to be part of the discourse and the discussion of universal basic income.
Thank you for your attention and I look forward to speaking with you again next week.
And you're listening to Radio Station WBAI New York.
It's exactly 7 o'clock. Time, as usual, on Wednesday for Off The Hook.
See you then.
Thank you.
And a very good evening to everybody.
The program is Off The Hook. Emanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
Joined tonight by Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
Gila.
Hello.
And Kyle.
Yes, technically, but I reserve the right to let my mind wander.
And may I just say Merry Christmas because it's illegal to say that, apparently.
Yeah, we're told that there's a war on Christmas and we're not allowed to say that in certain liberal establishments.
So, yeah, come at me.
I mean, it's ridiculous what they say, what they try to get middle America to believe.
That there's this somehow law or rule or just you're encouraged not to do certain things.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I just said Merry Christmas on WBAI.
You dare to say it, Rob?
Yeah, I'm happy to say Merry Christmas to people.
And also to remind the kids listening that today is the day you take that elf off the shelf and show it what happens to snitches.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I heard something about that.
People are doing that en masse.
But, yes, this is off the hook.
We are on the air on December 25th.
A day just like any other because, well, we just do our job every day that we're told to.
And we have some special things to talk about tonight.
The Chaos Communication Congress is about to begin.
As you might realize, we're not there.
We're here.
We're in New York.
So sometimes one of us, two of us, a bunch of us go over to Germany and attend this conference, which takes place always on December the 27th, 28th, 29th, and 30th.
No matter what day of the week that falls on.
That is when these conferences take place.
A lot of people show up.
Something like, I think, 17,000.
It's in the, you know what, here we go again.
Is it Leipzig or Leipzig?
I'm always corrected when I say it, and I always say it wrong.
Does anybody remember?
Leipzig.
Leipzig?
Okay, I'm going to say Leipzig.
No doubt somebody's going to come along and correct me, but I'm going to say Leipzig based on your say-so.
That's right.
It takes place at a place called Messe, right?
Isn't that what it is?
It's a very, very large conference center and convention center.
They have lots of those in Germany.
Imagine it.
Think of maybe like really giant airplane hangers, but like 10 of them.
It's enormous.
It's really massive.
Yeah, because one airplane hanger isn't enough.
You need 10 of them.
No, no.
And they're all sort of connected with like a glass structure, like a roof.
So it's a pretty amazing experience.
And, of course, they're decorated and full of interesting people and projects and talks
and spaces for the entirety of the event.
We do recommend going.
However, if you don't have tickets, don't go to this one because, well, you can't.
It's completely sold out.
And we go through the same thing with Hope where we offer tickets for sale and they sell
very quickly and people get upset and angry.
It's important to realize that these things are very much in demand and sometimes you
can ask people to help you out if people have connections and things like that.
I've been reading some of the saddest emails from people that weren't able to get tickets
for the Hope Conference coming up in July in our first two sales batches.
We have another one coming up in January.
So there's no need to really panic.
But just so many sad stories.
People that don't think they're going to be around much longer.
They really want to attend this.
And they tried really hard and it was in their shopping cart.
Then it disappeared and their grandfather spoke to them in a dream and said,
you have to go to this conference.
All kinds of stories and there's nothing we can do about it.
And the people in Germany will say the same thing.
It's just basically how it works when something is in demand and there's a lot of competition.
Eventually, I think everybody will get to experience these things one way or another.
You can experience the Chaos Congress, though, without going anywhere.
Because it's streamed in a completely amazing way.
Indeed. I believe the URL for that is media.ccc.de.
And they'll eventually have a bunch of live streams in a variety of formats there.
And that combined with the FAR plan.
Yes. F-A-H-R-P-L-A-N.
Which is a schedule of sorts. What we might call a schedule.
And that will give you a great idea of which to follow when to see what.
There are, I believe, five tracks.
They're called Ada, Borg, Clark, I can't pronounce this one, Dijkstra and Eliza.
And they have streams going from every single one of those.
From when the program begins, I think about 11 o'clock in the morning.
And it runs until around midnight.
That's, of course, Central European time.
So you have to basically add a few hours.
Or subtract a few hours. One of the two.
We are going to talk to somebody over there as soon as I'm able to reach them on the telephone.
I'm going to turn that down, though, so you don't get their phone number.
And hopefully we'll be speaking to a friend of ours in just a moment who is over in Leipzig right now.
And the ring won't sound like that when it rings over there.
There we go. How's that for a transition?
Hello.
That sounds like the voice of Mitch Altman. Mitch, is that you?
This is indeed me.
And Mitch, can you tell us where you are right now?
I am in Leipzig, Germany.
It is Leipzig. Okay. I was testing.
Wow. So you're there for the Chaos Communication Congress, which is actually known as 36C3,
because it's the 36th CCC, Chaos Communication Congress.
So that's how it's referred to. That's what the hashtag is on Twitter.
Tell us what's going on at this point. It's the eve of it, right?
Yeah, well, today was a big setup day. It's day minus one,
which is hundreds of people setting up the bigger exhibits and all the cool stuff going on.
And tomorrow will be another big setup day, but there will be, I don't know, maybe half the people.
There's going to be 17,000 people showing up for this annual event.
And, yeah, it's pretty amazing.
Today there were hundreds of what they call Inkels, angels in German.
That's what they call volunteers for this event.
And tomorrow there's going to be even hundreds of more volunteers,
because an event like this, all non-profit, takes lots and lots of volunteers to make it happen.
And it's really fun to help volunteer and make that happen.
So, yeah, so lots of setup stuff happening.
I brought 19 boxes, big boxes of stuff to set up my part of this teeny little part,
which is actually quite huge, of this Mongo huge event.
I set up what I call the hardware hacking area.
We have lots of workshops.
Today I had lots of help from angels to set up.
I don't know.
I think we have 40 tables of stuff where people will be making all sorts of cool things
with lots and lots of different people giving workshops.
And that's just a small part of all the cool stuff happening.
There's five huge halls full of way cool stuff and activities.
And there's also five lecture tracks happening at once,
all live streamed and recorded and available.
And all the ones for all the 36 years are available online.
I think it's all available.
I'll link to it at events.ccc.de if anyone's interested.
I'm interested in seeing the very first talk at the very first conference, if that's online.
I don't know if that's online.
I never checked that far back.
My understanding is some of it's been lost over the years,
but they've recovered as much as they can and posted it to their media channel for streaming and so on.
But I haven't gone that far back.
Someone should.
What's amazing, though, is that if you're not over there, you can,
and we're going to do this, we're going to set up different computers to be certain tracks
so that they're just playing, and if you want to go to a certain talk,
well, you have to walk over to that computer and attend that particular talk.
Anyone can do that.
It's the most amazing thing.
And if you go to basically events.ccc.de and just wander around there,
I'm sure you'll find where the streams actually are.
I don't have the exact URL.
I don't think it's been set up yet.
But they have really inspired us at Hope to do the things that we do with Internet Society,
where we stream to so many more people than can make it to our conferences around the world
and also able to archive things, which is a really, really important thing to do,
to be able to archive the history that is experienced with every single one of these conferences.
Oh, yeah, because this is really influential, all the stuff.
Like in CCC, the organization that puts this on, unlike elsewhere in the world,
especially in our fair country, people at CCC are actually well-respected within government
when government people don't understand some aspects of technology.
They often ask the opinion of people in CCC.
And imagine if government people actually asked opinions when they didn't know something.
It might make things a little bit better.
So anyways, but what we're doing at Hope is really important stuff as well.
And maybe a couple of politicians might actually take notice.
Who knows?
But in any case, what we do is influential for anyone who wants to learn a whole bunch of different things
about security, about politics, about society, about the technical aspects of our lives
and how the technology affects us.
These are all really important things.
And what we're doing is therefore really important.
Just looking at the opening, I've got the schedule for the first day, which is Friday.
The opening ceremony is in the Ada Room.
It begins at 11 a.m.
And that's followed by a talk at 11.30, The Case for Scale in Cybersecurity.
At the same time in the Borg Room, I am System, Breaking the Security Boundary in Windows OS.
At the same time in the Clark Room, Open Source is Insufficient to Solve Trust Problems In.
I think whoever set this up, the title sometimes runs longer than the space allocated.
So you have to click on it to find more.
And right now I can't really click on it.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of that's automated.
So unless somebody goes back and looks at it, it gets squished as it's molded into the schedule system.
And the fourth track, the one I can't pronounce, Dijkstra.
It's D-I-J-K-S-T-R-A.
If anyone can pronounce that better, please have at it.
Is that just Dijkstra?
Is that right?
I think so.
Okay.
All right, Mr. Dutch Boy, you got it right.
Dijkstra then.
It's in Germany.
Okay, whatever.
Leaving Legacy Behind.
Eliza, it's Technical Aspects of the Surveillance in and around the Ecuadorian.
And then that cuts off.
Maybe it's embassy or something like that.
Anyway, the point is, those are five talks being given at the very same time.
It gives you an idea of just the scope of what happens at one of these conferences.
And this goes on for four days.
Five rooms, four days.
And that's just the talks.
Mitch was giving an outline of some of the things that were going on there.
He's got his workshops set up in just one fraction of a hallway.
But you have, I'd say, hundreds of people there learning things like soldering.
Correct?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And, yeah, soldering is just one of the many things going on.
And the talks, as important as they are, being at one of these conferences
and being able to stream it is really valuable.
But being at these conferences is so much more than just listening to the talks,
many of which are super excellent.
Just meeting, you know, all you can do is meet a fraction of the 17,000 people.
But, wow, just in the days of setup that I've been here,
I've had the most amazing conversations running the whole gamut of, you know,
life, universe, and everything.
So, yeah, and that's just, you know, you can't reproduce that
just looking at talks or whatever on the Internet.
But it's great that those talks are happening.
And there are a lot of really interesting ones.
There's a couple of talks about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange
and a lot of different aspects of how that probably isn't foreboding
or it isn't aboding well for the future of journalism and free speech.
There's also a bunch of talks on the environment this time
because that's something that is really taking the mainstream finally.
Of course, there's lots of talks about security.
I've noticed there's a few talks about iOS security issues
that look interesting to check into.
There's also some talk about Hong Kong and what's going on there.
And there's even a couple of talks on quantum computing,
which is starting to look like it's actually real.
And there's one even just talks about how you can make your own quantum computing,
quantum computer really cheaply.
Yeah, and there's just so many interesting things.
One thing that's starting to get really big in hardware is SPGAs,
Steel Programmable Gate Arrays.
They're these chips that you can more or less program
in a software-like language to reconfigure the hardware.
And these have been around for a few decades,
but they're getting really cheap and really powerful now.
So there's a bunch of workshops on that as well as talks.
Yeah, and there's talks on so many different topics.
One that I want to check out is about, it's called
Psychedelic Medicine Hacking Psychiatry.
So using psychedelics in a way that they were intended in many ways
from the beginning as a therapeutic means rather than just
drugging people for the rest of their lives for depression or PTSD.
There's a lot of good results from therapeutic use of these kinds of things.
So, yeah, and also talks on music.
Of course, there's a lot of music at this thing and a lot of dancing
and a lot of food.
And walking around putting up posters today,
I saw a lot of places where people are making all sorts of interesting food
and food hacking.
So that's becoming pretty big too.
Well, Mitch, you've made me upset that I'm not there now,
because I realize all that I'm missing.
And I remember all the fun that it is over there.
What are some of the favorite, when you're not giving lectures
and instructions on how to do certain hardware hacking skills,
what are some of your favorite activities going on over there?
Well, my favorite thing to do besides, you know,
I'm spending so much of my time just being at the hardware hacking area
and running workshops.
But we have actually three workshops happening simultaneously most of the time
just at the hardware hacking area.
My favorite thing to do is just to hang out with people,
people I've known for quite a while because of going to these events,
but also new people and learning and sharing with each other.
That's what totally made me fall in love with the whole hacking scene
is people's enthusiasm for sharing what they know
and wanting to learn from you what you know.
And everyone has something they know that other people can benefit from.
So it's just really high being around so many people who do what they,
you know, find meaningful, what they really love doing in their life.
And, unfortunately, that's not the way life in general in our broader society is.
Maybe we can start changing that a little bit.
But, yeah, just hanging out with all these amazing people.
It's interesting because, you know, it's always been a challenge
to be able to fully appreciate these interests
and to be able to express oneself and partake and meet other people
that are similarly minded.
Do you think the overall scene of not within the hacker world
and also the hacker world as it applies to mainstream society,
do you think it's improving?
I mean, more people are showing up to these things than ever before.
So it sounds like it is, but I know also the challenges
seem to be getting greater and greater with every passing year.
Yeah, the challenges are certainly getting greater.
You know, politically and socially, the world is in a pretty terrible place right now.
A lot of cool things happening on our planet, but, wow,
our fearless leaders are not heading in the right direction,
especially considering that we, I don't know how many years we have,
but it's a matter of years before we have no environment left
that can continue to support mammals.
And, you know, being a mammal, I'm kind of concerned about that myself,
and I would like other people to be more concerned about that too.
You know, and also the technology in our lives gets more and more powerful,
as we all know, and it's being used to spy on us
and to take away our rights rather than to enhance our lives.
So these are really important issues that are being explored at CCC
and also at HOPE, and it's great to have these forums
where people can actually openly discuss and air our differences
and get together on what we have similar and hopefully pick some directions
that can make all of our lives a little bit better, hopefully a lot better.
Yeah, I'm right there with you, Mitch, and hopefully there's more of an emphasis
on ways to empower people instead of overpower them.
And, you know, I would just add how a lot of that technology is used
to wield economic disparity and greater inequity and thus power.
Yeah, and our economies around the world, after decades of neoliberal capitalism,
have left a lot of people behind.
And, you know, with the powerful technology, there's a lot of traps there
and things that can go and have been going the wrong way,
but it also is capable now of people who don't know really much of anything
to learn the basics and find projects that they find meaningful
and hopefully can even make a living doing something that's putting something
meaningful out into the world.
And if we can somehow get enough of that happening,
not just necessarily with high tech, but where people are encouraged
through these methods of putting something meaningful out into the world
and making a living from it, that can maybe start transforming our economy
into one that doesn't destroy as it grows, but just enhances life by, you know,
when people put something meaningful out into the world,
maybe people will support you for doing that.
And if our economy is based on that, then maybe we have a chance
of surviving as a species.
I feel like one of the greatest catalysts for change,
both on the individual inner level and on the macro worldwide level,
one of the greatest catalysts for change has always been clever people
meeting up with one another, sharing ideas, and getting in touch
and seeing what comes up and what they can move on and do together.
So I think stuff like this can be a great force for good.
Yeah, I think that's one of the byproducts of having so many tracks at once
that people go to the talks that interest them, and then in the hallways
and in some of the other socializing and discussions at our event as well as Congress,
end up being conversations about a talk that really fascinated somebody.
And you may not have gone to see that, but the issue itself becomes topical
because someone else found something rewarding in it.
Yeah, that happens all the time.
Enough people getting together and discussing things and getting excited about things
can perhaps be the beginning of changing the world for the better.
Yeah, I would hope so because if we get fixated too much on the gloomy state of affairs
that surround us, first of all, it's always been gloomy.
It's always been oppressive. There's always been challenges.
Yes, certainly there are things that are much, much worse now than they were before.
But this is nothing new for the hacker community, this kind of adversity that we've had to face against.
And it goes down to a personal level. Sometimes it's within somebody's house.
Sometimes it's within somebody's school, or sometimes it's within somebody's country.
But this ability of the hacker community to get together, share information,
not be judgmental, and listen, and be open-minded, and mischievous, and sometimes rule-breaking,
and just designing things that work a little bit better,
and sharing all the information that you are able to find.
I think that healthiness is the key to survival in this particular community.
Yes, we really can lay the groundwork for what's to come, and in many ways we have.
Not always for the better, but usually.
All the stuff that people in the mainstream are way aware of were started just at one or two hackerspaces.
3D printers just came from NYC Resistor in New York City.
Now that's something everybody knows about, and it's affecting our world.
Drones also came just from German hackerspaces, German hackers coming together.
Like I said earlier, the CCC really is respected greatly within Germany,
and many of the laws that have been happening in Europe, they're not perfect,
but they're at least a start in having government paying attention to people's privacy,
and people's data, and keeping it at least a little bit more secure.
Okay, we're going to let you go because it's something like, what, 3 in the morning over there?
Just 1.30.
Okay, well it's pretty late, but just some final words.
What would you say to people who have never participated in something like that?
Obviously it's too late to participate in this, since it begins the day after tomorrow and it's in Germany,
but there are plenty of other conferences and events that take place in the hacker world throughout the course of any year,
and of course this will be happening next year as well.
Do you have any advice for people that have never actually dipped their toe into this particular scene?
Yeah, dip your toe into this particular scene.
Yeah, I guess that's one way of saying it.
Well, I mean, you started, I think Hope No. 6 was your first conference?
It was my first hacker conference.
Imagine that, and you are a fixture at these events now.
Yeah, it totally changed my life for the better.
And yeah, just meeting so many people.
You know, for one thing, being an introverted geek, being in a crowd of people was never really a warm fuzzy for me,
but this is the first time, Hope No. 6 was the first time that I felt at home in a group.
It was totally being part of my tribe and just being able to express myself without being worried about not being extroverted
or any of these weird things that go in the background of my weird brain.
And yeah, and seeing that people actually can benefit from what I can share
and teaching the basics of electronics or more advanced things or soldering.
I mean, it's not world-changing stuff, but it's really, really fun.
And people like it, and people's lives seem to sometimes change from it.
Well, I mean, it is world-changing for your individual world.
I see the reaction when you're teaching kids how to solder, and they become empowered.
You see that in their faces.
All of a sudden, they're able to do something they weren't able to do before.
That changes their world, and they change our world.
And it is a step, a big step in that direction.
And I think you really nail it by saying that people who are introverted feel welcome in these settings
because individuality is celebrated, and everybody is different.
Everybody has something to contribute.
And you start realizing that when you go to these gatherings.
Yeah, we all have stuff to share, and we all have stuff to learn.
And no matter how good we are at something, we have more to learn.
And no matter how old we are, we can still learn from people of all ages.
And, yeah, this stuff is really powerful.
And people coming together is really important.
And, you know, physically coming together is as cool as it is to be able to talk on the phone in Germany
and be on the radio transmitting in New York City.
Coming together is just so important.
You know, just a term, a phrase, a body language.
These are the kind of things where people can connect and become lifelong friends.
And that also changes lives for the positive.
So, yeah, I totally encourage people to check out a hacker conference, a hacker space.
We need community in our lives, and we don't have enough of it.
And it's not necessarily always easy, but it's always way rewarding.
I would just add that, you know, it is a challenge.
There are tons and tons of people there.
So it's the best place to challenge yourself, though, I would say socially,
because a lot of people are doing just the same thing.
And in my experience at events like these, especially going to a foreign country,
it can really be taxing just the travel alone.
So I think, you know, just simple things we say for all kinds of events,
like taking care of yourself and not having, you know, overblown expectations.
Be unreasonable, of course, as usual.
But, you know, don't expect to learn everything about a subject or meet everyone.
And, you know, like you said, it's 17,000 people.
Or at our events, a very, very large, you know, group of close friends for a weekend.
It can be a challenge, but it's a worthy one.
As you've noted, just getting together and exploring a new place at the same time.
Yeah, so, you know, you have to go to a foreign country if you live in the U.S.
There's this nice hacker conference coming up in July in New York City that I happen to know about.
Yes, that would be the HELP 2020 conference, July 31st, August 1st, and August 2nd
at St. John's University in Queens, New York City.
That's going to be something. That's going to be different.
In many ways, it's going to be similar to what we see at Congress,
because we have more open spaces where people can mill around
and a lot more variety of things, projects that we can get involved in.
But that's a discussion for another time, because we have so much ahead of us.
One thing, though, that is so key to these events going successfully are the volunteers.
And as you mentioned, there are so many volunteers at the Chaos Communication Congress.
With 17,000 attendees, you really need many hundreds to be volunteers as well.
And similarly, for HOPE, we will need people to volunteer.
But again, we'll be discussing that here on this show
and on our website at 2600.com and hope.net in the weeks and months ahead.
Mitch, I want to thank you so much for sharing all this with us over there in Leipzig.
I hope you have a great time. I hope we make it over there again and hang out there.
And we look forward to seeing you in New York City.
Yeah, I look forward to seeing you next time I'm there.
So take care. Have a good rest of the show.
All right. Good night.
And that's Mitch Altman joining us from Leipzig in Germany on the eve,
well, the eve plus one of the Chaos Communication Congress,
the 36th, 3063 Chaos Communication Congress over there in Germany.
It is an event to behold every year, same dates, December 27th, 28th, 29th and 30th.
And what he was saying about finding your community and getting involved and everything
and dipping your toe in basically is, it means a great deal to me personally,
because I know I was not any kind of socially functional creature when I was younger.
But it was finding my community, finding people who appreciated the things about me
that my schoolmates and such had kicked the crap out of me for.
It was finding a community in which I could flourish and find community, basically,
that really turned my life around.
And that was the local 2600 meetings here in New York.
That was the Hope Conference.
I have a lot to thank you for, Emmanuel.
Even beyond that, it's just whoever you are, wherever you are,
find your people because they aren't out there.
Yeah, that's very true.
It's funny you say those things, but I was going through the same thing myself.
And just by being a little stubborn and just doing things despite what everybody told me to do,
oftentimes that leads you to interesting place.
It doesn't always work out, but you do have a more interesting life by following your instincts.
And if you're wrong, you learn why, not just because somebody told you so.
So these are the important lessons to learn.
And I think they get reemphasized whenever you hang out with a few thousand people
that are going through similar type of things in their lives.
You definitely can see yourself differently.
I think if you find the place where you can let your freak flag fly, to coin a phrase,
then it really also helps you find your feet and find your wings in terms of this can change your entire life.
And I haven't experienced it as much as everyone else here has,
but even what I've seen in the short experience that I've had has been remarkable.
Yeah, and I think that's why this community is so supportive of other communities that are becoming empowered,
whether it's a trans community or ethnic minorities or religions that have been trodden upon
or people in foreign countries or immigrants.
All kinds of people face adversity and have to stand up to seemingly insurmountable odds.
And whenever you see somebody win, that's a victory for all of us.
We all feel that fist in the air type of, yeah, we got something done, because it's the individual.
The triumph of the individual, I think, is always a triumph for all of us.
One thing that is close to a lot of people's experience right now at this time of year is the idea of family.
And we all have the ideas of family that we have.
But, yes, there's the concept of chosen family.
And I wouldn't be the person I am today without my New York City 2600 family, without my Hope family,
and, yes, without my WBAI and Off the Hook family.
It's contributed a lot to the person I am, and I happen to like the person I am.
So thanks.
You left out your IRC family.
They're going to be coming for you.
But, yes, there's so many really neat ways of communicating and interacting, and you're never alone.
You're never somebody that is ostracized.
I mean, there are certainly idiots that will say nasty things in any community,
but the community as a whole, I think, is very open, honest, accepting,
and the potential is there for almost anything to happen.
And that's what you see at these conferences.
It's great to see it in person.
And, again, I'm angry that I'm not there, but next time.
Next time.
Okay, so we have some news.
In fact, we're going to take some phone calls, too.
If you haven't called in the last couple of weeks, yeah, I'd like to open it up because people say they can't get through.
If you haven't called in the last couple of weeks, do give us a call tonight,
and we'll talk to you on the radio on this Christmas Day,
where we are all doing our radio show just like normal because we believe in it.
The phone number, 212-209-2877, and it might ring for a little while.
If it rings and goes somewhere else, call back.
But, again, whatever is on your mind as far as technology, the hacker world, technical questions.
Yeah, we've heard a lot about landlines in the last few weeks.
I don't know what more we can say about it.
There was an interesting story.
I don't know if you heard about this.
I don't know if it's still going on, but basically as kind of a counterpoint to us extolling the virtues of landline phones,
Verizon somehow managed to have an outage in Manhattan for all their Verizon landlines.
Yesterday afternoon, landlines were out or contending with spotty service,
and this was happening in the areas of Tribeca.
Not confirmed when the outage began.
What was the cause?
The city said it was working with Verizon to restore service.
New York City emergency management officials said if anyone needs to call 911, they should use a cell phone.
Yeah, it's like exactly the opposite of what we were saying last week,
how landlines are always there and cell service goes down,
and if you need to call the cops, you really need to use a landline.
Okay, Verizon, well played.
We don't know if the service is back.
We don't know if they care.
I guess we'll just find out.
I got a notice on one of my phones basically saying that actually this was through Twitter.
Twitter for Android security issue.
We recently fixed a vulnerability within Twitter for Android that could allow a bad actor,
and that phrase seems to be gaining in popularity, to see nonpublic account information or to control your account,
that is send tweets or direct messages, the ultimate nightmare.
Prior to the fix through a complicated process involving the insertion of malicious code into restricted storage areas of the Twitter app,
it may have been possible for a bad actor to access information like direct messages, protected tweets, location information from the app.
We don't have evidence that malicious code was inserted into the app or that this vulnerability was exploited,
but we can't be completely sure, so we're taking extra caution.
We have taken steps to fix this issue and are directly notifying people who could have been exposed to this vulnerability,
either through the Twitter app or by email, with specific instructions to keep them safe.
These instructions vary based on what versions of Android and Twitter for Android people are using.
We recommend that people follow these instructions as soon as possible.
We're sorry this happened.
We'll keep working to keep your information secure on Twitter.
But you know what?
I don't feel like information is very secure on Twitter seeing a letter like this where they don't really know what happened,
but they think maybe something happened.
And just in case, you know what?
There's nothing I'm going to put on Twitter that I don't expect to get out at some point.
I'm not going to put secret information up in private parts because there are no private parts of Twitter.
And direct messages, I've never trusted those on Twitter.
I mean, for God's sake, who would?
But I know a lot of people do.
Yeah, and the fact remains that when you're using sort of a closed system like Twitter, there isn't much accountability.
You know, if this were, say, an open source system that people had more info about how things worked,
maybe we'd have a little more info out there as to what was exactly at risk or anything like that.
But this is a company that is playing their cards very close to their chest because that's what commercial enterprise does.
And yeah, we just don't know.
And anytime you're trusting some entity that you're not paying for anything, you're just using some free service.
Anytime you trust that with anything mission critical, you're putting yourself at great risk.
Absolutely.
And you are definitely paying for it one way or another.
Right.
And it's not just Twitter.
There's also a story about the millions of phone numbers that are publicly listed by Facebook users have been shared in an online forum.
They're already publicly listed by Facebook users, but they were shared in some kind of online forum.
I love this story from Mashable.
It says, an online forum where hackers hang out.
They're not even saying hackers did it.
They're saying, hey, somebody posted all this in a place where hackers might see it.
So, yeah, you don't have to be a hacker to do it, but a hacker might get it and then you're really in trouble.
I mean, come on.
A database containing more than 267 million Facebook phone numbers and user IDs were recently discovered by a cybersecurity firm.
Many Facebook users, as I mentioned, publicly list their phone numbers.
But an easily accessible database like this helps malicious actors in spam and phishing schemes.
Look at somebody just cross-referenced what was publicly available on Facebook with somebody's handle, somebody's username, and a phone number that they list publicly.
Again, you know, even if it's something that you think is private on Facebook, I wouldn't be surprised if it got out.
But certainly if it's something you're listing publicly, anybody could do this.
And, yeah, it could wind up in a place where hackers might see it.
So imagine that.
That's the ultimate fear, I guess.
But we just need to learn how to keep our private information more protected.
You don't have to give this information to any of these organizations.
You don't have to tell Twitter your real name, your real phone number, your social security number, your bank account.
You don't have to do any of that.
You can lie to them.
You can make things up.
You know, banks are one thing.
You have to give them information if you want to use their services.
But there are still ways of protecting your personal identity.
You don't have to give them every bit of information.
Mother's maiden name, for instance.
You can make up a fake one.
Yeah, you won't go to prison.
At least not yet, I don't think.
But you can do that.
As long as you keep track of the lie and know what answer you gave them, that will keep you one step more secure.
Because if somebody does figure out your real mother's maiden name, they won't be able to pretend they're you.
So all kinds of things like that.
I don't know.
I just also think it's really important to kind of work on phasing that question out in general.
As a woman who got married and didn't change my last name, and there are a lot of us, it's open secret.
It's not even a secret.
It's just information.
So if we can phase out what your mother's maiden name was, I think that will be a good thing for society.
That's my feeling about security.
Then they'll say, what's your first pet's name?
That's another one they like.
Or what street do you – actually, this is how you make a porn name.
Right.
Okay, whatever.
There are all kinds of questions that they will ask.
But, yeah, I agree.
That one hopefully will be phased out.
There's also – and with the bank account stuff, I mean, you have to give certain personal information to a bank in order to use that.
But in theory, at least, the financial industry is so much more directly regulated.
Like if a bank released a bunch of their customers' information, that's putting so much at risk.
And they would face heavy consequences, again, in theory.
It happens all the time, though.
It happens all the time.
But, like, where are the rules regulating places like Facebook and Twitter and stuff?
And where's the accountability for them?
I would not think there is much.
All right.
Let's see if we have a phone call out there.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Good evening.
This is Rose in Flemington, New Jersey.
Even though I'm not a savvy computer, I happen to be without sight, I listen to you faithfully because I think that you're a beam of sanity in a very insane world.
Why, thank you.
And my question is this.
Is there any way that the community can sort of get together and go to all of our local election boards and say, we'd like to make sure this stuff is safe?
Because most of the time, they're run by women.
My late sister-in-law was very devoted to the elections.
And I think that we can't have another Chattanooga.
And I smell one coming.
And it's not necessarily coming from outside the country.
It's going to be within the parties.
Yes, I tend to agree with that.
It's a challenge because, you know, you get all kinds of closed doors when you're trying to find information like this.
You know, publicity is definitely something that can be used to your advantage.
If you suspect something isn't right, letting a local paper know about that and just having a lot of questions being asked will force them to be more open in their policies and their information.
Is there any way that people like Chris Kobach can be stopped?
I mean, can the community get in and dig around and see all the people he took off?
And how many of them actually have been returned to the roles because they were Hispanic, Oriental, and African-Americans?
And there's been some amazing things that have come on in the air with WBAI where a man says, yeah, I'm in Virginia.
And down in Georgia, there's a guy who's in jail with my name.
They never bothered to check middle names.
They never bothered to cross-reference Social Security numbers.
He said, sure.
I'm going to take a day off from my work.
Get down to Georgia.
Vote there.
Come back here, vote here, and then get back to work and still have my job and a $5,000 fine probably.
This is just so disgusting.
It sounds like you're saying that there are people who are voting more than once.
Is that what the belief here is?
That's what Chris Kobach wanted everybody to believe, that all these felons, they did this.
And they really didn't.
And the man came on BAI and said, look, there's no way I could have pulled this off.
$5,000 fine hanging over my head and the possibility of losing my job.
And meanwhile, there's all kinds of election districts being remapped to ensure that certain parties stay in power
and that other people are disenfranchised completely.
And they're looking at these impossible scenarios that you're describing,
which maybe there's like five instances or something like that in the country that have been detected.
It isn't even that much.
I mean, it's like in, you know, gazillions of votes, it's like 13 people have been caught and they're not the left.
There are people who have homes in, let's say, New Hampshire and the Jersey Shore,
and then they take a mail-in vote.
Now, I mail-in vote, and I've had problems where I haven't gotten it together in time,
and I've gone down with my aides to the local Board of Elections office,
and somebody with a distinctive rural accent, sounds like she came from accident, you know,
or Indiana or something, was questioning me who I was.
I had to produce my documentation, my photo ID, when I knew her boss by the first name
and the head of this organization that runs our local elections, knows all the disabled people,
made it possible so we didn't have to reply every year to get our mail-in votes into the system.
I think, Collar, when it comes to your question about can members of the hacker community step up and do something about this,
that's something we've been working on for a very long time in the greater community.
People like a friend of the show, Matt Blaze, and people like that have been, since the George W. Bush years,
and even the Clinton years, I think, when electronic voting machines started to become a real thing,
were testing these machines, seeing what they could get them to do,
and blowing the things wide open, basically, with the results of how insecure they were.
And the best thing that anyone in the community can do is to continue to investigate these things,
and when you find vulnerabilities, make them public.
Announce to the public that these things are not secure, and see what can be done about it,
because if no one had done that, we'd still be using very rickety machines that were very much more at risk
than the ones we have now, which are by no means perfect.
Yeah, well, back in the bad old days, I used to go and sit outside the polls and with palm cards
and check the hourly counts on the old basic machinery, which I think in many respects was a lot safer.
But how do you guys get that out to the public, so the public accepts the fact that it needs to be looked at now?
You know, let's not wait for the Russians or the Ukrainians or, you know, the Eubankies to blame.
Exactly. I mean, that's, as we've been talking about with our events and conferences,
so many talks are given at conferences and demonstrations about the machines that are in use
and how easy to subvert they are, and that's one of the ways.
Other ways are, basically, if you're a technically adept person listening to this program
and you're interested in this subject, there is so much you can do to look out there, get involved,
see who's involved in your local areas.
If no one is, then you become that person and do your own investigating
and see who you can communicate to about these concerns.
I just want to add that one of our strengths as a community is organizing and documenting and interpreting information.
So, in addition to getting involved, I think that the organization and publicizing of places that are problematic,
clerks and people that are a part of the bureaucracy in these different organizations
that maybe have some kind of bias in some way that they're displaying,
or there's policies at the polling stations, but organizing some of the stories,
getting it in a list, getting it on a public site somewhere that people can reference,
and then, as E indicated at the outset, having the right questions be asked.
And if you aren't getting responses, getting those questions to journalists and institutions
that are reporting on the stuff so that they can ask.
It's a lot harder to slam the door in their face when you know that's going to get in print.
Okay, hopefully that's helpful to the listener.
Thank you for that call.
We're going to move on to another one and see who else is out there.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Yes, hi.
I had a question.
I did manage to get tickets for the HOPE conference on December 13th.
Congratulations.
I got a confirmation.
Wow.
Yes, thanks.
We didn't do that, by the way.
We all tried.
Yes, I got a confirmation message, but I didn't actually get the ticket by e-mail.
Do you know roughly how long that would take for me to actually get the ticket by e-mail?
It will.
Yeah, it's a good thing you didn't get them because they haven't been issued yet.
It usually takes a couple of months.
And I would say early 2020 is when we'll start processing all those tickets.
We do it all at the same time.
We try to do it all at the same time.
But there's nothing to worry about.
Just make sure your e-mail address doesn't change.
If it does, let us know.
Okay.
So sometime in 2020, like maybe another two months possibly?
Yeah, I'd say it shouldn't be longer than that.
It shouldn't be longer than that.
I hope not.
Well, that's one of the things we definitely have to work on.
But you're in fine shape.
Don't worry about that.
And congratulations on getting the tickets.
Thank you.
I enjoyed Mitchell's report from Germany.
Hope to get over there one of these days.
It's so worth it.
It really is worth it.
I highly recommend it.
Thank you very much for that phone call.
All right.
Let's take another one.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
I'm Tom from the Bronx.
Tom from the Bronx.
We haven't heard you since the coup.
Wow.
Let me say this.
I lost my landline.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Those bumps took it right out.
I'm sorry.
Bastards.
I'm sorry for saying bastards on Christmas Day.
But the term applies.
Those bastards took Tom from the Bronx's phone line.
I'm sorry to hear that.
I'm really sorry.
Yeah.
I've got files now.
Listen, can I ask you something?
You sound good.
I'll say that.
But I know what I'm getting at is this.
I got these big batteries over here.
Does that emit radiation?
Oh, that's a good question.
What do you say, Kyle?
No, I don't think they're going to emit any kind of radio interference or noise or anything
like that.
But they may have heavy metals and chemicals, or if they're a gel cell, maybe less so.
But they're fairly inert.
And I don't think they're going to be off-gassing, especially if they're gel cells.
So the cat shouldn't go over and start licking them or something.
No, but do you think they emit radiation for the body and hurt your body?
I highly doubt it.
I'm going to say absolutely no.
They're inert.
They have probably chemicals, or they're a gel cell of sorts.
But I certainly wouldn't put it under your pillow as a permanent storage place, or in
your refrigerator or pantry.
But it's an inert thing.
It's not going to be emitting any kind of radioactivity.
Yeah, as far as health and safety goes, I think the batteries these things use are basically
equivalent to the AA batteries you would buy in the store for your flashlight.
There's stuff inside them that you probably don't want to be messing with, so don't crack
it open.
But otherwise, to just handle and have around the house, you're fine.
Thanks for calling, Tom.
Good to hear your voice again.
I'm sorry it's over the Fios line, but yeah, that's the price of progress.
Let's see if we can fit in one more.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Speak up.
All right, we're moving on.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Hello, is anyone there?
OK, you know what?
It's those higher number phone lines I think we have trouble with.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Go ahead.
Good evening, Emmanuel.
How you doing?
It's Bobson.
Is this Bobson from Bulgaria?
Yes, sir.
Wow.
OK, you have a good line.
Happy winter solstice, everybody.
Yes, a little late, but happy festivus, too, for those of you who celebrate.
Tell us what's going on with you.
What's new in Bulgaria?
Well, I don't know about much things being new.
I'm looking forward to watching the congress over the Internet, the German congress, starting this Friday.
That's right.
We're all going to be doing that, I think.
We're going to be having a remote congress, a virtual congress, ourselves.
Yeah, we can invite people over and maybe have some bratwurst.
You know, we can make it like we're in Germany.
Yeah, we'll barbecue out in the winter.
Yeah, we can do that.
You got it planned.
Yeah, I think so.
That's like every year.
But if we're not there, we can watch it remotely.
And I just think that's something that is so valuable because so many people want to be a part of this.
We learned that at Hope.
You know, when we started doing the streaming, how many more people really took an interest because it was available to them.
So it's vital.
And we realized that it's about disseminating the information and that live component.
You have this sense of you're spreading the information so much further and at a higher rate, you know, immediately.
Everyone in the world knows as well as the attendees.
Inspiring people over in all different countries.
Anyway, Babson, did you have a question or an observation?
Well, not really.
I was enjoying the show.
Decided to give you a call and congratulate you about the recently passed winter solstice.
You congratulating us for the winter solstice?
I'll take credit, but I don't really think I deserve to.
Well, I mean, it's wish you well about the recently passed solstice.
Okay, yeah, that's fair.
I'm not saying it's all your fault or anything like that.
No, I'll take the blame too.
You know, that's part of it.
But you get the solstice over there as well.
See, we learned something tonight.
It's not just an American thing.
We're welcoming the longer days.
But anyway, Babson, we are out of time now, but it's great to hear your voice.
You and Tom from the Bronx in the same show.
Yeah, welcome to the new studio too.
Yes, you're in a new studio now with a view of Atlantic Avenue, which is amazing.
Hopefully someday we will see you at the same conference that we're attending
and we'll be in the same space, either maybe here in New York, over there in Germany,
or over in Bulgaria or some other place.
But thanks again for calling and please keep listening.
You can write to us, oth at 2600.com is our email address.
And I guess next week we'll be doing a special New Year's show.
Yes, this is the last Off the Hook of 2019.
And while we're wishing you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the solstice,
anything else you might be celebrating or not celebrating, happy normal Wednesday.
But also happy 2019 and thank you for spending it with us here at Off the Hook and BAI.
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm sure we'll do predictions for 2020 and I'm hoping everybody got enough 5G this year.
Oh, I almost forgot.
Last episode of Mr. Robot was on Sunday.
I just want to spend some time talking about that because it really was...
We're out of time?
We're out of time.
I knew this was going to happen.
Okay.
Well, I guess...
I guess...
I guess I hit the wrong button.
No, I guess we have to play the outro to the show.
And we'll talk about it at a future date.
Again, write to us, oth at 2600.com.
We'll see you next week.
Good night.
I'll fight until the end.
Creatures of my dreams raise up and dance with me.
Now and forever, I will dance.