positions please find the 2021 bylaws voter guide at elections.pacifica.org
the previous program was economic update with richard wolf heard wednesdays at 6 30 p.m right
after the wbai evening news stay tuned for off the hook it is now 7 p.m and this is radio station
wbai new york located in the middle of the fm dial 99.5 fm it's seven o'clock it's wednesday
it's time for off the hook
but if they could they would
so
And a very good intro to the program is off the hook, Emmanuel Goldstein here with you,
joined tonight by Kyle.
Hello.
Alex, where'd you go?
There he is.
Okay.
I'm looking at an empty chair.
Alex, welcome back to your chair.
Good evening.
Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
And Gila.
Good evening.
Well, I'm glad we're all here.
You know what a week from the day after tomorrow is?
Anybody care to guess?
Gila, it looks like you know.
No?
Yeah, no.
A week from the day after tomorrow is July 1st.
Well, no, actually it's July 2nd.
But that's okay.
Oh, right.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Because June doesn't count.
No, it doesn't.
But no, it's a week from the day after tomorrow is a week from Friday, and that would be the
first Friday of July, the first Friday of the month being traditionally the day that
2600 meetings happen but have not happened for the past 15 months or so because of this
damn pandemic.
But we are starting tentatively to have meetings again beginning with July 2nd.
We have heard from a few meetings that we'll be starting up.
I think we're going to have maybe half a dozen, far cry from what we have had in the past,
obviously.
But what we're doing is we're having meetings in places where the vaccination rate, where
people are completely vaccinated at a level of 40% or above.
So while the United States qualifies, we're at like 45%, New York qualifies, a bunch of
places don't, however, and it's for everyone's safety that we have to have some line that
we don't cross.
So if you've reached out to us, we will get back to you.
You can go to 2600.com and go to the meeting section.
I think, yeah, 2600.com slash meetings will get you there.
You can email meetings at 2600.com.
You can tweet to 2600 meetings.
But basically we will begin phasing them in starting next, a week from this coming Friday.
And we're only going to be adding the meetings that we have contact with.
We won't be automatically re-adding your meeting if nobody says anything to us.
So we're starting from scratch.
So it's going to look like we have only a handful because we only will have a handful,
but it will build from there.
And again, if you're in a place where it's below 40% of fully vaccinated people in the
population, don't fret.
You'll get there eventually, but we can't have meetings safely until we reach that particular
plateau, that level.
Any questions from our in-studio audience?
Rob?
Just a point of clarification for those of us in the New York City area who would like
to go to the New York City meeting.
And that is that we have still not completely nailed down the location.
We are going right up to the line with this, but it's a matter of just confirming that
a place that is available for us to get to will be open and functioning as a public space.
So we've got some more phone calls and people to pester and get some answers, but keep an
eye on NYC2600.net or NYC2600 on Twitter for updates on that.
Just to give an example as to how even-handed we are applying this policy, the New York
City meeting will not be listed if we don't hear back from them as far as where this is
going to be in a certain amount of time before that Friday comes.
What I suggest, Rob, though, is I know that we're dealing with, well, the Citigroup Center
is where we originally were.
They're renovating.
We moved over to the atrium half a block away.
Now apparently they're renovating.
Has it been verified that they are renovating?
In fact, because I went to their website, I didn't see any mention of it.
It's been verified in person that they're still renovating.
It's not known if they're going to be open in any capacity by the time we need them.
Well, here's what I suggest.
If they're renovating, you all can meet outside in that little courtyard area.
It's safer, actually, to be outside than inside for those people that are concerned about
lingering viruses.
That's just a good starting point anyway.
If that's the information that we have to go on, we're happy to spread that information
around, too.
That goes for any meeting, too.
It does not have to be in the place that it was at before.
It can be outdoors.
We encourage that.
It can be someplace else, perhaps more spacious.
It can be in a whole different place.
It can be a whole different meeting, too.
If you're starting a new meeting, you're welcome to contact us as well with that information,
and we'll treat you as if you had a meeting for 20 years.
It's not a big deal.
On the issue of vaccinations, we obviously prefer people who are vaccinated come to the
meetings, but we are not going to be asking for any kind of proof of that, and neither
will anybody else at the meetings.
The reason for that is nobody runs the meetings.
The meetings run themselves.
Nobody is in charge.
Nobody is going to come up to you and demand to see your ID or any kind of information
that proves that you're vaccinated.
We ask that you do the responsible thing and only come to a gathering of people while the
pandemic is still raging across the planet if you're vaccinated.
If you're not, wait until it completely goes away or until you decide to get vaccinated.
I don't think we can be any fairer than that.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I think that's completely fair.
Also, it's a fact of the meetings that they take place in a publicly accessible space
where you don't need permission to be as such.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a good point, Rob, because some meetings do take place in hacker spaces which can have
their own rules.
We kind of turn a blind eye to that.
We prefer that they be in public places because of exactly this kind of thing where there
is nobody in charge.
If you put it in a hacker space, well, then people are in charge because there are people
in charge of the hacker space.
It's kind of an uneasy balance, but it's worked up until now.
I'm worried that there might be some issues.
Let's try and focus on public places as much as possible so people feel comfortable and
so that we are introduced to more new people, hopefully, too.
Again, 2600.com slash meetings, 2600 meetings on Twitter, email meetings at 2600.com.
We'll talk about it more next week.
The whole point is to be able to meet and come back and meet regularly.
We don't want to have anyone feel unwell or uncomfortable.
If you are unsure or want to take precautions, do that, too, just as you would ordinarily
in a public space right now, depending, of course, on your region and area.
If you want to wear a mask, that's fine.
That's perfectly okay.
I know many places now are saying you don't have to wear a mask, but whatever you're comfortable
with, that's the important thing.
We're only having meetings in places where it's been deemed safe to meet with people
without a mask on.
That's perfectly acceptable as well, but again, that's 40%.
We have to maintain that, and we'll keep an eye on what's happening, and hopefully this
is a step back towards normalcy, and we'll see what happens in the months ahead as we
prepare for Hope next year and all kinds of other things, but I'm encouraged.
I'm encouraged where we are.
The country won't hit 70% of at least one shot by July 4th, apparently, which is a shame.
We should be able to do that.
It's not that difficult, and I think especially young people, if you're out there and you're
hesitating, you really ought to make the move and do what's right because while you might
be able to get through this easier than older people, you still could infect older people
who are not vaccinated for one reason or another or even people who are vaccinated because
it is only about, what, 90%, 94%?
That means there is a percentage where it's not effective.
If we all do the responsible thing, we will get through this a lot quicker.
Yes, Alex.
On that note, I don't know if you guys saw this because you're not in the city all the
time and certainly haven't been out that regularly.
You don't know where we are.
You do not know where we are.
Oh, I do know where you are.
Yeah, turn around.
Yeah.
Turn around?
Yeah, turn around.
That's what you just said.
Hi there.
Okay.
There we are.
But you don't know where we are.
I mean, you really don't.
But go ahead.
I guess.
That could just be a background, a familiar background, one of these pseudo-Zoom backgrounds
or something.
Take nothing for granted.
We've learned a few things in the last— We've gotten really good at some things.
Yeah.
The last couple of weeks, couple of months.
Well, that's good.
You strive to be a lifelong learner.
I'm glad for both of you on that front.
In any event, what I wanted to say was I got an interesting text message today from the
City of New York about vaccines.
Apparently, I signed up for this COVID email— not email, text messaging list last year when
things were going crazy.
But now, apparently, anybody, any resident of the City of New York can request an at-home
vaccination appointment.
You can just call up and somebody comes to your house and vaccinates you.
What's more is you get to choose whatever vaccine you want.
Oh, neat.
Wow.
Pfizer, Moderna, or Johnson & Johnson.
You can specify.
It's just pretty awesome.
Is this only in New York City or is this throughout New York or throughout the country?
I think it's only the City of New York, unfortunately.
Well, this is great for people who are shut-ins or people who can't get away for one reason
or another.
Kiela?
But now, if you can order your shot, will they bring you a sandwich too?
No.
That didn't take long, did it?
I feel like this is an ice cream truck sort of territory.
I just hope that we don't see a prevalence of vaxxing.
You know what I mean?
Where it looks like swatting, where you send a vax team out to somebody who doesn't want
it and they have to deal— no, why do I think about this immediately?
But I just hope they have some security precautions that prove that you are, in fact, the person
requesting this.
Otherwise, it could get very unpleasant very quickly.
Well, it could.
There is supposed to be a confirmation phone call that is given to the person who is going
to be potentially vaxxed in order to confirm dates.
And it does seem like they're anticipating some kind of backlog for this because they
said it may take a couple of weeks after you fill out the form online in order for somebody
to call you back.
But I guess the way around this from a security perspective, though, would be if you were
going to vax somebody like you were swatting somebody, you would probably provide a bogus
Google number that belonged to you and not to the other person that you were vaxxing,
so to speak.
Yeah.
So that really wouldn't do much good, would it?
Because they verify the number that you give them and, of course, that's going to work
out.
You should really—
That's right.
I would focus on doing this for people that are just basically having trouble with the
process itself and actually do want help with it.
It just seems like a lot of work.
I guess if somebody visits a house with a vaccine, it's not the worst thing in the world.
It's just a waste.
But please, people, don't do that.
They're perishable, I think.
They're perishable.
Well, yeah.
But I mean, it's better than having a team of armed men kick down your door because it's
harder to back out of that gracefully and get on with your lives.
So yeah, this is a good thing, and hopefully it spreads throughout the country and people
are able to get vaccines delivered to them if they're not able to go out and get them
themselves.
It's a pretty good idea, I think.
Yes, go ahead, Gila.
I was going to say that the whole thing is fantastic.
I was just looking at the sign-up form, which says we're going to forward this information
to all the various city organizations, the departments that are going to coordinate on
this.
So it may take a few weeks for you to get a phone call.
So if you tried to set this up for someone else, besides all the fail-safes, I think
it would just be a very sort of delayed prank.
Well, you'd have to play the long game on this.
You really do.
You really, really do.
Okay, I'll stop thinking the worst of people and just assume that everyone is going to
be responsible.
Why?
Why am I doing this again?
I always get disappointed whenever I do this.
Fingers crossed.
I hope it works out.
I hope more people get vaccinated.
I hope we reach that 70% and we get on with this already.
That's my hope.
Alex, did you have something?
Yeah, this gives me, I think, a great hope, especially walking around the city and walking
around Manhattan over this past week has been really incredible, too, because there are
just so many people out on the streets again.
And a lot of people outside, I would say most of them aren't wearing masks right now.
We've got a lot of people that are vaccinated still going inside stores and whatnot.
People should be wearing masks.
But the city on the whole, I think, feels like an entirely different place than it did
six months ago.
And it's in large part because of the vaccination efforts that have been happening.
But it's exclusively.
What else could it be?
Obviously, that's the reason why it's now safe to walk around.
And it is safe to go in places without masks, depending on what their policy is, depending
on where you are in the country, because I've seen a number of places that are allowing
that now.
So it's you know, I was in the supermarket the other day and it's only a couple of people
wearing masks.
And I think if you if you're not vaccinated, the responsible thing to do is continue wearing
a mask.
And if you're not.
Well, it seems like it might be OK inside and it is certainly OK outside.
In terms of progress, though, I mean, again, this is just incredibly great hope, because
remember, just a few short months ago on this very program, we were talking about some of
the domains that I had identified that were promoting at home vaccination for a fee that
were entirely 100 percent scams.
Now here we are dealing with at home vaccinations for residents of the city of New York.
And that's that's the reality of all of this.
We've come a huge way in a very few short number of months.
And I think this is a this is a pretty amazing feat for the for the city of New York to have
accomplished.
Well, what are the domains that were scams?
What are they doing now?
Because it's no longer a scam.
So I feel bad for them.
What are they what do they have on their websites?
Well, we'll have to take a look at those again.
I don't remember them off the top of my head, but if I can find some of them during the
show, well, we'll maybe we'll revisit those during overtime.
How did you know they were scams before they actually did anything?
Can you tell by the name somehow you could tell by the names you could tell by the domains,
the registration information, the setup of the page, as well as the 800 numbers that
were associated with these particular services?
How how does any of that indicate that they're scam artists?
Well, you could see this replicated across other domains that also were used as part
of either disinformation fraudulent or the domains are registered by a network of
squatters or threat actors that were looking to capitalize on vaccination efforts.
We can group those types of registrations together and find clusters of domains that
obviously belong to the same network or same group of bad actors.
So there's lots of different ways.
And also just looking at the at the content, you know, the content itself, even though
I think the copy was pretty well written, the content itself was pretty janky and and
looked a lot like a scam.
And you can you can see these things materialize if you track them over time.
And when you say they're bad actors, obviously something has to tell you that they're bad
actors. Is it because of something they've done in the past?
Is it simply because of the way they're phrasing things?
What is it that that tips you off on that?
Well, it looks like they're trying to exploit people.
Right. They're trying to steal money.
You know, they were they were asking, I think it was something like a hundred dollars or
five hundred dollars for a home visit for a vaccination at the time when that just did
not exist. They were looking to either steal credit card numbers or steal actual funds
at that particular time.
So that's why I'm talking about they're bad actors because they're fraudsters.
Interesting. Well, there might be a whole bunch of new domains that are being taken
over now since this has become reality.
But hey, let's move on to to some of the better news, because there is a little bit of
good news. Sometimes we do have good news.
We try not to give too much of it, but occasionally it just overflows.
Connecticut has become the first state to make all prison phone calls free.
Yeah, imagine that free, not an incredible amount of money, not even what a regular
phone call costs, but free.
This address is one of the biggest emotional and financial burdens faced by
incarcerated people and, of course, their families as they merely try to stay in touch.
The bill was signed into law by Governor Ned Lamont on Wednesday, last Wednesday, I
believe, and could go into effect as early as July.
That's according to supporters.
It allows anyone who's incarcerated a minimum of 90 minutes a day of free calls.
Democratic Representative Josh Elliott, one of the supporters of the legislation, says
we're on the right side of history.
Corporations can no longer be allowed to exploit the love between incarcerated people and
their families, not in our state, not on our watch.
And I think that is an important thing to point out.
If you are going to get arrested, make it Connecticut, because that way you're assured
that you'll be able to make a free phone call.
Because this isn't true in New York.
It's not true in other states.
And you have to ask yourself, who would be against this?
I mean, I know who will be against this.
Same people are against everything that makes sense.
But simply talking to people, why would we want to forbid that?
Yeah, punishment.
I get it.
But their families and everybody that is connected to them in some way.
Communication is important.
And when you make that and this is something that I know well, because I've talked to many
people who are behind bars, the whole Kevin Mitnick saga, Bernie S.
saga, all kinds of people that needed to reach out and convey important messages or just
find out certain things for themselves and stay sane cost a fortune, cost a hell of a
lot of money just to make contact, just to say a few things.
And you are always caught off, cut off, which is still going to be the case.
Obviously, you are listened in on, still going to be the case.
But to make it so prohibitively expensive for people that probably are the least able
to be able to afford something like that.
And I'm talking about the families of people of the incarcerated.
We're talking five dollars a minute in some cases.
It's just it was highway robbery.
That was the crime as far as I was concerned, seeing how these companies just swooped in
and took advantage of these people.
So it's great to see us doing the right thing.
Now, Connecticut is joining several jurisdictions nationwide that have taken steps to make
prison and jail phone calls free.
That includes New York City, San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles.
So New York City at least is is taking steps, but not not New York State.
This historic legislation will change lives, said Bianca Tylek, who's the executive
director of Worth Rises, which has been working with local advocates, many of whom were
directly impacted to slash prison phone costs.
It will keep food on the table for struggling families, children in contact with their
parents and our communities safer.
I see no bad in this.
Rob, you.
Yeah, I mean, people have, you know, people who haven't had direct interactions with the
prison system or had a friend or a family member or someone they care about in prison
and wanting to communicate with them might not be aware at just how predatory the entire
business model around prison phone calls has built up over the decades.
That is the one place I mean, we live in a modern era now where phone calls in general,
even long distance ones, even international ones, are basically cheap as free.
Prison phone calls were, you know, are the last the last remaining bastion of really
getting exploited, really getting, you know, charged unreasonable amounts for phone
calls. And, you know, if you've got someone you communicate regularly with who who has
been incarcerated, that is a major pull on your budget.
And that is also disproportionately affecting people who are poor, who don't have the
means to to to pay for calls like this.
So it's really it's really a major injustice that's being addressed here.
And it's way overdue.
Yeah. And I know people are concerned with planning crimes from from prison and things
like that. Keep in mind, all these phone calls are still listened in on.
So actually, if if crimes are being planned, if that scenario actually plays out, kind
of doing a favor to law enforcement, aren't they, by by giving out information.
So I don't think that is a valid concern.
I think keeping people in touch is always a good thing.
And as you know, a phone freak, somebody who back in the 80s was just trying to get
free phone calls everywhere when it cost a fortune to call New York City from Long
Island, let alone to call overseas.
Now you can call everybody.
You can talk to anybody around the world for nothing.
You know, we won that battle and it's it's incredible.
And somehow the very companies that were screaming bloody murder whenever people used a
red box or a blue box or something to get around the system, those same companies are
doing better than ever.
So when when the corporations say that stealing their services is going to put them out
of business, not necessarily true.
They will find a way.
They always do.
And I think that's true of every communications company.
And the corporations themselves are much better able to absorb the costs than individuals
who may have other debt obligations.
And as we said, maybe disproportionately burdened by other social and socioeconomic
factors. So it's absolutely really cruel.
Hey, I want to ask you guys, because you're in the city and we're somewhere else.
We still don't know where we are, but we're somewhere else.
But you're in. Well, actually, Alex, I know you're not in the city right now, but I know
you came from the city.
You guys vote in the in the first election that used the multiple what we call.
Yeah, it's not multiple choice.
It's a ranked choice, ranked choice where you get to choose five candidates in order.
And if your candidate doesn't win, well, then your second vote gets counted.
And it's really a very democratic system.
In fact, here at Pacifica, we've been using that system for a while and it's come in very
handy. It's very effective and it reflects the mood of the people.
But did you guys take part in this?
I did. I went and I voted last night at the high school, which is our polling place, and
I texted Rob because our precinct was the only one that had a line.
And I found out why.
Because one of our precinct captains was explaining the ballot to everyone.
She said to me, do you know how to do this?
And I said, yes, and she explained it to me anyway.
Wow. So one one precinct captain can cause a line.
Uh-huh. It was absolutely it was fascinating.
It was people were more participatory than I'd ever seen them before.
People were excited to be there.
Everybody was wearing a mask except for the school safety officer, which I just thought was
interesting. Wow. Yeah.
I got my sticker and I've never gotten a sticker.
They've never offered me a sticker.
I've never gotten one. I got one when I traded back my privacy cover.
The guy at the door said, I'll take your folder and here's a sticker.
It was overwhelming.
And then I've got mine, too.
And the thing that was very, very interesting was this morning on the New York Times
website, they were able to really break down by precinct how the votes came out, which
I thought was absolutely incredible.
But they still are able to tell who won.
They cannot tell who the winner is because nobody got the plurality that they needed.
But to say here's how the votes broke, here's how the first choice votes broke was
fascinating. And this little map was so great.
And there were precincts where people tied and there were precincts where one person
voted. Wow.
Yeah. Yeah.
I want to know more about those precincts.
I mean, nobody participated except one person.
Well, it's also possible that people were not eligible to vote in the primary, like
maybe that was an area. This was only the Democratic primary results that we're showing.
Yeah, I would think there's more than one person registered in the Democratic Party in
any precinct. I would think.
But who knows?
And then, you know, there's a little blank spot in Central Park.
Very interesting. So what I you know, I'm naive as far as all this goes, but I'm
curious if they're able to tell how the votes came out, how come they can't continue
the calculation and say, OK, we cut off the last person.
This is how it works. They cut off number five and and then we reallocate the votes
based on the second choice and the third person, the fourth and the fifth and
recalculate. How come that doesn't take a few seconds?
Why? Why? Why are we talking about not knowing results until July?
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ask you that, and I'm not saying, you know, the answer.
I'm just a general question.
I do. Do you know the answer, Alex?
Yeah, I voted yesterday as well in the West Village.
It was great. There was barely a line to get in, you know, but there were lots of
people, you know, what is it, 100 yards away or whatever it is, you know, at the end of
the block handing out flyers for all the different candidates.
It felt very festive, I guess, is one way of putting it.
But one of the things in terms of this ranked choice voting, you know what I'm
curious about is people that get the complexity of it wrong because the ballots
themselves were a little bit confusing in terms of ranking.
It was very easy, I think, to fill out the same column twice or have, you know, your
third choice, perhaps, you know, overlap with your fourth choice because of the way
in which the columns were set up.
What do you mean overlap?
How would that work? Well, let's say, you know, especially for
Mayer, right, there are a whole bunch of different candidates and you're looking
farther down the page.
And let's say you're your third choice candidate.
You want to be, I don't know, Mr.
Smith or somebody who is a candidate, Mr.
Smith. Yes. But you went to Washington, you actually put that in your in the fourth
column and then you tick the fourth column for somebody else for for Mr.
for, you know, Mr.
Jane or whomever or Mr.
Doe that was farther up in the alphabet.
So he was listed earlier.
So what if you have two two candidates listed for the same position?
What I want to know is what happens to the ballot.
The ballots. Well, it doesn't get accepted.
If you have two filled in for the same rank, you get it back and they say, do it
right this time. That's what should happen, right?
It doesn't get accepted at the point of the scanning when you put it in a little fax
machine thing. Yeah, it's supposed to kick it back if it's filled out wrong.
Is that right? That's what I was told.
Oh, because that would be very interesting.
I wish I knew that because I would have tried it.
I'm sure you would have. But hopefully you just voted.
That's that's all I'm hoping for.
But I would I would have definitely tried that because people are undoubtedly going
to get confused. And if there's that kind of error correction, I think that would be
that's absolutely great.
Well, I think this is one of the reasons why Gila's precinct captain was actually
doing a service, because people are going to get confused.
They're going to do things wrong, even if you think you understand it, especially if
it's the first time. But guaranteed, the more people do this, the more used to it
they'll get. And the more they realize this is this is the way to do it.
This is the way to make your vote count more than just yes or no.
It's basically, OK, I didn't get my first choice.
My second choice now means something.
And at least I have a say in that.
So I think it's a really, really good step.
Yeah, I agree.
You know, the other thing I think we should all be mindful of, too, is that during this
time period where there's so much focus on the primary when it comes to the mayor, there
is this assumption that it's automatically going to be a Democrat who wins the actual
election. OK, seven to one Democrat versus Republican registration in New York City.
It's just, I guess, an assumption.
And plus, look at the candidates.
You know, OK, I don't want to get insulting here, but fine.
Let's assume that, yeah, there's a chance that a Republican could win.
We've had Republican mayors in the past.
We have. And we've learned we're never going to make that mistake again, hopefully.
And the reason why there wasn't ranked choice for the Republican side was because there
are only two candidates and it doesn't work.
It's weird. You would think there would be 50 candidates, but no, only two.
And yes, go ahead, Rob.
I just I empathize with Gila's poll worker because I was I worked as a poll worker where
I used to live on Long Island many, many years ago when electronic voting was still
pretty new. And so you had to explain the whole thing to people who walked in expecting
the old analog light blue lever based machines.
And as anyone who's worked in like infosec can tell you, you cannot over explain things
to people when it comes to using, you know, doing something new, something that, you know,
is outside the routine that they've been doing for years and years and years.
So I'm sure that it was just automatic to explain it to everybody.
I feel left out this time around, though, because I didn't get to vote in this primary
because I am not a member of a party.
So I have nothing to do with it.
But and I think that's very unfair that people who aren't members of parties don't get a
say in any of these elections.
Some states, that's not the case, but it's I'm in the same boat as you.
I don't believe in registering with the party, but that locks me out of having any say
before actual election day comes around.
Yeah, it's saddening. And also, apparently you have to be a member of the Democrat or
Republican Party to be a poll worker in this city for for this election.
So I looked into that because I'd done it before.
I was I was thinking, do I want to do it again?
But no, I'm apparently ineligible now.
Wow. I don't get that at all.
Like, why would you be less eligible because you're not a member of the party?
That's it doesn't make any sense.
Well, if you can't vote in it, what they think you would be more likely to cause
mischief or I have no idea.
It's very it's an interesting because you think for yourself.
They don't want that. OK, moving on.
This this headline, North Carolina, 12 year old's PlayStation account hacked, held
for ransom. It's kind of story you just have to find out more about.
Right. Why is this a headline at all?
I just want to know. Twelve year old's PlayStation account hacked.
Really, this is what we care about.
OK, authorities and authorities.
Yeah, authorities are wasting time on this in North Carolina are investigating a case
of extortion and blackmail after someone hacked into a 12 year old boy's PlayStation
account, stealing his password and locking him out.
The boy's mom asked the TV station that's covering this story not to use his full
name, but to use his nickname of Jayman.
OK, that won't be hard to figure out, will it?
Jayman said he was playing on his PS4 a few days ago when he was suddenly kicked out
of his online account.
You know, this happened to be an IRC about 20 years ago.
I didn't call the cops.
I got locked out and yeah, and people sent me nasty messages and said some very
hurtful things, but I didn't call the damn cops and I wasn't on the news.
But I will get even.
I'm still planning my revenge.
Anyway, he says the alleged hacker.
And what does this have to do with hacking?
You know, it's oh, my God, that's that's a whole other issue.
He says the alleged hacker then started making demands through Instagram that have
gone on for days because that's how Instagram works.
Jayman said he changed his password or the the hacker changed Jayman's password and
the email so that he wouldn't receive anything about him changing it.
OK, so he changed he changed the the password and the email so that he wouldn't get
email about him changing the password.
Well, good on you, Jayman, for figuring that out without the password or the email.
But anyway, just like that, the almost 13 year old wait, why are they calling an
almost 13 year old when he's 12?
Just call him a 12 year old.
He's 12.
I mean, that's the whole point.
That's the selling point of the story here.
You're losing it by changing his age.
He lost access to everything on his PS4 online profile.
Guys, you know.
I have nothing against gamers.
I respect them.
I am not one of them.
I've never been one.
I don't understand a lot of what goes on in the gaming world.
But if you lose access to your PS4 online profile, is that really a cop calling
offense? Is that something that destroys your life?
Is it just, you know, an inconvenience, a pain, something you you might utter a
profanity about? But, you know, can you get on with your life or how big a deal is
it? Does anybody here know?
I'm imagining there's maybe an aspect to it where if you lose access to your
PlayStation stuff, can you still start up your machine at home, put a game in it
and play your own game on your own device?
Or are you somehow locked out of this thing that exists in your house as an
appliance? It's like, you know, if you get locked out of using your Wi-Fi
enabled clothes washing machine or something, if you physically have access
to it, how could you be locked out of it?
A lot of the games are sent over the Internet connection.
Or however, it's connected to the Internet.
And in that way, the profile is required or is managing all the different games.
Whereas if you have a physical game, you could use it in the sort of offline way
you described. But you still have the physical device.
Can you not tell the Internet connection that, hey, I need to reset because I'm
who I am and nobody else is.
So trust me and not them.
I mean, it just seems a very basic thing that should be able to be done.
I know there's issues with save games and things like that and all the work you've
done, but, you know, it's a game and that's what happens sometimes.
And the whole thing is a big game.
Also, well, and on a related note, there's some financial aspect of this because I
think they exchange money for some internal credit.
Bad idea that those sort of games as a service are paid for.
Yeah. If they had asked me, I would say never, never have money involved in
something that is a game, whether it's Farmville or a PS4 or anything.
It's a game. It's a different reality.
It should not carry the same price as our reality because it's a game.
Price as our reality, because then you'll start mixing it up with our reality.
And that's exactly what we're seeing.
Yeah. That's to say nothing of like in game purchasing, which is very common on
smartphone games.
But yeah, it really could have been devastating in the moment, but it should
not be the this sort of earth shattering, life changing moment.
I'm reading a news story at Nationwide News.
TV stations are covering this.
The police are involved.
It's a 12 year old lost access to his PlayStation account.
There's something seriously wrong here.
And it's not the fact that he got hacked and that he didn't even get hacked.
He basically just got got his account taken over.
It's there's no real hacking involved here.
Yeah, I guess the question is, how did he how does password credentials get
compromised? What was going on in this life or how they were?
You'll have to ask Jayman that I think Jayman has some work to do or Jayman's
mom. She might know.
Anyway, so, yeah, he lost his his PS4 online profile.
I spent money. Yeah, you're right.
I spent money on certain things on the games like data stuff.
Oh, you bought data stuff, Jayman.
That's your big mistake right there.
Don't buy data stuff with money.
No. He said, I've gotten really far into the game, he explained.
And right away, the alleged hacker started messaging alleged hacker.
Now, you called him a hacker.
So is he OK?
Well, somebody is messaging him.
So he messaged him on Instagram through a profile with no photo and no post, just
the name Kevin in the bio section.
Really? Kevin again.
You got to be Kevin.
I haven't spent enough time trying to trying to rehabilitate that name from from
the evils of hacking with our free Kevin stickers and all that.
So now there's another Kevin out there that everybody's going to hate.
Jayman said the hacker told him, I want a 50 dollar PS4 gift card.
I'm going to use a lot of money on your account and I'm going to sell it to
somebody. Yeah, wow, this is dark, it's just really dark.
Gila, it's it's really dark.
And just to kind of piggyback on what Kyle said there, in-game purchases, I'm
sure there's some sort of subscription account situation.
There's probably a lot of money sunk into this.
And the kid is 12, almost 13, which is a very important distinction when you're
that age. I used to teach middle school.
Take it from me. But also I think there's a really important like the kid is 12,
almost 13. If his bike had gotten stolen 25 years ago, the cops would have gotten
involved. And I think that's also a piece of it.
Like this is there's so much identity probably that he has staked on this.
This I mean, I know it sounds odd to hear it, but also and especially now hearing
what Faceless Kevin was saying on Instagram.
Thank God it was just his account stuff like this could have gotten really, really,
really bad. Yeah, but why?
Why could have gotten really bad?
It's because we tie things, we tie our identities to these these virtual worlds.
It's a big mistake to do that.
Now, I had my bike stolen when I was a kid and didn't get it back, but it was a
tangible item. I understood this is now gone.
This is not tangible.
This doesn't have to happen with the right kind of security.
You can keep this from from taking place and basically stake your claim and maintain
ownership of the things that you actually bought in the real world with real money.
Rob, this also it should lead people to start questioning the media environment as it
is right now, because this is something that was lost when everything went over to just
soft purchases, just like buy software over the Internet, because, you know, I could
start up the Nintendo console I had 30 years ago, put a cartridge in it and it works
fine. It has nothing to do with like other servers being on somewhere.
It has nothing to do with like social media and people trying to hack at my profile and
whatever. And, you know, that's something that exists now in this, you know, child's
toy box, basically in a virtual sense where where, you know, he can't play with the
things that that he's been given because of some, you know, social media junk or
because of some bot or because of some security failure.
That's something sad. I mean, if somebody could hack something that like took books
off your shelf or videos off your shelf that you that you enjoyed, you'd be angry as
well. Yeah, absolutely.
But I would never have a system like that.
And I resent being forced into using those kinds of systems.
And we see it all the time with software where instead of actually having something
tangible in your possession, you subscribe to it.
Now, you never actually own it yourself.
And that opens up the door for all kinds of of compromising to take place because you
don't have full access.
Your your information is out there.
This is the wrong path to go down, Gila.
I agree. And then also I think things are beginning to go down that path that aren't
necessarily completely virtual experiences like what is it, the Peloton treadmill?
Oh, my God. Yeah, that's a great example.
It's going to lock you out unless you subscribe.
You can't even use it like this is what we're talking about.
You can't start it up and this big, massive device, this big, massive physical device
that you have dragged into your home, capable of killing a small child.
Now you're saying we can't even use it's going to be bricked if you don't pay a
monthly fee. You just have this useless device in your house.
That is a crime that I mean, if you buy something, you should be able to use it.
And that goes for cars.
That goes for computers.
That goes for phones.
And we just we seem to be plunging headlong into this world where no matter what we
buy, we never actually own it.
And somebody else is controlling it.
And and you have stories like this.
You have the J-Man story.
You have that happening.
It's really it's really sad.
There's an update, too. There's another threat from the alleged hacker.
If you don't give it to me by this time, I'm going to take it up to one hundred
dollars and a lot of people want your account.
It's very rare and stuff.
He's just trying to get a lot of money out of me for my own.
Wait a minute. That's J-Man saying that I'm sorry they had they had two quotes in
the same paragraph. J-Man said he's just trying to get a lot of money out of me
for my own account.
Yeah, the Charlotte Mecklenburg police report, you got two municipalities in that
police department and you're wasting them both on June 50 list the crimes under
extortion, blackmail, as well as hacking slash computer invasion.
Wow. So a lot of a lot of slashes going on here.
Charlotte Mecklenburg, extortion, blackmail and hacking, computer invasion.
You know, I don't often stand up for extortionists and blackmailers, but there's
a long history of extortion and blackmail in our country.
And this it pales in comparison.
It really does.
It's it's one kid taking something from another kid virtually because it was
probably extremely easy to do so.
And it's being treated like Al Capone.
And and you have all of this street cred being given to somebody with no actual
skills, turning them into a master criminal.
And if they are ever caught, that's going to follow them around.
And it just it's a whole other level of wrong that the story now will will will
create. Anyway, this good news, we're due for some good news on this story.
The good news is that Jayman's mom.
I feel silly reading the story.
Jayman's mom said they were able to pause the credit card attached to his PS4
account so no one can access that money.
OK, Mrs. Jayman, I any credit card, you can stop payment on something.
This is not some kind of a feat that that you figured out.
This is what they're supposed to do.
And this credit card should not have been accessed by somebody else in the first
place. And the moment it was, you call them and you say, hey, this is unauthorized.
Stop it. And they will.
And you're not liable. That's how it works.
Jayman's mom gives advice to other parents.
If you want to listen to Jayman's mom's words of wisdom here.
Consider skipping the online gaming accounts and just stick to buying games in
the store. Jayman has made it clear he's not paying up.
Well, good for him. Good for your mom.
Nice that you crossed the finish line in the end.
But yeah, that is basically the advice I think any of us would give from the
outset. Jayman says, if I if I give them the gift card, what gift card is a gift
card now? The ransom gift card.
I didn't know it was a gift card.
There was just money. It was 50 bucks on a like a virtual.
It was. Yeah. Yeah. You're really paying attention to this.
It's riveting. How much do you know?
I know a lot. If I give them the gift card, they're not going to give me back my
account. They're still going to sell it.
Yeah, that's right, Jayman. They're going to sell it.
It's just like all these ransomware clowns that think if they if they give bitcoins
to people, all of a sudden they're going to get everything back.
You might you might not.
What are you going to do about it?
It's you know, this is part of that history of crime that you can't trust people
that commit crimes. It's why it's not to do that.
Jayman is just hoping to have the account shut down temporarily, effectively sending
the hackers back into cyberspace for good.
What does that even mean back into cyberspace?
But you want to follow them into cyberspace and get your ass kicked again.
The family has been in contact with Sony for help getting Jayman's account shut down
temporarily. So far, they haven't had any success.
What what number you got for Sony?
I wonder calling Sony.
This should be something that's simple.
If you have physical access to something that you bought, you should be able to do
that. Extremely easily, you should not have to call Sony.
They're probably calling Japan or something, thinking that you have to talk to the
president of the company to get this done.
And that is the story of the 12 year old who lost his PlayStation account.
Sympathy for him and for others who might be going through something like that.
But we need to rethink the way we do things to avoid this.
I can only imagine what it's going to be like in 10 years.
This explains where Jayman's been for all the other gamers who missed playing with
him. Speaking of ransomware, we talked about the Colonial Pipeline ransomware
incident many, many times.
But do you know that the so-called hackers who gained entry into the networks of
Colonial Pipeline on April 29th did so through a virtual private network account?
And what they did was they they used a single compromised password that was floating
around on the Internet or if you want to be technical on the dark net.
Basically, it was out there.
It was many people had access to this.
And that is how they got in, because this password wasn't changed.
It was a password for an account that wasn't even being used.
But the account still had access and was still able to do the things they needed to
do. It's bad security.
It's always bad security.
And if you if you basically deactivate accounts that are no longer used, if you
change passwords frequently, you'll tend to avoid this type of thing.
And you have something else on Colonial Pipeline that I didn't know about.
Oh, sure. This is a WSCO TV story from Huntersville, North Carolina.
Did you know that back in North Carolina?
That's right. Two teens writing ATVs in Huntersville last summer in August, one of
them could be Jayman. Well, he's not a teen yet.
He's 12. Yeah.
Maybe friends with OK are credited with finding a massive Colonial Pipeline fuel
spill, which was last estimated at one point two million gallons.
Walker Sell and Owen Fair were riding through Oler Oler Nature Preserve when they
smelled an overwhelming odor of gasoline.
It was just bubbling up out of the ground like a fire hydrant would.
Fair told Channel nine.
And basically this is one of the largest fire fuel spills in U.S.
history. I'd never heard of this.
When did this happen? August, about a year ago.
Last August 2020.
Yeah, this is before the ransomware.
These this company was what was was leaking fuel all over the place.
And I guess because they weren't in the news for for not having good security on
their computer network, the media just skipped over that story.
But wow. And you say they they didn't even they weren't able to figure this out
themselves. They needed a couple of kids riding bikes to tell them that their fuel
was leaking all over the place.
That's right. There was a giant crack, I guess, in the actual line itself.
And there was no detection system in in in any way that the company was aware when
when it's dry and crack in a pipeline.
And there's no way to detect that when you're the company running the pipeline.
You think like even like telemetrics on like the flow rates and stuff or pressures,
you know, because if you have a fire hydrant size leak, I guess I guess the flow of
oil to your customers is like that.
I would think that before giving them permission to do that, that's the first
question you ask. How do you know if you're if your fuel is leaking?
What's your what's your system to prevent that, to detect that they don't seem to
have one? That's incredible.
Yeah. So once they did realize it, it eventually took time to to shut off.
But this stuff happens all the time in this country.
We have a lot of infrastructure that is old.
We have a lot of pipeline systems and it's generally not covered at all.
You get a story that's unusual like this and it makes local TV.
But it's often covered in really sparse ways.
So this is why we should look at other pipeline plans like line three and other stuff
that is detrimental to ecosystems.
That security is everywhere.
Oh, my God. We're out of time.
Boy, time goes so fast.
But we have another hour or so that we spend on YouTube.
You can join us there.
YouTube dot com slash channel twenty six hundred or just click on the link on the top
of twenty six hundred dot com.
And you can call us.
Yeah, you can call us.
The phone number is eight zero two.
Was three to one. Is that what it is?
I don't have it in front of me. Someone took my paper.
Three to one hack. Three to one hack.
Eight zero two.
Three to one. Four to two five.
So we'll see you over there or write to us.
O.T.H. at twenty six hundred dot com.
We'll see you next week on WBAI.
Stay tuned to ninety nine point five FM.
Good night.
I say we answer.
Look at our time.
I say no one like a trickster.
I say we answer the telephone.
When you get inside the telephone,
when you get inside the telephone,
when you get a phone call,
I'll be gone.
Stop a phone call.
I'll be gone.
Stop. She won more money.
She got shot in the mouth.
One more morning.
She got shot in the mouth.
When she gave me the money,
I'm going to make me do what I do.
They could say what I do.
She said I'm going to be the bank.
I'm going to be the bank.
I'm going to be the bank.
I'm going to be the bank.
I'm.
I'll never see.
What I carry on?
What I know.
Did you say we?
I said, who are you?
I agree.
So bring to your.
Hello, I'm Jesse Lent, a BAI buddy is a listener who doesn't just give to this station, but
spreads their donation out throughout the year to help us plan for the future and take
our current programming to the next level.
Right now is a special time at WBAI.
We've resolved our dispute with the Empire State Building and put ourselves back on track
to having a long and prosperous future with a groundswell of grassroots support.
But listeners like you are still critical for our survival.
Now more than ever, the structured support BAI buddies offer is priceless.
So go to give to WBAI.org today.
That's give them the number to WBAI.org and become a BAI buddy and a big thanks from all
of us.
All right here we are on Off the Hook Overtime where you can talk to us and we
can continue talking to you. We have all kinds of other things we didn't get to
on the radio. One thing though we we did get some some remarks from people that
were frustrated who wanted to call us last week. Couldn't reach us because we
have so many phone calls and that's a good thing but let's do this. If you've
called before, especially if you've called in the last week or so, let's give
somebody else a chance so that we hear new voices. We hear it from other people
and if you're one of those people that has not reached us in the past couple of
weeks give us a call to 802-321-4225. 802-321-HACK is our phone number and you
can speak to us directly and we'd love to hear from you. Yeah you know there
were a lot of stories we didn't get to. Boy that hour just goes by so fast and
actually it's more like 50 minutes but that's just the nature of radio I guess.
Unfortunately we have we have this for now while we're still broadcasting
remotely we can we can do this extra bit but here's another story that's kind of
similar to what J-Man was going through except I think more serious and this
comes out of Washington State. Some concerned parents in the Lake Washington
School District are calling for action and accountability after the website for
the state's second largest school district was hacked last week by
someone who blanketed pages on the site with racially charged and offensive
messages. And again I take issue with with use of the word hacked here because
not much hacking is involved when the security is poor enough to allow
this to happen. The Redmond Police Department is investigating the hack and
working with the school district's information technology staff in an
effort to find the hacker. Investigators from I don't just say to find the racist
idiot who took over their system because it was easy to take over. Not much
hacking involved. Investigators from the Redmond Police Department FBI and
cybersecurity officials said hacks can be prevented but determining who did
them can be challenging because the perpetrators are often good at concealing
their tracks. It's basically just not telling people you did it. That's the
extent of concealing your tracks. There's always a way there's always a
way to track people down. This incident has left many in the school district
unsettled. Parent Renee Ferguson said in my lifetime it is the most hatred
detailed white supremacist stuff I've ever seen. Detailed white supremacist
stuff. Wow curious what that was all about. The hacker I really wish they'd
stop using this word. I'm just reading the story as it is but it's a real
problem. The hacker published several derogatory and disturbing words and
phrases on the school site that could be seen by anyone who visited its online
pages for an hour last Thursday. Officials said the incident affected the
entire site and all of its pages. You know what that is? That's a website being
taken over. It's really really easy if you don't take precautions. Happened all
throughout the 1990s and yeah we call them hacked web pages because you know
initially you had to have some kind of skill to be able to to figure out a
security hole but eventually it just became really really simple. Running
scripts and looking for for openings. Not much hacker content just basically a
desire to cause mayhem. Sometimes it can be useful for for spreading ideology and
and we've seen such web pages being taken over in totalitarian regimes to
have a democratic message get out there. So it can be used as activism but it
also can be used for ugliness because it's not hacking it's just simply
running a program. Anyway a student Achilles George said it was shocking it
was surprising and offensive. Angel George, I guess related, a recent senior
graduate saw a screenshot of the offensive messages after the images were
shared on social media. She visited the site and was able to see the images
online. Okay we can we believe that the images were there and people could see
them so I don't know why they need to talk so many people to say oh my god I
saw them they were shocking. I was like in shock, Angel said, who would do this? I
was just really concerned it had a bunch of derogatory terms for every race
except for white people so it's it's kind of scary. Yeah it is it is and not
just on websites in everyday life and this is why it's important to address
these issues. This is why it's important to teach kids early about this ugliness.
Instead we have a situation in this country now where we're being told
we're not supposed to talk about it we're not supposed to teach kids about
this sort of thing because they'll have a bad opinion of the country they live
in and nonsense like that. Anyway Angel's mother which happens to be Renee
Ferguson okay so it all this is all one family I've been quoting said she did
not allow her daughter to go out that night after viewing the messages and you
know we can ridicule that and say wow what an overreaction but I get it you
know you see something shocking and disturbing like that you don't really
want your kids to go outside you don't really know if somebody's lurking right
outside or somebody is on the other side of the planet you don't know so I
understand that but it shouldn't be this simple there needs to be security and we
need to address the ugliness that festers. My heart instantly sank due to
being scared and actually I felt traumatized Ferguson said I had to
literally look up what some of those names meant and when I looked them up I
just thought how are we still doing this it was very very scary. So I guess they
they don't really know anything more about it but Ferguson concludes by
saying we are begging for you to recognize the racism that is going on in
your school said this to the school district and to make our kids safe in
your in your school district that is what I'm demanding and a little security
too can't hurt. You have a phone call? We don't have a phone call. I thought we had a
phone call okay 802-321-4225 we had a phone call but I guess I guess all that
talk made them hang up because phone calls are expensive and people can't
stay on hold. I understand 802-321-4225 is our phone number. Lines are open now
to those people that have not called us in the past couple weeks because we want to
hear from new people and and more representation. Any thoughts on the story
I just read that Rob you have something? Yeah I mean you have to explain these
things to these kids because there is ugliness in the world and you know the
online world is made by the same people who are out there and in the mundane
world and is a reflection of us and just as you might you know walk the streets
in your neighborhood and come upon bigoted graffiti put somewhere in order
to disgust and terrorize you'll you'll see that on the net too and you know it
behooves us to acknowledge that this exists you know address that is that
this exists and educate the kids on how to be better than this you know use it
as an example use it as a teachable moment because you know it does exist
out there very sadly and you know we're not we're not going to be able to sweep
it under the rug and just ignore it and hope it goes away it does not work like
that. You know what else teach the kids how to do it how was this done let's not
make it some big mysterious thing that some super hacker did no show them
exactly what they did how easy it was and that way they can look for holes
themselves and report them before they get taken advantage of by some idiot who
does these kinds of things but you turn it into some some skill you you put that
person on a pedestal where they have not earned the right to be and by having
having your own students participating in keeping your system secure not
demonizing them if they find a security hole you have a much more secure system
in the end and a lot more educated kids and a lot less hate being spread around
Alex I think that's a great point Emanuel and one thing to keep in mind is
that you know school districts are one of the most underfunded organizations
when it comes to cybersecurity yet they have such a huge threat vector that's
targeting them both for ransomware for types of you know activism attacks like
this you know racist propaganda that seems to have been propagated through
this particular website so getting the students involved I think it's one way
to really increase those resources I completely agree that it when you
demystify this it becomes a hell of a lot less malicious because it's so much
less magical it doesn't have this order of mystery or power surrounding whoever
was behind this you realized oh this was simple this is you know improper
permission set on a web server somebody simply edited a text file added some
racist propaganda to it but on the other hand too I think you know whoever this
idiot was perhaps it was another student in the school district itself and I
don't think that if it was I don't think that the book should be thrown at him
proverbially because maybe yeah even though I'm sure their comments were
deplorable I don't know what they were but maybe this person was trying to get
a rise out of others or it was otherwise the clay who the hell knows
but I think at root we should all recognize that this was a a trivial way
to compromise a pretty easy system to breach a web server and and we can't
forget that mm-hmm and I agree with you I think if it is some kid somewhere
trying to get a rise out of people okay he succeeded you proved yourself to be
an idiot and and and now we have to try and steer you away from that but his
life or her life should not be ruined but if say it's Donald Trump jr. I think
you should treat them differently than if they're simply some kid in the you
know so it basically speaks to where they're coming from what they have
access to what they were trying to achieve and that that's important and
and when we say there aren't enough resources you know security resources in
school districts hey you got really good resources with these kids because they're
the ones figuring it out they're the ones that are that are smart they're the
ones that will help you figure things out that no one else can though they'll
play by different rules and instead of being punished for doing so you'll
actually make them feel completely accomplished hey we have a phone call
now I'm gonna get to it quickly before they lose patience good evening you're
on off the hook overtime go ahead hey man you know how you doing how you doing
who's this I just I ran into something ran into something weird last night in
Novosibirsk Russia I can't listen to the show on Spotify wait a minute you're in
Russia so Wow I know I know that's that city where is that city it's it's in the
far north maybe you're calling us from Siberia hang on this is the lead the
fact that you're calling us from Siberia this is fascinating Wow so you're in
Siberia I don't think we've ever gotten a call from Siberia before it doesn't
matter you know you could be whatever but you're in Siberia that's the cool
part oh yeah I'm sorry I don't mean to act like you know a star-struck okay so
what is it you wanted to share with us I can't believe it well okay I used to
listen to the show on Spotify as well as a few other podcasts but I can't
listen to them now it's really strange and I don't like it it's like because of
the way we wait hold it's not because of us we're not we're not being annoying
it's because of Spotify yeah like it at first I was like whoa there they're like
trying to not let me listen to off the hook they're not trying to let me
listen to like malicious life dark night diaries like all this stuff that I
usually listen to and yeah I went and investigated a little bit more got here
and now I can't listen to any podcasts just no podcasts allowed in Russia you
just had to keep asking questions that's that's what happens when you when you
probe a little too deeply I've been poking on Twitter poking up I poked at
you guys a little bit but I don't know how much that's monitored but yeah maybe
Matt maybe really said and I want to do something about it uh-huh well I guess
yeah I don't use Spotify myself Alex do you have something to input here yeah I
mean it obviously it seems like this is all based on your location your geo IP
coordinates right I would assume caller so have you tried popping it through a
VPN and accessing Spotify that way well yeah I could I could circumvent it that
way but like what really weirds me I'm like kind of bugs me like why would you
like try to stop the free flow of information to an entire populace of
people well you're asking that question from Siberia you realize that they kind
of invented that and it didn't in fact work prior to this but I think with it
with the color getting it which which is really interesting and it's a great
point is that this probably did not come from Spotify itself this was a
request from the Russian government to restrict this type of access for a large
population of Russia I mean I would be very curious as to whether you can
listen to off the hook or darknet diaries or it's something like that one
you're saying the government of Vladimir Putin has decided to restrict off the
hook to the entire country of Russia I mean I just want to sit in that for a
second and say wow there's a there's a couple of possible on his radar that is
something well maybe who knows but it could be that let's assume that it is a
it comes from Moscow it comes from Putin or or maybe a cabinet minister or
something like that then it could possibly apply to a broad category of
podcasts or information that would relate broadly to to hacking or generally
to hacking you know or it could be a command or a decree from a local
municipality somewhere in Siberia you know in Irkutsk or something like that
that could have made this type of decree or it could be Spotify trying to comply
with some other legislative mandate about the spread of hacking related
information something like that so it could be Spotify regulating itself or
maybe over regulating itself which is often a very big problem when it comes
to compliance with respect to content available in Russia for one reason or
another but either either one of them is you know totally crazy and insane that
the content is restricted yeah and it's it's something that you've noticed
recently changing I know there have been various crackdowns and in other parts of
the world on different sorts of media writ large so it may be a lot of
different things are affected you you listed several that you normally would
be able to access so it is a bit odd and does it really help I mean and are these
programs really doing anything that threatened the state of Russia other
than informing people or addressing some of the news in geopolitics generally
which is unfortunate because people might have been you know just those
specific podcasts at first but then I started looking and it's just podcasts
in general no podcast whatsoever and then I started digging a little bit
deeper and apparent like Spotify it's owned by a Swedish company I found out I
did a little research and yeah Sweden apparently owns like some Swedish
company apparently on Spotify I didn't know that but uh yeah they're the ones
calling the shots I found a lot of people a lot of Russian people
complaining on Spotify forums that yeah like just they've chosen to not allow
podcasts of any type in Russia it's really strange and I don't understand
why anybody would want to make that kind of decision just no information for you
guys the largest landmass with borders on earth and you just want to cut them
off from information of any sort it's really strange how long have you been
actually Gila has something I do I was looking stuff up so Spotify launched in
Russia about a year ago and they did not they intentionally did not start with
podcast capability I found something Spotify said around the launch that
podcasts were a nascent enough technology in Russia that they didn't
want to support it yet it's not I don't think it's quite as sinister as it
sounds necessarily but I think they're trying to it's probably a business
decision they're trying to pull the money where they can music is a big
thing Russian language podcasts may not it's probably like a wagging the tail
dog thing there aren't podcasts they didn't support podcast because they're
not supporting podcast there aren't podcasts apparently they're definitely
petitions where people want to listen to the Joe Rogan podcast in Russia so
they're really trying to make that happen really that's what they're going
for well I I just reads it I don't makes it if they take over like the podcasts
that have huge huge followings around the world and maybe off the hook is in
that category for our listeners of course maybe big influence big big
following all kinds of acclaim well that could thwart as Gia pointed out local
homegrown nascent Russian language podcasts or talk shows in like a long
format talk show Siberian podcasting it's what we I'm interested in it call
let me ask you how long have you been up there are you taking the Trans-Siberian
Railway by any chance okay because it goes through there doesn't it yeah it
doesn't go through another super school Wow so tell us your impressions of the
place oh beautiful love the place for the people of the culture like it's a
lot of fun like it's a pretty cool not many people not a lot of the older
population speaks English but one of the younger kids they you know they can get
around with it it's navigable yeah and you're there in the summertime so it must
be rather pleasant right now kind of rain okay but in the winter I think it
would get a lot more chilly probably so but I haven't had a taste of that right
right Wow anything else you want to share with us what life in Siberia is
like there must be another way you can listen off the hook though that's got to
be another way yeah yeah I mean just our website or WBA I org or even YouTube
for this well we're glad you're out there yes definitely and Rob I think you
had something yeah I'm gonna be that guy and ask you caller how's the weather he
just said it was raining rain excellent Alex go ahead yeah one more question for
our caller before he hangs up it's like a press conference when you call from
Siberia we're gonna hit you with a lot of questions yeah but caller gave me
he said he's American he doesn't necessarily Russian do you speak Russian
Russian oh I know what that means okay well good good talking to you and Alex
I'm gonna figure out what you said so as I don't hang up Wow so this is this
is why we open it up to people who haven't called before because we had
calls in Siberia thank you thank you for that call very interesting our phone
number eight zero two three two one four two two five eight oh two three two one
hack if you have not called us in the past couple of weeks then please call
and and share some interesting stories or questions or whatever I see we have
another phone call coming in is it ready to go okay good evening you're on
off the hook overtime hey Bobcat how you doing you might want to speak up a
little bit yeah you're coming in a little lower than the Siberian call okay
couple of things first did you know that WWVH the time station time station
still has Jane Barbie announcing the time Wow well why not you know it works
that's right that's a lot of Hawaii and you can get to it by calling 808 335 4363
if you want some nostalgia what's that number again 808 what 808 335 4363 okay
or of course over the air spill what frequency over the air it's like it's
like it's 510 and 20 megahertz I think I don't know you right on shortwave right
right okay in memory of rebel I don't know if you're alive or dead but free
phone calls if you want to make free phone calls you can get a free phone
from the government lifeline plan you're familiar with this aren't you I believe
so yes commonly known as Obama phones even though it just goes back to Reagan
by the Universal Service Fund on everybody's bill and you used to get a
free smartphone and like a thousand minutes and four gigabytes of data every
month if you're on food stamps or Medicaid on an Indian reservation various
things like that 130 percent of the poverty level but now there's a thing
called the emergency broadband benefit okay where if you had a significant loss
of income last year due to Kobe you can get onto this program and now get
unlimited data 4g data and a free cell phone if you make less than $99,000 a
year okay well that sounds like a good deal so a good way to get a free cell
phone and free data and in free tethering and free hotspot 10 gigabytes
of free hotspot I mean that's just amazing and and how do people do this
again you just google lifeline and there's you'll find a website to find
out what's available in your state and locality there's there's either cell
phones or landline phones or like cable modems and various things but for at
least the foreseeable future it's free unlimited broadband so it's just
stunning that it's cheap enough for these companies to give poor people or
$99,000 a year people a smartphone and still make money with unlimited data
what does it cost to buy a phone and get unlimited data a month for even the
cheapest plan anywhere mm-hmm they they really have to subsidize it in some way
because it's so important for people that are underserved with broadband who
can't afford it and yeah it's something that people should take advantage of if
they're having trouble or if they find they're taking money away from other
expenses just to stay connected to people which goes right along with our
story about prisons and in all kinds of places whatever your life circumstance
having that connection is so vital to your health mental health and your
family and community reaching out and and or working functioning accessing
other services the same thing we were saying about prison funds before that
you're owed people need this sure I'm saying I mean it is subsidized because
it's it's so important for everyday life but also people are owed you know they're
they ought to be taken care of and looked out for and these are they're
relatively doesn't go as far as it used to they're relatively low-cost ways to
really empower people with information and and yeah of course yeah you could
build a business I guess around this and I think the government would be
quite happy if you did you know with all of that hardware and data you know did
something productive and maybe hired some people and you know that they're
all for that
hire people in the Philippines that could be call centers and they get cheap
phones from China with malware in them well that's the fun I guess that's how
we find out mm-hmm yeah no it's it's true that's I I've I've done that before
and I always you know check for what kind of sim is in there and you know
remove it before I do anything else and you just get a free phone yeah what kind
of fun did you get it's it's not branded it's not branded and you got it from a
big phone company too I did I'm not gonna say about information but but
basically instead of why did they why they offer you a free phone well it's
funny they didn't realize what phone generation I'm on they think I'm on an
older phone I guess and they're like hey you know 3g is ending because next year
I think February 2022 the 3g third-generation GSM network will be I
believe shut down and replaced or basically everything below 4g and LTE
which most people are on now that will be the minimum so 3g won't work and so
in thinking that they're offering this handset which I took advantage of but
mostly because maybe it'll help do the radio show or something I don't know I
could probably put it to use never turn down free I want to see what they give
me and yeah so I got it and removed that component and it actually it had a
prepaid sim in it which is weird considering they know me you know so I'm
curious what their expectation is as far as and I really don't want them to shut
down my other line or anything ring as soon as you open the package and
somebody on the other end said okay here's the instructions I checked for
that mm-hmm and there was no mention of like manila envelopes or briefcases or
any kind of things like that keep it on I'm sure it'll ring at some point yeah
probably but really it's um what's out there there this stuff is is ubiquitous
there's so many of these kinds of devices and they're crucial to accessing
so much now I think that we've all realized anything else Bob got yeah I
heard my name mentioned last week and yeah Alex Alex did that he mixed you up
with Bob spoke one thing I forgot to say rebel is still around he actually called
a couple weeks ago he did he did you right okay I listen rarely but I heard
my name last week but I also heard net neutrality somebody's still worried
about net neutrality for some reason we never had net neutrality our upload
speed were a tenth of our download speed have been for 30 years except for now we
have fiber to the house I'm looking out the window at the wire well speak for
yourself you might have it but a lot of people don't and see where they're
filling out the fiber go in that way what side is this go next speed go net
speed and the so the fiber here for $90 a month free installation and that's a
permanent price gigabit up and down for any non-commercial use so I can run a
Plex server and have 40 of my friends and relatives watching 25 megabit 4k TV
played off my server here well that's cool that I think is exactly what you
know more broadband and faster speeds out to the neighborhoods into the curbs
into the ghetto you know fiber to the ghetto fiber to the to the sticks you
know all that needs to happen so that people can build communities around it
and it accelerates a lot of that development and and is a resource
tremendous resource can I ask I'm just amazed that this whole last year
everybody's talking about people didn't have Wi-Fi access and they had to go sit
outside of Dunkin Donuts with their laptops just make a guest account yes
SSID on your router that says password is password and let everybody just use
it okay well we could try that the fast walk down the street there's hundreds of
hundreds of hotspots Wi-Fi names all your neighbors share share it's not
it's a great concept well there's there's so much more of it and it's it
is it's a especially traveling it's really really helpful when airports and
stuff places offer that kind of thing but it is really the fun of making use
of all that resource when it is improved and and finding different ways to share
it and and hosts your neighborhood you know help help get other people
connected help them get information helping access in general I think that
is the sort of altruism we all like to think of in this even though there's a
lot of business and strategy and other things at play but when people have more
speed to play with personally yeah nobody is far away from a Wi-Fi router
true the house of the clubs together if you're in apartment buildings you're
gonna see 90 of them just share a little no that's a it's a great idea I wish
people did that more but can I just ask you you say you have fiber are you
getting your fiber from the the phone company or from the cable company
because we're noticing it's kind of a competition between the two that's
starting up the company is go next speed they ran this fiber a month and a half
ago wait that's the company you got it from but I don't I don't even have it
yet okay I don't need it I don't I don't need a gigabit up and down for anything
well you don't know that you do but you probably do at some point okay we'll
look into this because we've noticed that the the local cable company is
putting up these mystery boxes everywhere and not putting their name on
it but running fiber and and not offering it yet so it's kind of
mysterious the the incumbent phone company here which used to be used to be
AT&T they run fiber to the boxes and then it the remainder of the copper is
still there so the DSL terminates right down the line right down the street for
me instead of doing home runs a mile away Wow okay sounds sounds fascinating
yeah and it's anybody want to buy me $90 a month the fiber is that I don't pay
for internet access because I have a account from one of my clients and so I
get all the you know I can use 15 devices from my business account over
the cable vision system because they have every every homeowner here with
cable vision is broadcasting optimum Wi-Fi signal also which I just connected
Wow okay that's something yeah it's true the yeah those systems are putting
it closer and closer like you said right around the corner so there's no need
really you don't want for very much all right hey thanks for the call good
hearing from you all right take care Wow okay so before somebody else calls in
Kyle can you dial a number for me on my phone so pick it up before it rings
because people are calling right now got picked up yeah okay dial this number
what Bobcat just told us about WWVH 1 8 0 8 3 3 5 4 3 6 3 1 what oh my god 8 0 8
3 3 5 4 3 6 3 okay so spot well put it in put it in a mode where I can put on
the air God's sake Wow okay remedial telephone training is I'm sorry what's
that Rob that was Alex it's on the air already we miss on the air already yeah
because it was it was the tones we were looking for right I know what he's
talking 8 0 8 what was the last part 3 3 5 4 3 6 3 and you give me a signal when
it's safe for me to hit the button all right that's better
Jane Barbie everybody
obviously this isn't her but she's coming
at the tone zero hours 37 minutes coordinated universal time
okay well that was worth it I think thank you very much for that Kyle the
voice of Jane Barbie who you might remember from phone company recordings
lives on that's forever yeah that's pretty amazing I never used that phone
number a long time ago but why would you call Hawaii to find out what time it is
well I don't know there's worse things I guess you can do with your time does
the old phone number for the time still work nine seven six four was it one two
one two or one six one six one of those I don't know who calls your time anymore
does anybody do that well was it nine five six or was it it used to be nine
three six then it was nine seven six when they standardized it and I remember
there was there was the weather there was time there was OTB report there was
Santa Claus in December there was sports phone and then you had all the
porn ones over on I think 540 or 970 or something like that but those were the
ones I remember as a kid the the dial service numbers good time yeah they're
there they're all pretty cool but I mean it was absolutely accurate too as the
tone rang my clock ticked over to 837 it was 37 UTC at that time why would you
think it wouldn't be accurate of course it's accurate
WWVH and you know WWE's in Colorado I'm actually more surprised that that the
Mac I'm on right now was synced up perfectly you see and Jane Barbie over
in Hawaii pretty cool the the Mac it's taking care of these things we have a
phone call good evening you're on off the hook overtime go ahead hi Bobson how
are you technically you called us more recently but it's okay because you're
you're in Bulgaria and we we'd like to hear from you yeah have you ever been to
Siberia no not yet mm-hmm I've been there I went to the Trans-Siberian Rail
and I was in Irkutsk I know that and various other cities and and Mongolia
eventually I had a you mentioned a program that certain companies starting
with their network devices to set up a network for their own use value what
used to be a very large set were of books quarter century ago so they got
into electronic devices and in recent weeks you mentioned they're setting up
on 900 megahertz yeah that was the Amazon home home robot yeah well the
problem with that frequency is it was reserved for the first generation GSM
phones that's right which are probably so there they may not be able to set
these networks in Europe nowadays as long as the first-generation GSM is
still operational if it is are people still using first-generation GSM in
Europe well I'm not sure but I don't I would not be surprised if it was well
these Amazon robots which by the way sounds like a terrible idea they'll let
us know I'm sure if if they're being interfered with by something else well
yeah it's so I know some of you are following the euro at present yeah
please don't don't don't don't don't tell us anything about today's games
because we haven't we haven't finished yeah it does we don't want to know if
they're good or bad or anything like that so if you're gonna talk about euro
talk about yesterday but not today so I thought you were watching them life or
no it's impossible to watch them live it's it's it's at 830 in the morning
and plus there's four games in a day how are we gonna do that you know we have a
radio show to prepare for it's exactly yes I know that but I try to watch the
two that are on at the same time without having one ruin the other because the
commentators can't keep that mouth shut about what's going on the other game but
it's been frustrating to say the least but after today it gets a little German
don't say it I know Germany's playing but don't say anything about the game
German TV networks are showing the two scores of the simultaneous game showing
just one game and they have a small piece of small rectangle with the score
on the other game that you can cover up that you can cover up and and they're
not saying it that's smart I wish they would do that here well yeah I remember
watching the 94 World Cup in the u.s. and they were still trying to figure it
out and guessing there is progress in the meantime you know it's actually a
good thing euro 2020 is happening now it's 2021 obviously it got postponed a
year and they kept the name but the next World Cup is in Qatar and that was
supposed to be in 2022 but it's way too hot in the Mideast at that time of year
so they're having it I think in November so it's actually being pushed back a
little bit but the the the COVID-19 crisis has delayed everything so it
actually is a good thing that it's being pushed you know back a little bit to
their winter yeah which isn't much of a winter but that adds another five months
or so so kind of works out well let's hope so yeah I'm looking forward to the
qualification game starting in September around here August no September early
September yeah yeah those are fun they already started in March but I missed
them so yeah there's some coming up in September and some of the World Cup
qualifying games nobody attends you know it's very very sparse attendance because
people don't think it really matters that much but it does it adds up you
know it's a bunch of games you have to play to qualify well I intend to do my
best and also there is the women's World Cup for 2023 that's right and there's
gonna be qualifying games for its next year and and that's a sport where the US
kicks ass where we really are the champions I remember that I watched that
championship yeah anything else Bobson well no it's good hearing for you it's
from you and likewise keep up the radios well thank you for your support and for
calling in and we hope to see you again soon looking forward to it all right and
enjoy the Wednesday games I will try I will try okay but we're not going to
talk about anymore have a good night oops he hung up you see the fact that he
said enjoy the Wednesday games tells me that the Wednesday games happened so
that kind of ruins it for me because who knows a meteor could have struck and I
want to be surprised I don't want it it's a spoiler the games got played Wow
it's really hard it's really hard okay what's this this is something we really
should talk about on the other show but with so much time but apparently American
authorities have seized a bunch of Iran's state-linked news websites they
accused them of spreading disinformation that's according to a US Justice
Department statement yesterday it's a far-reaching crackdown on Iranian media
amid heightened tension between the two countries Justice Department said 33 of
the seized websites were used by the Iranian Islamic Radio and Television
Union which was singled out by the US government last October for what
officials described as efforts to spread disinformation and so discord among
American voters ahead of the presidential election the u.s. says three
other seized websites were operated by the Iraqi Shiite paramilitary group
khatib Hezbollah which more than a decade ago was designated a foreign
terrorist organization the group is separate from the Lebanese militant
Hezbollah group whose news websites remained operational so Hezbollah is okay
Hezbollah is is over the line apparently the website domains are owned by u.s.
companies but despite the sanctions neither the IRTV you nor KH obtained the
required licenses from the US government before using the domain names it's
according to the Justice Department this announcement came hours after the
Iranian state-run news agency Erna IRNA revealed the US government seizures
without providing further information
very interesting stuff here these are Iranian run sites and I imagine they're
they're operated in Iran and the Justice Department says that because they're
spreading disinformation which is something that I believe has always been
an accusation for foreign news media they're able to simply shut them down
the season what do you think about this Alex this is a pretty fascinating story
and I've been tracking it pretty pretty closely what's what's also interesting
is that this was very widely reported yesterday and I can't figure out exactly
why because this has happened I relatively recently as well back on the
7th of October the FBI and the Department of Justice actually sees 92
domains that related to propaganda or disinformation of which actually for
pretend be generic news outlets that were supposedly run by the Iranian
National Guard the the I'm certain of the National Guard the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards could force the IRGC the same patient that issue in the
seizures that happened yesterday but you know this one it's a little bit
different because these are and perhaps this is why it was so much more widely
reported is because these are very well-known press outlets Ron that have
been seized and terminated and I think there's you know a lot to be said for
that it gives me I think a great amount of pause to have something like this
done by one government to another government's news outlets yes Gary yet
on the other hand you know one of the the things that we know is to be a
fiction is that domain names don't belong to anybody I mean they're owned
and operated according to the Department of Justice and the complaints and and
the federal judiciary here by u.s. companies when they exist in the dot-com
TLD and that's because Verisign is the back-end registry operator they're the
the party that is responsible for keeping track of what is in the dot-com
zone file all of the domains that are in dot-com you don't necessarily own it
they're really owned by this u.s. company and you are just leasing it for the
period of the registration now what if you're what if your top-level domain is
a two-letter country top-level domain that's totally different that's
completely different and this goes back a long ways ago to how I can was formed
and the jurisdiction that I can has over certain domains a generic top-level
domains because I can does not have really any powers over the country code
top-level domains the ccTL DS so press TV comm was one of the domains that was
seized and turned off yesterday that just resurfaced not too long thereafter
on press TV dot IR or you know the Iranian ccTL D what one of the things
that's interesting to is I figured out a couple of these domains that were seized
by the government one was press TV comm another outlet was al-masarah and it was
al-masarah net another one was al-alam TV and that's al-alam TV net and then
there is also another domain al-maloma al-malom that's a m double a l o m a h
and that was dot-com so Alex you mentioned press TV dot-com but you also
mentioned a different press TV domain before that that I think is in Iran was
that's right that I are so that one wasn't touched but dot-com was well
press TV dot-com was seized so that was subject to the order because it exists
in the dot-com top-level domain so what was not seized was press TV dot IR and
all they did was was pick up operations on press TV dot IR so this would be
somewhat disruptive to their operations and and maybe decrease their their
viewership it would be a pain in the ass but you know look the the TTL times at
time to live is really what is going to dictate when all of that traffic is
going to begin redirecting over to press press TV that I are anyhow one of the
other things that was it was interesting to see and all of the domains that were
seized that I had taken a look at so far they all point to a name server that
belongs to AWS so I guess the the federal government has some contract
with AWS that's Amazon there they're seized websites for the foresee future
which is somewhat interesting so now the federal government can just step in and
say this dot-com site is spreading disinformation so therefore we're going
to seize it we're going to shut it down tell me why this doesn't apply to Fox
News dot-com well I guess it could I'm serious why why not if you're gonna do
this you tell one entity is it just because they're foreign or are you going
to apply that it seems very heavy-handed to me but I'd like to know
that's where does it stop it has to do with the fact that they're foreign and
the fact that they don't necessarily have a license to be doing what they're
doing what do you mean a license what kind of license do you need to run a
website if you think back to the press TV one I believe related to the Islamic
Radio and Television Union the IR TV you that entity and back if you go back
to October of 2020 OFAC the Office of Foreign Assets Controls designated IR TV
you as an SDN I have no idea what you just said I can tell I can tell you a
few more too so an SDN so OFAC the Office of Foreign Asset Controls
designated the Islamic Radio and Television Union as an SDN or
especially designated national and that's because or it gave it this SDN
status because OFAC believe that IR TV you was in fact controlled by the IRGC
well of course everybody knows that yeah I know so essentially what I'm saying is
it was designated as it put under the status because the federal government
believed that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Quds Force had controlled the
actual television station so it was put on this list essentially a sanctions
list and if you don't have and they're they're not allowed to do business in
the United States without some kind of special license or dispensation and
that's why you had this effort being performed not by FBI directly but by
actually the Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security they're
the ones that deal with export controls and treaty compliance and so you know
this was a rare instance where it was a joint DOJ and I'm sure FBI had a hand in
it too but also Department of Commerce effort but look I to your point mm-hmm I
think what was about the merits of whether or not a government yeah it's
one thing to get kicked off of Twitter because you're getting kicked off by a
company that decides to run its network a certain way this is the federal
government deeming that you're spreading disinformation I just see a very
dangerous precedent if we say oh yeah it's okay if you're Iranian and maybe
some other nationality that we don't like at the moment but it could easily
be used domestically as well under the same exact criteria well it couldn't be
used domestically because you wouldn't have somebody domestically listed as you
know a foreign terrorist organization or you sure about that I mean what if
you had friends what if you had relationships well look okay I guess you
know you know hypothetically you know there could be some people within the
jurisdiction of United States that could be designated in that way but to the
point of the the actual removal of the content I think this is all a judgment
call based on content one person's misinformation is another person's well
of truth right and in some respects but it's not to say that this is without any
process whatsoever I mean it is a known fact that the Verisign runs the
back-end registry for dot-com all of the dot-com infrastructure is located in the
United States from very for Verisign you know for all intents and purposes I'm
sure there's some overseas but the primary bits of it are in the United
States but there's also a process here you can't just turn this off it's just
not up to Department of Commerce or Department of Justice to do this they
have to make an application to a judge and a judge has to issue a seizure
warrant that has to be on the basis of probable cause so there is some process
in place to prevent this from being abused the judiciary would be the
gatekeeper to make sure that the government didn't do this in a manner
that got out of hand but on the other hand yet you know a third or fourth hand
by this time that process is all what's known in in legal terms as ex parte
meaning there's only one side that's going to be heard by the judge and that
side is the government and ex parte hearings were only one person is present
don't necessarily comport with our traditional notions of due process in
this country so what bothers me is that we have here is an ex parte process
where Iran and these press organizations didn't have an opportunity to be heard
there is some process here for sure but I don't necessarily know if it's enough
to safeguard those those speech interests and and I think that you know
an argument could be made that because if you think about press TV in particular
they're broadcasting in the English language and probably had a great deal
of listeners here in the United States as well but why can't those listeners
just go to the dot IR address instead and get the exact same content yeah they
can they can do that absolutely it doesn't seem that that much of a you
know a disadvantage unless you don't know about it and I think you know it
may be the time for calm and net and you know all these u.s. centric top-level
domains maybe that time has passed and everything should be defined by country
it should be dot u.s. you know for everything that happens I mean why do
we get dot mil and other countries militaries don't get dot mil they have
to put put it under a ccTLD it just seems we should even the playing field a
little bit and have you know have everybody represented based on where they
are well I agree with that to a large step but it's just that you know it
ignores history to a certain degree in that you know the reason why we have all
this is because I can you know which you know the Internet Corporation for
assigned names and numbers which regulates the security and stability of
the of the Internet there are actually a not-for-profit corporation organized
under the laws of the state of California okay but that doesn't mean
California owns everything forever it doesn't seem fair history of how they
originated and how they arrived at the authority that they have because you
know they I think they took this over from USC and then they opera University
of Southern California and and then they operated under this amorphous legal
document known as an affirmation what's what's the first I can I see a and right
yeah what does the I stand for internet oh I thought was international I would
have had no oh damn it Internet Corporation for assigned names and
numbers but it's an international organization they have meetings all over
the world I know that there has been a great push since the new gTLD program
first came out at the doors and in 2011-2012 for I can to have a much more
internationalized presence that's they now have these IDN gTLDs or the
internationalized domain names where you can have these foreign characters in the
top-level domains themselves so they've got offices now I think in Istanbul and
a couple other places around the world that they're trying very hard to make
them seem not like a puppet of the United States because that's what people
had thought about I can for a very very long period of time but you know that
this this type of action here we were taking domains in dot-com because we
have the infrastructure we have the authority over the companies that
regulate that space this is you're going to be having some ripple effects in the
DNS because any entity that could think or possibly could be affected by these
types of US government efforts any foreign press would behoove themselves
to tonight snatch up their ccTLD their country code top-level domain names for
whatever countries they operate in and be ready to fail over to those on a
moment's notice it's I think it's important there's a lot of press
implications here and that's what bothers me about those actions not
necessarily the legal authority on which they're based or or the facts on which
they're based either okay well we should probably wrap things up did we
have a call we have no calls okay good because we're out of time oh yeah we do
we do we have a call yeah how long have you been waiting for a long time okay
well sorry caller what's on your mind oh no wait wait I know this voice you
thought it'd be okay to skirt the rules yeah you know nobody pays attention
anything I I request anymore okay yeah you got one minute but we're pretty much
out of time but you called last week so we're gonna have to impose this next
week as well because people she's been on hold all this time that means no one
else could have gotten through you see you basically you blocked the free
speech of many other people maybe in Siberia who knows fortunately Siberia got
through tonight but who knows who didn't but go ahead what's on your mind okay
last week I said there was no way that Biden was going to make his goal of 70%
right 60% and you scolded me I scolded you no you can't say that it's still
possible now that he said the same thing am I allowed to say that without being
scolded what can I not scold Biden for getting his own words wrong yeah this
you know it's just a number it's just it's just a important thing is that more
people get the damn vaccine and hopefully we reach that number soon if
not July 4th maybe July 5th or July 10th or something like that but the important
thing people are going to be gathering in July 4th in crowds I know well that's
true the problem and and it's too soon and New York the governor has decided
it's no longer a state of emergency as long as this community transmission it's
not over and it's too soon yeah and if you feel strongly about that I would
suggest not being around those those events I share your concern we need to
get more people out there to to get the vaccine and especially young people and
and then this thing can turn around okay and also anyone any adult anyway can ask
for someone to come in as you mentioned before which is wonderful so hopefully
that will help but we I I'm hoping that a lot more employers will make it
mandatory yeah it's it's totally up to the employee employers especially you
know in a hospital like the Houston case if you run a hospital of course you
want people working at hospital to be vaccinated because you have patients
there that that aren't protected it's just it's just common sense hey we're
gonna leave it there we're out of time have a good night a good week and we are
gonna sign off you can write to us OTH at 2600 calm oh by the way last week we
talked about what do you got there Kyle we got a bottle of some some bubbly is
that what that is oh that's just regular wine okay it's twist-off yeah twist-off
cap really adds to the to the the flare yeah it's how you know it's expensive
huh Canada dry right that's the new line of wine products yeah last week we had
an issue with our YouTube recording in that it was cutting off you know here's
the thing you'd think that you get some kind of an alarm or warning from YouTube
we got a warning the week before saying that we were spreading medical
misinformation which was false obviously but no warning saying that oh yeah
you're you're recording is all choppy and didn't didn't capture everything now
we figured that out ourselves because I happen to be looking at the screen in
fact I don't even have it on the screen now it could be doing it right now and I
wouldn't even know basically saying that there's no connection at the moment well
what we did was we we increased our bandwidth and I hope that fixes the
problem it's kind of funny it's just a simple button on our providers website
to pay a few bucks more a month to increase your bandwidth and I clicked
that button and nothing happened I have no idea what I just did I'm certain that
I started paying them more but nothing happened as far as change in speed so I
had to I had to contact them on one of those little chat things that they have
online I talked to this really annoying perky artificial intelligence being who
completely got everything I was asking wrong and when she asked I say she
because she had a female name when she asked was I helpful I said not at all
and she asked if I could maybe connect you to a human that's like yeah that
would be great that would have been nice from the start and so after a few more
minutes I spoke to somebody else supposedly who was a human and explained
the situation and they said you had to basically unplug your your modem and we
did that and then we discovered that even though we unplugged the modem while
the modem was getting a fast speed nothing else was we discovered that we
were rate limiting ourselves and I don't know why we were doing this but we
checked our router and this this might be useful to people out there that are
upgrading and wondering why it doesn't work our router had numbers in it but
for some reason we're saying don't go above this number and of course we
wanted to go above that number once we change that it worked great so hopefully
this week there are no problems yeah no you explained it very well it was very
helpful actually to have run into that because we found out that despite the
provider and other increases we were doing some horrible management to our
own ability to communicate which is meaning everything was sort of
bottlenecked for the entire year for all of our shows that we've done so ha ha
yeah you learn you learn something works better now so guys any final words
because we're about to sign off just happy pride to everyone celebrating this
weekend they're in-person things happening at least in this area and that
that should be fun yes celebrate however you choose you know and make sure you
take care of can you get that any closer to the microphone by one another okay
that's I'll take that thank you very much oh what what year is this by the
way 2009 2009 no kidding Wow this bottle of wine is almost old enough to drink the
bottle of wine but happy pride to all that's fine I found on the one train
that I gave you right that's good no no this was a going out of winemaking sale
it's a long story but you got like cheese doodles that's I'm gonna go with
this this is a kind of kind of classy yeah well we hadn't really planned that
part of rummages through the cupboards I'll see what I can find oh so yeah
folks thank you very much for listening please write to us OTH at 26 on comm
send us stories if you want us to cover certain things or just feedback of one
sort or another and don't forget 2600 meetings are starting up slowly a week
from Friday if you're a part of a meeting you have to contact us either
through Twitter Twitter ID of 2600 meetings that's the number two six zero
zero meetings we have direct messaging open so you don't have to follow us to
be able to send us a DM you can email meetings at 2600 comm you can go to the
web page 2600 comm slash meetings and basically we are taking I guess
registrations for meetings to restart or for new meetings to start just contact
us let us know where they are happening they should be in a public space and you
should be in an area where the total vaccination rate is at least 40% which
most states are unfortunately most countries are not so there are very few
countries right now I think that I think the UK and the United States Canada not
yet not yet unfortunately and I'm sorry what's this oh sorry you talking to
somebody else Alex yeah I was sorry about that let's check in a radio yeah
of course because that's what you have to do right now so anyway if if you have
information for us please contact us using those methods and we're gonna we're
gonna take tentative steps and try to get things back to some semblance of
normalcy with your help absolutely it's the only way we can do things all right
we'll see you next week good night