Thank you for listening to All Things Dark.
And a very good evening to everybody. The program is Off the Hook.
Emanuel Goldstein here with you, joined tonight by Kyle.
Yeah.
And Rob and Gila are with us in Skype-land, I believe. Rob? Gila?
Good evening. Hello.
And Alex will be joining us as soon as he arrives. He's currently in transit.
We have all kinds of updates, folks. All kinds of things to tell people about.
We have our first show in two weeks. We're not going to be on next week.
But the good news is we'll be on for five consecutive weeks after that.
So that is where we stand as far as that goes.
Now, I understand, Rob and Gila, you just got back from your second vaccine.
Is that right?
We sure did, yeah.
Okay. I'm going to ask you all about that.
But first, I just want to share some information that is kind of weight-breaking or of great importance, I think.
Maybe it's not. Maybe it's of no importance whatsoever.
But we'll find out, I guess. Hopefully, we'll find out.
A few weeks ago, we received – well, actually, I received an email from Facebook.
Yeah. I don't use Facebook all that much. Not a fan.
But I am on there, and I do communicate with people through Facebook Messenger.
Actually, I have it going through my Trillium client.
I'm able to tie it in, and Facebook Messenger somehow talks to people that way, and I'm able to sometimes, sometimes communicate.
It's flaky at best.
So I don't use it very much.
So I was surprised to receive a letter from records at records.facebook.com.
It's the real thing, and it wasn't fake email or anything like that.
And it was addressed to me. It said,
This notice is to inform you that we received legal process from law enforcement seeking information about your account and produce data as required by law.
The legal process was accompanied by an order that prohibited us from disclosing information about the case until a specific time had expired,
and we were legally required to produce the records specified in the demand.
And this was dated March 4th, 335 in the morning.
If you would like additional information about the legal process, please let us know as soon as possible by responding to this email signed law enforcement response team.
Well, you can imagine we were very interested in finding out just what this was about.
And so we said, yes, please forward all information concerning this case.
Six minutes later, we got a response.
I don't think it was a human.
I think it was something automated.
It said, Hello, for more information, the requesting agency may be reached at the contact information below.
The agency contact information, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.
And two agency case numbers were given one number or a different number.
I'm not going to read the numbers out.
I'm not I don't know if it's something that I shouldn't share.
But for now, I don't see any reason to share it.
But there are two different numbers, and one of them begins with 2017.
So read into that wherever you you might.
2017, the first year of the Trump administration.
It was a while ago.
It was what, four years ago.
The court, United States District Court, Southern District of New York.
We are unable to provide you with legal advice.
I would never ask Facebook for legal advice.
Believe me.
If you have questions about this notification, we suggest that you consult with an attorney.
Thank you.
Law enforcement response team.
In other words, that's it.
Our hands are clean.
We're not going to talk about this anymore.
You have to do the work from this point on.
Fair enough.
Since then, since March 4th.
What's today?
Today's March the 24th, 24th, 20 days, literally 20 days.
We have had people trying to get more information from the FBI as to just what this is all about.
And we have not gotten a response.
We have found out that the person who is not calling us back is part of, and get ready for this, the terrorism task force.
Now, read into that whatever you will.
So my Facebook account, which I barely use, was being investigated by the FBI.
And apparently has some kind of relationship to the terrorism task force.
And that might have been going on since 2017.
I would like to discuss this.
I would like to have all kinds of back and forth.
But I think for legal reasons, it makes sense to just try and get more information.
What we're doing here tonight is just telling you what we know.
Now you know everything that we know.
We're not going to answer questions later on overtime when we take phone calls.
Because there's really nothing that we can say at this point that would be constructive or helpful in any way.
We are going to continue to try and get more information as to just what in God's name this is about.
But I got to tell you, as the person who is being targeted here, for one reason or another, it's very unsettling.
And it's especially unsettling when you don't get answers to your questions.
I don't know, did Facebook maybe make a mistake and they weren't supposed to tell me?
Are there other social media accounts that have been also brought into this investigation, whatever it is they're investigating?
I really want to know.
I really want to know.
It's very frustrating and, as I said, unsettling to know that you're in someone's sights like this.
And I wonder, you know, I'm able to talk about this on the radio.
I'm able to talk about this in the magazine and on websites and things like that and be heard.
How many people have something like this happen and are not heard?
What happens when you're not even informed that you're being investigated?
It's a crazy time we live in.
But we're in it together and we're going to continue to keep you apprised.
So keep watching the website, 2600.com.
Keep listening here on WBAI for Off The Hook, most Wednesday nights at 7 o'clock.
And, of course, Overtime follows at 8 o'clock on our YouTube channel, which is channel 2600.
And you can call us at that time with questions or comments about other things.
We're not going to be talking about this anymore because we just wanted to let people know what's going on.
We are curious if other people have had these kinds of correspondence from various services.
Yeah, if this happened to you, let us know that. We'd like to know that.
We'd like to hear some stories about how they kind of handled it or what sort of things helped them navigate
or at least get more information as we've stated here.
But we're not going to speculate. It's not constructive at this point.
We'll definitely pick this up.
It was a busy time.
2017? If that's what that means.
Maybe that just happens to be the number that one of the case numbers begins with.
We'll find out, I'm sure.
This is something we'll, as you said, update everyone about.
Yeah, the other case number begins with 19.
I'm not giving away too much information here.
So maybe 2019, maybe something happened.
Maybe there's two cases. Who knows?
Again, I'm not going to speculate.
Okay, so let's get back to what we were talking about a moment ago.
Rob and Gila, you've just gotten back from your second shots.
Is that correct?
That is indeed correct.
Wow. How was it different than the first shot?
Honestly, the whole process went even faster today.
It took us longer to get to the vaccine site than it did to get the shot
and wait to make sure we didn't go into anaphylaxis.
And yeah, the whole system ran very, very smoothly today.
And we got kicked out of the selfie site.
Someone came over and yelled at people in the selfie site
and sent them to the outside selfie site.
What is a selfie site?
There is a step-and-repeat at the end of the hall, basically,
at the Javits Center that is designed for people to take pictures.
Like, hey, I got my vaccine.
Next to a wall of thanks, which is very lovely.
There is a wall of thanks, which is very lovely.
And then a little step-and-repeat that says, you know,
vaccinate New York, whatever.
And a guy was taking his picture there,
and then one of the staff at the facility said, no, go to the other one.
So there is an official MTA selfie site there.
All right.
So, you know, we had been instructed, and we took the MTA selfie too.
But yeah, very smooth.
I will say that my arm does hurt a little bit.
You just got stabbed in your arm, so it should hurt a little bit.
Yeah, it didn't hurt.
The nurse who gave us our shots today was very, very skilled.
Neither of us had any pain at the injection site, but now it hurts a little bit.
Right, which is similar to the last time.
I mean, it didn't hurt at the time.
Now it's a little painful at the injection site, and we're a bit tired,
a bit lethargic.
I expect to lose tomorrow, from what I hear.
Tomorrow might be a wasted day as far as recovery.
Well, it will be a nice day for it.
It certainly will.
But all things considered, we're doing great.
That's good to hear.
And we are happy to be through it.
That is great to hear.
I've got mine coming up in a couple of days, my second shot.
I was at the dentist today, so I'm feeling some pain.
So I guess maybe pain is the theme of the show tonight.
It's great to know that we're taking these steps, these important steps.
I'd like to look at a letter that one of our listeners sent us from Joseph in Manhattan.
He said, you folks all sound too young and healthy to have procured vaccines.
What's the deal?
Well, Joseph, first of all, thank you.
Thank you for thinking of us as young and healthy.
I don't know.
Are we young and healthy?
It's open to interpretation.
But here's the thing, and you might not know this,
and a lot of people might not realize this, but it's a private bit of information, how people qualify.
Sometimes people are happy to give away that information.
I happen to tell people, yeah, I've got asthma, and that qualified me.
I asked my doctor, okay, and I honestly didn't expect to qualify.
I asked her, would this allow me to get a vaccine?
She said yes.
I didn't push for it.
I didn't campaign for it.
I just asked a question.
And when she said yes, what am I going to do, argue?
I'm going to say, no, I don't think I've got that bad a case of asthma.
So if you qualify under any of the comorbidities or age qualifications, take the vaccine.
There is absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.
But most of all, it's not something that other people, other than the folks who are administering the vaccine or qualifying you for the vaccine,
it's not really shareable information.
So I know that you're curious and you want to know if we jump the line.
I can assure you nobody is jumping the line here at all.
If you are out there and you look at all the different comorbidity qualifications from your particular region,
whatever part of the world that happens to be, and you qualify, don't feel guilty.
Take the qualification and take the vaccine.
The important thing is to get that vaccine, to get as many people vaccinated as possible so that we can get past this thing,
so we can go back to the studio, so I can see you people in person.
That's really what it's all about.
And it's really frustrating to hear this information, again, rearing its ugly heads through social media,
through idiotic mass media, and just through people who are not informed.
Well, we try to stay as informed as possible and share the information that we obtain.
And that's what we do here on this radio station.
That's what I hope everybody listening tries to do as well.
And I've been very, very impressed so far with, I'd say, everybody I know who are all doing the responsible things.
It's going to get easier.
If you've had frustration getting the vaccine, I know it's frustrating.
I've helped dozens of people get appointments, people who qualify, obviously.
And here's the good news.
Here's a good sign.
Of many of those people, I've noticed that some of them have canceled their appointments.
Why?
Because they got better appointments, because they were able to do it themselves weeks after I was able to procure an appointment,
say, in April or something.
And the reason it's gotten easier, there are more vaccines available,
and they've actually been able to navigate the site themselves and find something earlier.
It's funny because people thought I'd be offended that they canceled the appointment that I got them.
No, cancel.
If you get a better appointment, I will not be offended.
That's good.
Just make sure you cancel because that opens it up for somebody else.
The fact that the sites are changing, the New York State site has changed.
It's no longer possible to just keep refreshing.
You have to swear that you're a robot, and sometimes you've got to do that capture thing.
And I always get into trouble with that because I have different opinions as to what is a traffic light and what is not.
So it's harder to have an advantage if you're automated,
but that means it's easier for individual people to go out there and get their own vaccine.
So I'm hoping to see more of that.
And I think by the time we hit May, we'll have more vaccines than we can administer.
In Europe, that's a problem right now.
There are vaccines being wasted, and there's a lot of false rumors going around about one of the vaccines,
which is simply not true, but it's inevitable that misinformation gets spread around.
So please don't be a part of that.
Help guide people to logical conclusions.
I see, Alex, you're joining us.
How was the traffic getting to Pennsylvania?
It was pretty bad, I have to say.
There was a massive car accident, about a four or five car accident on Interstate 80 heading west.
That's why I'm a bit late here.
Well, welcome.
Welcome to the show.
Yeah, well, thank you.
It's good to be here, as always.
What did I miss?
Well, I mean, we can talk later about other things, but we're talking mostly about the vaccine right now.
We're going to talk about a lot of other technical issues,
and we're going to have a special guest at about half past as well, so expect some fun.
But on the vaccine, I know you had gotten your first shot.
Have you gotten your second shot yet?
I got my second shot last week.
You did?
How have you fared?
I'm eight days into my second shot.
The second shot really knocked me on my butt.
I had the Moderna shot, which seems to be a bit rougher on the system than the Pfizer.
I think that's what they give the weaker, feeble-minded people, is the Pfizer shot.
The Moderna shot makes it even more—
Are we going to do this, Alex?
Because you know we got the Pfizer shots, Rob and Gila and me,
and you're the only one that has gotten the Moderna shot.
Right.
I think I was the only one that qualified for it in terms of mental and physical fortitude to withstand that kind of—
That's what they told you.
They told you that.
Okay, you know, it's—
But it really did—it knocked me out.
I mean, that first day was pretty rough.
My arm felt like a boxer at the end of a 12-round battle.
I just had his arm pummeled repeatedly by his opponent.
Because you know what that feels like.
Absolutely, I do.
Like I said, I have the mental and physical fortitude to deal with the Moderna vaccine.
Such a hero.
Yeah.
And it really—the next day was really rough.
I was in bad shape.
I had a series of meetings and things, and it was really horrendous.
Take the day off.
If you get the second shot, take the day off afterwards.
If you don't feel bad, then have a nice day to yourself.
You deserve it.
Yeah, I think it's good advice.
But really, I mean, those side effects sort of bled into the second day after, but I was fine.
I mean, by that second day, I was fine, and I was grateful for the side effects, and I feel more confident about life right now.
Well, that's good.
That's a nice side effect.
Yeah.
So, okay, good.
And it looks like Voltaire is joining us.
Voltaire, is that you?
Yes, hello.
Hey, how are you doing?
I see him.
Wow.
Pretty good.
I'm getting my last vaccine on Friday.
Your last.
Your second.
You're not getting a whole bunch of them.
Okay, good, good.
No comment.
And any side effects for you or for the first one?
No, kind of looking forward to seeing how hard it hits me because I hear the second one is the hardest.
Yeah, it's kind of like a challenge to see, okay, let's see what you got, vaccine.
But the important thing is that you are becoming immune to coronavirus, and the more people who do that, the more normal we can get back to, if that's a good sentence.
I just heard news from the CDC a couple of days ago that if you're vaccinated, it's safe for somebody who is not vaccinated to be around you.
It is without any kind of masks, without any kind of social distancing.
Now, that doesn't mean you can mill around with a whole lot of people because those unvaccinated people then are milling around with each other.
That's not safe.
But if you're vaccinated two weeks after your second shot, that's when it's fully kicked in, then it's actually safe.
And there are people that I have not seen in a year, over a year, that I really would like to see.
And some vaccinated now, some not.
But life will start to get back to normal.
Here's a letter from Charlie in New Mexico.
Dear Emmanuel Crew, greetings from Albuquerque.
I wanted to share my COVID vaccine experience with you.
The New Mexico Department of Health created a portal where anyone who wants the vaccine can register for it at cvvaccine.nmhealth.org.
I registered for the vaccine in early January, and I got my first shot of the Pfizer vaccine on March 3rd.
It sounds like New Mexico is one of the few, maybe only states, where everything is being done at the state level and things seem to be going smoothly with it.
Counties are beginning to reopen in earnest now, but hopefully that's not happening too quickly.
Well, Charlie, unfortunately, in some places, Florida, Texas, it is happening too quickly.
And what that means is that more people will get sick, more variants will start to gain strength, and it's even possible that the vaccine itself could be thwarted.
You know, if you have a lot more variants out there because more people are getting sick, the chance of one of those variants being of the kind that can get past the vaccine itself, it becomes stronger and stronger.
So, you know, I know there are lots of political scandals these days.
It's hard to pick one.
But if you're going to pick something, go for the people that are directly killing their citizens.
And the governors of Texas and Florida, I think, have blood on their hands for pretending this is over when it's not.
All right.
Any other thoughts on coronavirus?
Or should we move on to more hecarism?
There's the other bit of news that came out this week where, as of yesterday, I believe, if you're 50 or over in New York, you're eligible.
That's it.
You don't have to worry about other comorbidities or anything.
But age 50 and older in the state of New York, you're eligible to go find an appointment and get vaccinated.
So that's good news.
That's different in every state.
That's New York.
I was looking at Washington.
Washington is still 65.
But there are also comorbidities.
You know, some states you can actually get a vaccine if you smoke.
That's it.
Just if you're a smoker.
It seems unfair.
Maybe it is.
But that's the rule.
And if that's the rule, then take advantage of it.
There also seem to be some anecdotal stories.
I don't have hard evidence for this.
But there's a lot of stories that seem to be going around of pharmacies that are dispensing the virus, at the end of the day, having left over a vaccine.
They're dispensing the vaccine.
They're dispensing the vaccine, not the virus.
As people run away from pharmacies now.
Good heavens.
Sorry, CVS stock goes down.
No.
If you're at a pharmacy that's dispensing the vaccine, good heavens, I can speak.
At the end of the day, they have leftovers that have not been administered.
And that will just get thrown in the trash.
So, some people are hearing of places where they're just put up an announcement.
Hey, anyone want this who's in the store?
You can come get it.
There is a service you can sign up for at the Javits Center where you sign up by 7.
They'll call you at 6 in the evening.
And you basically come on a standby line.
But you can get a shot.
Yeah.
There are many, many ways to do this.
New York State is the one I specialize in helping people with.
But there's also New York City.
There's independent pharmacies.
There are many, many different kinds.
And, of course, every state is different.
It's going to be an interesting year because we're all going through this.
And I think we'll emerge in a much better frame of mind.
Okay.
So, moving away from this and on to other important announcements.
As you know, last year we weren't able to have the Hackers on Planet Earth conference in person.
Instead, what we wound up doing was having a very nice digital conference, HOPE 2020, a nine-day event.
And we said at the time that to make up for not having HOPE 2020 in person like we were planning,
we were going to have a conference this year in 2021, an in-person conference.
We've announced the conference.
It's called Extra HOPE.
And it's scheduled for this August in person, St. John's University.
August 13th through 15th, actually, is the date.
We don't know if it's going to happen.
It's currently being planned as an in-person event.
And, again, it'll be a conference that was supposed to happen last year.
But I have to be honest.
I have to be honest that it doesn't look promising based on how other states, how other countries are doing at the moment,
and the fact that getting back to normal traveling does not seem to be something that will be in place by that time.
If it does happen, I think we'll know pretty soon.
We'll know, I'd say, within a month, maybe six weeks.
For now, tentatively, Extra HOPE, August 13th through 15th, St. John's University.
I guess if we had to have a slogan, it would be don't count on it.
But that's unfortunately what we have to say because, you know, we had to book a date.
We are moving forward with plans.
But if this does not happen, then 2022 for sure, and it'll be bigger and better.
Keep checking.
Hope.net will have more information as that comes in.
The worst case is you're really, really planning ahead for 2022.
And that's the way we're looking at it.
We really have so much to look forward to.
But this is us being really versatile and able to pivot when things change or, in this case, don't change what we've been doing.
It would just be a different thing.
But we've had a lot of success in gearing up, and we'll definitely give a heads up to everyone well ahead of time as soon as we know more.
Other news.
I got kicked off of Twitter.
Did I tell you guys this?
I got kicked off of Twitter.
We all knew it was going to happen at some point, but I guess we just didn't know exactly when.
I tend to say what's on my mind.
And, you know, I said it.
This time I said what was on my mind, and it got me in trouble.
Do you know what I said?
Can I say it on the air?
I think it is allowed.
Is it allowed?
I said Memphis.
I said Memphis.
Actually, a listener wrote to us.
I think a few listeners wrote to us.
This Lobsterminator, thank you for your letter.
If your tweet contains the word Memphis, your account will be locked.
Yeah, it sounded unbelievable.
I and several people I know tested and got locked out.
Now I'm waiting for my appeal to be processed.
People are having fun by changing their display name to Memphis and contacting customer support accounts of companies, et cetera.
Oh, I see what's...
And then they reply to you and say Memphis, and then they get banned.
Yeah, but apparently what happened, the blue checkmark users are immune.
So they didn't...
It's just another reason why it's unfair the way Twitter operates.
I can never get verified.
Anything affiliated with us cannot get verified for whatever reason.
And so we were a victim to this.
Yes, saying Memphis, and right away, my account was locked.
I had to file one of these appeals.
And they were basically saying that if you remove the tweet, then your account can come back.
But if you don't remove the tweet, and I had no intention of ever removing the tweet, it could be very bad for you.
Well, they figured out their problem after a number of hours and just, without comment, restored everybody's account.
I would like a comment.
I would like some kind of explanation as to what in God's name these people are doing.
Just saying the word Memphis.
It's bad programming.
It's bad policy.
And I think it affected millions of people.
And we certainly, at 2600, since our 2600 Twitter account was not affected, we were talking about this.
And a lot of people were replying.
And if you look at the thread, you see that every other comment was deleted by Twitter because it violated their policy of not saying Memphis.
Has anyone been through anything like this?
It was pretty surreal.
I hadn't been through it myself, but I said Memphis, but I obscured the word, you know, like you do with a swear.
Asking Twitter support, you know, which Memphis is it that we can't talk about?
Is it the one in Egypt, the one in Tennessee, the one upstate?
I mean, there are so many that it could have, you know, I don't know which Memphis got up Twitter's nose that day.
Well, it was anything in regular letters that spelled Memphis.
Some people used Cyrillic and they were able to get away with it that way.
It's good training, you know, for when the hammer comes down and free speech is completely made illegal, ways that you can get the message out anyway.
So there were all kinds of people talking about Memphis without actually saying Memphis.
Doesn't this seem like an indicator that they are kind of playing with these sorts of filters a bit more?
I know the climate, along with a lot of the talk in the government and elsewhere about Section 230 and all that,
like this is kind of an indicator that it's like, yeah, this may have been half of something else they wanted to filter,
and it just kind of slipped having any kind of review and disrupted a whole lot of stuff,
which points to kind of what we're facing as far as who and how those types of decisions are made and when.
I had one other run-in with corporate America over the past couple of weeks.
It turned out my – I have an American Express gold card.
I've had it since I think 1988 or thereabouts,
and I discovered that despite all of the hoopla about how you don't get charged international transaction fees if you have a gold card, you do, because there it was on my bill.
So I called them and said, hey, what gives?
I have this card.
It costs me.
I have to pay an annual membership fee, but the only reason I have this card is because I don't get charged international transaction fees.
And the person on the other end of the phone was as confused as I was.
It turns out there's different kinds of American Express gold cards, and I have the kind that now charges you.
They didn't use to charge, but now they charge you.
So I was asking, well, what is the advantage of me keeping this card?
And the representative said, you know, there might not be one.
There might not be an advantage because other accounts don't have an annual fee, and they have the exact same type of benefits that this one has.
So other than the prestige of having this stupid gold card to show people, is it really worth the money?
So I said, you know what, I'm going to think about this.
Well, less than a week later, I got a letter in the mail from American Express thanking me for my request to update my address, which I had never made that kind of a request.
Then they said, we noticed that we don't have, and I'm not going to get into what they're asking for,
but they're asking for personal information, additional personal information that they are now required to have.
And if I don't give them this required personal information by, I think yesterday was the deadline, I won't be able to use my card anymore.
So I want to thank American Express for making the decision for me that this card is not worth it, and I'm not going to hold onto it.
But just, it's weird.
If you call to ask about something, it's like you get punished, and you have to give them more information.
I'm not going to give it to them.
There's no reason they need to have this information, and I can do just fine without.
I think too many people just answer whatever questions they are asked by companies.
You don't have to do this.
You can certainly get by without their services.
They can't get by without customers, though.
All right.
We are welcoming a special guest with us right now.
There is this new service that you might have heard of called Zoom Escaper, and it's basically designed to help you escape Zoom meetings.
We've all wanted to do this.
There might be some people right now that want to do this.
Video conferencing scenarios of all sorts.
It allows you to self-sabotage your audio stream.
This is their words.
Self-sabotage your audio stream, making your presence unbearable to others as if your words themselves aren't enough.
Developer Sam Lavigne is joining us right now.
Sam, can you hear us?
Hi.
Yeah, thanks for having me on.
What an amazing service.
Where did you get the idea for this?
Yeah.
I guess, like, I've been sort of working on a series of projects for the last about five years or so that are about digital sabotage in one way or another.
And the first thing I made, which kind of doesn't really work anymore.
It sort of works.
It's called Slow Hot Computer, and it just is a website.
It's a website you go to.
It's slowhotcomputer.com, and it just makes your computer run, like, slow and hot, you know, so that it makes it, you know.
Kind of the idea being the computer becomes almost unusable but not quite as a way of limiting your own productivity.
Wow.
So, like a government-owned cryptocurrency?
Yeah.
Actually, I made it before.
Like, sort of the cryptocurrency miners were web-based, at least as far as I know.
So it's just like downloading an image over and over and over again, and I think just, like, adding some numbers or something.
And it's actually kind of hard to get a website to, like, almost crash your computer but not quite.
It's a little tricky, you know.
It's just, like, a little – it takes, like, a little finesse.
And I think they've changed sort of some – like, you know, the way, like, Chrome and Firefox work now is, like, a little bit different.
So it doesn't quite have the same effect.
Like, your computer doesn't quite get as hot and as slow as it used to.
So, anyway, that was one.
And then I, you know, did another project, which is a little bit different but sort of inspired by a similar impulse called The Good Life.
And that was a collaboration with TegaBrain.
And in The Good Life, you sign up.
It's like a – it's an email service.
You sign up to receive every single email that exists in the Enron email archives.
So the Enron email archives are, like, this incredible – really incredible resource, this archive of, like, all of the emails that were sent between the top executives at the Enron Corporation.
And that were then, like, made public by the government.
Maybe for retaliatory purposes.
I'm not quite sure why.
But they were made public.
And so in this project, you sign up, and then you get every single email, which is, like, 225,000 emails, direct to your inbox over the course of, like, seven years.
Wow.
So, you know, and it's actually this really nice way of, like, looking through that archive, which is this really interesting historical archive.
You kind of see this huge corporation crumble from the inside.
But also, it makes it so that you're getting these emails being like, hey, you've got to come to this meeting tomorrow.
And then you're like, oh, God, what meeting is this?
I don't know.
And then it's like, oh, it was from 2001.
Well, do you get to be the same person?
Can you take on their identity so that you actually have to go to meetings?
You just see them all.
So you just get all of them.
Wow.
And you don't get a particular person's inbox.
It might be handy for Enron ex-employees.
I might have lost track of some of this to catch up a little bit.
Yeah, it could be.
It could be if they want to relive that time.
Remember that special time.
I'm not sure that that's, you know, maybe it's not the fondest memories they have.
But, I mean, what's interesting about something like that is that it's kind of like an act of intentional obfuscation.
I mean, it makes it harder for you to use your own email.
But, of course, it also means that a company like Google, like if you have a Gmail account,
it's kind of harder for them to use your email also, right, because you're sort of polluting your own data set.
I hear that.
And that's something that I encourage people to do with their Gmail accounts because Gmail gets to know you way too well,
and that's not a good thing for you.
Now, Sam, is it possible?
We're on a Zoom call right now.
So let's say that you want to get out of this Zoom call.
Are you able to demonstrate some of what you've designed?
Yeah, I can turn on the old.
Oh, Sam, we seem to have lost Sam.
Can you hear me?
Yeah, you know, you're blanked out there for a second.
Can you hear me now?
Now you're reverberating.
Is it okay?
This is annoying.
I kind of want to.
You might want to unmute.
Yeah, I want to end this call.
Is it okay?
Sam, maybe you should take some time.
A jackhammer?
Really?
You seem really busy.
I heard a dog barking, but that might have been Alex's dog.
So, yeah, that's the Zoom Escaper right there.
That was like the grand finale of the fireworks show there.
It's basically like a sound board, you know, so you go to ZoomEscaper.com.
You have to, unfortunately, install one other piece of software, which is like a virtual audio.
And once that's installed, you can kind of set the output of the Zoom Escaper to go to that virtual microphone,
and then you set your microphone in Zoom or Google Meetings or Microsoft Teams
or whatever to also be that virtual mic.
And then, you know, you can add echo to your voice or simulate a bad connection
or make it seem like there is a man crying in your apartment
or upload your own audio effects as well.
Well, you can upload your own dog's barking because, obviously, they'll know that's not your dog.
Or maybe somebody in your household who's yelling at you,
hey, that's Stanley, he's upset, maybe you should go.
I guess, you know, there's no limit to what you can screw up a Zoom call with.
Yeah, and, I mean, I had built, like, this project sort of emerged.
I had built, like, another project about Zoom called the Zoom Deleter.
And the Zoom Deleter is just like a little, like, cross-platform.
I mean, it's not, unfortunately, I didn't make it for Linux also, but I made it for Mac and Windows.
And, you know, it just, like, sits in your system tray, your menu bar,
and it just looks for the presence of Zoom on your computer.
And if it finds Zoom, it just, like, immediately deletes it, you know.
So I made the Zoom Deleter.
And then, like, you know, I was quite excited about it.
I had it on my computer.
I was trying to get other people to put it on their computers.
And then, you know, I think I ended up getting, like, 107 downloads.
There was not a lot of people willing to, like, adopt, you know, this application.
And so I was like, oh, I got to make something for people that aren't quite ready for the Zoom Deleter.
This is definitely, this might get people to use Zoom more because it's so much fun.
Are you able to tell how popular it's gotten?
It's been, like, really out of control, actually.
Like, I mean, I don't have any tracking stats on the website itself.
I just didn't put, like, a, you know, I'm just not tracking usage there.
But I do have, like, a video tutorial.
And that's just a tutorial of, like, how to get it set up.
It has, like, 200,000 views.
And it made all these, you know, it was, like, on the news a bunch.
And I think it was on, I think they talked about it on, like, the Daily Show or something.
So I think, unfortunately, the cat is, like, a bit out of the bag, you know, with the Zoom Escaper.
So my thoughts is that, you know, at this point, people will hopefully just sort of take up the spirit of the Zoom Escaper
and the spirit of sabotage, digital sabotage and maybe digital self-sabotage
and find new and exciting ways to do it on their own.
Speaking of cats, what do you have in the cat department?
You know, I didn't add any cats to the thing.
You know, that could be, maybe that's version two, is cats fighting or mewing in the background.
Or a lot of, you know.
And you have video effects, too.
I'm looking for suggestions.
You have video effects, too, right?
So a cat walking directly in front of the camera, perhaps, and refusing to move.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
We can help you with all kinds of ideas.
Alex, you have something.
Yeah, Sam, thank you so much for being on Off the Hook tonight.
And I just love the idea of this.
I love the sabotage component of all of this.
And I think one of the reasons why you're seeing this resonate with so many people around the world
is because Zoom is something that over the last year has just really taken over our daily lives.
It's really become an encroachment in our lives.
And we are expected now to jump on Zooms at the drop of a hat, right?
It's the slightest provocation.
And I think to the exclusion of ordinary alternative forms of communication
to which we had become accustomed for decades before that.
So we just think about how annoying it is to, quote, unquote,
hop on a Zoom or stand up a Zoom for two people to talk nowadays.
That is completely common.
People refuse to use the telephone anymore.
If it's just a two-way communication, you can use a full duplex communication method
like a goddamn telephone.
But instead, people have to stand up a Zoom call,
and then you're stuck staring at your camera, looking awkward,
trying to pretend that you're not multitasking while you are multitasking.
You want to get off the call.
You don't want people to see you.
There's a strange etiquette that goes around this about turning your camera on.
Who's the dominant person?
If they don't have their camera on, should you put your camera on?
It's a very strange cultural phenomenon that we have that has really encroached in our lives.
So I see this as being a great way for people to fight back, in a sense,
to push back a little bit against Zoom and against this thing,
this piece of technology that has really just run rampant over our lives.
It reminds me, too, and I think that there's a philosophical component to what you're doing here
because as much as Zoom has taken up a lot of our free time or time that we might have spent,
let's say, on the telephone, going around, talking to somebody, watering the plants,
vacuuming, whatever you wanted to do while you were on the phone,
now you're stuck Zooming and you can do nothing else.
But we also, we're human beings, and we should have leisure time.
And so I love the fact that you called this the Zoom escaper
because you're trying to escape the Zoom so you can go back to being a normal human being.
And I remember, I want to leave you with a quote here, too, at the end of this monologue.
So this is from one of my favorite philosophy professors that I ever had,
and he's been dead now for about 17 years.
He's the Reverend Dr. Cyril Barrett, who is a fellow at Campion Hall,
and he wrote about the philosophy of leisure.
And according to Cyril, he said,
According to the ancients, it is the proper state of man.
Work is what is necessary for survival and a necessary condition for leisure.
It is not an end in itself. Leisure is.
It is the end, the goal of human life.
So I will end there and say thank you for letting us take back a little bit of that leisure time.
Yeah, my pleasure.
It's been really fun to see people take it up.
And like I said, I just hope that I mean, you know, these these things change.
Like Zoom is here this year for obvious reasons.
I'm sure, you know, in a year or two, it'll be something else that sort of dominates all of our lives and makes our lives miserable.
Right. Well, I think it's really important that we develop an imagination in ourselves and in others,
finding ways to push back against these technologies.
Right. It's more than it's more than just a technology.
I think it's an attitude that we've developed where we have to always be accountable, always be reachable.
I remember a few years ago, somebody came up with something that did something similar with cell phones,
basically made a car honk or something that that made it seem like it's impossible for you to talk on the phone right now.
These things become necessary because we're expected to always be on call.
And Zoom is just the latest example of that.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Another thing, I mean, I think it's really interesting to think about here is like, what does it mean?
Like, I mean, we're talking about like, you know, always being required to be on these Zoom calls.
Like, what does it mean that like the same thing that is your work machine, right?
That is like this sort of means of production, right, is also the thing that's mediating all of your social interactions.
How do you have pushback against a device that like is also your window to being a social person in the world, right?
And that's kind of why I'm exploring, I guess, this idea of self-sabotage,
because in a way you do have to sort of self-sabotage your own ability, not just to work, but also maybe to have social communications.
And I, you know, I find that concept and that quite fascinating.
And the question of how sabotage can play out in this interconnected context that we find ourselves, you know,
something that's really, really worth exploring.
Go ahead, Rob.
Yeah, I love that this is sort of forcing us to take another look at this thing that's become such an intrinsic part of our day-to-day interactions,
both for work and for other purposes.
I was talking to someone recently about how, you know, it used to be an acceptable thing that you weren't online all the time, the Internet.
Before the mobile era, the Internet was something that you would go home, sit down in front of your computer and go,
okay, now I'm online for a while.
But like I frequently throughout the course of my day will go, sitting in front of my computer will go like,
this has been a lot, I need to get away from this.
I'll go across the room and I'll get on my phone.
And that's my break.
But I just really appreciate it.
What was the, was there like a particular event or just a question that sparked creating this project for you?
I don't know if there was a particular event.
Like I said, it's sort of been like a longstanding, like a longstanding interest of mine,
this question of like digital sabotage or self-sabotage.
And I just felt maybe like, maybe it was the right moment in sort of like in the year or something to make it, you know,
like I wasn't really, I wasn't really expecting it to go as, I guess like as viral as it went.
But yeah, like I'm always trying to think about, you know, different ways to like, yeah, to explore that basic concept.
Now you basically, the story exploded over the past week.
I imagine somebody wrote about it and then somebody else wrote about it and just kept spreading from there.
Have you been inundated with suggestions or emails?
Is Google trying to buy you, anything like that?
I mean, no, I mean, I've been getting a lot of, yeah, I've been getting a lot of suggestions for different things to add.
I mean, I, you know, a lot of them are things that I actually like really don't want to add to it.
Like, you know, a screaming fight or, you know, there's just some things that I think that like might be,
maybe to the person who suggested the idea sound funny, but then maybe if I implemented them,
they would actually be very upsetting, you know?
And maybe it would sound like, for example, like an abusive situation.
And that's not something that I'm trying, you know, that's not what I'm trying to do here.
So, you know, I've had like a lot of, a lot of suggestions that I've decided not to do.
I do think I've had some, you know, some pretty good ones.
I think some obvious ones to add, like, you know, cats fighting.
I think it'd be a completely reasonable addition to do, you know, for sure.
Or raccoons fighting. That's awesome.
You know, like someone like really, really badly playing the drums or like doing like bad bass guitar would be,
I think that would be a pretty nice, a nice addition.
Or the ice cream man coming down the street and you have to go right now.
Yeah, the ice cream guy, your doorbell getting, you know, rung over and over again.
I think these, those are some of the ones I got and I think those were all, you know,
those are all definitely going to kind of make their way in at one point.
Voltaire, you had something?
Yeah, I've noticed that one thing I really like about a theme deleter is like that you can use it on your own volition
and you get to choose when you can use it.
Like there's a lot of assumption that when people think about the Luddites that they were against all technology.
But in fact, they were only, they were about taking control of technology
and destroying a very specific type of technology that was harming their ability to make a living as laborers.
Wait, that makes us Luddites then. So we're Luddites?
No, I'm saying the Zoom is like, it's like the correct, as opposed to the incorrect understanding of Luddites
because you only destroy the technology that you're, the specific technology that you're opposed to,
but you can still keep, you deploy, it seemed, you only deploy it to get out of meetings you don't want to be in.
But then when you have like, let's say a virtual D&D meetup or something that you want to be in,
you can, you're not destroying that.
Sam, have you had any negative feedback?
No, not really. Not really. I mean, I've had some people, I mean, it's funny,
like some people have told me or written to, you know, written on like whatever my video comments,
like, oh, this is going to be so awful for teachers.
And then, you know, maybe my response is like, well, actually, I mean, I actually am a teacher
and it would just be like, you know, how great would it be if they were talking in class,
you know, like talking in class with, you know, sound effects or not. Right.
So, like, I think, I think for the most part, it's been, it's been pretty, pretty positive.
And a few people who I think don't, don't, don't appreciate the sensibility of the project have been upset, upset by it.
We have to go, but Sam, tell us how people can, can get, get the Zoom Escaper
and also any information that you want to give out, anything that you need people to help with.
Sure. Yeah. So you can go to zoomescaper.com and that's where the website is.
And it's also an open source project.
So, you know, if you, if you, you know, are a coder and you want to, you want to help out,
or even if you're not a coder and you want to help out, there's a good, it's on GitHub and you can,
you can get in there and, and make a pull request if you want, or just send me a message.
I'm always happy to, to, to accept contributions and to work with other people.
So zoomescaper.com and my website is, is lav.io.
So thanks so much for having me. It was, it was really, really nice to get to chat with all of you.
Thank you so much for, for creating Zoom Escaper.
Can you leave us with one, one final Zoom call, Destroyer?
Yeah, I can, yeah, I can see if I can see if I can do something.
I think my favorite one is actually just the man crying.
The man is, the man is the, you know, I am the man.
I am the man we meet in your apartment.
This is, this is it. This is it.
So thanks so much guys.
Thanks so much guys.
Good night. Good night.
I'll see you next time.
See you next time.
All right.
Wow, that, that, that's one of the most interesting conversations we've had.
Okay, we are out of time.
Please join us on overtime.
You can get there by following the link on the top of the 2600.com page
or simply going to youtube.com slash channel 2600.
Our phone number there, 802-321-HACK, 802-321-4225.
You can call us up and talk to us and we'll be there for a little while.
You can write to us off the hook, OTH at 2600.com.
Don't forget to support WBAI.
It keeps shows like this and so many others coming your way.
The phone number 516-620-3602.
Again, we'll be back next week, two weeks we'll be back
and we'll, we'll see you then and we'll see you on overtime in a few minutes.
Good night.
So long.
Well, good evening everybody on Overtime. Did we all make it? Did I make it okay?
Rob, Gil, are you there? We are present and accounted for.
Awesome. Alex has an empty chair. Where's Alex? He disappeared. And Voltaire
disappeared as well. You know, people, you can't just walk away for Overtime.
If you're on the show, the contract says you have to be on Overtime as well.
We're gonna have a meeting actually. We're gonna have to have a meeting. This could be the
meeting. We're gonna have a discussion about this when we're not live. You know, we had a
whole bunch of people waiting and as soon as we started talking, the listeners
dropped. What, are you disappointed? That's what you think was going to
happen. Okay, again, our phone number 802321-HACK. 802321-4225. Go ahead. Go
ahead, finish the number. I did. Oh, sorry. 802321-4225. And that stands for
HACK, right? Yes. I wanted to mention the Enron email corpus came up with our
guests during the show and I would have said, and I'm going to say it now, that we
actually had a talk about that in 2018 at the Circle of Hope. And the title of
the talk is the Enron email corpus, where the bodies are buried. And the name of
the presenter is David Noever. And you can find that at channel 2600 on YouTube.
Okay. Along with all of our other Hope presentations. Now, Rob, I'm gonna ask you,
can you verify that we are in fact on YouTube and it's working? Because
sometimes it's not working, we don't know it, and I did notice our listenership
dropped in half the first two minutes we started talking. Okay, so hopefully this is a
technical issue that will soon be be fixed. Oh, Alex, you're back. Welcome back.
Glad you could fit us in. Oh, anytime. Only a pleasure. That was a really
interesting guest, Sam. No doubt. I mean, the Zoom meetings that are being screwed up now
as a result of his efforts, I think that's definitely a feather in your cap.
Yeah, I think so. I mean, look, to an extent. And, you know, I think he's done, you know, a
great thing and I expect great things to come from him as well. He's got a
very innovative way of looking at things and I think just a different
perspective on where technology fits into our lives. And that's a really
interesting perspective to me and I hope that our listeners found it to be so as well.
Yeah, it ties into our theme of basically taking control of technology
and shaping it to do what you want to do, not the other way around. And too often
we get pulled into that where we have to answer the call, we have to be
available. And that's nonsense. You don't have to do that. You can do whatever you
want. That's why, you know, I told American Express to take a hike. Well, I
didn't actually tell them that, but I'm going to if they keep asking me for
information they don't have a right to. You don't have to be at a certain place
at a certain time if that is not convenient for you. So it's power I
think people don't realize they have. And unfortunately it's hammered into our
heads that you have to conform. You don't have to conform. Yeah, don't be so
cooperative. No, no. Stop being cooperative listeners. Reasonable. Yes. But
please call us 802-321-4225. This is why we have overtime is so that our
listeners can call in since we're not in the studio and we can't actually take
phone calls live on the air, we can do it here. And it's a great system that
we have rigged up and things seem to work for the most part. I love the
interview with Sam Tudor to learn more about the stuff that just really wasn't
covered in the media, which were his earlier project about slowing down
your computer. Yeah, deliberately and intentionally slowing down your computer.
And it's like, hey, you know, when he described it in a way, I kind of get it.
I understand. Slowing down your computer may actually give you back some of your
life. So that was really one way of looking at it. And then the Enron
corpus of emails that Kyle was just talking about as well. I think that's
just such a fascinating body of emails and the idea that, you know, getting
another one or two of those sent to you every day is pretty unique as
well. And then bringing up the fact that those emails coming in can actually
poison your own data set. That's something I think that we're going to be
revisiting over the next couple of years for sure, which is how do we get out of
this this error where everything about us is known, where we can be
psychologically prodded and tweaked because we've given away so much
information about ourselves. Well, the only way to do that, the only way to
take back control of our data set is perhaps to poison it in a sense, to
make it unusable for those who would seek to use data mining or big data
techniques in order to psychologically exploit the data that we have given to
third parties for so many years. You have laws in California like the CCPA.
You've got GDPR. All of this is designed to give consumers back power over their
own data to re-enhance, I think, our concept and our reasonable expectation
of privacy or what can be done in our names with our data with or without our
consent. But to a certain extent, these laws don't have a lot of bite. They
don't have a lot of teeth. If you think about the CCPA, we can get information
about where your data has gone, but the law does not require those who are in
control of your data to actually describe the organization to which it
was specifically provided. They only have to describe categories. So we are
trying to take back control for the consumer over their data. That falls
short. So I think the notion of poisoning your own data set and making it
unusable is going to come up time and time again over the next several years.
It's good standard operating, just in general. Obfuscate. I remember a cafe
that had a little sign, used to frequent, and it said, we reserve the right to
confuse service.
I believe we have a phone call. Good evening. You're on Off the Hook Overtime.
Yes, hi. I wanted to say one thing in defense of online conferences instead of
in-person conferences. The chat threads are amazing in terms of the
information that people often post there, the links to articles and other
resources and tools. And that's one thing I regret about this online hope that
took place back in 2020, was the chat threads, as far as I know, were not
archived. And I think, as I said, there's a lot of great information there. And
I'd encourage listeners to feel free to maybe set up a website and post those
chat threads so that people that weren't able to attend a meeting, you know, a
specific talk or workshop, they could get that information. What do you think
of that idea? I'm not entirely sure they weren't archived. I'd have to check on
that, but it seems sound to me. Were you an attendee and did you use our chat
system? Yeah, yeah. But as I said, I mean, one person can only attend so many
different events. And obviously, you had several things that were occurring
simultaneously. And I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't able to coordinate with other
people. But like I said, those chat threads were fantastic. And some of them
were just amazing. I mean, the things that people were throwing in there, these
resources I'd never heard of before. And like I said, I think it would be great to
continue to offer people maybe, with the next hope, offer people the option of
attending virtually if they wanted to. Well, we've definitely learned a lot as
far as virtual conferences versus physical conferences. And yeah, it's never
going to be the same again. Never going to be entirely the same again. We will
have in-person conferences, but there will certainly be more of an online
connection as well. We just have to figure out what the best proportion is.
Yeah, we don't want all that stuff to complement as best we can imagine. And we
look back even at what we were planning. And some of the emphasis, I think, in what
we learned has changed. We may put more into that given the successes we had. And
your idea about the chats, I'm thinking, well, we'll check on that. I like the
concept of a static copy of it for attendees. And I think it's a great idea
of it for attendees. And I think that if you are able to log back into the
service as it's been archived, there is a possibility that those are there. But it
would not surprise me if it has been put into a state where it's not quite the
same as when it was being hosted, for obvious reasons. A lot of the
infrastructure and stuff was temporary and borrowed. And we got a lot
of help in so far as those donations.
So it's the kind of thing with somebody, if they just took it on, they could be the
person in charge of archiving it. It probably was something that just way too
many things for us to worry about and was overlooked. That's entirely possible.
And in a related vein, I mean, we, for the first time, did a lot more with
transcribing and getting captions for most of the talks. And that is still, I
believe, something that is ongoing or that we could put more resources into as
well. And that in and of itself is a form of log for people who maybe are unable to
listen or watch the talk in a way that most of us do. And we want to increase the
accessibility. And having sort of static files like that is a great idea. But it
takes energy. And as volunteers, we only have so much over the course of time.
Alex, you had a point?
Yeah, I'm still, I'm actually on the Matrix chat right now, by the way. And
there's still people on there chatting. You know, you can send a message and
somebody will respond. You know, there are still people out there that are on the
Matrix chat. And it's pretty awesome. The other thing I wanted to note for the caller
as well is that I'm actually seeing that I can scroll backwards. I'm using the
desktop version of the client right now, I can scroll backwards and go back very,
very, very far. So for instance, I'm looking at, you know, random right now, the
random room, and it shows that there's 1.2,000 messages that I haven't read in
random, and I can just keep scrolling back, scrolling back, scrolling back. So
absolutely, if somebody wanted to archive this, in fact, I'd be surprised if
somebody hasn't already, but it's it's there. It's there. And it's it's right for
the taking.
Okay, well, that's great. I just wanted to put it out there. I think it's great
information. I'm a completist. I believe in archiving as much information as
possible, whether it's the written word, the spoken word, or the audio or the
video, the more unless, you know, respecting people's privacy, obviously,
but if somebody is okay with it, I believe in archiving every second, every
word, every syllable, and every second of audio and video. So you guys keep up the
great work. Thank you.
Well, I think and I think it's an important points that you made, too.
Because, you know, there really was a completely different angle to this
conference. This this past year, given those conversations that happened online.
I think we learned a lot from that. And I'm sure that we'll have some component of
this going forward. So thank you so much for the comments.
I just really would like to emphasize that the channel is the best place to to
look for transcriptions of chats and stuff because that is for attendees. It
would be nice to have a static log or someplace but it's not something that we
necessarily have designed to be posted publicly. So I don't know if we can. We
haven't thought about how exactly we would archive that and it was never intended to
be something public. So I don't want to give anybody the impression
that actually it got more successful than we were planning. People really wanted to
stick around and it was for Q&A. And the fact that Alex was able to be in there
right now and still talk to people at the conference. That's incredible. That is
amazing. We're thrilled by that. And I think Matrix was a great choice, too.
You know, everyone is basically trying to suggest other commercial products, Discord
server and that kind of thing, which are great. But I think Matrix had something
different. I think it really had its own unique flair.
And it's certainly something we can build upon in the future. So we're excited to
explore it a little bit more and see where it takes us.
All right. Our phone line is open 802-321-4225. If you're an off the hook
listener or somebody just wants to share something with us or ask a question, please
feel free. You know, I have an update for a story that we alluded to last week.
Remember, we were talking about the the surveillance cameras that were hacked.
Well, Tilly Kotman is a 21-year-old hacker who has taken credit for intrusions at
major U.S. companies like Nissan, Intel and California-based security camera
company last week that Kotman claimed.
Well, federal prosecutors in western Washington have secured a grand jury
indictment last week against the Swiss national.
They allege that Kotman, in concert with others online, acquired stolen credentials
and access protected systems to steal confidential records and code.
The stolen data was hosted on a private Web site that's been seized by the FBI, as
well as on Telegram and other services.
That's according to charging papers.
Prosecutors say notable targets include a security device company, a tactical equipment
maker, an automobile manufacturer and a financial investment firm.
A Web site run by the hackers is at one point said to have held data from over 100
companies, including Adobe, Toyota, Pepsi, Microsoft, AMD, Motorola, GE Appliances,
Disney, Nintendo and more.
Cyber Intel News site The Record reports that Kotman relied on misconfiguration to gain
access to protected data and link them to an FBI industry alert in October.
Warning of hackers capitalizing on default password settings in corporate and
government software.
Honestly, folks, I don't see what they did that is worthy of this kind of a reaction.
It's not like from what I'm reading, it's not like this was held hostage, that this
person acted as many criminals do and tried to use ransomware against these companies.
They were open, honest about it and humorous at the same time.
These things need to be known.
If there are security holes like this, they're still going to be there whether or not you
make fools of the companies.
It's I think the way it was done, it was done right.
I don't know. That's just my feeling about how security holes should be should be
revealed. You know, if something like this where your private information is is being
left out in the open, you have the right to know about that.
The company is not going to tell you.
So somebody who figures out how to do it and can demonstrate it to the world, I think that
is a service. Alex, what about you?
What do you think? Well, look, I think you got to look at the indictment specifically,
right? And I have I have some very specific thoughts and views on this particular case
as well. But perhaps I shouldn't say too, too much, because the first count in the
indictment is conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse.
That would be under the CFAA, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
That's essentially accessing a computer without authorization.
And so this is a conspiracy charge there.
The other two seem particularly flimsy here.
The other counts are wire fraud, right?
Which is some, you know, there's conspiracy.
The count two is conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which is essentially, you know, using
the wire system to willfully devise and execute or attempt to execute a scheme to
defraud. It's a very easy charge to be hit with.
No doubt. No doubt.
And then counts three through seven are, in fact, wire fraud and the scheme to defraud the
manner and means. I mean, some of this seems particularly flimsy.
It seems like it was put together very, very quickly.
And my understanding of what Tilly had done in order to identify these vulnerabilities
was to look at places like GitHub and other source code repositories for code that was
unintentionally made public that companies had put out there without the without meaning to
make it public. And when you find source code for that was unintendedly made public, you're
going to find certain vulnerabilities.
And it was the exploitation of those vulnerabilities to make them public that has resulted in
the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act charges here.
Now, this reminded me quite a bit, if you think about, is it it's one thing, I guess, to to
access something without authorization, but it's another thing to make public that which is
already public.
And I think to a very large extent, that was the intention behind the actions here.
To make public what is already public?
That's right. Yeah.
To make it more public, more widely known.
The fact that there are these exploitable vulnerabilities out there in public source code, in
source code repositories like GitHub and elsewhere.
If you don't, Alex, if you don't demonstrate it, if you don't demonstrate it in a way people can
understand, they're not going to to realize the gravity of the situation.
You know, they're going to say, hey, this security camera is capturing people inside a
hospital, patients inside a hospital.
We should know about that, that that kind of thing is is wide open and can be accessed
legally by all kinds of people, but should be accessed by them anyway.
But the fact that they have it so that anyone can access that, I don't think that should be
protected. I don't think that's something that you have to think of their feelings or their
corporate value and be part of the conspiracy to keep quiet about.
I think what they did here was was the responsible thing, sharing it with the world, because
I'll bet it gets fixed now.
Well, it certainly will.
But the idea that this information and these vulnerabilities were already out there in the
wild, I think could be legally significant.
I think this is going to be an incredibly, incredibly interesting case to watch because it
reminds me a lot, in certain respects, of the Night Lightning case.
You remember that? Oh, boy.
Nineteen ninety. Yeah.
Nineteen ninety. So we're talking about, you know, 31 years ago and Night Lightning, whose
real name I believe was Craig Nidor.
Still is. He was one of the original publishers of Frack, which is an electronic.
It was a text file hacking magazine that existed way back in the and I think the late 80s and
the 90s, but way up until still exists.
The mid to late 90s.
Right. It was around for quite a while.
I remember still around. It doesn't come out that often, but it does come out.
I had no idea. That's that's news to me.
That's pretty awesome. You've fallen off the subscription list.
So. But the issue with it, with the Night Lightning or the Craig Nidor case was he was
charged with essentially exfiltrating these incredibly expensive to develop and highly
confidential Bell system documents that related to the E911 system directly.
Now, those documents, it turns out, and it came out during trial that that the Bell system
had claimed were, in fact, private and confidential, were actually available for purchase
to the public. They were already out there in the public domain that I think you could buy
for eleven or twelve dollars.
Fourteen, I believe, was the number.
And as soon as that was revealed, they had to they had to retreat and drop the case.
But the damage had been done.
Craig Nidor's family was was devastated with the expense of having to defend him and keep
their their their son out of prison.
It's a good example of how these these corporations abuse the power that they have and
lie. They just absolutely lie.
So it's the same thing with the Kevin Mitnick case where the source code for for cellular
phone code is was basically seen as as worth millions and millions of dollars.
And it was nothing like that.
It was given away for free.
Was it Motorola source code?
That was that was one of them. I know he was using an Okie.
We have a we have a caller that's been waiting patiently.
Caller, I'm sorry. Go ahead.
What's on your mind? I wish you had a local phone number so I wouldn't be racking up long
distance charges waiting.
You really have a long distance plan.
I didn't think people still had long distance plans.
Yes, I do.
I do. Wow.
Well, I'm sorry. Get us a two on two number and we'll be happy to use that instead.
But this is this is a cool one.
It spells hack. Nothing is actually in Vermont.
802 is the area code for Vermont.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, get a local phone number.
It doesn't have to be two and two.
All right. Six four six nine one seven.
Any of the local ones.
Any of the local ones.
Wow. But there's somebody in Vermont that's happy that we have a local number for them.
But you're making long distance charges for your.
I honestly did not think there was still such a thing as long distance charges.
What company do you what company do you use that still charges you long distance to call
Vermont? I can't remember where I originally got it, but it's it's bundled through
another company.
What difference does it make to you?
I'd give you the information.
Well, other than complaining about the number that you called in on, is there anything that
you'd like to share with us?
Yes. I was hoping to hear from you this evening.
I'm sorry, I was distracted for a second.
Say that again. TurboVax.
Huge ma, the person who created TurboVax.
Yes. I was hoping to hear from him on the show this evening.
OK, well, anti-Asian hate and such.
OK, I'm not sure where you got the idea was going to be on the show.
But Rob, did you have something?
Yeah, his his name, which I believe is pronounced who gay ma.
But yeah, he's he's the person who made TurboVax and momentarily took it offline to
draw attention to the anti-Asian murders and anti-Asian sentiment that had been going on
in this country that unfortunately is very much still a problem and using his platform to
raise awareness. And that that is something that that is very important to us here.
And it's something that we continue to keep an eye on.
We had not arranged an appearance or an interview.
We don't know if he'd be into such a thing, but we are definitely very much interested in
keeping an eye on the issue and and similar situations in which people who find
themselves with elevated voices are able to use that to get their messages across like he
did. Well, he is interested in raising the profile of this issue.
So I'm sure if you asked him, he would be delighted.
Alex, it looked like you had something to say.
No, I'm just listening to the caller.
I was waiting for you. OK, well, caller, we'll take that under advisement.
But thanks for the suggestion.
Anything else that you wanted to share with us?
What?
Is there anything else you want to share with us?
Yeah. You have a delay between what you're saying and when it's broadcasting.
You know, when I'm on the phone, I notice there's a delay.
There's a delay at the station.
Yes, there always has been.
Ah, OK.
It just seemed weird to me because, you know, at the station, when you're broadcasting over
the air, you want to be able to prevent people saying things that would get the station in
trouble. Right. And we can at the station.
But you're not you're not broadcasting.
Yeah, well, obviously.
But we can't control the delay system remotely.
We can control the delay system when we're at the station.
But, you know, if somebody were to say something, then we'd have seven seconds to wait
for it to go out over the air.
But we wouldn't be able to stop it unless, of course, we have an engineer in the studio
that is basically hanging on our every word.
And we'll be able to judge that and censor it in time.
It's a lot, you know, it's more complicated than it needs to be.
OK, well, you know, that's interesting to learn about.
Mm hmm. What we're we're here to like to share information, 20 seconds rather than seven.
Well, that's what you're listening on the on the Internet now.
So that could take even longer.
And we listen. We want to open up the phones to two more people.
Thank you for calling in and and best of luck.
So we were talking about the the the case again, our phone number 802-321-4225.
Yes, long distance charges may apply if if you're in the 1980s with Verizon or something
like that. No, they didn't exist back then.
But we're talking about the the case with surveillance cameras that was revealed a couple
of weeks ago. Alex, this is a Swiss national who's been indicted.
Does that is that going to affect that?
Can they can they be brought to this country?
Possibly, because the first battle here is going to be a battle over extradition.
You have the indictment in the Western District of Washington and the U.S.
government and the Department of Justice is going to have to make a case over to the Swiss
authorities that Tilly, a foreign national, should be extradited to the United States to face
these charges. And why is it the Western District of Washington?
Well, apparently that's where the situs of some of the crime happened or some of the
acts that gave rise to the the CFAA case, that a lot of that case were actually
occurred. I don't know exactly what the jurisdictional nexus is to the Western District
of Washington, but that's where the case is brought.
So it could it could it be, you know, that's where Microsoft, that's where Amazon, that's
where all these companies are.
That's true. Yeah, a lot of their systems, a lot of the data centers there in Kent and all
over, all over South Southern downtown and up in Redmond, obviously.
But that whole Western part of the state has a lot of infrastructure that's important to
those companies, as does California and New York.
You know, big cities tend to attract that kind of business these days.
OK, we have another phone call. Let's let's go back to the phones.
Good evening. You're on off the hook.
Go ahead. Hi, how are you?
Good. How you doing? Pretty good.
I had a question about the contest that was run about 11 years ago for the Next Hope.
A contest 11 years ago?
Boy, you're a late entry.
What's the question? Oh, no, I won.
Oh, you won. Well, congratulations.
I won.
Wow. Well, that's great.
I hope you you benefited from that.
What did what did we ask you to do and what did you do?
It was effectively an Internet scavenger hunt.
OK, we've done some of those.
Uh huh. Uh huh.
Yeah. And the prize, which from what I remember on the show at the time, only 30 people made it.
So it was an Internet scavenger hunt.
The prize was a private Facebook group that we don't really use.
OK, that was the prize of a private.
That's not a good prize.
I didn't make the contest.
Uh huh. Well, it may not have been us directly either.
So we'll have to check on that.
Is that really that was what you're I don't remember.
This is group still accessible.
And what do you talk about?
And how crappy the prize was?
I don't remember.
I don't remember.
Is group still accessible?
And what do you talk about?
And how crappy the prize was?
I don't think so.
The group is accessible, but I don't think anyone talks.
No, it was it was one of the hacked websites that you did.
And you had to go into the source code and then you had to find capitals of countries, Georgia specifically.
Then you had to dial automated a line and not leave a message.
Listen to this reverse speech.
It was excellent.
We did this.
Wow.
I'm impressed.
I kind of vaguely remember this, but this was a very long time ago.
This was it was April 1st, 2010.
Sure.
Sure.
We did on April 1st to you.
Well, because at the time you were either redirecting your site to like, let's say the FBI.
You're attacking it in general.
I think we had an ice an ice page up.
We've done things like that for sure.
And what I remembered was it was a 24 hour period in well, at least Eastern Standard Time that you had to to complete all of the tasks.
And I heard there were hundreds of entries, but only 30 people won.
You know what?
I think I remember this.
Were there were there allusions to the TV program Lost in it?
Were you that I don't know because I didn't I didn't watch Lost.
So I wasn't sure.
Uh-huh.
Well, did you get different emails saying you are a candidate or something like that?
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah, I do remember this now.
Yeah.
Yeah, I remember that.
But I don't remember the details.
But that's that's that's really awesome.
All the details either, but it was it was just entertaining to have that.
Well, we're glad we can entertain people.
That's that's always awesome to be able to do that.
And I just asked what made you think of this?
Yeah, why now?
Well, I why I am a frequent listener subscriber and all of that.
So I just figured I don't really call into radio shows because it makes me
nervous, but I figured the internet is less so.
Yeah, this isn't technically a radio show anymore.
So you don't have to be nervous.
Well, that's yeah, that's true.
Yeah, but I just thought of it and then and I the reason I thought of the past
was because you were doing the I guess the phone messages that you corrected
the the audio with it.
So I figured it was just something else to mention.
Yeah, that's great.
No, thanks for the memory and bringing bringing our own puzzles back to us.
We love doing that kind of stuff, especially around of course, April 1st,
but then the event itself.
We've done all kinds of different puzzles.
Holy crap.
April 1st is around the corner.
Don't worry about it.
We'll get to that.
It's we have nothing planned Kyle.
Well, we always have to do something.
People can write us.
They can always email OTH at 2600.com.
If you have an idea for what we can do for April 1st to spread cheer and joy
throughout the world, please email us OTH at 2600.com.
Caller, what part of the world are you based in?
Well, just over the river.
I'm in Jersey.
Oh Jersey.
How is Jersey doing throughout this dark period?
Well, they stopped banging pops at about 8 o'clock.
Remember that?
That was about a month.
I thought it was 7 o'clock.
Maybe that's why everybody gave me dirty looks.
Here.
It was a different time.
Oh, so it was 8 in Jersey.
It was 7 in New York.
New Jersey can never agree on anything.
Okay.
Well, why should they agree on that?
I occasionally send you guys notes when you're not on the air.
Oh, okay.
So we've corresponded.
All right.
And how have you fared?
I've had COVID twice.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Hold on.
So you've had COVID twice?
I don't think I've talked to anybody who's had COVID twice.
Jeez Louise.
How do you manage that?
Well, the first time I couldn't get a test because no one could at that
time.
That was the end of March a year ago.
And then the second time I was diagnosed in January of this year and
they gave me a course of steroids and things of that nature.
And then I ended up in the hospital two weeks later with a high heart
rate and things of that nature.
But they treated me and I'm doing well, but I actually can't get a
vaccine until May because they want me to wait from having COVID to
getting the vaccine.
Right.
Yeah, I've heard that from a few people.
It does make sense.
But the important thing is that you get that vaccine when it's time
for you to do that.
Yeah, my wife has already gotten her first shot.
Okay.
Do you know how you were exposed?
I don't actually.
I mean, I'm the only one who leaves the apartment usually because I
have a manual.
So I drive around in that so I get the groceries and things like that.
So that's probably how I did it.
But you were wearing masks the whole time.
I would imagine, right?
Of course.
Yes.
Well, I don't use my Hope mask, but I do have it.
Yeah, I wouldn't use the Hope mask as your only mask.
That's like a decorative mask.
But yeah, we've been wearing two masks the whole time and, you know,
I got an antibody test before I got my vaccine and I came out negative,
which is good.
So that means something must have worked.
But it's really something to hear when someone's been through this
twice and actually was hospitalized.
But you sound great.
You sound like you really are making it through this and I just hope
the day comes where we can all be in attendance at a conference in
person together.
That would be excellent.
All right.
Well, congratulations on being one of the winners of the conference
11 years ago or the contest and please stay in touch and send us
whatever you come across.
Maybe the Facebook group can become a puzzle team for the next
one or something.
Yeah, we'll see.
That would work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm trying to remember more of this.
Thank you again for your call.
Thank you.
Take care.
Wow.
Interesting call, huh?
Yeah, that's amazing that the caller has had COVID twice and, you
know, I'm glad they're still okay and, you know, quit hogging the
pandemic, save some for other people.
But no, please don't do that.
The thing is you can still get COVID folks.
It's not too late.
You can still get it.
It's it's very possible and especially if you don't take precautions
not that this person didn't take precautions.
It happened to people who do take precautions, but for those people
down in Florida and Texas and other places, it's just it makes me
so angry because all the work that people are doing around the
world.
It's for not if there are people who ignore that or or or minimize
it, you know, the the president of of Tanzania recently died a
COVID denier.
He died of COVID.
You know that says it all how many idiotic leaders have we seen
over the past couple of years that have have tried to minimize
the danger and have put their own people at risk and are responsible
for thousands tens hundreds of thousands of people dying and
certainly getting sick.
You know, I like to think that we've learned something and we're
moving forward, but then I see what's going on and some of these
states and it really you know, it makes me sad and angry and if
we don't get back to normal this this year, that's why that's why
it's not for the scientists not trying their best.
It's not for people who are taking precautions.
It's for those who think there's a conspiracy around every corner
or that they're being lied to or that they're somehow able to not
be affected by a disease.
It's it's crazy.
Yeah, and uncooperative.
Could you check the telephone lines for us?
Let's see.
We think that might be a call.
I don't know.
I didn't drop it.
Let's see if someone's there.
Otherwise, I'll drop this.
All right.
Is anybody there?
Oh, there was somebody there.
Yes.
Go ahead.
Wait.
Where you coming from?
Hi, I'm calling from New York.
I'm stuck in the city, but I enjoy listening to your show on Wednesday,
but I had two questions for you one that's like stuck in the back of my
head and the other one was something Alex said earlier about mixing up
your data and I was wondering how he would suggest doing that and then
my second question for you is about children.
So I see everyone posting their children on Instagram on Facebook.
They're creating individual profiles for them.
And so I'm wondering if you guys think that they're creating like almost
artificial profiles for these kids and that by the time they're 18, they'll
have like in-depth, I guess like social profiles.
Alex.
I'm going to let you take this one.
Yeah, sure.
I mean, I think the first question that the caller had asked was about
poisoning one's own data set.
I think that, you know, for a lot of people we've had social media
accounts going back to as far back as 2006, right?
You know talking about 15 years ago.
I think we're some of the earliest Facebook accounts.
And so that's a lot of data.
That's a massive amount of data.
If you were actually to download that data and print it out, it would be a
hugely voluminous amount of data more than any intelligence agency on the
planet would ever compile in a dossier about you.
So just in terms of privacy and the psychology about which these companies
have been compiling data is really, it's through the roof.
And so how do we get control of that data again?
How do we do that?
I mean, how do we make this data not relevant to advertisers?
You know, you can opt out of targeted advertising, but there's still a huge
amount of data that's going to be collected about you based on where your
phone is, what apps you're using.
And basically anything you do on your phone can be logged.
So taking that data and taking external data, putting it into that data set,
that data or that data subset is going to change your profile.
So, you know, let's say you have a whole bunch of bogus Amazon emails coming
into your Gmail account that are talking about the purchasing of adult
diapers, let's just say, right?
That might not jive with the profile that the social media companies or any
of these targeted advertisers have about you being, let's say, somebody in
your early 30s or in your 20s or in fact having children, you know.
So there's lots of different ways that you can trick them into making that
data not as useful as it was in the past.
And I think that there will probably be more technological means to do this
on a more massive scale coming forward over the next few years.
And that's especially, I think, if these technology companies and social
media platforms resist regulation or resist any kind of oversight and also
refuse to acknowledge liability for certain things like causing an
insurrection or massive amounts of misinformation and deceptive advertising
during perhaps the 2016 election.
So that's, you know, the first question about poisoning the data set.
The second question, I think, was about children and putting the faces of
children online.
I do have a great amount of pause and I think that's an extraordinarily
interesting question as well because I have two children and I've only ever
put one of their faces on social media.
And I think it's for the exact reasons that you said, Collar, which is that
we don't want to have our children out there on social media and have their
faces recognized by these algorithms before they even have a social media
account.
And, you know, there are a massive amount of data scrapers that go out and
look for publicly available pictures, information, perform facial recognition.
They may be creating, well, it's not maybe, they certainly are.
There are companies that are creating huge databases of facial recognition
data that are then sold to government agencies, law enforcement, and quite
likely other foreign countries as well.
And if you think about, you know, let's say, you know, my seven-year-old son
who maybe at one point later on in his life will become some kind of political
activist or any of us really, you know, let's say we want to, you know, work
with human rights first and trying to combat the terrible treatment that
China is perpetuating with respect to the Uyghurs, but yet you may have to
travel to China for business for one particular reason or another.
Having your face out there on social media is going to allow you to be
tracked. And so there are a lot of implications, I think, when it comes to
who you are, what you do, where you can be tracked, and your reasonable
expectations of privacy.
And I think that as well, you know, children, when I grew up in the
seventies and the eighties, we had a different conception of privacy.
We had a different conception of what it meant to have a reasonable
expectation of privacy. My seven-year-old son notices surveillance
cameras when we go into stores, and that's just part of his life, and he
loves to point them out and find where they are.
He's got a hacker mentality just like me.
But growing up with surveillance cameras all around you definitely
changes what you believe to be your reasonable expectation of privacy.
And I think it detracts from one's life in a great sense, too, because
when I was a kid growing up, I'd get away with a lot of stuff.
I knew I wasn't being watched all the time.
I knew I wasn't being tracked all the time.
And so I think it really, it curtails your freedom.
It curtails your sense of adventure as well.
Yeah, and the biggest things that I think about with this sort of thing
are the fact that so many of these social media sites, well, first, it's
in their terms of service that if you're below a certain age, you're not
supposed to be using the service.
And so when parents are okay with it and do it anyway, that's a
decision that you're making for your child before your child is informed
enough and of a maturity level to make that decision for themself.
And there are so many things that, like, as Alex said, my generation
of kids could get away with, could do, and then have forgotten as part
of the mistakes you make when you're growing up that just aren't
possible now.
And I know there are so many things that I am glad there was not the
modern social media sphere or the modern web around when I did them
because I was able to grow and learn from these things without having
it permanently archived somewhere that comes up every time I'm in a
job interview.
So there's that whole angle to this sort of thing where you are
putting something out there that you no longer control.
Anybody can archive it.
Anybody can copy it.
Anybody can feed it through whatever systems, whatever
algorithms to further identify and track your child.
And I'm saying that is really a decision, I believe, that is best
made by the person involved, by the kid when they're old enough to
make the decision.
And I would agree with that.
I also think that, you know, I've got friends who started Facebook
pages for their children when their children were named.
So sometimes these kids have Facebook pages before they're even extant,
which also just weirds me out on a personal level.
But, you know, when you have a picture, like you're going to hand this
child a Facebook profile when they are old enough to manage it on their
own, and that also just terrifies me.
I mean, if you want to document your child's growth, I think a photo
album might be a nice option, perhaps better than a Facebook page.
At the other end of it, when my brother and sister-in-law had a child,
they embargoed us from putting the child on social media, and they
actually both deactivated all their social media accounts.
So, you know, our baby nephew does not exist in social media, which is
kind of amazing.
Good for him.
Yeah.
And there are still ways that you can do, like digitally document this
kid's life for the family, as you would in a photo album, as you would
to share with your relatives, the people in your child's life.
There are ways to do that on a private level without putting it out there
through some social media companies that have all sorts of
things in mind to do with that data.
And the game is kind of stacked against you, even to just take a
private photo, because a lot of people are using smartphones to take
the photos in the first place that can often be connected with a
service or something external to the device that you're capturing that
memory on.
And so just even having stuff privately, it's in keeping it secure for
your family is a task in and of itself.
So there's as many strategies as you can think of, and I think it's up
to parents individually to come up with a something suitable that
they're comfortable with.
And also just allowing young people to gravitate towards that stuff
on their own.
I think as much as our generation was given as far as opportunities,
like we didn't have as much of this pervasive surveillance capitalism
when we were coming of age, and then when this stuff was available,
we were probably old enough to adopt it or not, or choose how we use
it. Where you're doing this, as Gia talked about, and we were saying
before there are actually little people yet, it just completely hijacks
their ability to curate that identity.
And I would qualify that by pointing out on the flip side, just how
much pressure there is at ever younger ages for them to curate a
social media profile.
In other words, their concepts of success nowadays are, I have to be
an influencer.
I have to be a young child athlete.
I have to be excellent at this and have all these followers and be
really skilled.
And there's so, so much pressure already on young people to then
have a psychotic social media platform.
They're taunting them with their insecurities and what
their peers are doing better, I think is a certain kind of hell that
you're indenturing them to.
I had so much trouble with bullies when I was growing up.
I can't even imagine how I would fit in cyberbullying as well.
You know, what kids have to deal with these days, we should always
celebrate when they rebel against this.
When they say, I don't want to be on Facebook.
I don't want a social media profile.
I don't care about influencing.
You know, this is not for me.
I just want to go out and play ball or something.
And one last thing is with video games and with all these technologies,
I saw something the World Health Organization put out recently, and I
think other groups would advocate this, is that young people need
experienced guides when they're using technology, including video
games, including the internet.
They need people there who are older, who know the technology, parents,
you know, other role models and influencers in their lives that can
help them make sense of all the good influencers, not the stupid
influencers.
That's up to parents.
They've ruined that word.
That word is destroyed for me.
I don't mean influencer.
I mean role model.
But a role model that can also appreciate kids
doing their own thing and going in a totally different direction.
I appreciate that.
I know there's a word.
There's a chaperone.
But yeah, someone that can let them explore, but be there to help
interpret.
Caller, have we begun to address some of your concerns or questions?
Beautifully, yes.
No, but the kids on Instagram really, it's haunting because my
parents never had social media, never posted a picture of me.
They show pictures of me to everyone, naked pictures, which I didn't
appreciate when I was like 10, but I couldn't imagine waking up and
seeing them on Facebook one day.
And a lot of them are like babies being washed or getting dressed
up.
I mean, I have friends and I've watched their children grow up from
like day one to like five and I know everything about them.
So it's scary.
It's uncharted waters.
This is a type of voyeurism that we really have not explored.
We don't really know the impact of it and it's sort of this
ongoing experiment.
We want to share, you know, these milestones in our kids' lives, but
I think we've forgotten how to share with the people we want to share
with and not the entire damn world.
Then it becomes a popularity contest and it becomes an invasion of
privacy and it's a complete disservice to the children.
Go ahead, Rob.
There's also the angle where these social media companies, they're
advertising companies.
They're powered by advertising and if you put a child in front of it,
that child has the most powerful advertising machines in the world
pointed at their heads every time they're sitting in front of that
app, in front of that site.
So like before a child is old enough to have developed a proper sense
of, say, media literacy or awareness of what the advertising environment
is trying to do to them and, you know, how to survive that with
their, you know, agency intact.
You're putting your kid in front of Facebook's ad algorithms,
Twitter's ad algorithms and having their not-yet-completely-formed
brains being bombarded by that level of high-intensity advertising.
And that's another whole angle, like the effect on the health of a child.
So you just ask us one question and we'll just go forever.
Okay.
Well, thanks for your call and keep listening.
Thanks, guys.
Have a good night.
Take care.
I guess maybe one more call if we have time for it.
802-321-4225, because what time do we lose our satellite window?
10 o'clock?
Yeah, we have a weather warning.
We have a call, by the way.
Yeah.
So, wow, we've been going for a good 50 minutes.
Yeah, I mean, it's great, you know.
I like talking to listeners.
Really eclectic.
Got nothing else to do.
I just have a toothache here.
And Rob Gila, how are you doing with your shots there?
Starting to kick in?
A little bit.
It's mostly just being really low energy, which I'm sure none of you even noticed the difference.
But no, my arm kind of hurts.
But, you know, beyond that, we're okay for now.
Apparently, it's going to kick our ass tomorrow.
We'll see.
I thought you might be asleep.
That's why I asked.
You know, so I think maybe it's starting to hit you a little bit, but we'll see.
A little bit.
All right.
Let's see who's on the line.
Good evening.
You're on Off The Hook.
Hey, how are you doing, everybody?
How are you doing?
What's up?
Thank you.
Thank you guys for, you know, keeping the show going the extra hour.
I know it's a lot of extra work for you guys, but, you know, really appreciate hearing you.
Well, we enjoy talking to our listeners, and this is the way to do it.
Yeah, thanks for listening.
Cool.
So, hey, how about this?
Real quick, I just came up with this.
Instead of influencer, influencer.
Yeah, I mean, it's viral, that's for sure.
I mean, like, caretaker.
I know there's a word.
It just seemed, I'm not, I don't know.
Yeah, we do need more words.
I did want to bring up, well, real quick about poisoning the data set.
I have a friend who's, she's been doing this forever.
Every time she orders something from a store, she'll change, you know, the first name or the last name, or she'll put, you know, male instead of female.
Like, every time she signs up for things, she changes it just slightly, and she's been onto this forever.
I've been like, oh, this is the smartest thing to do, because if they're collecting data, and it's big data, just make it dirty.
Makes it wacky.
It messes everything up.
And you also find out who they're sharing with, because if that name shows up somewhere else, you know, where'd they get it from?
Right.
Yes.
Yeah, you can track it.
It's like, like, cookies.
Wait, is it, like, your cookies?
Pretty much, yeah.
You're, like, leaving little crumbs for your-
Homemade cookies.
Yeah, little digital cookie crumbs for yourself.
Like, we need to have our own cookies.
I just wanted to follow up on something that kept coming up on a caller was calling in the last couple weeks and talking about the car data and stuff.
And there was, I just wanted to, you know, put out there was an article in Ars Technica this week, or the last week, a company called Ulysses.
And they, you know, they say that they can get the location in real time of every car in America by 2025 or whatever.
I was kind of curious about the, I think it was, like, 2007.
There's, like, this Wi-Fi thing that, like, is required in your car to, so that your tires can tell the car when they're out of air.
And then every car after that has that.
And I was just wondering if you guys know more about that.
I've heard rumors of something-
I know it's kind of actually late in the show.
I've heard rumors of something like that.
I've heard of that being developed.
I'm not sure if such a thing actually exists.
What it might be doing is sharing the same spectrum, but using a specific frequency.
In other words, 802.11, like that, 2 gigahertz or 5 gigahertz band might be something that's, because it's public, the auto manufacturers could take advantage of that.
But that's kind of dynamic and changing itself now, since so much of the infotainment and controls and sensors are evolving and becoming ever more sophisticated.
So they could have sort of let go of that, maybe only a specific batch of years.
But I'm not 100% sure about that.
Alex, you seem to have perked up.
Do you have some information on this?
Not anymore.
I think Kyle had just relayed.
But I would assume that it would be something like that.
And perhaps it would have something to do with cars passing by certain types of public infrastructure with that type of wireless technology.
And then there may be some kind of private-public partnership to sell that data or release that data.
Or perhaps, and I think this is something that we're going to see more of in the future as well.
And I would like to see more of it as well, because it increases accountability and transparency.
But the whole concept of a data escrow, where this particular type of data may be available to the public for certain types of uses.
And it would be out in escrow or some sort of data trust, so that if you can demonstrate to the trust that you have a legitimate non-law enforcement, non-privacy invasive use for this particular type of data, you may be able to access something like that.
So I see that infrastructure and government will probably be tracking a lot more when it comes to cars, trucks, any kind of devices passing through it.
Because as our caller from a couple of weeks ago noted, I think very well, the main reasoning behind this is to charge us more for the type of infrastructure that we use.
So there's a very, very much a vested interest in trying to track where we go and what we use and what roads we use frequently or tolls we pass by most, because then they can tax us more about this for that particular use.
But Alex, don't you think it's mostly so that they can track us period, whether or not they charging us for the privilege, the fact that they're able to know where we go, where we are pretty much at all times, and that there's not much of a way to get out of it for people without imagination?
Oh, of course. I mean, the privacy implications of this are absolutely huge.
And that's why I fear for these types of public private projects that don't have a lot of transparency or any kind of third party stewardship to make sure that they are doing the right thing and respecting privacy, the privacy of citizens who may unknowingly be giving this data away.
And that's why I think some kind of data escrow or some kind of data trust for this type of public data or data that our governments are collecting would be a much better fit than than a private contract.
I just want to add there's going to be real importance for these schemes to be interoperable.
And as you're insinuating relatively secure, like taking care of people's stuff and the reason that may have fallen out if it was used for like tire pressure stuff is the security environment itself was sort of evolving and there wasn't something standardized that may have very well have been a way people could have accessed the vehicle network itself.
There were all there are all kinds of documented cases.
I know there was one case of cars could be broken into by removing the rearview mirror and accessing the CAN bus or some aspect of the car's computer to unlock it.
And I just want to mention for people that are interested in some of the future stuff that is going to make that is really on a lot of vehicles now is it's V2X vehicle to everything communication.
And the standard is 802.11p and it uses two types as far as I can read is WLAN or wireless LAN based as well as cellular based and this is all the kind of cool stuff that's going to come down as far as, you know, vehicles knowing where other vehicles are to kind of help with autonomous operating systems on each vehicle so that it can send something.
And then send out messages to other vehicles and they're really trying to codify this specifically the National Highway Transportation groups in the US because there is a predicted reduction in traffic accidents.
There's all kinds of advantages to this going forward as we become more populous and busy out there.
But it is yet to really be across the board. I mean, you have whole ages of cars, lots of different technologies out there, so it wouldn't be surprising if one particular model leaks stuff like this and so we have to kind of share as much as we can about them so I'm really glad you brought that up.
Cool. Yeah, it's been an issue that's kept coming up on the show test couple weeks and I just saw the article I figured I'd bring it up. I also want to say on the way out just the Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling.
If anyone hasn't, you know, listeners haven't read it that totally like hundreds of pages on the night lightning case and all that stuff. It's like the greatest.
I love that book. I read that book before I actually ever even had a computer and I think I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that that book was so inspiring to me that I tracked down Bruce Sterling, the author of it, and I think it was 1994 or might have even been 1993 ruined his Thanksgiving. We've heard the story so many times that I'm sure he remembers.
I think at the time the book was was still under his copyright. I think he has released it to the public domain and and so anybody can can find it online can download it can get the PDF. Perhaps we can even maybe tweet something out about that book.
I think that's the book where he referred to me as a dissident and it's one of the nicest things anyone's ever said about me.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In three syllables for sure.
Absolutely. Well caller. Thank you for for your call and keep listening.
Thank you guys. The show is great. Thank you.
Thank you. Take care.
Well, that's that's going to do it for calls, I think, because it's after nine o'clock now.
Eastern time, not for the first time off the hook. Overtime is longer than off the hook.
Imagine that. Does that happen often with baseball games ago?
Twenty five innings or, you know, when hockey used to have overtime instead of that stupid shootout thing.
They they used to have long games.
All right. Well, then I've disabled the telephones.
Phone has been disabled. It has been disabled.
But you can still write to us.
O.T.H. at 2600 dot com that we don't we don't take that down.
Do we? No, we don't.
Yeah. And again, we're not going to be on next week because we're preempted.
There's a special report to the listener, which would be interesting to hear on WBAI.
But then we're on for five consecutive weeks.
And and that's that's that's good to look forward to.
Well, that's great. Well, my legs are getting tired.
But, you know, thanks to everybody who called in made off off the hook overtime.
What it was tonight.
Yes. We will see you in a couple of weeks.
Please get that vaccine if you have the opportunity to get the vaccine.
If you can help other people get appointments, please do that.
Try and stop the misinformation from being spread around.
And we'll get through this.
We're in better shape than we were.
And we're making progress.
And it's through through efforts of people like you.
So please, dear listeners, keep it up.
And Rob, I hope you I hope you feel feel good that the second shot doesn't affect you too badly.
Thank you. God willing. Likewise for you.
I want my toothache. My toothache goes away just in time for me to get the ache from the second shot.
And I hope everybody else qualifies as soon as possible and is able to do that.
Interesting period of time we're living through.
But we're going to make it. We're going to get through this.
Stay curious, y'all. Yeah.
All right. See you in a couple of weeks.
Good night.