeah, it's stupid.
The whole thing is stupid.
They should have made area codes four digits, would have solved the whole running out of phone numbers problem.
But this is the life that we have chosen.
But the interesting thing is there's no 911 exchange anywhere.
You can't you can't find one that doesn't exist.
It's impossible.
But there is a 988 exchange in many area codes and some of them still dial seven digits.
So that's going to be a problem.
That's something they're trying to work out right now is what happens to those places
that have seven digit dialing and you dial 988 to get somebody in that exchange.
How does it know if you're trying to call the suicide hotline number or somebody
with a seven digit phone number that begins with 988 in your area code?
The solutions are coming up with so far are kind of strange.
One of them is have a pause after the 988.
So if you dial 988 and don't dial anything for, say, five seconds,
then you'll be connected to the suicide prevention hotline number.
But if you keep dialing, then you'll you'll continue
connecting to your friend in 988 exchange.
It just seems like kind of a
not a very good solution, because what if you dial slowly
or, you know, what if you really need to talk to somebody quickly?
It's it's not the best solution.
And what I wonder is, why aren't they using some of the other three digit codes
that may be in use now, but are they really in use?
We know what 911 does.
And I just said what 311 is, it's city services.
So if you dial 311, you'll get you'll find out
if alternate side is suspended, things like that.
411 is a robot, right?
What what is for you can't get information anymore, really, right?
Well, let's let's find out.
I'm going to actually pick up the phone and and call that.
I know it might be a fee, but it might not connect anything
or it might be blocked because we're on a PBX.
That's going somewhere.
Thank you for calling the National Directory Assistance.
Oh, please hold for an operator.
Correct. Wow.
I've never heard this before.
I guess I'm wrong.
Oh, my. Hello, this is Donna.
What city and state are we looking in?
Hi, I'm looking for the phone number for WBAI New York.
OK, one moment, please.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for using National Directory Assistance.
The number is three, four, seven, three, three, five, zero, eight, one, eight.
The number is three, four, seven, three, three, five.
Do any of us know this number?
Eight, one, eight.
I don't know what that number is.
That's not the number we give out.
Weird. And what happens if you don't hang up?
I don't know what happens.
This is weird.
I've never called that before.
I've never heard that before.
And what's amazing to me is that was a human being, wasn't it?
It certainly sounded like one.
Sounded like one. And I was surprised.
Maybe it was a robot. Maybe it was a good robot.
Don't I look silly?
Why? What did you say?
Well, I was assuming there'd be a robot.
I was, you know, just laying into the whole prospect of any information anywhere.
You heard me. I was like standing on the counter here.
And yeah, I heard you.
OK, that's interesting.
411. So you can't use that because that's still used for information.
And apparently, you know, that would have come in handy.
We found a wallet the other day.
We found a wallet on a on a mailbox in Manhattan.
And we were trying to find the guy who belonged to it.
Had a license, had all kinds of of important cards.
This guy was a real hero.
He was he he had all kinds of permits, but he didn't have a phone number anywhere.
And we had to track him down through Facebook.
But that didn't work.
And we eventually found a public database that had a phone number
and were able to call him that way.
But I didn't know 411 was actually still a thing.
So I should have used that.
Me either. Wow.
OK, but 2-1-1, who knows what 2-1-1 is?
Does anybody know what 2-1-1 does?
I'm going to call. I don't think it even connects.
It might connect, but the thing is, we don't know what these numbers do.
And apparently our phone system doesn't know what they do either,
because this one's just sitting around.
I have a list, actually, so I can I can cheat a little bit
and tell you what these numbers are supposed to be doing.
2-1-1 is community information and referral services.
What does that even mean?
You know, that's that's just a weird service to offer.
And from the sound of it, there's no information to be had in our community.
Not hearing much about it. No, I don't hear a thing.
OK, well, then we'll just move on.
5-1-1. What do you think 5-1-1 does?
I know this. It's it's construction.
Message 5-2-7.
Oh, it's digging.
Your call cannot be completed as dialed.
OK, so you're saying I dialed 5-1-1 wrong.
OK, as you can see, it doesn't really work well anywhere.
But you said construction, Kyle.
I thought it was the utility thing when you you're wrong.
You're different. That is a different one.
I'm sorry. Different one.
Have you already used up that gas?
No, it's it's traffic and transportation information in the United States.
In Canada, it's provision of weather and traveler information services.
Except here, it doesn't work at all.
OK, then we have 6-1-1, which I know used to be repair.
That's the digging one, right?
No, it's not. It's not.
This should be telephone repair.
If your phone was broken, I don't know how you could call it.
But message 5-2-7.
Your call cannot be completed as dialed.
OK, so what that tells you, you can you can be quiet now.
What that tells me is that that's coming from our local switch,
our local phone system here.
And it's just blocked.
It's just blocked for some reason.
They don't want to call 2-1-1.
They don't want you to call 6-1-1.
I don't know why.
I don't know what 6-1-1 does.
I know 6-1-1 also works for customer service on cell phones.
And for some companies.
So the whole thing is kind of confusing right there.
OK, so now we have 7-1-1.
Anyone want to guess what 7-1-1 is?
It's my turn to guess if it's the digging one.
OK, you think it's the digging one?
Well, let's find out.
No, it's the quiet one, apparently.
All right.
Well, this is this is educational 7-1-1.
It's supposed to be the telecommunications relay service.
Oh, yeah. Right. How about that?
Man, I used to play with that.
Well, we won't be playing with it today because it's not it's not connecting.
And finally, yeah, because we're not going to call 9-1-1, obviously,
but 8-1-1 is supposed to connect you to the excavation people.
Access to one call services to protect pipeline and utilities
from excavation damage.
And in Canada, the non-urgent health tele-triage services.
And it doesn't connect at all for us.
But now, you know what all the X-1-1 numbers are.
And most of them are things that I think could be done
with an 800 number or just something else.
Do you really need a three digit code?
How many how many times have you had to dial 8-1-1 to see if you can dig?
You know, if it's a construction worker, they can have a particular number
they know that it's not distributed to everybody in the world.
And I think the cross-section of people who dig whom are digging around
in the world is larger than that of just construction workers, though,
and that thus it begets a number that is more universal.
It's true. I mean, murderers need to check to dig.
Yeah. Put somebody in their backyard.
I wasn't thinking that necessarily, but you raise a good point.
Thank you, Kyle. I was trying.
All I'm saying is I think the suicide prevention hotline
could fit into one of those better than 9-8-8.
So which one would it be? Which number of those?
Which is your least favorite?
You know, I have a thing about the digging, because I just think
everybody in the industry can learn a number on a regular phone number.
And it's not for everybody.
It's just for people who are doing digging and homeowners dig.
They're not in the industry.
7-1-1 for deaf people.
That's that's important.
OK, that's a good thing to have. Yeah.
6-1-1, it's got an identity crisis, but they should do something with it.
And I think maybe in some places they are.
5-1-1, that's used for travel and 3-1-1 we all use.
4-1-1 apparently is still in use.
The 2-1-1, I don't know what that is.
I don't know what they do with 2-1-1.
Community Information and Referral Services.
What is that? I have no idea.
That maybe that's it then.
That could be the suicide prevention instead of 9-8-8 or 8-9 or whatever it is.
Yeah. Is 1-1-1 in use?
No, you cannot have an exchange that starts with one or zero
because of the way our phone network is set up.
Because that's for international dialing, right?
No, that's not true.
0-1-1 is for international dialing.
That's the other 1-1 actually.
1-plus indicates you're about to call long distance or another area code.
And it's a it's kind of a silly service because once you go
10 digit dialing everywhere, do you need the one anymore?
You don't need the one to call 2-1-2 if you're in 2-1-2.
So you do save one digit over over what people
in other parts of the country have to have to dial.
Yeah, so that's a that's a brief little lesson on the phone network.
Emmanuel, I do have an update on that 4-1-1 number that we got.
Oh, good. As of January 10th, 2018,
it was the studio line here at WBAI.
There have been a few permutations of the in-studio number, but I found a.
Oh, I thought you meant 4-1-1.
No, no, no, no, no.
The number that 4-1-1 gave out for WBAI was the studio call in line two years ago.
OK, yeah, that that sort of rings a bell.
No pun intended.
Yeah, I think we were with a previous carrier.
So that I mean, I know there have been different phone numbers as things have
changed, but what happens if you call it now?
Who do you get? And I think we need to update that.
Why don't you give it a try? See if you get yourself.
All right. I'm not going to do that now, but I'm sure other people are doing it.
Our phone lines are lighting up actually quite a bit outside the scope of our
conversation this evening.
We don't do radio to talk to ourselves generally.
Wow. All right.
Well, again, a reminder for people to call to pledge support for this radio station
and the number to call, I guess I should be saying is 1-5-1-6-6-2-0-3-6-0-2.
Unless you're in that area, then you don't have to dial the 1.
I think that's how it works.
6-2-0-5-1-6-6-2-0-3-6-0-2.
The 1 is implied.
And the Hacker Digest full set and lifetime subscription for a pledge of $100.
We have other things as well, including the Hacker Tote Bags.
And that's for a pledge of, I believe, only $25, which is a fairly good deal.
And we also have 2600 three year subscriptions.
Those come in paper.
Yeah. You have a magazine sent to your address.
That's for a pledge of $50, three years of that.
I just want to add that the paper is recyclable and the tote bags are reusable.
So we're very earth conscious here.
Absolutely.
And we have also the Hacker Portrait, which is something Rob T.
Firefly is producing himself.
You want to describe that?
Absolutely.
If you pledge for the Hacker Portrait, all you have to do is wait for me to get in
touch with you via email.
You have to have email to make this work because I will ping you and ask you to
send me a digital image file, whether you attach it to an email or you send me a
link to a file where I can see it somewhere online.
And then I will interpret that image, that photograph artistically in a painting,
acrylic on canvas, five by seven, in a one of a kind art piece that will be sent to
you. So if you go to give2wbai.org, if you're into that internet stuff, or if you
call 516-620-3602 and ask for the Hacker Portrait, I will make a Hacker Portrait for
you of your choice.
Now, where can people see the quality of your artwork?
You can see other portraits I've done if you write on the front page at my personal
site, which is robvincent.net, R-O-B-V-I-N-C-E-N-T dot net.
And there's even a link right there near the little gallery for you to click over
right to this premium if you're interested.
We're getting so many phone calls.
I'm really amazed by that, especially since we didn't give out the phone number.
We have all kinds of people calling in, apparently, but we'll take phone calls a
little bit later on. In fact, I'd like to do that.
The phone number for people to call in, to be on the air.
Where is that number?
It's behind you.
I can't read behind me, Kyle.
Maybe you could help out.
Well, it's 2-1-2-2-0-9-2-8-7-7.
That's 2-1-2-2-0-9-2-8-7-7.
And 1 where appropriate and other things in other places as well.
OK, so the story that everybody is talking about in both the hacker world and the
mainstream technological world are these ring security cameras and how everybody
in the world seems to be accessing them.
Horrifying ordeals is what we're hearing about.
Yeah, Ashley LeMay said she installed the camera in her daughter's room so she
could watch over over her daughter's plural.
OK, watch over them while she works overnight nursing shifts.
I did a lot of research on these before I got them.
You know, I really felt like it was safe, but it wasn't safe.
The intrusion happened.
The digital intrusion happened just four days after she installed it when she was
running an errand and her husband was at home with the kids.
Now, when her daughter, Alyssa, why are we dropping their names?
You know, if you want to keep your privacy, don't give out your kids names to
CNN. That's that's a start right there.
Anyway, well, it's out anyway.
So Alyssa heard noises coming from her bedroom.
So the child went in to see what it was.
Yeah. So basically, I'm your best friend.
I'm Santa Claus. The voice said over the speaker because ring cameras have
speakers. I'm Santa Claus.
Don't you want to be my best friend?
Yeah. The unidentified person.
He just said who he was.
He's Santa Claus.
Well, I continue to harass the girl.
I continue to harass the girl, taunting her and encouraging her to destroy her
room, encouraging her to destroy.
How does that conversation go?
Hey, I'm Santa Claus.
And I know I've told you to be good all these years.
But right now, you know what?
You have my permission to completely trash your room and really upset your
parents. Go on.
It's OK. Santa says so.
I mean, I'm going to bring you new stuff.
So that's got to break all the old stuff.
I'll be good at this, wouldn't I?
Wow. Yeah, keep rings away from me.
I watched the video, her mom said, and my heart just like I didn't even get to
the end where she is screaming, Mommy, Mommy, before I went inside.
OK, you know, all kidding aside, this can be a traumatic thing for a kid to have
some stranger talking to you in your room.
But, you know, I think the real mistake is made when you put a camera in your
kid's room and hook it up to the Internet.
And I know they say they researched it.
How well did you really research this?
Because this kind of thing not only is is fairly common, it's fairly predictable.
If you just look at the the setup, is there a password?
How is how is that password chosen?
Is it a good password?
How do you access this thing remotely and how do other people get locked out of it?
You know, back back in the 90s, there used to be baby monitors that you could get
with little cordless radio things you can carry around the house.
And that was one of the things that you could look for if you were, say, a bored
person with a radio scanner looking for things to listen to.
And that was, you know, that was opening up a chunk of your house, usually a baby's
room or a kid's room to any nerd within a certain radius who had the radio equipment
and the inclination to mess with you.
And when we're when we're replacing these things with other things that are hooked up
to the entire damn net and every every person basically in the world could, if they
tried, get access to it.
This isn't maybe the best idea.
Does everything have to be connected to the Internet?
Well, I think a lot of people believe everything does have to be connected to the
Internet. It's it's it's a strange thing.
It's convenience, I guess.
But with every convenience comes comes risk.
And you have to be extremely wary of that.
You do. And it's it's just back to the old thing of like, if you buy any appliance that
has any kind of password on it, any kind of login or protection, the very first thing
you do when you take these things out of the box and plug them in is change the password
or change the login or do whatever you can to make yours not the same as every other
one on the shelf. Because if you don't, then people can get into it because there are
default passwords, there are default logins, there are default open ports on things.
Earlier this week, an Atlanta woman was in her bed when a man's voice came over her
bedroom ring camera, yelling that he could see her and demanding that she wake up.
What people do with this is really kind of fascinating as well.
But why do you have a camera in your bedroom?
Does that make any sense to anybody?
I mean, yeah, a baby I could understand, but this is a grown woman has a camera in her
bedroom. On Sunday night in Florida, a Cape Coral couple was harassed by a person over
their ring camera who made racist comments about their biracial family, revealing that
he had likely been watching them for days.
And on each of these occasions, Ring is saying that the system invasion was not the
result of a breach or failure of Ring security.
Instead, the hacker had likely gained access to the family's account through weak or
stolen login credentials.
And that might seem kind of cold on Ring's part, but I'm wondering, is that not
accurate? Is that not exactly what's happening?
Yeah, like a brute force or other kind of password storage service that gets hacked
and a whole bunch of Ring accounts then become available to people that are interested
in that. There's a lot of possibilities.
And I think like Rob's analogy is apt in that in simpler times, the vulnerability really
was like, OK, someone could hear you through this one technique of scanning, whereas
these are sort of fully fledged computers.
So you have to kind of apply every bit of basic network security and consider where you
place them, that you're putting a very capable computer that has a whole array of
attack vectors versus just something that could be passively listened to with a
particular scanner.
Right. This is allowing interaction, people to monitor both video and audio, as well as
to interact and transmit comments and so on.
So here's the question that I have, because Ring, as I understand it, was conceived to
be like a doorbell system.
Do you need a doorbell anywhere but your front door?
You know, and if it's got like an app or whatever, you can look at it on your phone and
see who's at your door.
And beyond, why do you need doorbells in every room of your house?
Like, that's the part I do not understand.
It seems like they've expanded their reach a bit.
Well, then they should rename it.
They should.
Because it's confusing.
Yeah, because it's not really a Ring thing.
Call it spy cam.
OK, you know what?
Call it. Exactly.
How many would they sell if it was called spy cam?
I think that's a very good point.
Ring is, it was an interesting service when it first came out because, hey, who doesn't
want to know who's at the door without having to run down to the door or having to be
home in the first place?
But then some rather disturbing things started happening, not including this.
Ring cameras started to be networked together or people started to encourage you to do
that. Neighborhood watch committees, the local police.
They wanted to know who's wandering around the neighborhood.
And if somebody knocks on this person's door, maybe you want to warn your neighbor
that some unruly person is in the neighborhood.
And if you didn't agree to this, then all of a sudden you became the problem.
So it became this really kind of Orwellian neighborhood thing going on.
And I think a lot of people might have regretted ever getting the things in the first
place. It also makes me further question how much we need to centralize these things.
I mean, as I understand, Ring is the one that's owned by Amazon, right?
I can't keep track anymore.
Nest is owned by Google.
Nest is owned by Google.
I don't know. Is Ring owned by Amazon?
Probably.
Oh, they got bought by SimpliSafe.
Oh, OK. Because.
Are you joking or what?
We're going to believe you.
I think it's an all safe product.
But yeah, all safe.
Definitely. But but.
Is that a joke?
I don't know what to believe anymore.
Ring works with Alexa, I tell you that much.
But we have these things now that are put out by all sorts of companies.
You know, if you if you bought a security camera by like from, say, like a security
camera company that lives and dies by the success of their security cameras, I feel
like you could have a certain degree of trust that maybe they've looked at the ins and
outs of their security cameras.
But when it's put out by a company that just exists to like buy up as many different
things as possible and connect them all together so they could get a more complete
picture of you to sell to advertisers like that's that's, you know, their highest
priority is not going to be fixing every every leak in their security cameras, I
think.
Especially especially in the case of startups and stuff, companies that I view them
as like really thin, like having a very thin veneer of existence, like they're
rushing to create value for an IPO or some hopes of of domination
in whatever space they're disrupting and so on.
And I think that a lot can be said about their own oversights in that
rapid growth.
And I guess I'm kind of thinking of an article about Amazon and a lot of the cloud
computing stuff. But a lot of these startups are developed using other services.
So their expertise is not as awe inspiring like they had an idea and then they had all
of the guts of that hosted elsewhere.
They're in a mad rush to sort of compete in that innovation space.
But, you know, even their own code and their own work could be vulnerable because of
the way they went about growing.
And especially when in scenarios where there's a lot of like rapid growth and, you
know, looking at at each intricacy of the design and and the overall security or how
they're going to host people's video or provide any kind of back end service for
their customers. It ends up in a lot of cases, I think, being an afterthought.
Yeah, it's like we were saying last week when we were talking with Jason Scott about
the demise of Yahoo!
Groups and Yahoo!
Groups was the thing that it started at one list when it was a project started up by one
person who really cared about that form of communication.
Then it was bought by another company and that company was bought by Yahoo!
And Yahoo! was bought by Verizon.
And it ended up just this thing like gathering dust without any real work being put
into it until until this company realized they still owned it and decided they better
shut it down before they're responsible for something.
I'd like to read the actual statement that came from Ring in response to all this.
It's called Ring services have not been compromised.
Here's what you need to know.
It shows up on their blog.
You may have recently seen reports that Ring services have been compromised.
And we want to inform you that we have investigated, this is bold now, we have
investigated this incident and have no evidence of an unauthorized intrusion or
compromise of Ring's systems or network.
Well, OK, first of all, my my question here is what do you consider to be an
unauthorized intrusion?
Because it seems to me if somebody is telling a child that he's Santa Claus in
their bedroom through one of your devices, sounds like an unauthorized intrusion right
there. Now, whose fault is it?
That's what the remaining paragraphs are all about.
So let's continue. Recently, we were made aware of an incident where malicious actors
obtained some Ring users account credentials.
Thank you for not saying hackers, by the way, malicious actors.
I kind of like that. Let's let's call the malicious actors from now on.
M.A.
Yeah, M.A.
I like that. It's like Ma Bell.
Of course, I'm sure people in the acting community won't be thrilled about this.
SAG-AFTRA is going to have all kinds of things to say about it.
You know, you just can't win.
OK, so malicious actors obtained some Ring users account credentials, e.g.
username and password from a separate external non-Ring service.
In other words, Ring does not operate a service that trades passwords and tells you how
to break in. So dispel that rumor right there.
What a relief.
Anyway, somebody did that and reused them to log into some Ring accounts.
Unfortunately, when people reuse the same username and password on multiple services,
it's possible for bad actors to gain access to many accounts.
Yeah, that's Ring throwing some shade down at its users for using stupid passwords or
not recycling their passwords, using different ones for different things.
It's it's victim blaming, but in a way it's also accurate because that's exactly what's
happening. People are using either the same password
as their username or email address or something like admin, admin or or just the
same password over and over again on every single service that they have.
And if one of them is compromised, just one and that list becomes
public, which it has, then you can break into all kinds of things.
Email accounts, cameras, VCRs, whatever, refrigerators, whatever is
on online these days.
Continuing upon learning of the incident, we took appropriate actions to promptly block
bad actors from known affected Ring accounts and affected users have been
contacted. I'm curious what actions they could take to block somebody who has the
username and password.
Seems like once you have that information, you're in.
Otherwise, you're you're locking out people that are supposed to get in.
Anyway, out of an abundance of caution, we encourage Ring customers to change their
passwords and enable two factor authentication.
Well, that's it right there. Two factor authentication.
They support it. They have it.
They need to mandate that users implement that themselves and use that as a
matter of course. Otherwise, your system isn't going to work.
And I think that's better than having somebody spy on your kids.
And do a decent, a decent job of educating the consumer on how, you know, you have to
walk them through that step by step and and not just have it as an aside.
I mean, you really have to educate people so that they're they're they're diverted
toward the safest and the wisest choice.
But with instruction, not just left like with some complex step by step that they're
just never going to do, because then you get apathy and you don't get a lot of
take. OK, let's let's assume that your great grandmother is listening right now
somehow and and you have to explain two factor authentication to her.
Anybody want to volunteer how to do that to get her to not be spied upon with these
evil Ring devices?
No, I guess it's not that easy.
It's not easy to explain it.
You raise a good point, though, because like how much of the how much of the
responsibility should be on the company for things like this?
Like if you're a company that sells fireworks, you have to put all kinds of like
warnings on the box and everything else, like warning this is crap that blows up
because this is crap that blows up.
But like when when you're selling something like a security camera, like should it be
should it be the responsibility of the company to put some kind of big, attractive
warning on the side that says, you know, warning you, you have a degree of
responsibility for the security of this product.
You have to use it right.
Well, it's something they certainly send you enough information in these long
agreements and in the booklet and the setup.
And but I don't think it's like a large sticker identifying something as as being
able to have like sort of a comprehensive existence within your network that could be
compromised, but perhaps it should maybe more more readily identifiable IOT labeling.
Well, here are the steps that Ring is suggesting.
Enable two factor authentication in the Ring app from the app's account settings.
This creates an extra layer of security.
You'll receive a unique code via text message on your phone whenever you or someone
else attempts to log into your Ring account and is asked for your Ring password.
Yeah, you know, that can get annoying every time somebody logs in.
You're going to get a notice on your phone.
There's got to be a better way to do that.
What if you don't have a phone, if you don't have a cell phone?
A lot of people don't.
You know what happens to them?
Sounds like not everybody's being included here.
I've I've worked with Nest a bit, and I know they're getting rather annoying since
they were bought by Google, where they want you to use your Google account to use your
Nest account.
And if you don't, every time you access your Nest account through some other way,
you get an email every single time.
And if you do that multiple times a day, well, it's going to get really annoying
really fast unless you agree to use your Google account, which is just more
surveillance and Google knowing more about your habits.
So these things are not necessarily as simple as they as they might appear or
simply certainly not as simple as they should be.
OK, here's their second tip.
Add shared users.
Don't provide your login information to others.
If you want to share access to your ring devices with other people, simply add them
as a shared user.
I'm not really sure not having a ring device, what that means.
How is that different than than not giving the login information?
How do you become a shared user?
It sounds like a possible security risk there.
Well, it's not the same thing that like Netflix is trying to do now.
Don't share your password with people.
Add them as a user on your account with their own password or something like that.
So they get their own password, but they have the same ability to do.
I mean, it sounds like you're doubling the security risk, then that's good for the company.
Maybe just make a hacker account when you're setting it up.
You know, you just admit defeat right when you open the box.
Hacker, huh, Kyle?
Yeah, malicious, malicious actor.
That's that's the new word.
That's the new word. Yeah.
Yeah. No, I screwed up.
It's it's the the M.A.
Use different passwords for each account.
OK, here we go.
By using different usernames and passwords on your various accounts
and not just talking about ring accounts and talk about all accounts,
you reduce the risk that a malicious actor could reuse credentials
compromised from another account to access your ring account.
A password manager allows you to conveniently store all of your passwords
in a centralized vault on your computer.
And if you wish in the cloud, this means you only need to remember
one password to unlock all of your passwords.
And someone else only has to get one password to get off your passwords, too.
But that's another point.
All major browsers have built in password managers,
and there are also a variety of commercial providers
that will permit you to synchronize your vaults between devices.
OK, you know, that's that's that's a way to go.
And it works for some people.
Doesn't work for others, but at least it's a suggestion.
Here's another one.
Create strong passwords with a mix of numbers, letters,
both uppercase and lowercase and symbols and embrace long,
non-dictionary based words or phrases.
Try not to use sequential values in your passwords.
One, two, three, ABC, ETC.
Oh, wait, that's part of the sentence.
Even better. Sorry.
Even better.
Use a password generator to create a randomly generated
unique password for each account.
And finally, regularly update your password.
It's good practice to update your passwords every three or six months.
And yeah, and that's that's pretty much all the suggestions.
We understand what a big decision it is to pick a home security product
and we don't take that decision lightly.
We will continue to introduce additional security features
to keep your ring account and devices secure.
I don't know, guys, you think that's enough?
What they what they've suggested to to consumers?
I think just go back to like old video cameras
with big, chunky VHS tapes that go in them and rewatch those on a nightly basis.
Closed circuit, some nice coax, real heavy, heavy cabling.
So that's what we're lacking in the Internet of Things era is a nice closed circuit.
Black and white.
Yeah. Closed circuits instead of these open ones.
Now, I like those tips.
I've noticed even some of the browsers have strong password generators.
And I've I've watched a little bit of that password management evolve.
It's better than it was.
And I think part of what complete where complacency
in this realm of password generation comes from is being inundated
with having to do the same thing for hundreds and thousands of accounts
over the course of a lifetime or, you know, an education or wherever you're at in life.
I think people get worn out from some of this.
So those are good ideas and would go a long way to help you.
And also just sort of basic network security
in in how you administer your home or office network
is another avenue to pay close attention to when you're plugging things in.
Yeah, I mean, these things seem like like great services
and they can be if used properly, but they can also really be the beginning of hell.
If you become victimized.
I'm just thinking of the number of people who will receive
ring devices as presence this year.
Now, think about that.
You want to spy on somebody.
So you give them a camera
and maybe, you know, what kind of password they'll they'll select.
Or maybe it's preselected so they don't have to worry about it.
Just install it.
And right away you have access.
I'm sure this kind of thing happens all the time.
I'm sure there's all kinds of stories people can share.
Yeah, there's the there's all kinds of new products coming out.
You've seen the social network frames and stuff that you can spy on.
Granny, you know, or Muppets or whatever.
I don't know.
There's all kinds of new hardware that is as capable
that is going to be thrust into people's homes.
And often the people that, you know, maybe didn't want it,
but, you know, someone thought they needed it.
And perhaps, you know, they're just minding their own business.
And then here they are with this highly capable surveillance device
that they're not even really aware what it is,
let alone that it's connected to their their phone lines.
Think of the people who are part of a household
or institution or something that have no say.
And these devices are there and they can't do anything about it.
They're just they're being surveilled just as much as anyone else.
Well, I was also looking.
I was investigating the Ring family of products earlier.
You know, research team.
And you were shopping, weren't you?
I was. I was because I would really like to put a Ring camera
on each fence post in the backyard.
But there's a whole section of works with Ring
and their Wi-Fi locks that work with Ring.
They're selling a whole suite of business products.
So you could get locked out of your house by a malicious actor.
A malicious actor could turn up the heat in your house.
I mean, this also, I think, can be part of that whole
domestic violence and abuse in the IOT
suite of issues. Interesting.
Yeah. If you were in an abusive relationship
and even if you got a order of protection against the user,
if they still have access to your password,
if they can still break into your IOT things
and they can turn up the heat in your house, they can make Rick Astley
play 24 hours a day.
I mean, I'm making light of the situation a little bit.
But these are they could lock you out of your house
if you have a smart lock that's connected to your Ring system.
I mean, there are really terrifying implications for this
beyond just the surveillance of it.
There was an early Mr.
Robot episode where a smart house was hacked and the person
was was going through all kinds of hell trying to get things to work properly.
And of course, they weren't.
These things are cool, but they carry risks
and people need to know what the risks are, how to how to keep themselves safe.
Yeah, that's a basic fact of the Internet of Things era is that each one of these
is basically a full a fully functional computer
that you don't have full control over.
And so that's you know, you got it.
You got to you got to really consider whether you're OK with that
before you give your gifts this holiday season.
And be a be a real skeptical, I would say, critical consumer.
Right. Because you're you're you're
functionally they're going to work and operate differently.
You know, humans are a bit messy. Right.
And so how how we go about using and installing
and working with this tech is is
it's often much different than what's idealized in the in the engineer
or in the marketing.
So don't be seduced by the marketing and the the bells and whistles.
Well, in the marketing of it also.
I mean, I saw a commercial for Ring cameras recently, and it was set
to look like footage that was taken from random Ring cameras
across the country and people coming home.
And it was it was it was voyeuristic in a way,
because you're seeing people coming home and reuniting with long lost relatives.
You're seeing, you know, people and their pets.
You're seeing this footage.
I don't I want to believe that this was all like actors
and set up and planned, but the
hacker side of me, such as it is, is a little nervous
that they just pulled this footage from actual customers.
That footage is there.
It's being stored. Yeah.
And actually, I'm not sure where it's being stored.
Is that being stored
with with Ring or is that being stored on the local device?
Whatever it is, it's accessible.
It's very exciting. Until it isn't.
I mean, yeah, I mean, you know, with a power or, you know,
some network problem occurs.
And but yeah, I mean, that's where I was going with putting blind faith
in a lot of these things when we actually are living with them.
But and you think about like a smart lock that's connected to the
Wi-Fi smart lock.
I'm thinking about a time in my neighborhood.
I went to go buy pizza and I had cash to buy pizza
and people were walking in the Internet and phones were down
in the entire neighborhood so nobody could use credit cards.
No one had cash and people are walking in.
They're like, you can't use a credit card because the Internet is down.
And people are like, can I use a debit card?
I heard three different people say that while they were making my pizza.
And in the same way, you know, if you have smart lock
and the Internet goes down, can you get into your house?
You know, if the power is out and the Internet is out
and you can't open your garage door and you can't open your Wi-Fi door,
what are you going to do?
You know, your ice cream is just going to melt out
and you can't get inside. Right. Absolutely.
Build in alternatives. Absolutely. Exactly.
And don't be at the effect of what you're building for your your environment.
You need to be maintain that kind of control.
And you should always have a key, an actual key.
These these fobs are one thing. They're nice.
But, you know, if it replaced I heard a story about somebody who
a shop owner who actually really nice guy drove all the way to Pennsylvania
because this woman had been to his store
and had left her key or key fob in the store and drove away
because the system is so poorly designed that it doesn't know if the key fob
is no longer next to you while the car is running.
So, of course, as soon as the car was turned off,
she couldn't start it again.
She was stranded in Pennsylvania and this guy drove all the way down there
with with the key fob just to help her out.
But that kind of thing happens a lot because there is no backup.
There's nothing there's nothing physical that can get around these newfangled
systems. So we should never abandon an actual good old fashioned key
and in any situation. That's true.
Yeah, we spoke about a case some time ago on this program
where there was a local building owner that tried to force all
his tenants to use a phone app rather than a key.
And that ended up with a lot of people who didn't use computers,
older people and whatnot, basically stuck in their home
because they couldn't leave, because if they left,
they wouldn't have been able to get back in.
And I think they had to take that to court to get that to get that reversed
and get him to give him a damn key.
Well, they're getting back to to the Ring story here and finishing us up.
Amazon and yes, Amazon is the owner of Ring.
They're in the crosshairs of consumer groups
led by the digital rights organization Fight for the Future,
following a series of hacks into the Ring security cameras.
Whose fault it is, that's that's entirely up to up to everybody,
I guess, to decide where the blame lies.
But they they have been compromised, whether by design or by conspiracy.
The organization's issued a product warning yesterday urging consumers
not to purchase Ring cameras, claiming the devices are unsafe.
The dangers associated with these products pose a threat to families
and the public, the warning says.
As groups dedicated to protecting consumers' privacy and safety,
we are issuing this official product warning.
Do not buy Amazon Ring cameras.
Now, as we mentioned, reports surfaced of hackers.
OK, this is this is a geek wire story.
They're going to call it hackers instead of malicious actors.
Hackers infiltrating Ring security cameras and harassing children.
In Tennessee, a hacker broke into a Ring camera
only four days after it was purchased on Black Friday.
The hacker used the camera to communicate with an eight year old girl
claiming at one point to be Santa Claus.
I don't know if it's the same guy or if it's a different Santa Claus.
Similar incident reported in Florida.
Ring, the smart doorbell company Amazon acquired in 2018,
has been under the microscope for months.
The company has fielded criticism for its cozy relationship
with law enforcement and a perceived lack of transparency.
The consumer groups cite Ring's work with police and the recent hacks
as reasons to avoid purchasing the device.
Reports indicate there is a growing black market for software to hack Ring devices,
likely being purchased by stalkers, cybercriminals
and those wishing to do harm to children.
The warning says pointing to a motherboard report on software
that helps hackers access Ring cameras.
Again, though, you don't need software to do this.
You really don't. If it's if it's again, I don't have one of these devices.
Is the login, is that simply an email address?
If it is, you're halfway there, because how hard is it to find
somebody's email address?
Could also be a small web server on the device itself
that then has, you know, a login with, say,
no certificate or no encrypted
encrypted connection from the device to your laptop, say, or other,
you know, a possible ways that it can be defeated
just through regular use.
But that server could be on all the time or it could be something
that's visible on the outside of your network
through some sort of port scanning or other search engine.
I know there's entire search engines just for Internet of Things devices
like Shodan and others.
Yeah, you know, I really want to play with that more.
I want to learn more about the kinds of things that are accessible out there.
Just just so you can get a sense as to the
the chances people are taking when they get these devices.
Ring is the most obvious one.
And, you know, it just seems people would have had more common sense
before they started sticking these things in their homes.
I'm really, though, concerned about this cozy relationship
with law enforcement where people are pressured into having them everywhere.
And it's just basically, you know, the surveillance state is here,
except you're the ones installing it and having it operate on your dime.
It's it's just as intrusive as anything else.
You should always be the one to decide how much of your life
you want to put on display and also how much you want to give
the police automatic access to whenever they want.
They're trying to position it again was on the Ring website earlier.
And they are saying our mission is to make safer neighborhoods.
They have a neighborhood watch app that exists on their website.
And I'm sorry about that.
It's fascinating to me what they're they're trying to.
I don't want to say complicit, but they're trying to make people
complicit in this whole like bandwagon.
That's it. It's a bandwagon of complicity.
It's not hard. It's not hard.
And they've they've learned from the best.
And honestly, like by a whole surveillance system,
you get more cameras, right?
You know, buy a whole alarm system, build one.
You know, the the the cost for like six cameras, like a full security system,
that's fairly easy to set up, but it's sort of
not a part of this particular network, obviously.
But it's like a couple hundred bucks, probably the same as whatever these
these ring or door devices, what they cost.
So you're you actually end up with more camera views
like on the perimeter of your property or wherever.
Aren't you just as insecure if you're using bad passwords?
No, I'm not disputing that.
But they probably pay a couple hundred dollars or a lot for
one camera and this, you know, convenient service.
You could get way more just buying a regular surveillance system,
go in to a bodega here in New York or any place and ask them
if they use ring for their store 16 camera and laugh at you. Right.
But it sounds like you're saying, yeah, you can get more of this
of this evil surveillance for a better price.
It's not really the point, though.
We were saying that this is something that's invasive.
And and you could be putting your whole life on display,
you know, whether it's one camera angle or 32.
It's something we really have to have to look out for.
I get what you're saying. That's not entirely what I meant.
What I meant was that you don't you can get an offline camera system
or a system that you have way more control over that does not have this
cushy relationship with law enforcement.
Right. Someone would have to physically ask you, you know, hey,
we would like to get the video off of this because there was an accident
and we need proof of that particular camera angle.
Well, my point is, per camera, it's they're really charging you a lot more
for a more invasive service that has that kind of relationship is more invasive.
You could get a lot of views of your property
without being a part of any of that and have it be privately owned,
like we've talked about in the UK, where, you know, there is a lot of surveillance.
But when but a lot of it is privately owned, you know, first of all,
we've blown through the first hour of this show.
It's a special two hour edition of off the hook.
And we're into the second hour, which used to be our old time slot
and won't be anymore after this week here on WBA on New York.
And this is as good a time as any, I think, to open up the phone lines
for listeners who might have some ring experience or ideas
or questions or other things to discuss.
Two one two two zero nine two eight seven seven.
Is that the number? OK, so many phone that was floating around.
Go ahead, Rob.
Yeah, I was I was going to say a lot of that same stuff.
But but also, yeah, I mean, it might be more expensive.
I would guess that it's more expensive to go and get your own role,
your own security system.
But that's by design because they make these things cheaper.
So so they're more attractive.
So their network is more powerful.
So they can make them cheaper.
So more people will get them.
And that's that's like these whole things are subsidized,
like so many of the, quote unquote, free services that you would use online,
Gmail, you know, whatever.
So many of these are subsidized by the fact that the information
they get from you through your use of them is worth a lot more
than just selling you the thing for a market price.
And so it's worth it to them to lose a little money on the device
because they're making a lot more on you.
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why I what I'm trying to describe
just sounds so clumsy when I when I say it, because, no,
I don't want you to get more cameras.
I'm just saying that you can get a really, really capable
surveillance system for marginally more dollars.
And and oh, by the way, not be automatically like opted
into this sort of scenario where you can't
where data is being shared without asking permission.
If it's a private system, you have to be asked in order to gain access to it.
And and you invariably, I would say, have more controls over that system.
But again, it's a clumsy way.
Everybody wants surveillance these days.
I mean, when I was a kid, nobody had surveillance.
Nobody really cared that much.
And now you can't live without it.
It's just what's happened to us.
Are we on camera now?
We're probably on camera size.
There are cameras on us right now.
Ask yourself, listeners, take a look around.
Is there a camera focused on you anywhere?
It might be your own computer.
It might be your parents.
It might be the store that you're hanging out in front of.
Who knows? Maybe that's like the engineer in me.
I'm just like I'm shaking my head because I know how kind of limited
what these people are thinking, you know, protecting themselves.
I put that in big air quotes with versus, you know, the very the affordable
wide array of other things out there that you can control.
We have a caller. Good evening.
Speak up.
Is anybody there?
There's somebody there, but they're just not saying anything,
or maybe they can't hear us.
I have all the buttons pressed, I'm supposed to press.
OK, well, we don't have time for these games.
Good evening. You're on off the hook. Go ahead.
Hi. Hi. You can hear me, right?
Yes, I can hear you. Great.
What's on your mind?
A few different things.
It's refreshing to hear a woman's voice on your show.
That's one thing. OK.
And I'm going to ask you to repeat the question.
I'm going to ask you to repeat the question.
I'm going to ask you to repeat the question.
That's one thing. OK.
And about the three digit.
Emergency type
number for a suicide hotline,
it would be, you know, you have to remember what it is,
which nobody knows what it is at this point, except one or two people.
It would be easiest to remember if it were three to one.
So that's the area code for the countdown county in Florida.
Yeah, that's that's Cheshire's area code. Yeah, he got that one.
So if you could just make it a four digit one, three, two, one, zero.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, so much so much would have been solved
if they had simply added a digit to the area codes.
We would have had two, one, two, one, two, one, two, two, one, two, three.
We never would have left two, one, two.
But there are better options, I think, including using
using one of these other X, one, one numbers that no one seems to know
what they stand for.
Well, I'm saying instead of the X, one, one,
these are those are not area codes, you know, four, one, one, nine, one, one.
Those are not area codes. Right.
So why not make the suicide prevention thing
a four digit code?
Right, well, 988 is not 98.
It's not not an area code.
They check that at least, but it is an exchange in a number of places.
So that could complicate matters.
What what's an exchange?
Exchange is when you dialed us right now,
that two one two is the area code and two oh nine is the exchange.
Yes, but what I'm saying, four digits is not an exchange.
No, that's true.
Three to one zero is not an exchange because those are by definition three digits.
Right. And it's also not a phone number because there are no phone numbers
that have four digits and you have to reprogram every switch in the country
to be able to accept that.
It's not a it's not a short code either.
So it would be good, like you'd said earlier, if there were four digit.
I'm in favor of it, but it would just confuse the the industry.
And I think consumers, too.
Well, and we'd have a lot more options for different combinations
for this particular line.
I'm talking about mnemonic for the suicide helpline phone number.
I mean, nine eight eight on the keypad spells out what W.U.T.
Yeah, it doesn't spell much.
So I think I think that's the closest to a word you can get with it.
So, you know, dial what?
Yeah, that's not really a good marketing ploy.
Nobody's going to remember it now.
And any other any other thoughts?
Yeah, these spy cams on your children.
I remember once I was at
a woman's house and she was
wondering about what to give as a baby shower present.
And she went into her son's room and we could hear we were
all the people who were visiting her were in her bedroom with her.
And she went into her son's bedroom momentarily and we could hear her in it.
And so when she was wondering about this, I said, I know what you can get.
And I went and I got the.
The bug.
And the one in her bedroom,
and I showed the pair of them.
Give these and you don't have to buy anything because they're
you know, you already have them and they're all perfectly good.
And she said, well, I don't know.
Your son is eight.
And I said to her, son, do you really feel
you need your mother to be able to overhear you?
And I asked him, do you sometimes feel as if your mother must be psychic?
She knows what you're thinking.
And he's nodding.
And I said, well, she's not.
She overhears you talking to yourself in your room.
And he is old enough.
He doesn't need that.
So if if people kept an ear on their kids,
they don't need these spy things.
Good point.
Definitely.
Anyway, thanks.
Thanks very much for the call and for for getting us to think about these.
I just wonder when you install baby monitors
and surveillance equipment in kids rooms, when do you take them out?
You probably take them out when the kid discovers them and says, hey, Ma,
what the hell is this?
And then you get rid of it.
Then you upgrade.
Then you do something more surreptitious.
Let's see if you have more colors out there.
Good evening.
Are you on the air?
I think you are.
Is anyone there?
No, that's one of those we have.
We have weird things going on in this telephone where lines keep ringing forever.
Perhaps it's perhaps it's the snow.
Yes. Yes.
I'm giving us that's what it is.
Weather report from Brooklyn.
It's snowing. Right.
Good evening. You're on off the hook.
Yes. Thank you, gentlemen, so much for taking my calls.
Can you hear me clearly? Yes, we can.
OK, this is my problem.
Verizon disconnected my landline because I refused to upgrade to FIO.
And in order for me to port the numbers, they've disconnected it.
They said I would have to do a new order,
upgrade the files, and then I can put the number, which doesn't make any sense.
Wow. And if I had known about porting, I would have done this
before they had disconnected my service.
I've had that phone for like 40 years.
And, you know, they I didn't want to fight.
I didn't want files.
And so they decided to disconnect my phone.
And I said, OK, I found out about porting.
And they they said, OK, you can port your number.
We'll turn your phone back on.
We'll charge you a fee.
We have to put a box in your house
in order for you to up to they want me to upgrade anyway.
And then I can put the number.
So do I have any recourse at all that you gentlemen know of?
Gosh, Kyle, the there are a couple of things
you could coordinate with people in your neighborhood.
You could talk to the Public Utility Commission in general.
And by coordinate, I mean, you know, come up with another carrier
or some kind of other service that does the same thing.
But since you've had it for so long, I would recommend looking at
alternative carriers that that is the third idea that I've had.
And I know we've we've talked about it before on the show.
And then essentially that's a company that works
as a competitive carrier with Verizon.
And so they buy bulk amounts of lines.
So if you found out one of those companies,
maybe you could port directly to them and get your your copper lines
reinstalled to your house.
Can we ask what your local cable company is?
I just.
OK, we can barely hear you.
Are you on a cordless phone?
They were I would say I just wanted to keep my telephone number.
They disconnect.
I don't you know, the stuff about the alternative carriers,
because a lot of other people did convert to fires.
I just wanted to keep my number.
They disconnected my phone and they told me, yeah, you can.
We will you let us come in and redo the old.
But we got to put up your house.
You have to convert the fires and then I can put the number.
I just want to report my number.
Well, I want to keep my two one two number.
Yeah, that seems very shady.
They're saying that we have your number, but the only way you can get it back
is if you sign up with us.
In other words, you can't go to another company and say you want to port
your number because they seem to have control over it,
even though it's the number that you've had for many years, correct?
Right, right, right.
Yeah, I would I would I would go to the Public Service Commission on this one,
because just that kind of pressure, it's one thing to disconnect
your your regular phone line and say you have to upgrade to two files.
But to hold your phone number hostage and not allow you
to be able to port it on your own, that really seems fishy to me.
Yeah, they disconnected it because I didn't convert.
And it's the only way that I could
port the number is that I have to have it turned back on,
convert the files, and then they would like they need what technician to come
because they said that they can't turn the phone on remotely.
That a technician has to come in and install files.
And then I can port the number, which is crazy.
So so, Caller, what if if they shut down your landline?
What are you trying to port the number to?
Are you trying to get another company to set up a landline for you
or port it to your mobile phone?
Or they've already cut the phone off.
Right. So so if you had that number back now, what what would it
what would you want it to be ringing like a landline?
Or I know I would just port it to a second line with my cell phone carrier.
I already have it set up to do it.
But Verizon refuses to turn the phone on.
Have you have you talked to your cell phone carrier about this?
They might be able to help.
Yes, they are willing to port the number.
But Verizon has to turn the phone back on in order for them to port the number.
Number portability should allow you.
And you're absolutely, I think, within your rights.
If your carrier, your cell phone company is willing to do that on a second line,
as you've indicated, that's an even better scenario.
But it should be fairly simple.
And it sounds like they're escalating.
Verizon is because they you've made it known that that's valuable to you.
And they want to convince you something that is simply not true.
So I would I would stick to your guns as far as that goes.
And and really pursue it.
Pursue.
And if you have to have have your mobile carrier on the phone with you
while you're talking to Verizon so they can set them straight.
But that's a great idea.
Well, I'm asking you guys because Verizon is not budging.
That's why I was asking what are my alternatives?
My carrier is willing to do.
But Verizon is saying no.
The only way they can do it is they have to come in, put a box in my house,
convert the files, and then I can shut it off and put the number.
So we're talking about a landline here, right?
Verizon Landline.
Yes, I have a land.
I've had a landline for 40 years.
They wanted me to convert the files.
And when I didn't respond, they cut the phone off.
And so I didn't know that I could have ported it prior to them doing it.
So you're in New York?
Yes, that's a 212 number.
OK, I would definitely contact the Public Service Commission.
That is what Verizon lives in fear of.
It's being reported to the Public Service Commission.
And if you do that, you'll get somebody there who understands what you're
talking about.
And if Verizon gets wind that you're doing that, I think they'll become a lot
more cooperative.
All right.
Well, thank you so much.
Thank you.
And please keep us updated on this because we are really interested in how
it turns out.
Yeah, I left a number.
I left a message on your 2600 number because I couldn't get through earlier.
So you can just I'm the same person that called.
OK.
Thank you.
Thank you.
OTH at 2600 dot com is our email address, too, if people want to write to us
directly.
Let's take another phone call.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Speak up.
OK, I think they they left us.
Let's go over here.
No, that's a dial tone.
How about this one?
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
I hear somebody.
Yes, go ahead.
Go ahead.
You're on the air.
I'm talking about the same thing as the woman before me just now with the
Verizon problem with the Verizon taking away my copper line.
Right.
Because I wouldn't go for files.
I'm in Queens, though.
And I did go to another carrier.
Oh, they disconnected me twice because I started, you know, telling, you know,
senior citizen leave me in my bedroom without a telephone, you know, right?
Oh, and then
I went to this RCN, which was another carrier, which said I could keep
the copper line, but no, no,
no number.
It had to be a different number.
In the meantime, I had gotten one of these cell phones.
The original phone had three.
What do you call it? Three phones on it.
OK. And after that,
I have a different line for
two and a second for another one.
Do you know what I'm saying?
And they they assigned the the numbers for me.
And it's all over the place.
You know, instead of having a 718 or a 212 New York City,
it's like nine to nine.
Yeah, nine to nine is another one. That's right.
Nine, two, nine, three, four, seven.
And yeah, right. I mean, they're like all over.
But the whole point was, do I?
And also with the box under the bed, you know,
for my for my bedroom phone, what is what is that for?
It feels like there's, you know, a bug in my house, so to speak,
you know, like like they had a drill.
Sometimes I can be for some kind of amplifier
or it can be another another type of box.
Is it copper still?
That's a good question.
It could be.
And I did go to the PBS, by the way,
Public Service Commission.
Yes, I did go to them and I did come back.
And nothing happened.
How many phone phone numbers do you have?
Three. And it's all on one handset.
No, no, they're all all over the place.
They all go to one hand.
No, I know. But senior citizen, it's like, ah, no, absolutely not.
I totally understand.
Well, you know, my advice would be to go to a different company,
explain the situation to them and see if they can provide service to you.
That makes a little bit more sense.
But not Verizon.
Not Verizon with the RCN.
Uh huh.
Now, I was under the assumption that RCN
can use Verizon Lines.
That I don't know.
I'm not sure what they do for mobile.
They actually leave the lines a couple lines, actually.
Well, it's true.
Verizon has owned the lines and a lot of the infrastructure
in telecommunications generally for for some time.
So a lot of the the competing companies, if Spectrum or somebody
is getting into mobile phone networks, they're of course going to be using
network wires and antennas and stuff that that Verizon installed originally.
It's sort of hard to get around that if if you're trying to get into that market.
So that's understandable.
And I'm sure RCN is doing the best they can.
But finding a new company that they can advocate for you and
and help you just sort of unpack how it got set the way it is
will be will be a good first step.
I've been to RCN.
I've been to T-Mobile gave me my little walk around, you know, that,
you know, they say don't use near a radio.
Don't hold it too close to your head, et cetera, et cetera.
I'm an old woman, you know, it's you're definitely more active in this
than most people we know.
So I think I think you're in a good position to to really write down
some reviews and rate these companies and let people know about it.
And we'll certainly help with that on the Internet.
I'm not on the Internet, so I don't have Facebook
or or any of those other places that you reach large audiences.
But I just from you, I wanted to know about RCN
and all these other sub, you know, alternate carriers.
And are they really in in
that to Verizon for the copper line?
And is it a copper line that I'm using now?
If it's if it is a copper line, it would have to be Verizon
because they were the phone company.
And, you know, if you if you go and coax or something with with a cable company,
that's that's very different.
So I would I would say if they actually installed a box in your house
that you didn't have before and it's under your bed, I would say
that's probably some kind of interface for Fios or something else like that.
It's very likely that you don't have a copper line anymore.
I can't say for certain, but it's that's what it sounds like.
They mislead people, you know, especially old senior citizens, you know.
There's there is nothing in my 70s, you know.
And it's just I'm not familiar with all this.
They couldn't grandmother it in.
You know what I'm saying?
They couldn't allow a slow
subsidence of this.
And I'm just so
annoyed with how invasive they are, how
you know, all powerful they seem to be and insistent,
as you say, like for speeding
and adding sort of unnecessary complexity
when you really just want a simple solution
for being able to chat and and talk to one phone number for 100 years.
Of course. Well, don't all of them rang at the same time.
Do you understand?
It just is to even remember my own phone number,
you know, now with three separate lines.
It's just insane.
That's the part of this that really confuses me, too, is like
if you had three phones that were all extensions of the same line,
it should be simple to make them again all extensions of the same line.
I don't I I'm not sure why they would have given you three different
phone numbers for your phones if that's not what you wanted.
I thought that was the smartphone.
The smartphone had three numbers, three lines coming into it.
But I'm I'm a little confused because there's so many.
That's why I asked how many phone numbers.
We're going to have to leave it there on this.
But please keep us updated.
Call in again and let us know if this progresses in other ways.
And we'll hear from other people to keep listening.
And being offline can be your advantage.
So many people are, you know, a well, a well-written letter,
a well-placed letter can actually go a long way because the anomaly.
All right. Oh, you hear that?
You hear that? Is it true?
It's it's snowing even harder that it's snowing, but that's not a snow bell, Kyle.
Oh, that's not the weather time.
Oh, you weren't around in ninety nine.
Well, you don't know what this is.
No, I don't know what it is.
In Brooklyn, we have what's known as the impeachment bill.
The impeachment bill goes off whenever a U.S.
president has been impeached.
And if it's ringing now, Rob, can you check it has?
Has he actually is it happened?
The the the vote has come in for Article one abuse of power.
That that vote is passing.
It has enough yes votes.
Well, that means you only need one charge, right?
So there there will be there will be a second article.
That's the next vote on after this, after they've gotten in all the straggling votes
from this one. How about that?
I didn't know it was snowing outside, too.
That's really interesting.
So one article down, one to go.
This is so cool. We're right by the way.
I don't think you could have heard that in the old studio,
because apparently the bell is right outside.
So that's that's something.
Miraculous things happening in the new studio that we can hear the bell from here.
It's supposed to be a soundproof studio.
But you know what?
That's a good sound.
OK, let's take another phone call.
Good evening. You're on off the hook.
Hi. Can you hear me?
Yeah. Hey, pretty good.
Good, because sometimes it's problematic.
I was calling you on both the cell and my copper landline.
Everybody has a copper landline these days.
Wow. Or had one recently.
He's showing that I called you and we had extensive conversations
before on this very topic.
Wow. Because I've been fighting it for years.
Has has anything changed?
Well, one of the things that I want to suggest is
from pounding on the Public Service Commission,
because as you rightly say, that's the only thing that gets results.
Even if they're not visible, they get fined two thousand dollars
on every instance and there is a proven complaint.
So, you know, even if the poor people who called before don't get
actual results, it's worth doing it because eventually,
you know, even if the rise in stonewalls,
eventually they will have to do something.
So my field with them has been going on for so long
that whenever I call my record and they show up bright eyed and bushy tailed,
they take care of the problem.
And in fact, I haven't even had some, you know, any
reasonable problem in the last couple of years. Right.
So the other thing that you should tell these people is to get on the
alternative technical term.
It's called the refused migration list.
Refused migration list.
Yes. OK.
They keep a record of people who do not want to switch to files.
It's your right.
And you can have it, as you rightly say tonight.
So keep fighting. It's not an easy, an easy fight.
No, it's not. Yeah.
But, you know, I keep telling I think I told you on this program before that
all the police precincts in New York City, all the firehouses
are wired with copper wire.
Why is that? Because in an emergency like a blackout, they don't go down.
That's right. Very good point.
So, you know, I had I had lines outside my door when Sandy happened
and when the blackout a few years back happened,
because I was the only one in my building who had a copper line.
And so, you know, that's the reason why I keep it,
because I want to be able to rely on my phone line.
Yeah. And it makes perfect sense.
You have some of the old technology remain in place
in case the new technology fails.
That way you have something.
Exactly. And I have both.
You know, I try. I try.
I mean, for for other reasons, I try not to use a cell phone,
but I have one just in case.
Now, as far as the two one one goes.
I did your homework.
I made a Google search, dial two one one in New York City.
And guess where I went.
It takes me to two one one.
And why is the org find services?
It's a directory of services of New York State by county.
And if you go to New York City, it takes you to three one one.
And what you're saying, you're saying two one one takes you to three one one.
Well, I sort of had the back of my head already.
Once I got there, that it was for public services, you know, such as three one one.
And the three one one in New York City, in your county, as they say,
on the state side is the go to number for all kinds of services with city agencies.
So that's that's where it's at.
You know, I think it's as it stands today,
two one one is interchangeable with three one one in other counties,
not in New York City.
So they're suspecting that because you reside in New York,
you would want three one one more so than two one one.
So it's sort of logical, perhaps.
Yes. Wow. OK, well, that's just more
proof for me that two one one can be spared
and they could use that for something a little bit more relevant.
Yes. Can I make a suggestion?
Yes, please. Go ahead.
OK, so I called immediately when you gave up that number,
which, by the way, I've done some more homework.
I called three, four, seven, three, three, five, zero, eight, one, eight.
As soon as you say the number,
because I have this kind of photographic memory for phone numbers,
I knew that that was on the air number for BAI a few years back.
So I immediately called, as I'm sure the other callers,
you know, remember, you have an audience.
I mean, it was far and wide.
I mean, it spans far and wide.
But by and large, you know, there are old people like me
who still go back to phone freaking.
And, you know, if they're calling, it's not because they want to get on.
It's because it's a community.
So if you're implicitly asking for help
for a number like that or 211, as soon as I knew which was right away,
I tried to contribute.
So keep that in mind. Absolutely.
And we certainly appreciate our listeners making all kinds of contributions
on air, off air.
It really matters.
And I think that's a good way to segue into our appeal
for listeners to contribute financially to keep this radio station going.
We are still recovering from the coup in October
that basically decimated our listener base
because so many people were angry and upset
when this station was replaced with canned content
and summarily kicked everybody out into the street, pretty much literally.
And we're back. We're back.
But, you know, when you stop listening to something,
it's hard to tell people you're back, especially if that's how they get
the information.
So we're asking people to let their friends know that WBA is back.
In fact, why not just take a moment now and just talk in a fairly
I'm not saying shout at the top of your lungs, but definitely talk
so that you could be heard, say, a block away and say WBA is back on the air.
That might be the only way people will find out that WBA is, in fact,
back on the air because they might not be listening to ninety nine point five.
In fact, they may have been soured on the whole radio thing totally.
And they might not be listening to anything except street sounds.
So that's where you can help.
Just spread the word however you can
and let people know WBAI is back on the air.
Yeah. Send an SMS to all your exes.
Well, you could do that, too, I suppose.
In the same text.
But there's all kinds of ways you could do that.
You could send an SMS to all of your exes.
You can text your next door neighbor and then you can text WBAI
to shortcode four one four four four to make a donation via smart code.
If you're currently accessing a ring camera and you're saying
all kinds of things to children in their rooms,
why not mention also that WBAI is back on the air?
I mean, you're already going down that road.
So let's say something constructive.
Just just a suggestion.
Absolutely.
And those of you who do the social media thing, talk about us there.
Just make a post.
Let us let folks know that we're still around where our station is.
WBAI on Twitter.
Our show is Hacker Radio Show on Twitter.
You can also find us at Hacker Radio Show at Mastodon Social.
If you're into that, that's right.
We have, as I mentioned, the pledge drive is in full effect
and you can call five one six six two zero three six zero two.
We could also go to give to WBAI dot org and ask for the following premiums
for a pledge of one hundred second be going all night.
It's kind of annoying.
Is this Article two?
I don't think so.
I think still article one because it takes 15 minutes for every vote to go through.
But I think what they do is they just repeat it a few times
so that make sure everybody heard it. We heard it.
Oh, it's people getting off work.
They haven't heard it yet because they're in the neighborhood.
I don't know how they set these things on.
That makes sense.
Somebody one of our listeners can can help us with that.
Getting back from dinner.
Yeah, sure.
Different communities have different bells for different different things.
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You can get a hacker portrait.
Rob T. Firefly will paint your face, right?
That's not not directly.
I will paint on canvas, but I will paint the face of your choice
onto that canvas with paint.
OK, because you might get some weird requests from people.
Like a butterfly, please.
That would be cool, actually.
But but no, I will I will paint the portrait of your choice for you.
I will interpret them artistically.
I am a working artist.
And you can see some of my work at Rob Vincent dot net,
where you can also click over to this premium if you're interested.
I'm not taking any other visual art commissions at this point.
I've put it aside for other things.
So this is the only way to commission visual art from me at this point in time.
Wow. OK, that's that's that's something to hear again.
Five one six six two zero three six zero two.
Ask for the hacker portrait.
They'll have to give a copy of their picture, right?
Right. They'll have to.
This requires access to email because I will email you and
and ask for a photo and you can send me a photo attachment
or you can send me a link to a photo online that I can see.
And that photo will be then interpreted
through my artistic eye onto some canvas for you. Wow.
For a pledge of fifty dollars, you can get the twenty six hundred
three year subscription.
And that's pretty much what it sounds like.
It's twenty six hundred magazine on paper delivered to any address
that you designate for three years, three years starting with the next issue.
I guess that's for a pledge of fifty dollars, the twenty six hundred
three year subscription.
And then finally, we have the hacker tote bags for a pledge of twenty five dollars.
Five one six six two zero three six zero two.
Give to WBAI.org I say finally, but it's not really finally
because there's all kinds of other things at the station offers.
That's just what we came up with for this radio show.
But you can select amongst many other thank you gifts
or you can just pledge and say you don't want a gift.
People do that.
And the most important thing is to keep the radio station going.
And we always donate everything that we give away.
So the station doesn't have to pay anything to get that from us.
That can be a big expense if if the station agrees to
to buy a certain number of books or something.
That's still something they have to factor in.
So this is something that we try to do to make it easier
and support the station in our own way.
Again, five one six six two zero three six zero two.
And one other thing you can do that we haven't mentioned yet is become a buddy
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It can be a small amount. It can be a large amount.
You get to decide and then you become part of what keeps us going.
You you become part of our actual predictable income,
which is something that is nuts in the nonprofit sphere.
We have so many schemes today where people can subscribe and crowdfund
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But you can also do that right here to keep this good old fashioned
radio station going.
If you become a BAI buddy at give to WBAI dot org
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pep rally, what one of the things they mentioned was that if every show
got just ten BAI buddies, we would recover
from the setbacks that we were put into.
We would we would not have debt at that point.
So ten BAI buddies. Think about that.
That's a really strong statement, too.
And it's less administrative work
for you as a contributor because you're contributing in your sleep.
Yeah. Yeah.
Funds go to the station when you're not looking
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And that's so important to us operationally.
It allows us to to count on your support.
Even as I said, when you're not looking, it allows us to be able to go back
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Show your support.
Give to WBAI.org on this historic day.
In fact, I was just looking at the window.
Is that people dancing in the street there?
No, they're there.
Oh, that guy's just running for a cab.
OK, I thought I saw bouncing.
And but no doubt, no doubt there are on impeachment day.
There are celebrations of some sort going on.
He is carrying chips.
No, I think he's taking those home.
OK, maybe there's a celebration where he's going.
Yeah, maybe to be able to watch Brooklyn from here.
That's that's something else.
So, yes, in case you didn't hear,
President Trump has been impeached only a few moments ago
and he's about to be impeached again because there's two charges.
So double impeachment.
And that's that's some history.
There has only happened two other times.
Right. It only happened with with Clinton.
It only happened with.
Was the other one way back?
Tricky, dicky. No, no, no.
Nixon was not impeached.
No, Nixon. Nixon resigned first.
I want to say Andrew Jackson, but I'm not sure that's right.
I want to say Adams.
Alexander Hamilton.
Who was it? I'm so ignorant.
Jackson or Andrew Johnson?
Not why do they have two presidents, Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson?
It's like having George Bush, Andrew Johnson.
OK, not since Andrew Johnson.
And we weren't broadcasting then.
So it's really only the second time that we've had that here on the radio.
So think about that.
That's a bit of history right here on off the hook.
All right. Let's go back to the phones, because that was fun.
Two and two, two zero nine, two, eight, seven, seven.
Good evening. You're on off the hook.
All right. I wanted to let you know that
in the first count, there was a Republican voting
yay for a minute or two before they changed their mind.
Wait, wait, wait.
A Republican actually voted for impeachment or is going to
in the first count, the one that that's finished.
One Republican was up on the board
as yay for one or two minutes.
Now, was this just a Republican didn't know how the machine worked
or was somebody actually getting getting pangs of conscience, conscience?
One Republican who was
who voted yay for a second and immediately changed it.
And that must have been a mistake.
But there was another Republican who was
at yay for a minute or two before they changed it.
And there's one Democrat who's voted present
instead of yay or nay. Right.
And in the second count, there's not just two, but three Democrats voting nay.
And there there were a few people,
both Democrats and Republicans, who didn't vote
either yay, nay or present in the first count.
The only just didn't vote at all.
The time ran out.
Well, I'm on the second one.
Right. I'm seeing a couple of well, I saw a couple of Democrats
that voted no, but now it says zero.
Rob, you have a counter to right.
Does yours say zero for Democrats voting no?
I think we're I think we're looking at the same counter.
But yeah, mine said zero as well.
All right. Let's take another phone call. Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Good evening.
This is the first time I've listened to your program.
And I wanted to make a suggestion to the lady
who has three phones in her home. Go right ahead.
First of all, I think they're taking advantage of her
because she probably also has three bills.
And there was another way to do that.
You can buy phones now.
You can buy two, three, four or five phones.
One main phone and the others are satellites off of the main phone. Right.
You can have that one phone in one room
and have the other phones all in the other room.
And they'll all ring at the same time and only have one phone number.
Yeah, that's that's I mean, it's like having an extension.
There'll be cordless phones, but that way she'll only need one phone number
and all the phones will ring in each room that she puts the phone in.
The one phone, the main phone has to be hooked up to that box. Right.
And so she was asking, is it copper?
I believe it's Internet based. OK.
Because I have two Internet phones.
I have one with Vonage
that I like because I can take it with me if I have this little
like looks like a little flash drive that I can transfer the phone to that
and plug it into my laptop.
And long as I have access to high speed Internet,
I can make phone calls from anywhere in the world with it.
That sounds pretty cool.
Sure. And then I also have a phone line through the cable company. OK.
Now, when my Internet is down, that phone does not work. Right.
That's true. That's one of the disadvantages.
Well, company.
So I think any phone that's not Verizon land,
you know, the the old fashioned landline,
they're all Internet based.
Yes, that's the standard.
In your house or not is another question.
But they're all Internet based.
That's the standard nowadays.
If you have a house phone rather than a mobile phone
and it's not just a plain copper line, it's something Internet based
either through your cable company or your Internet provider.
You know, probably both at this point. Right.
That's what we call VoIP, VoIP for voice over IP.
Yeah, they're running that service on top of whatever connection
they use for broadband.
So in the instance of it would be like a cable company like cable.
But it has phone jacks on the back of the cable modem.
So that is able to to access the VoIP services.
It basically translates the the old your regular house phone
to to the cable modem standard so it can communicate thereafter
onto the Internet. Thank you for that call.
Let's see if we can get another one. Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Pause. Hello.
Hi. Yes. Hi. How are you doing? OK. Yes.
We hear you fine. What's on your mind?
Oh, I just wanted to mention about the phone and the lines.
I'm up in SNET territory, which became AT&T Southern New England Telephone.
Right now that that was part of the Bell system. Correct.
And that that and then who they who were they taken over by?
They were taken over by AT&T. OK.
And then AT&T sold it off to Frontier.
Frontier. Wow. Right.
And at that point, I jumped off of the landline,
got an analog telephone adapter, an OB unit plugged into there
and Google voice and got a new telephone number. OK. Great.
So you're actually happy with your phone service. Yes, I am.
Yeah, I think you're the first one tonight.
And it's the VoIP that allows me to still keep all my phones in my house.
As well as my landline, and it's at no cost.
Yeah. Do you do you patch the the ATA into your house phone network
so you can just plug all the phones into the wall
and then the ATA is picking up all of that?
Yes. Very cool. Very cool.
So, yeah, it's just plugged into the Internet router
instead of my existing wire.
Right. What happens when your Internet goes out?
Of course, then it doesn't work. Right. Right.
OK, that's I just wanted to hear that.
Fair enough. Fair enough.
Sounds like a great setup.
Just an oh, by the way, talking about the impeachment,
Clinton was impeached on December 19th.
That's correct. Yes. Yes.
Same basic time of year.
Well, it's just funny to hear people complaining.
How can you do this right before Christmas
when it's the same thing that happened 20 years ago?
Exactly. All right. Thanks for your call.
Thank you. Thanks for listening.
2 1 2 2 0 9 2 8 7 7.
Of course, we have a full switchboard,
so I might not get through, but let's give it a shot.
Good evening. You're on off the hook.
Oh, see, there's one to open up.
Let's try this one. Good evening. You're on off the hook.
Hi. C-SPAN is indeed reporting
that there are three Democratic no's
and Tulsi Gabbard has voted present.
Yeah. Yeah. Don't get me started on her.
Oh, OK. Well, thanks for the update.
We're going to try and take some more calls.
And good evening. You're on off the hook.
Go ahead. You got to speak up.
This person's listening to the radio.
They don't know they're on the air.
OK, well, that's a shame.
Good evening. You're on off the hook.
Hello. Go ahead.
Hi. On Tuesday.
Can you hear me? Yes, we hear you fine.
Yeah. On Tuesday, on PRN at about seven o'clock,
there's going to be three insiders from
the telephone industry.
It'll be discussing
the removal of copper from the system
and why they're doing it and the
the reasons that the
it's mainly greed and
they're kind of whistleblowers.
So if if the audience could listen to PRN
or FM at seven from seven to eight.
OK, well, now what is this that people should listen to exactly?
Yeah, it's a progressive
radio network FM.
OK, where where on the FM dial is it?
It's it's unfortunately it's not on FM.
You can dial in a telephone number off the top of my head.
I don't know the telephone.
They could listen to it on the telephone itself.
Oh, so it's not actually a radio network, then it's a radio network.
You know about it.
That there is it sounds like it's something that's online.
Is it an online service?
All right. OK. All right.
So when is that again?
It's seven o'clock.
And it's on PRN dot FM.
And that's seven o'clock. What day?
Tuesday. OK.
7 p.m. All right.
Well, people know now. Thank you.
You're most welcome.
And 211, if you dial it in Bridgeport,
I get the same services as 311 in New York.
Interesting. OK, 211, definitely they can get rid of. Thank you.
Yeah, I think that they should claim 211 for something else.
You know, 211 used to be the credit operator.
Remember that now?
If you'd lost money in a pay phone, you would dial 211
and they would send you a check for a quarter.
That's right. They still have a labeling like that.
If you find an old phone, I think that that seems familiar. Yeah.
Yeah. Let's take a phone call.
Good evening. You're on off the hook.
Good evening.
I would tell that lady I also call the Public Service Commission.
Uh-huh. That they will help her.
And he's talking about the Gary Nol network.
We're talking about the copper removal.
Got it. OK, we'll talk about it.
Yeah, I just got confused.
I heard radio network and it wasn't a radio network.
That's yeah. OK, Gary, Gary.
I think the personal computer show is over there these days as well.
Or at least they were last I checked.
Oh, the same person computer show used to follow us.
It was here at WBAI.
But yeah, we are aware.
We're just having a little a little confusion about.
Yeah, about that. Thanks.
Thanks for that call.
See if we can fit in a couple more. Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Oh, yes. How are you doing, sir?
Hi, what's up?
I'm pretty good.
What's on your mind?
I know.
Yeah, I know we don't have much time.
Yeah. So it's this whole
this is whole privacy thing, man.
I now I see what you gentlemen are talking about.
If you make a phone call nowadays, right?
And you're in that phone call.
And if you were texting an individual
on that phone call that has literally the summary
of the conversation in your call log.
Also, the thing with Gmail.
If I log in from a desktop computer, right,
we'll say unusual log in activity.
They were never doing this before.
If someone.
Let's say had your password.
They could, you know, that's all you can log in.
But now it's like everything you do online.
It's becoming more stringent.
And. They want to keep track of
everything that that's linked to phone calls, like text,
which is I don't even know why they what why it has to be like that.
Yeah, no, I see the same thing where Google is sending you warnings
that there's suspicious activity when it's you and it's the same thing
you do every single day or a couple of days or,
you know, a credit card company calls you and says they see suspicious activity
and it's a monthly recurring charge that is on every month on your credit card.
It's just it puts you in a sense of perpetual paranoia.
And I guess they use that to market, you know, for you to buy more things from them.
OK, well, I guess we'll just leave it at that.
All that call is gone. Wow. All right.
We we lost that connection.
Let's see if we can fit in one more. Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Anyone there?
OK, let's go over here. Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Hello. Yes, go ahead.
OK, let's go over here. Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
OK, you're not going to fool me with that again.
That's how I think we've exhausted the the pool here.
Maybe now is a good time to let people know to support the radio station
at five one six six two zero three six zero two pledge.
Any amount you can afford.
But we have certain pledge levels, a pledge level of one hundred dollars.
We'll get you the hacker portrait, Rob.
Absolutely. The hacker portrait where I, you know, working artist,
me, Rob T. Firefly will paint any photo you like, a photo of you,
a photo of someone you you wish to have a painting of.
And I will interpret it in actual paint on canvas
for a one of a kind art piece that you will have the only copy of.
And that's for a pledge level of one hundred dollars.
I will contact you via email and arrange for you to deliver me the image.
Five one six six two zero three six zero two.
Give to WBAI.org.
You can also pledge one hundred dollars and get the Hacker Digest full set
and lifetime subscription.
That's a lot of reading material.
You will get every copy of twenty six hundred magazine in
PDF format, digital format and annual digest format as well.
So every every year is a different volume.
So volume one through volume thirty five, you'll immediately get thirty five
years of twenty six hundred in PDF format.
And then in addition to that, you will get all future digest
that come out in the years ahead.
That's a great deal.
That's that's amazing.
And that one's very popular.
Contribution of one hundred dollars.
Hacker Digest full set and lifetime subscription.
Five one six six two zero three six zero two or give to WBAI.org.
You can also get the twenty six hundred three year subscription
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You will get the magazine sent to you, sent to any address
that you designate, actually a physical copy of the magazine
four times a year for three years.
That's for a contribution of fifty dollars.
Five one six six two zero three six zero two or give to WBAI.
And finally, we have the.
Sorry, finally, we was a little too close to the window there.
Hacker Tote Bags for a pledge of twenty five dollars.
And that is that's basically you have you guys.
You have one of them, Kyle, right?
Yeah, I can tell you all about them.
They're 15 by 15 inch cotton bag that is dyed black.
I believe it's hacker black or hacker black.
No, I'm sorry. This is malicious actor gray.
OK, we're not malicious actors.
So let's not confuse people anymore.
Tote bag. And they're fairly thick, fairly heavyweight cotton.
They are grocery compatible.
They can even hold tools.
I've carried tools around with them.
But yeah, you know, you can put books in them.
You can put other information.
You can fill them with SD cards.
And while you that's a lot, SD cards.
Yeah. Well, yeah.
And anyway, no, you could do all kinds of things with these bags.
They will not limit you in any way.
And they're entirely analog and reusable.
Wow. OK, well, that's for a pledge of twenty five dollars
to five or six six two zero three six zero two.
And we would we would love to hear hear a strong,
I guess, response to this
because we've been on for two hours now.
Special edition of Off the Hook.
We'd like to see people respond to that.
You can also write to us.
O.T.H. at twenty six hundred dot com.
That's our email address.
Yeah. You can also tweet at us if you're on Twitter to Hacker Radio Show
or if you're on Mastodon at Hacker Radio Show at Mastodon dot social.
That's right.
Thank you, everybody who called in.
And thank you, those people who have pledged.
That's why we're here.
That's why we continue to do this.
We're back again next Wednesday at seven.
Yes, indeed. We will be on at seven next week and from thereafter.
So do not tune in at eight o'clock unless you want to hear us say goodbye.
And that's it. Yeah, but that might be a really good program
following us at eight o'clock.
So maybe just keep your keep your dial glued to WBI 99.5.
Remember, shout out the window.
WBI is back.
That's right. We'll see you next time.
O.T.H. at twenty six hundred dot com and celebrate Impeachment Day. Yeah.
I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean,