[00:02.320 --> 00:06.600]  The previous program was Economic Update with Richard Wolff.
[00:06.800 --> 00:08.560]  Heard Wednesdays at 6.30 p.m.
[00:08.620 --> 00:10.860]  right after the WBAI Evening News.
[00:11.920 --> 00:14.200]  And it's now 7 p.m.
[00:14.360 --> 00:16.460]  Stay tuned for Off the Hook.
[00:16.620 --> 00:24.420]  And once again, this is WBAI New York, 99.5 FM and WBAI.org online.
[00:24.700 --> 00:25.460]  Stay tuned.
[00:40.390 --> 00:40.950]  Hello.
[00:41.310 --> 00:43.810]  You're listening to WBAI in New York.
[00:44.030 --> 00:48.130]  It's 7 o'clock time once again for an exciting edition of Off the Hook.
[00:49.370 --> 00:51.350]  I cut myself while shaving.
[00:51.870 --> 00:53.910]  Now I can't make a cough.
[00:54.610 --> 00:56.710]  We couldn't get much worse.
[00:57.390 --> 00:59.250]  But if they could, they would.
[00:59.510 --> 01:02.170]  From Billy Bon for the best, expect the worst.
[01:02.830 --> 01:04.650]  I hope that's understood.
[01:04.870 --> 01:05.690]  From Billy Bon.
[01:28.520 --> 01:30.060]  And a very good evening to everybody.
[01:30.140 --> 01:31.320]  The program is Off the Hook.
[01:31.440 --> 01:34.680]  Apologies for the start of the theme in the middle like that.
[01:34.680 --> 01:37.320]  That was unfortunate.
[01:37.700 --> 01:41.000]  And of course, you know, most people like to hear the Off the Hook tone.
[01:41.140 --> 01:42.720]  Let's see if I can make that happen once more.
[01:42.940 --> 01:43.440]  There we go.
[01:45.180 --> 01:46.380]  That's what people want to hear.
[01:46.880 --> 01:47.840]  The Off the Hook tone.
[01:48.220 --> 01:50.540]  So, Manuel, I'm back with Kyle.
[01:51.280 --> 01:51.960]  Over here.
[01:52.440 --> 01:56.660]  And hopefully, Rob, Rob T.
[01:56.760 --> 01:58.200]  Firefly, are you there?
[01:59.160 --> 02:00.020]  I am here.
[02:00.160 --> 02:00.500]  Good evening.
[02:00.500 --> 02:00.940]  Okay.
[02:01.080 --> 02:03.580]  And I believe Gila is with you as well?
[02:04.280 --> 02:05.680]  I am here too, yes.
[02:05.860 --> 02:07.360]  And is that Alex, I see?
[02:09.020 --> 02:10.080]  It is I.
[02:10.440 --> 02:11.160]  Okay, good.
[02:11.360 --> 02:12.160]  Well, this is good.
[02:12.320 --> 02:13.200]  No, this is progress.
[02:15.360 --> 02:17.480]  Because we've been away for five weeks.
[02:17.860 --> 02:18.940]  We just got back.
[02:19.120 --> 02:20.980]  Everything is going haywire.
[02:22.320 --> 02:25.300]  We have a lot of stories to tell and a lot of things to share.
[02:25.300 --> 02:33.960]  But we might have some technical glitches that could even be milestones for us.
[02:34.220 --> 02:37.760]  It's possible you guys aren't able to hear anything that I play from here.
[02:37.760 --> 02:39.060]  I don't think you're able to hear the theme.
[02:39.060 --> 02:39.560]  Is that correct?
[02:41.380 --> 02:42.400]  We could not, no.
[02:42.440 --> 02:43.420]  Okay, so that's unfortunate.
[02:43.880 --> 02:50.160]  So you'll have to listen if we do anything prerecorded over the air or over the internet or however you do things.
[02:51.860 --> 02:54.280]  So we have been traveling across the country.
[02:54.500 --> 02:58.320]  We drove all the way from Seattle and we went through all kinds of small towns along the way.
[02:58.440 --> 03:00.040]  And it was quite an experience.
[03:00.280 --> 03:09.280]  Saw all sorts of amazing things and have come back with, I guess, renewed passion and optimism for the future.
[03:09.380 --> 03:13.260]  Because people were really cool all the way through and there is so much to see and do.
[03:13.260 --> 03:15.820]  And I think the secret is, don't go to the big cities.
[03:15.980 --> 03:17.240]  Go to the small places.
[03:17.480 --> 03:20.520]  And that's where you see more unique things.
[03:20.720 --> 03:25.660]  Just interesting people and sights and a lot of trucks.
[03:25.660 --> 03:27.140]  A lot of trucks on the highway.
[03:28.560 --> 03:29.380]  What have we missed?
[03:29.380 --> 03:31.160]  What's been going on back here in New York?
[03:34.740 --> 03:35.920]  Some inclement weather.
[03:36.160 --> 03:37.300]  I think you missed some of that.
[03:38.580 --> 03:39.660]  Yeah, it hailed.
[03:40.240 --> 03:41.720]  I heard there were tornadoes.
[03:42.800 --> 03:45.280]  There were tornadoes, but it hailed in our neighborhood.
[03:45.480 --> 03:47.720]  There wasn't a tornado here specifically, but hail.
[03:48.760 --> 03:54.540]  Okay, well, if you listened to our show last night off the wall on the other radio station, we had hail too while we were recording something.
[03:54.620 --> 03:55.220]  A little bit of hail.
[03:55.420 --> 03:56.100]  Very tiny.
[03:56.360 --> 04:00.700]  It looked like dandruff, but it was hail and frightening.
[04:01.540 --> 04:02.440]  Alex, how about you?
[04:05.680 --> 04:08.620]  Well, I've been in and out of New York.
[04:08.820 --> 04:11.540]  I've been traveling a bit as well.
[04:11.540 --> 04:17.480]  Not to my usual abode over in Pennsylvania, but I've been this past week.
[04:17.480 --> 04:22.380]  I was down in Georgia, in Savannah, which is a wonderful city.
[04:22.380 --> 04:23.340]  I'd never been there.
[04:23.760 --> 04:34.920]  And also over in the low country of South Carolina, in particular, the Bluffton, South Carolina area, which is absolutely gorgeous.
[04:34.920 --> 04:40.680]  I was over there for work to speak on the subject of cybersecurity at a conference.
[04:41.120 --> 04:43.340]  And so, yeah, it's been interesting.
[04:43.560 --> 04:44.980]  I've been doing quite a bit of traveling.
[04:45.200 --> 04:48.340]  And also was in Chicago, was in North Carolina.
[04:48.540 --> 04:56.440]  So lots of traveling on this end, but all through planes and not necessarily trains like I know you guys prefer.
[04:57.660 --> 04:59.020]  Yes, yes, we certainly do.
[05:00.300 --> 05:01.540]  But we did drive, too.
[05:01.680 --> 05:06.740]  We were able to haul a bunch of stuff from Washington State over here to New York.
[05:06.900 --> 05:09.260]  But like I said, we went through smaller places.
[05:09.260 --> 05:10.920]  I'm going to list the places we went through.
[05:12.520 --> 05:16.220]  Just so you get a sense as to what kind of travel this was.
[05:16.220 --> 05:34.020]  We stayed in Hermiston, Oregon, Ogden, Utah, Farmington, New Mexico, Trinidad, Colorado, Liberal in Kansas, Henrietta in Oklahoma, Carbondale, Illinois, Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and Morgantown, West Virginia.
[05:34.820 --> 05:35.260]  Yeah.
[05:35.440 --> 05:37.320]  How many of those places have you heard of?
[05:39.600 --> 05:40.840]  All of them just now.
[05:41.040 --> 05:41.360]  I think...
[05:42.580 --> 05:43.220]  Yeah.
[05:43.400 --> 05:45.640]  I think I've heard of a few of them.
[05:45.640 --> 05:47.820]  I've heard of Carbondale, for sure.
[05:48.760 --> 05:50.300]  And I think that...
[05:50.300 --> 05:52.100]  What was the West Virginia town again, Emmanuel?
[05:52.340 --> 05:55.100]  The West Virginia town was Morgantown.
[05:56.100 --> 05:58.780]  I think I've heard of that as well.
[05:59.120 --> 06:01.700]  But yeah, it sounds like you went to some esoteric places.
[06:01.940 --> 06:03.400]  What were the highs and the lows?
[06:03.640 --> 06:08.400]  Well, Morgantown, since you mentioned Morgantown, that was our last stop in West...
[06:08.400 --> 06:09.480]  Oh, did you fall off your chair there?
[06:09.800 --> 06:10.680]  Alex, looks like you did.
[06:11.240 --> 06:11.780]  You okay?
[06:13.220 --> 06:13.700]  Okay.
[06:13.880 --> 06:14.860]  You lost your microphone.
[06:14.860 --> 06:15.980]  No, I'm not...
[06:16.580 --> 06:16.980]  Wow.
[06:17.060 --> 06:17.200]  Yeah.
[06:17.400 --> 06:17.780]  All right.
[06:18.080 --> 06:19.620]  No, I'm using my phone.
[06:19.760 --> 06:23.360]  So, you know, the video is going to be a little bit erratic here.
[06:23.600 --> 06:24.940]  It's going to be like a Blair Witch kind of...
[06:24.940 --> 06:26.520]  I wasn't going to say anything, but boy.
[06:27.300 --> 06:30.720]  Yeah, Morgantown, West Virginia, is a great place.
[06:30.720 --> 06:31.680]  It's a college town.
[06:31.680 --> 06:40.620]  And they have this amazing transport system on campus known that...
[06:40.620 --> 06:41.280]  Personal...
[06:41.280 --> 06:41.800]  What are they, Kyle?
[06:42.120 --> 06:44.500]  PRT, the Personal Rapid Transit.
[06:44.680 --> 06:46.040]  Personal Rapid Transit.
[06:46.680 --> 06:51.800]  They're basically cars that I guess you can fit about 20 people in.
[06:52.040 --> 06:53.980]  And they're on sort of a track.
[06:54.160 --> 06:55.100]  It's kind of like concrete.
[06:55.440 --> 06:56.780]  How would you describe it, Kyle?
[06:56.780 --> 07:02.520]  Well, it's a concrete guideway, I believe is the way you would refer to it.
[07:02.620 --> 07:06.080]  And it has some conductors that run alongside it.
[07:06.360 --> 07:15.080]  And it uses rubber wheels that are sort of angled to follow the curb that's built into the guideway.
[07:15.080 --> 07:18.940]  It's the biggest one of its kind in the world, if you can believe that.
[07:19.040 --> 07:20.140]  It goes about 13 kilometers.
[07:20.720 --> 07:25.280]  There's something similar at, I believe, Heathrow Airport in London.
[07:25.800 --> 07:29.820]  There's something in South Korea, something in China, but nothing as big as Morgantown.
[07:30.300 --> 07:32.800]  This is the kind of thing that happens when you travel places.
[07:32.800 --> 07:34.820]  You learn things.
[07:34.820 --> 07:41.280]  You see unique displays of one thing or another that you won't find in big cities.
[07:41.280 --> 07:45.460]  So, yeah, Morgantown, personal rapid transit, PRTs.
[07:45.720 --> 07:46.120]  Look it up.
[07:46.440 --> 08:06.040]  Yeah, and there are little bits of technological interest like that along the way on various infrastructure, construction, and just seeing how different places are changing and alongside this beautiful terrain.
[08:06.040 --> 08:09.580]  So, it's nice to get out there and experience all of that.
[08:09.820 --> 08:10.440]  Yep.
[08:11.440 --> 08:12.240]  Any other questions?
[08:14.940 --> 08:21.740]  You know, I mean, I'd heard of about half of the cities you went to, I think, but that's also a function of having grown up in the Midwest.
[08:22.040 --> 08:22.500]  That's true.
[08:22.720 --> 08:24.400]  You're from the Midwest.
[08:25.040 --> 08:25.460]  Yes.
[08:25.460 --> 08:35.740]  And, you know, every time we travel through either the Midwest or the Deep South, we develop this affinity for it because, you know, I think what we've concluded is the people aren't the problem.
[08:36.060 --> 08:37.000]  They really aren't.
[08:37.000 --> 08:49.700]  It's the crazy AM radio shock jocks or whatever you want to call them that just spew hatred or politicians pretty much doing the same thing and just leading people down the wrong path.
[08:49.800 --> 09:01.940]  When you actually talk to people one-on-one, I mean, Carl had an hour-long discussion in a bar with a Kentucky bartender about cars and, you know, mechanics and things like that.
[09:02.040 --> 09:03.240]  And that was beautiful to see.
[09:03.320 --> 09:08.580]  And all kinds of similar types of exchanges you can have if you just give yourself the time to do it.
[09:08.580 --> 09:14.180]  And it doesn't have to be at all divisive or anything like that once you establish common ground.
[09:15.520 --> 09:16.900]  I do have a question, though.
[09:17.600 --> 09:21.300]  Did you take any of the listener's suggestions for your route?
[09:21.500 --> 09:21.780]  Yes.
[09:21.940 --> 09:22.400]  Yes, we did.
[09:23.020 --> 09:24.200]  Lots of them along the way.
[09:24.500 --> 09:24.600]  Yeah.
[09:25.780 --> 09:29.040]  Anyone that we could that fit sort of the route that we were on?
[09:29.040 --> 09:40.700]  Yeah, we went to Mexican Hat in Utah, which is this bizarre rock formation where this massive rock is on top of a much thinner rock.
[09:40.960 --> 09:42.640]  Really, it's kind of like Stonehenge.
[09:42.740 --> 09:43.820]  You can't figure out how it happened.
[09:44.380 --> 09:45.620]  Maybe it was a natural thing.
[09:45.680 --> 09:46.060]  Maybe not.
[09:46.140 --> 09:51.280]  But that was particularly impressive because it was so quiet when we got there.
[09:51.380 --> 09:52.680]  We got there just at sunset.
[09:52.780 --> 09:54.160]  Had to drive all day to get there.
[09:54.540 --> 09:55.380]  But we did it.
[09:55.380 --> 09:59.720]  And when we were there, it was like nothing I've experienced.
[09:59.720 --> 10:02.640]  It was so incredibly silent and peaceful.
[10:03.540 --> 10:07.200]  And we also checked out...
[10:07.200 --> 10:10.440]  What do you call that place in Washington State with the dry...
[10:10.440 --> 10:11.020]  Dry falls.
[10:11.140 --> 10:11.820]  Dry falls.
[10:12.080 --> 10:21.020]  It was like a glacial blockage that was then emptied out and forms this very large, deep pit.
[10:21.180 --> 10:22.720]  That was a suggestion from a listener.
[10:22.720 --> 10:37.960]  And we had other ideas of places that were of interest as well that we always kind of wanted to be kind of tourists and kind of in the quintessential way, but never had the chance to.
[10:38.100 --> 10:47.040]  So we fit in a couple of cool TV and film things and even places we just stumbled upon that sounded interesting.
[10:47.040 --> 10:49.040]  That was another real driving factor.
[10:49.320 --> 10:50.240]  Cadillac Ranch.
[10:50.340 --> 10:51.420]  A listener suggested that.
[10:51.420 --> 10:52.900]  We stopped by there in Texas.
[10:53.200 --> 10:55.980]  And that was kind of cool because we drove across Texas.
[10:55.980 --> 10:59.620]  But you know, when you drive across Texas, it's so big, it takes a full day or more.
[11:00.660 --> 11:03.180]  But we drove across the panhandle of Texas.
[11:03.380 --> 11:04.200]  It's much shorter.
[11:04.360 --> 11:05.720]  It takes about three hours.
[11:05.720 --> 11:10.340]  But we stopped in Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo.
[11:11.060 --> 11:18.040]  And that's where all these Cadillacs are just, for some reason, it's part of an art project from some artist in San Francisco many years ago.
[11:18.620 --> 11:23.160]  They're just, I think about a dozen of them are just buried in the ground.
[11:23.600 --> 11:23.820]  Ten.
[11:24.160 --> 11:24.320]  Ten.
[11:24.460 --> 11:24.740]  Is it ten?
[11:24.860 --> 11:25.000]  Okay.
[11:25.060 --> 11:25.880]  Yeah, there's ten cars.
[11:25.920 --> 11:27.180]  And they're spray painted now too.
[11:27.460 --> 11:30.240]  And yeah, there are a couple of Trump one spray painted things on there.
[11:30.240 --> 11:35.580]  But, you know, in an hour, they'll be spray painted with something else because that's just the nature of it.
[11:36.440 --> 11:43.120]  So many installations and markers and various points of interest around.
[11:43.440 --> 11:50.520]  So inspiring, gets you kind of curious about what else is out there.
[11:50.720 --> 11:50.920]  Yeah.
[11:51.540 --> 11:54.700]  So again, thanks to all the listeners for suggestions and places to go.
[11:54.820 --> 11:55.700]  It really is amazing.
[11:55.700 --> 12:04.520]  And we're basically logging everything on the other radio show, Off the Wall, which is on Tuesdays and available on 2600.com.
[12:04.520 --> 12:07.060]  So you can hear the audio that we recorded from there as well.
[12:07.760 --> 12:13.880]  But moving on to things that are happening in the world of technology, because that is what we are about here on Off the Hook.
[12:15.060 --> 12:25.440]  We have some hacked police aerial surveillance footage that our good friends over at Distributed Denial of Secrets have released.
[12:25.760 --> 12:37.900]  The activist group has posted over 600 hours of police aerial surveillance footage that was received from an anonymous hacker that claims to target unsecured law enforcement data.
[12:39.020 --> 12:48.000]  Now, Distributed Denial of Secrets co-founder Emma Best said that her organization does not know the identity of the hacker or why that person targeted those organizations specifically.
[12:48.000 --> 13:04.180]  A Dallas police spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill that the department had received multiple inquiries regarding a website's report about a potential data breach of 1.8 terabytes of the department's helicopter and drone footage.
[13:04.820 --> 13:09.640]  He said the department cannot confirm at this time how much video information was breached.
[13:09.700 --> 13:13.680]  It is important to note that this video data was not lost, nor is it missing.
[13:13.680 --> 13:17.100]  It's just being shared all over the place.
[13:17.660 --> 13:19.280]  This is an ongoing investigation.
[13:19.480 --> 13:23.100]  The department will provide a full response at the conclusion of the investigation.
[13:24.440 --> 13:30.080]  But basically, I haven't had a chance to really analyze this.
[13:30.200 --> 13:31.700]  And I know you can't link to it on Twitter.
[13:31.820 --> 13:35.660]  If you link to it on Twitter, the tweet won't go through because that's how Twitter is.
[13:35.660 --> 13:51.720]  But there are all kinds of examples of people, voyeurism, for instance, helicopters spying on people, or basically First Amendment rights being mocked by cops.
[13:52.060 --> 13:57.800]  I don't have specifics in front of me, but this is what I've gleaned from the reports I've seen so far.
[13:58.020 --> 13:59.200]  Rob, do you know more about this?
[14:00.520 --> 14:04.100]  Yeah, there's some really interesting stuff coming out of this leak.
[14:04.340 --> 14:06.160]  And it's a huge leak.
[14:06.400 --> 14:11.220]  As we said, almost two terabytes of video footage, high-res video footage.
[14:11.460 --> 14:13.940]  And some excerpts from this have started going around.
[14:14.600 --> 14:19.980]  A journalist called Mikael Thalin, who works at Daily Dot, had a Twitter thread with some highlights.
[14:20.160 --> 14:41.840]  There is footage above scenes of accidents and things, but footage of just random people who are totally unaware they're being watched by some sort of drone, people sunbathing in backyards, the use of thermal imaging on one of these clips so they could see inside the Mercedes-Benz Stadium during an Atlantic Falcons game.
[14:43.760 --> 14:49.480]  Just there's more than 600 hours of helicopter surveillance footage that's been leaked to DDoS secrets.
[14:49.480 --> 15:05.640]  And it's really eye-opening if you haven't given much thought to exactly what the police, who are highly militarized, have really expensive toys at their disposal, can see now without any sort of warrants or procedure, apparently, in any way.
[15:05.780 --> 15:09.220]  And it's really frightening, I think.
[15:10.240 --> 15:11.240]  Yeah, absolutely.
[15:12.180 --> 15:25.120]  It's also kind of inspirational to see this information just shared like this, because we do have a right to know what is going on by people who wield so much power.
[15:25.520 --> 15:29.560]  It's kind of frightening, but I think it's something that we also need to know.
[15:29.680 --> 15:30.400]  Alex, yes, go ahead.
[15:31.580 --> 15:49.620]  Yeah, I mean, this is such an interesting development from distributed secrets, you know, whom I feel like it wasn't very long ago we had on the show talking about, I think it was the parlor leaks, I believe.
[15:51.440 --> 16:09.060]  From my perspective, building off what Rob had said, is that you don't realize that the police are monitoring you with this type of technology, they do it from so far afield, being in a helicopter and are able to see where you are or with whom you're consorting.
[16:09.320 --> 16:25.200]  This type of information and the knowledge that this surveillance is possible from the vantage point of a helicopter, I feel like could very much have a chilling effect on First Amendment freedoms, such as freedom of association and freedom of speech.
[16:25.200 --> 16:42.200]  And so, in particular, I think we need to be asking a lot of questions about this type of data collection and use, and namely questions like, you know, with what personal data is any of this footage associated with on other police systems?
[16:43.100 --> 16:49.700]  And how is this data, or to whom is this data transferred or shared?
[16:50.340 --> 16:59.600]  Because that, I think, can be very important to know, especially with respect to how long this data is going to exist, if you're on any of this particular type of footage.
[17:01.380 --> 17:12.340]  And in particular, as well, if there has been a privacy violation, if this technology has been misused, to what extent and how many times has it been misused?
[17:12.340 --> 17:19.640]  And is there any remedy, you know, for a privacy violation from the vantage point of a helicopter, from helicopter surveillance?
[17:19.640 --> 17:41.060]  Because generally, we have seen that the police and police activity have something known as qualified immunity, and the state itself would certainly have a claim, perhaps, of even sovereign immunity, to prevent any kind of liability from arising in the context of a lawsuit.
[17:41.460 --> 17:54.140]  So, in as much as this data is super interesting, very neat to look at and watch, it raises a lot of issues and a lot of questions that we should be asking rather rigorously.
[17:55.140 --> 18:02.680]  And are there any issues involved in hosting this, as Distributed Denial Secrets is doing?
[18:03.300 --> 18:08.440]  I know Twitter won't link to them, won't allow links to be posted, but, you know, it's easy to get around.
[18:08.440 --> 18:11.920]  You simply put spaces in between the letters or something like that.
[18:12.020 --> 18:25.840]  But that kind of fear of linking to something controversial that somebody is going to get angry about, and we say, you know, quite instinctively, no, we have the right to know this.
[18:25.900 --> 18:27.800]  And I think most hackers do believe that.
[18:28.100 --> 18:32.420]  But, Alex, do you see any legal issues that they might be facing by doing this?
[18:34.020 --> 18:39.780]  Uh, possibly, you know, the hosting of this data from Distributed Denial of Secrets?
[18:39.940 --> 18:51.760]  I mean, look, it's possible that somebody could think that, you know, they are doing something with stolen property, or compromising an investigation, some kind of obstruction.
[18:51.760 --> 18:57.860]  I mean, look, what Distributed Denial of Secrets does on a regular basis is very risky.
[18:57.860 --> 19:04.760]  And they take risks, I think, you know, for the purpose of getting information out to the public.
[19:05.460 --> 19:12.420]  You know, they're performing, I think, what they would perceive in their view as a public service.
[19:13.360 --> 19:23.560]  And there's always going to be a measure of risk associated with dealing with this type of data that is exfiltrated from police departments through an anonymous whistleblower.
[19:23.560 --> 19:35.120]  And I think from the perspective of Distributed Denial of Secrets itself, I would certainly hope that they would not be facing any liability.
[19:35.120 --> 19:42.220]  But what law enforcement is probably extremely interested in is the identity of this whistleblower.
[19:42.220 --> 20:02.540]  And so I think they may be looking down the barrel, perhaps, of some kind of subpoena, perhaps a search warrant that could be executed with respect to any communications with that whistleblower, any data, in particular IP address data that they would have with respect to the whistleblower,
[20:03.200 --> 20:10.120]  which, if you're a whistleblower, makes it all the more important to use something like SecureDrop.
[20:10.120 --> 20:21.980]  If you're going to share exfiltrated data with a news organization or you want to keep your identity anonymous.
[20:22.340 --> 20:28.980]  And, of course, you can see the Distributed Denial of Secrets website at ddossecrets.com.
[20:28.980 --> 20:33.740]  That's with one S, D-D-O-S-E-C-R-E-T-S dot com.
[20:33.880 --> 20:34.240]  Go ahead, Rob.
[20:35.280 --> 20:44.540]  And as it says in the name, the genius of how they share this is it's Distributed Denial of Secrets, and these secrets are being shared in the form of a torrent.
[20:44.800 --> 20:49.160]  It's a magnet link, which means that the material is not hosted directly off of this website.
[20:49.420 --> 20:54.640]  It's hosted by everybody who's participating in this BitTorrent-based exchange of information.
[20:54.640 --> 21:05.180]  So, if you go to D-D-O-S-E-C-R-E-T-S dot com, and you have an up-to-date BitTorrent client, you can click that magnet link and check this out for yourself.
[21:07.020 --> 21:11.940]  And the torrent was pretty lively last time I looked at it, or so I've heard.
[21:12.600 --> 21:18.620]  And it's sure to be some interesting stuff, and it's sure to be a lot of data to go and grab.
[21:18.760 --> 21:22.880]  You know, you probably need some big hard drives, but it's worth a look.
[21:22.980 --> 21:33.440]  And on the front page there, you have the aerial surveillance footage leak and all sorts of other leaks that the folks at D-D-O-S-Secrets are involved in spreading out there.
[21:33.560 --> 21:34.720]  And it's interesting stuff.
[21:35.980 --> 21:42.040]  Okay, I want to move to another story of a different note, but sort of the same spirit.
[21:42.700 --> 21:53.760]  This is about a young hacker, very young hacker, 11 years old, and someone who got in a bit of trouble for doing something at his school.
[21:55.000 --> 21:59.300]  We're going to hear his mother, at least I hope it goes over the radio.
[21:59.980 --> 22:03.100]  You guys, I don't think you'll be able to hear it, so you'll have to listen to the radio.
[22:03.940 --> 22:14.220]  But I want you to hear the story as told by his mother, because it's really intriguing, fascinating, humorous, what have you.
[22:14.840 --> 22:16.640]  And we'll be back right after this.
[22:17.480 --> 22:23.620]  When I tell y'all I've been holding in this story time for the past seven months, just waiting to tell y'all.
[22:23.980 --> 22:28.300]  Now that everything is settled and done, I'm willing to share this information.
[22:28.620 --> 22:29.580]  But here we go.
[22:29.700 --> 22:31.920]  Seven months ago is April of 2021.
[22:32.880 --> 22:36.220]  Now I have an 11 year old, my only child.
[22:37.380 --> 22:45.300]  So during the school year, they were in school one week, homeschooled the next week, were virtual the next week.
[22:45.300 --> 22:50.940]  So this particular week that he is in school, mind you, they've been having connectivity issues, all this stuff.
[22:50.940 --> 22:52.940]  It's just been a troublesome year.
[22:53.060 --> 22:57.480]  But this is the first year that they have gone, you know, virtual, things happened, COVID.
[22:57.900 --> 23:06.260]  So anyways, I get a phone call from the school telling me that I need to get to the school to come there to deal with some issues with my child.
[23:06.980 --> 23:11.820]  So they told me that he is not in danger, but he is in major trouble.
[23:12.320 --> 23:13.520]  I pull up to the school.
[23:13.780 --> 23:22.540]  There are four police officers, the district attorney's office, the superintendent, the principal, three IT technicians.
[23:23.020 --> 23:30.080]  At first, I'm thinking maybe he took the pow pow to school, like maybe he got into my safe, like maybe he knows the code, and I don't know that he knows the code.
[23:30.660 --> 23:32.680]  But obviously, that is not the issue here.
[23:33.500 --> 23:34.520]  So I get in there.
[23:34.780 --> 23:36.260]  He's sitting in the hallway in tears.
[23:36.460 --> 23:39.880]  I said, I don't know what you've done, but what did you do?
[23:40.380 --> 23:41.980]  So he would not tell me.
[23:42.180 --> 23:44.400]  He was shaking, very visibly upset.
[23:45.400 --> 23:47.260]  So they told me to sit down.
[23:48.040 --> 23:50.580]  You know, they said, Miss blah, blah, blah, please have a seat.
[23:50.580 --> 23:51.940]  It is a very serious matter.
[23:52.220 --> 24:00.440]  I said, what possibly could my 11-year-old child who was in fifth grade done that has warranted all of this police activity?
[24:01.900 --> 24:08.760]  He has been controlling the internet at the school for the past three months.
[24:10.520 --> 24:16.200]  So he was shutting it off, turning it back on when he wanted to.
[24:16.560 --> 24:18.800]  It was to the point where these kids had off school.
[24:20.860 --> 24:22.660]  Their teachers could not email each other.
[24:22.920 --> 24:24.500]  They could not instant message each other.
[24:24.960 --> 24:27.340]  These kids were off school, like every other week.
[24:27.720 --> 24:31.080]  And he would come to me and be like, Mom, oh, the internet's messed up.
[24:31.560 --> 24:32.920]  Nobody, nobody can do anything.
[24:32.920 --> 24:34.220]  So they let us out early today.
[24:34.640 --> 24:36.920]  And I'm like, wow, they still haven't figured this out yet.
[24:37.500 --> 24:39.400]  Of course, they haven't figured it out because it was him.
[24:40.600 --> 24:45.400]  They called in the National Guard to figure it out and they could not figure it out.
[24:46.040 --> 24:49.300]  So then they had to go through every single computer at the school.
[24:49.760 --> 24:58.000]  Once they narrowed it down to one school, they went through every single computer as these children were at recess and at lunch until they figured out it was him.
[24:59.540 --> 25:00.700]  My child's a criminal.
[25:02.580 --> 25:03.380]  He's a criminal.
[25:03.940 --> 25:06.080]  They wanted to pass federal charges on him.
[25:06.600 --> 25:10.580]  Do you understand I had to hire a federal attorney for my 11-year-old?
[25:11.680 --> 25:13.000]  What have I given birth to?
[25:13.160 --> 25:13.600]  Rain Man?
[25:14.100 --> 25:16.480]  If you want to come get him, give him away.
[25:19.440 --> 25:20.460]  Oh, I love it.
[25:20.600 --> 25:22.720]  That is just so incredible.
[25:23.880 --> 25:30.560]  What a great mom, because you can tell that she is totally supportive of her kid, despite the sarcasm there.
[25:31.020 --> 25:32.100]  But what a story.
[25:32.260 --> 25:35.000]  And a story that I think so many of us are familiar with.
[25:35.000 --> 25:50.840]  The overreaction, the fear, the hostility, and also just the cleverness of a kid figuring something out and just basically controlling technology in ways that adults could never understand.
[25:51.740 --> 25:53.020]  Guys, were you able to hear that?
[25:53.140 --> 25:56.180]  I know you couldn't hear it over the computer, but were you able to hear it over the radio?
[25:56.200 --> 25:56.460]  You are.
[25:56.560 --> 25:56.940]  Okay, good.
[25:57.440 --> 25:58.560]  Any thoughts, comments?
[26:00.740 --> 26:06.780]  Yeah, I am so happy that the mother seems to see the humor in the situation.
[26:07.320 --> 26:12.560]  Not everyone's parents would be so generous, and this kid came off lucky there, I think.
[26:13.120 --> 26:15.140]  Yeah, I think that's so key.
[26:15.340 --> 26:19.060]  If you have a kid who's a bit mischievous, guess what?
[26:19.160 --> 26:20.120]  They all like that.
[26:20.120 --> 26:27.420]  So, if he or she is able to manipulate technology in various ways, support them.
[26:27.780 --> 26:29.400]  Try to understand what they're doing.
[26:29.560 --> 26:30.200]  Listen to them.
[26:30.520 --> 26:36.620]  Don't join in the mob that's trying to make their lives miserable.
[26:36.940 --> 26:56.560]  I mean, you know, four cops and a district attorney at the school, do you know what that does to an 11-year-old, no matter what he's been up to, had his mother joined in on that, he'd be forever intimidated and not able to express himself or do something creative in the future.
[26:56.680 --> 26:57.800]  Yeah, kids are going to make mistakes.
[26:57.940 --> 27:02.760]  Kids are going to screw up and they're going to make bad decisions.
[27:03.520 --> 27:04.500]  But you know what?
[27:04.500 --> 27:10.360]  But the way the technology was implemented, that was a bad decision too, okay?
[27:10.960 --> 27:14.260]  And I dare say, a valuable lesson was learned.
[27:14.560 --> 27:23.620]  And it's just, it's sad that the school couldn't have the same method of dealing with the situation as his kid's mom did.
[27:23.680 --> 27:25.060]  And he's very lucky to have her.
[27:26.080 --> 27:32.780]  But I just think of the number of kids who haven't been so lucky, and also the number of kids who have just been through something traumatic like that.
[27:33.460 --> 27:37.000]  Almost everybody I know at some point has been through something like this.
[27:37.380 --> 27:42.700]  And it just makes a world of difference when there's somebody there who can understand and listen.
[27:43.000 --> 27:43.800]  Go ahead, Alex.
[27:45.580 --> 27:54.080]  I mean, my initial thought on hearing that is, well, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
[27:54.080 --> 27:57.080]  And your words certainly ring true, Emmanuel.
[27:57.080 --> 28:18.020]  I mean, I myself remember that, God, it had to be about 28 years ago now, when I was in the public library of my local school district out on Long Island, and I was playing around with the direct access menu system that we had, well, they had put on these DOS-based computers,
[28:18.020 --> 28:30.140]  and I had rebooted the system, control-c out of the autoexec.bat, and then modified the autoexec.bat file to drop me off on a network drive, just so I could, you know, explore.
[28:30.300 --> 28:31.100]  You used control-c, Alex?
[28:31.100 --> 28:32.260]  They saw me at the DOS prompt.
[28:32.420 --> 28:33.120]  Control-c?
[28:33.420 --> 28:33.760]  Pardon me?
[28:33.880 --> 28:34.960]  You used control-c?
[28:35.940 --> 28:37.180]  I used control-c.
[28:37.320 --> 28:37.840]  Yeah, I know.
[28:37.980 --> 28:40.660]  Alex, I am so disappointed in you.
[28:40.780 --> 28:41.480]  Control-c.
[28:41.480 --> 29:02.980]  Yeah, control-c out of the autoexec batch, and so there I am, exploring the network, and they had completely freaked out, told me to step away from the computer, and then later on that evening, the police showed up at my house, and I had to explain to them,
[29:03.060 --> 29:13.340]  well, they didn't let me change the file back, and then I got a letter to my house claiming I had maliciously vandalized the computer system, and I was just looking around.
[29:13.660 --> 29:16.760]  You know, that's why those computers were there, so people could learn.
[29:16.860 --> 29:17.380]  I was learning.
[29:17.680 --> 29:20.620]  But, you know, it sounds, you know, eerily similar.
[29:22.300 --> 29:26.440]  However, I do have to say, I wasn't shutting down, you know, full internet access to the library.
[29:26.600 --> 29:30.780]  At the time, there was no internet access, I believe, in my local library.
[29:31.040 --> 29:47.940]  But it raises the question, though, to my mind, with what this 11-year-old did, you know, certainly a very precocious individual, somebody who probably has a lot of talent, a lot of curiosity, and that's the kind of childlike attitude towards the world,
[29:47.940 --> 29:52.940]  I think, that most hackers maintain throughout their lives, and should be encouraged.
[29:53.280 --> 29:59.160]  But why on earth can a school not function at all when the internet goes out?
[29:59.300 --> 30:00.800]  And why is there no backup?
[30:01.220 --> 30:09.160]  I mean, that's what's bizarre to me, is that, you know, is it just take a router going down these days to completely cancel school?
[30:09.400 --> 30:17.740]  You know, I want, number one, more details as to why there's no fail-safe or backup plan for the internet going out for a school district to function.
[30:17.780 --> 30:26.280]  And number two, I would love to know what it was that this particular 11-year-old did that caused the internet to go out.
[30:26.380 --> 30:27.900]  Was it some kind of DDoS attack?
[30:27.940 --> 30:30.500]  Was he just futzing around with the router?
[30:30.720 --> 30:32.220]  Was he fuzzing the router a little bit?
[30:32.220 --> 30:32.820]  But I don't know.
[30:33.000 --> 30:34.280]  I want more details about that.
[30:34.600 --> 30:35.520]  And then thirdly...
[30:35.520 --> 30:36.120]  Yeah, go ahead.
[30:38.000 --> 30:45.000]  Thirdly, I wouldn't mind being in touch with his mother if she needed to speak with an attorney about this.
[30:45.000 --> 30:46.800]  So I'd be happy to consult with her.
[30:46.840 --> 30:52.140]  I'd like to have her be the keynote speaker at Hope, but that's a whole other topic.
[30:52.500 --> 30:58.460]  But Alex, I'd like to know, you're talking about routers going out and the internet not being accessible and everything being thrown into disarray.
[30:58.460 --> 31:01.140]  That's awfully specific as to what's been going on here.
[31:01.500 --> 31:04.040]  And I just wonder how you happen to know about that.
[31:04.100 --> 31:08.460]  Because all the problems that we're having, it's because of a router that failed.
[31:08.460 --> 31:14.040]  And we have to get another router, and we're having substitute routers, and everything is haywire and crazy.
[31:14.540 --> 31:18.660]  And yet, you somehow seem to know exactly what's going on.
[31:18.760 --> 31:20.840]  We're using 2016 speeds here.
[31:20.940 --> 31:22.320]  That's what's going on with us.
[31:22.420 --> 31:24.060]  So we're kind of flailing.
[31:24.320 --> 31:24.880]  Oh, really?
[31:24.900 --> 31:25.840]  But yeah, tell me.
[31:25.980 --> 31:27.880]  While we were away, what was going on?
[31:29.280 --> 31:31.080]  Well, how old is that router?
[31:31.560 --> 31:32.780]  It's, you know, what?
[31:32.900 --> 31:34.060]  11, 12 years old?
[31:34.200 --> 31:34.480]  13?
[31:35.000 --> 31:35.440]  More?
[31:35.700 --> 31:38.260]  Yeah, it might be time to upgrade that hardware.
[31:38.660 --> 31:39.100]  Probably.
[31:39.100 --> 31:41.540]  I bet you the firmware hasn't been updated in some time.
[31:41.720 --> 31:42.340]  Here's the thing.
[31:42.500 --> 31:43.820]  You know, we ordered...
[31:43.820 --> 31:45.140]  I don't want to veer off topic here.
[31:45.240 --> 31:46.600]  But we ordered another router.
[31:48.090 --> 31:52.260]  And we had it overnighted via FedEx.
[31:52.860 --> 31:53.920]  And you know what?
[31:54.520 --> 32:08.760]  FedEx has canceled their money-back guarantee that if you don't get a package, let's say you pay for overnight shipping and they don't do it, they're no longer going to give you a refund.
[32:09.000 --> 32:11.740]  So that's what's been happening with us.
[32:11.740 --> 32:13.860]  We have this router that's supposed to be here now.
[32:13.860 --> 32:19.180]  Now, we paid for it to be here in one day, and it's still in Indianapolis somewhere.
[32:20.500 --> 32:22.620]  And we don't know why it's in Indianapolis.
[32:22.620 --> 32:23.340]  It's not here.
[32:23.420 --> 32:25.840]  They keep saying, it'll be here by the end of the day.
[32:26.500 --> 32:28.060]  What's the end of the day, FedEx?
[32:28.160 --> 32:29.280]  11.59 p.m.
[32:29.360 --> 32:30.400]  It's in Indianapolis.
[32:30.540 --> 32:31.280]  It's not going to be here.
[32:31.360 --> 32:32.120]  We know that.
[32:32.260 --> 32:33.480]  We already know that.
[32:33.600 --> 32:37.140]  But the thing that really bugs me is that we can't complain about it.
[32:37.220 --> 32:46.520]  We can't say, FedEx, you didn't give it to us in the amount of time you said you were going to, will you please refund the money we paid for you to do that?
[32:47.120 --> 32:49.380]  They just said, no, we're no longer responsible.
[32:49.580 --> 32:53.020]  Until the end of the holiday season, we make no guarantees whatsoever.
[32:53.360 --> 32:55.440]  How do you run a business like that?
[32:55.480 --> 32:56.340]  That's what I want to know.
[32:56.540 --> 33:03.060]  So we could have just not paid for the overnight shipping, and it would have gotten here probably at the same time.
[33:03.840 --> 33:08.700]  So folks, if you're listening out there, don't do that.
[33:08.980 --> 33:10.780]  Don't use overnight service.
[33:10.780 --> 33:13.120]  It's really not a good idea.
[33:13.280 --> 33:15.180]  Alex, have you ever heard of anything like that business-wise?
[33:17.920 --> 33:18.920]  No, no.
[33:19.140 --> 33:24.360]  You know, you find yourself, I feel like, in very unique predicaments most of the time, Emmanuel.
[33:25.420 --> 33:25.680]  Yeah.
[33:25.900 --> 33:28.340]  Well, it's frustrating, that's for sure.
[33:29.320 --> 33:35.060]  But yeah, as far as routers going out and haywire and all that kind of thing, yeah, we're familiar with it.
[33:39.540 --> 33:40.460]  Yeah, yeah.
[33:40.460 --> 33:45.380]  Well, you know, and it's going to continue to happen, I think, you know, no matter what.
[33:46.440 --> 33:49.180]  It's time for you to change out that aging hardware.
[33:49.380 --> 33:51.800]  So I'm glad to see that you're on the right track.
[33:51.920 --> 33:53.440]  Yeah, well, we're trying to be on the right track.
[33:53.460 --> 33:57.820]  It's just a question of getting things to, you know, to show up.
[34:00.640 --> 34:01.520]  Rob, yeah, go ahead.
[34:02.340 --> 34:16.900]  This kind of connects to the whole story we were speaking about as well, because in schools nowadays, as anyone in information security will tell you, especially institutional information security, schools are still, by and large, speaking very generally,
[34:17.160 --> 34:20.680]  using old equipment supplied by lowest bidders years ago.
[34:20.680 --> 34:33.660]  And so the repercussions for breaching things are all kinds of serious, but the things themselves are old and maybe outdated and maybe not very effectively administrated or protected.
[34:34.020 --> 34:35.700]  And you want to talk about old firmware.
[34:35.840 --> 34:38.420]  There is probably firmware in schools old enough to graduate.
[34:38.420 --> 34:42.680]  And it's, you know, so basically, it's an easy target.
[34:42.740 --> 34:52.120]  And you've got a generation of school kids who have grown up with computers since day one and are very good with these things as people go.
[34:52.400 --> 34:54.160]  And yeah, there's going to be breaches.
[34:54.340 --> 34:55.700]  There's going to be mischief.
[34:55.740 --> 35:04.800]  And I think schools need to really examine how they are prepared to deal with that and how they are prepared to deal with clever children.
[35:04.800 --> 35:09.840]  Yeah, I would just like people to remember that, you know, no one gives us a break ever.
[35:09.960 --> 35:14.600]  They always have their hand out for money and want answers now.
[35:14.600 --> 35:18.780]  And we're constantly at the effect of everything else.
[35:18.780 --> 35:35.440]  And I don't really get a lot of credit for how much we're attacked and how little help we get, you know, and on the defensive, when you're running an operation, you have a lot to contend with, and things can get very chaotic very quickly.
[35:35.740 --> 35:37.820]  Yes, yes, as they have tonight.
[35:38.400 --> 35:39.480]  But we have an update.
[35:39.720 --> 35:47.660]  We have an update on this story, which I think you guys in our extended studio, you'll have to run back to your radio or to your internet connections.
[35:48.240 --> 35:52.120]  Everybody else, just sit back and listen to this update of the 11-year-old hacker story.
[35:53.020 --> 35:53.860]  Hey, everybody.
[35:54.100 --> 35:59.420]  We didn't know that this TikTok was going to blow up, but this is the baby genius, as y'all like to call him.
[35:59.500 --> 35:59.720]  Hello.
[36:02.020 --> 36:05.560]  Elijah, and he's a Capricorn for everybody asking what his sign is.
[36:05.720 --> 36:06.520]  His mother's an Aries.
[36:06.640 --> 36:07.740]  His father's a Scorpio.
[36:08.180 --> 36:19.020]  But anyway, on another note, the outcome of that was that the district attorney's office actually decided to not press charges against him because he's 11 and they did not want to ruin his record.
[36:19.900 --> 36:23.200]  The school was not very happy about that, but it wasn't really in their hands.
[36:23.200 --> 36:34.480]  So, next thing that happened was he got recommended to a first-time juvenile offenders program.
[36:35.220 --> 36:36.460]  Like a computer class.
[36:36.620 --> 36:37.000]  Yeah.
[36:37.140 --> 36:44.740]  So, basically, they gave him five tasks that he had to complete in order for his record to be wiped clean so that it did not go to court.
[36:44.740 --> 36:51.940]  So, he had to build a soccer stadium in Minecraft because he is a captain of his soccer team.
[36:52.100 --> 36:53.720]  He averages three goals a game.
[36:53.820 --> 36:54.840]  So, that is a thing.
[36:55.000 --> 36:57.000]  So, he is in that, you know, sports and things.
[36:57.560 --> 37:04.320]  So, then he also had to write an apology letter to me, which it was very well written.
[37:04.320 --> 37:06.240]  I appreciate that, right?
[37:06.800 --> 37:09.580]  Then he had to do 10 hours of community service.
[37:09.580 --> 37:17.160]  So, he cleaned the church with my mom for 10 hours during the summer and did some community events at our local community park.
[37:17.920 --> 37:20.960]  So, then, what else did you have to do?
[37:21.580 --> 37:25.420]  And then, after that, we found out, like, we had to do something else.
[37:25.560 --> 37:34.040]  Oh, so he had to do, like, a contrast between what would he have done versus what shouldn't he have done and what the outcome of that would have been.
[37:34.040 --> 37:35.720]  So, he had to write, like, a small-term paper.
[37:36.320 --> 37:42.640]  Also, they asked him to build his own video game so he could kind of learn the analytics of how that works.
[37:42.640 --> 37:45.260]  And it took him two hours to build a basketball game.
[37:46.100 --> 37:48.220]  So, he is a little bit of a prodigy.
[37:48.920 --> 37:50.100]  I knew he was smart.
[37:51.000 --> 37:52.520]  I've always said that he's smart.
[37:53.580 --> 37:57.040]  Does he make the best choices all the time?
[37:57.120 --> 37:57.560]  No.
[37:57.900 --> 37:59.320]  But we are working on that.
[37:59.320 --> 38:01.040]  And he is a very good child.
[38:02.300 --> 38:03.440]  Overall, he's a good boy.
[38:04.240 --> 38:06.720]  But I do not tell him every day that he's a criminal.
[38:07.260 --> 38:08.720]  I just said it for the video.
[38:09.160 --> 38:09.520]  Just...
[38:09.520 --> 38:10.380]  I promise you she does.
[38:10.400 --> 38:11.740]  Because it was a crime.
[38:12.120 --> 38:13.160]  Y 'all are bugging.
[38:13.340 --> 38:15.600]  And for everybody saying that, my makeup makes me look old.
[38:15.660 --> 38:16.820]  I'm 31, but okay.
[38:17.120 --> 38:18.500]  I don't feel like I look old.
[38:19.160 --> 38:20.580]  You know, a little shade, a little shade.
[38:20.700 --> 38:21.860]  I be thinking I be doing okay.
[38:23.200 --> 38:25.240]  But yeah, other than that, he's a good boy.
[38:26.400 --> 38:28.320]  He likes sports, games.
[38:29.040 --> 38:30.200]  He likes video games.
[38:30.340 --> 38:30.880]  That's his thing.
[38:32.780 --> 38:33.140]  Minecraft.
[38:34.340 --> 38:35.020]  Rocket League.
[38:35.200 --> 38:35.760]  Rocket League.
[38:36.620 --> 38:37.540]  Those are his things.
[38:37.700 --> 38:39.980]  He used to play Fortnite a lot, but kind of pulled back on that.
[38:40.780 --> 38:41.300]  But yeah.
[38:41.540 --> 38:43.560]  If you guys want to know anything else, just hit us up.
[38:43.720 --> 38:45.820]  We're working on trying to get him into some better schools.
[38:46.330 --> 38:48.700]  It's just the area we live in, it's not...
[38:49.340 --> 38:51.280]  Educationally-wise, it's not necessarily the best.
[38:51.440 --> 38:52.700]  So, we're working on it.
[38:55.260 --> 38:55.720]  Okay.
[38:56.140 --> 38:57.960]  And that is the latest.
[38:58.200 --> 39:01.840]  Her name, by the way, on TikTok is Victoria Pretty Much.
[39:02.360 --> 39:04.260]  So, great story.
[39:04.420 --> 39:04.980]  Great story.
[39:06.380 --> 39:10.320]  And, you know, if you're raising kids, it's something to keep in mind.
[39:10.640 --> 39:12.680]  And I know, Alex, you're raising a couple of kids.
[39:12.680 --> 39:16.920]  So, you probably know about these types of challenges.
[39:18.640 --> 39:19.240]  Yeah.
[39:19.500 --> 39:20.260]  No doubt.
[39:20.680 --> 39:24.780]  And, you know, something about apples and trees comes to mind.
[39:25.120 --> 39:30.560]  And I certainly feel like I'm going to be in a run for my money with my two boys.
[39:32.820 --> 39:42.580]  Going back to the result, though, I think this is a very good result in that the prosecutors declined to press charges here.
[39:43.380 --> 39:52.400]  What they appear to have done is what we would call an ACOD, or an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal.
[39:52.560 --> 39:57.660]  So, provided that certain things are done, certain conditions are met, those criminal charges are dismissed.
[39:57.960 --> 40:02.420]  If he failed to do any one of those things, then they could decide to press charges again.
[40:02.420 --> 40:12.280]  I mean, even that I feel like might have been, you know, a bit heavy handed, but it does seem like the tasks that he had to complete were certainly good-natured.
[40:12.800 --> 40:26.420]  And this was a very, I think, positive example of how prosecutorial discretion and declining to prosecute an offense can contribute to an overall sense of justice.
[40:26.420 --> 40:29.440]  And so, you know, I applaud these prosecutors.
[40:29.720 --> 40:46.340]  I think great shame should come to the school district that sought to have the district attorney continue to press these charges and seem to have been disappointed at the fact that criminal charges weren't levied against one of their precocious 11-year-olds.
[40:46.580 --> 40:52.060]  That just doesn't seem like the kind of school district where this type of individual is going to thrive.
[40:52.360 --> 41:05.380]  I certainly hope that, you know, whatever school he's in at the moment is fleeting and temporary, and he moves into either junior high or high school and gets a new administration, you know, that can deal with him.
[41:05.460 --> 41:13.100]  And hopefully he's going to be taking some advanced placement computer science courses and brushing up his programming skills soon enough.
[41:13.340 --> 41:19.400]  He sounds like a great kid who's got a bright future ahead of him, and I'm really glad to hear about this result.
[41:19.820 --> 41:20.360]  Gila, go ahead.
[41:21.040 --> 41:35.940]  I absolutely agree with Alex, and I think also the fact that the consequences that he had were not punitive, and they were not something that was going to, you know, he didn't have to write, I will not mess with the school's internet 10,000 times.
[41:35.960 --> 41:50.440]  He got to do things that helped develop his skills and made this something to look back at as a turning point in perhaps a positive way, and were not something that's going to anger and traumatize this kid any more than it already has.
[41:50.600 --> 41:53.860]  And I think this is a really creative way that they...
[41:53.860 --> 41:55.620]  that the consequences were provided.
[41:55.720 --> 42:03.360]  It was supportive and positive, and yet there were still consequences for having done this thing.
[42:03.540 --> 42:07.840]  But I think this was really...
[42:07.840 --> 42:10.460]  The consequences themselves, I think, were really handled well.
[42:10.760 --> 42:15.280]  And also, yeah, thrilled that they did not press charges against an 11-year-old for this.
[42:15.280 --> 42:18.600]  But again, as Alex pointed out, the school wanted to.
[42:18.720 --> 42:31.660]  The school wanted to come after him more, and I think that's extremely unhealthy and detrimental to any kid to treat them like a common criminal when we're talking about a bit of mischief.
[42:31.860 --> 42:34.340]  And yeah, it might have screwed them up, but you know what?
[42:34.340 --> 42:38.860]  They were screwed up the moment that network was put online because they clearly didn't know what they were doing.
[42:38.860 --> 42:46.080]  And now they have someone who can teach them, so they should feel lucky that they have that.
[42:46.380 --> 42:48.880]  But that's just not the way to treat kids.
[42:49.020 --> 42:54.000]  That's just not the way to have them learn a lesson.
[42:54.890 --> 42:58.760]  And I wish more schools learned that themselves.
[42:58.760 --> 43:10.020]  But over the years, I've seen it happen over and over again, where the reaction to any indiscretion is just over the top, and kids pay for it for the rest of their lives.
[43:10.040 --> 43:13.000]  They're thought of as bad, as criminals.
[43:13.440 --> 43:22.000]  And I was very happy to hear her say she's not going to call her kid a criminal, even in jest, because that kind of thing can stick with you.
[43:26.080 --> 43:27.080]  Definitely a cool mom.
[43:27.700 --> 43:28.440]  Yes, yeah.
[43:28.720 --> 43:30.360]  Okay, so let's move on then.
[43:30.540 --> 43:33.300]  We have some sad news to end on.
[43:33.300 --> 43:36.260]  And we've kind of known this has been coming for a while.
[43:37.000 --> 43:42.260]  But there was an article that came out in an online publication called Untapped New York.
[43:42.440 --> 43:43.020]  It came out yesterday.
[43:43.380 --> 43:45.720]  It's called Say Goodbye to the Hotel Pennsylvania.
[43:45.920 --> 43:49.340]  Demolition preparations are underway.
[43:50.360 --> 43:53.200]  Hotel Pennsylvania is slated for demolition.
[43:53.340 --> 43:58.620]  The ornamental building built in 1919 and designed by McKim, Mead, and White.
[43:58.620 --> 44:00.500]  Sits across 7th Avenue from Penn Station.
[44:00.500 --> 44:05.100]  It's owned by the evil people at Vernado Realty Trust.
[44:05.360 --> 44:06.520]  I had the evil people part.
[44:06.740 --> 44:15.000]  Who has begun removing mattresses and furniture in preparation for the physical demolition of the building in January 2022.
[44:15.820 --> 44:24.920]  The Hotel Pennsylvania is home to the Café Rouge, which at the time of its opening, was the largest and most exquisite hotel restaurant in the world.
[44:24.920 --> 44:32.080]  In the first half of the 20th century, iconic American musicians such as Duke Ellington and Glenn Miller performed at the Café.
[44:33.000 --> 44:45.280]  During the second half of the 20th century, the hotel, which began to show its age and dropped its prices accordingly, offered affordable rooms to students, writers, artists, and dreamers who came to New York with, as E.B.
[44:45.360 --> 44:49.500]  White once wrote, a manuscript in a suitcase, and a pain in his heart.
[44:50.080 --> 44:55.980]  In many ways, the Hotel Pennsylvania is the embodiment of the aspirations of New York in the 20th century.
[44:57.420 --> 45:03.340]  This is not the first time that Vernado has tried to demolish the Hotel Pennsylvania, as all of us know.
[45:04.020 --> 45:09.600]  They bought the building in 1999 and announced plans to demolish it in 2006.
[45:10.740 --> 45:15.760]  And then we stepped up and helped save it for about a decade or so.
[45:16.140 --> 45:21.120]  In its place, they wanted to build a glass skyscraper that approached the size of the Empire State Building.
[45:21.260 --> 45:24.700]  The 2008 recession put their plans on hold.
[45:24.700 --> 45:31.980]  And in 2013, Vernado announced that they wanted to restore the historic structure and bring it back to its 1919 glory.
[45:33.340 --> 45:37.360]  Now, they are reneging on that promise by claiming it is too expensive.
[45:38.120 --> 45:50.880]  Demolition is planned to start in January 2022 as part of a larger mega-project to raise multiple blocks and historic buildings from 31st to 34th Streets along 8th to 6th Avenues.
[45:51.920 --> 45:55.300]  The mega-project is called the Empire Station Complex.
[45:55.520 --> 46:02.620]  It was the brainchild of former Governor Cuomo, who wanted to turn the area around Penn Station into a modern office hub.
[46:02.620 --> 46:05.000]  Akin to that of Hudson Yards.
[46:05.780 --> 46:19.800]  And even though the project is entirely in New York City, which has its own land-use process called the Uniform Land Use Review Process, otherwise known as ULERP, the development plan is being implemented through New York State's General Project Plan,
[46:20.000 --> 46:25.600]  known as GPP, which has been criticized in the past for subverting community input.
[46:26.600 --> 46:37.220]  Coincidentally, much of the land to be rezoned for luxury office towers is owned by Vornado, whose CEO, Stephen Roth, was Cuomo's largest campaign donor.
[46:38.600 --> 46:52.080]  The Empire Station Complex has received intense local opposition from over a dozen organizations, city and state elected officials, and some of the non-Vornado landowners in the redevelopment area.
[46:52.440 --> 47:10.080]  In response to New York State's current plan, the Empire Station Coalition, in conjunction with Rethink New York City, has put forward an alternate plan that would preserve most of the existing streetscape, rebuild the original Penn Station, the train station rivaled in beauty only by Grand Central,
[47:10.240 --> 47:16.460]  and modernize the station's tracks and platforms to convert it from a terminal into a Tokyo-style through-running station.
[47:17.300 --> 47:35.640]  In the coming months, as New York emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, the outcome of the battle over this $7 billion project won't just determine the fate of a large swath of the west side of Manhattan and the busiest train station in the country, but the fate of the entire New York region's transportation and development.
[47:35.920 --> 47:42.420]  And again, that story from untapped New York, written by Max Scott, sums it all up.
[47:42.440 --> 47:44.680]  And there are pictures there as well.
[47:44.760 --> 47:51.740]  You can go to untappedcities.com to see them of mattresses in the street, just what they're doing with the hotel right now.
[47:51.800 --> 47:53.040]  We passed by it a few days ago.
[47:54.240 --> 47:59.520]  And, Kyle, they had notices on the doors about asbestos, I believe.
[47:59.860 --> 48:00.080]  Yeah.
[48:00.840 --> 48:08.600]  That kind of coverings and notices, basically, and plywood over everything.
[48:10.020 --> 48:17.720]  And I think one of the street-level places was still advertising, like, a space for lease, which seems unlikely.
[48:18.120 --> 48:18.340]  Yeah.
[48:18.580 --> 48:31.640]  It's so sad to see this and to realize that they took advantage of the COVID pandemic to shut it down because this was a hotel that was always full, always host to travelers from all around the world.
[48:31.740 --> 48:40.920]  Now, people in New York City, yeah, you don't really need a cheap hotel because you already live in New York City and you presumably have someplace to go.
[48:41.880 --> 48:48.020]  But people from around the world, they would always flock to this place, as we know from our HOPE conferences that were held there.
[48:48.600 --> 48:52.820]  And it was just a great introduction to New York City, right across the street from Penn Station.
[48:53.420 --> 48:59.160]  And you just have to wonder how many people will not come to New York City now as a result of that place not being there.
[48:59.380 --> 49:01.320]  Do we really need more office towers?
[49:01.320 --> 49:04.600]  These are the same questions we asked back in 2008.
[49:07.400 --> 49:12.400]  It's just really unfortunate and I think corrupt as hell.
[49:13.640 --> 49:14.680]  But there's...
[49:14.680 --> 49:18.040]  It doesn't appear to be anything that we can do at this late stage.
[49:18.200 --> 49:18.460]  Alex?
[49:20.180 --> 49:24.240]  Yeah, I'm wondering about a lot of things with regard to this news.
[49:24.380 --> 49:38.240]  First off, the plans to build more office towers and office space in a post-pandemic world where office space may not be at such a premium and may not be needed and there's going to be a lot of empty office space in and around Midtown.
[49:38.440 --> 49:42.700]  Seems like perhaps these plans are not very well conceived, number one.
[49:42.920 --> 49:59.140]  Number two, if you think about the battle that the Strand Bookstore had with respect to the Landmark Preservation Commission landmarking their building and the tenacity with which the Landmarks Preservation Commission in New York pursued the landmarking of that building,
[49:59.140 --> 50:16.060]  if the LPC itself had pursued the landmarking of Hotel Pennsylvania, I would venture to say with even one quarter of the verve and steel that they had with regard to the Strand, this building could have been saved.
[50:16.120 --> 50:19.680]  This historical hub of New York culture could have been saved.
[50:19.800 --> 50:23.900]  What the hell is the Landmarks Preservation Commission doing with their time?
[50:23.900 --> 50:29.240]  Considering how many people were urging them to do just that, and with the case of the Strand, I don't think anybody was urging them to do that.
[50:30.220 --> 50:31.420]  Yeah, again, corruption.
[50:31.700 --> 50:37.380]  And it's just a damn shame because it's such an incredible structure, such history there.
[50:37.860 --> 50:39.120]  You can't replace that.
[50:39.500 --> 50:40.840]  Once it's gone, it's gone.
[50:40.960 --> 50:42.520]  Rob, quickly, we're down to our last minute.
[50:43.320 --> 50:52.180]  Yeah, and it really bears looking at how they're using the GPP to make an end run around the community that would have a voice in what goes on in their own community.
[50:52.180 --> 50:57.280]  They did the same thing a few years ago when Amazon tried to barge into Queens and put up a building nobody wanted.
[50:57.900 --> 51:02.280]  And, you know, the GPP were doing all they could to try and get Amazon that deal with the city.
[51:02.360 --> 51:05.140]  And the uproar was finally too much for them.
[51:05.240 --> 51:06.300]  But that's...
[51:06.300 --> 51:07.620]  who knows what's going to happen in this case.
[51:08.080 --> 51:08.600]  All right.
[51:08.780 --> 51:11.520]  Hey, Overtime is back at 8 o'clock.
[51:11.640 --> 51:17.980]  Go to our YouTube channel, channel 2600, or just follow the link on the top of 2600.com and join us.
[51:17.980 --> 51:22.000]  You can call us and be a part of the dialogue.
[51:22.360 --> 51:25.460]  Write to us, O-T-H at 2600.com.
[51:26.460 --> 51:31.660]  And for the last time, maybe, let's take a good listen to this piece of history.
[51:31.940 --> 51:34.080]  See you next week or at 8 o'clock.
[51:34.240 --> 51:34.620]  Your choice.
[51:34.740 --> 51:34.980]  Good night.
[52:01.600 --> 52:03.920]  Pennsylvania 6-5-000.
[52:07.300 --> 52:08.100]  Hello.
[52:08.420 --> 52:10.020]  You have reached Hotel Pennsylvania.
[52:10.420 --> 52:11.860]  We are permanently closed.
[52:12.260 --> 52:15.200]  For human resources, please press 1.
[52:15.580 --> 52:18.360]  For finance, please press 2.
[52:18.640 --> 52:21.860]  For general information, please press 3.
[52:22.160 --> 52:22.940]  Thank you.
[53:40.300 --> 53:43.320]  Pennsylvania 6-5-0-0-0.
[00:00.000 --> 00:06.060]  And welcome, everybody, for another exciting edition of Overtime, which we have not done in over a month.
[00:07.680 --> 00:10.220]  Rob, why are you the only face I see on Skype?
[00:11.040 --> 00:12.320]  Everybody else bailed.
[00:13.580 --> 00:15.320]  I don't think Rob can hear us.
[00:15.680 --> 00:18.540]  Does that make sense, Kyle?
[00:18.820 --> 00:20.100]  So what's going on now?
[00:20.680 --> 00:22.460]  What technical problems are we dealing with?
[00:24.300 --> 00:24.740]  Anybody?
[00:25.020 --> 00:25.980]  Kyle, you're in the same room as me.
[00:26.080 --> 00:26.660]  You should be able to hear me.
[00:27.820 --> 00:28.700]  Yeah, I hear you.
[00:28.700 --> 00:29.940]  Is there a problem?
[00:30.020 --> 00:30.860]  He still can't hear us.
[00:32.620 --> 00:36.520]  How can we go from a working board to a non-working board in five minutes?
[00:37.020 --> 00:38.380]  The others have stepped away.
[00:38.920 --> 00:39.820]  I'd like to step away.
[00:39.820 --> 00:40.980]  I cannot hear you through Skype.
[00:40.980 --> 00:42.340]  I can hear you through YouTube.
[00:43.500 --> 00:48.660]  Okay, that means you're hearing us, like, many seconds after we talk.
[00:49.980 --> 00:51.400]  Okay, Kyle, what changed...
[00:51.400 --> 00:51.920]  Okay, there you are.
[00:52.100 --> 00:53.020]  What do you mean, there I am?
[00:53.280 --> 00:54.420]  I've been here the whole time.
[00:56.180 --> 00:56.880]  I hear you.
[00:56.900 --> 00:57.780]  We hear you now.
[00:57.780 --> 00:58.460]  We hear you now.
[00:58.720 --> 00:59.540]  Live, you hear me?
[01:00.480 --> 01:00.920]  Yes.
[01:01.020 --> 01:01.160]  Yes.
[01:01.360 --> 01:02.060]  Okay, good, good.
[01:02.620 --> 01:03.580]  This is unbelievable.
[01:03.640 --> 01:04.900]  And we are live on YouTube.
[01:05.140 --> 01:08.900]  You step away for a month and everything breaks without you touching it.
[01:09.000 --> 01:09.900]  How is that possible?
[01:10.080 --> 01:11.200]  How is that possible?
[01:11.200 --> 01:13.360]  But that's what's happening on so many levels.
[01:13.420 --> 01:17.660]  We can't leave without things just completely disintegrating.
[01:17.660 --> 01:18.960]  What is the problem?
[01:19.280 --> 01:21.780]  You'd think using it would be the problem.
[01:21.920 --> 01:23.160]  No, it's not using it.
[01:23.240 --> 01:24.000]  That's the problem.
[01:24.420 --> 01:26.260]  You know, you don't touch something for a month.
[01:26.320 --> 01:29.180]  You'd think it would gather strength and get better.
[01:29.340 --> 01:31.120]  But no, it just stops working.
[01:31.260 --> 01:38.920]  It's like it has time to think about itself and how unfairly it's been treated over the years and just concludes, you know what?
[01:38.920 --> 01:39.880]  I'm not going to do this anymore.
[01:40.100 --> 01:41.220]  I'm not going to be a router.
[01:41.220 --> 01:43.800]  I'm not going to be a board.
[01:43.940 --> 01:46.180]  I'm not going to be a laptop.
[01:47.920 --> 01:52.080]  And Alex, I don't know what you're doing, but it looks like you're spinning in circles.
[01:53.260 --> 01:55.060]  You're running down a corridor somewhere.
[01:55.160 --> 01:55.800]  What's going on?
[01:58.080 --> 01:58.560]  Exactly.
[01:58.840 --> 01:59.600]  Yeah, I am.
[02:00.500 --> 02:03.480]  I'm in the middle of many different things at the moment.
[02:03.720 --> 02:19.140]  Yeah, but I will have to say, though, that my time here on overtime this evening is unfortunately going to be limited to, I think, another few minutes because I do have to run to a meeting tonight.
[02:19.960 --> 02:30.660]  And in as much as I have absolutely missed having overtime for the last five weeks, I will unfortunately have to go a little bit early tonight.
[02:30.880 --> 02:33.220]  So maybe we could take some early calls.
[02:33.360 --> 02:34.940]  Maybe we could call the show under time.
[02:35.160 --> 02:35.940]  How about that?
[02:36.260 --> 02:37.780]  I think that might be a bit better.
[02:37.780 --> 02:39.360]  Yeah, underwhelming, under time.
[02:39.940 --> 02:43.160]  Yeah, let's take some phone calls if we can, if the phone is working.
[02:43.160 --> 02:45.500]  We haven't even picked up the phone yet to see if there's a dial tone.
[02:46.980 --> 02:49.900]  802-321-HACK, right?
[02:51.500 --> 02:52.460]  Or 225.
[02:52.760 --> 02:53.160]  Okay.
[02:53.440 --> 02:58.560]  I'm just getting a message now from YouTube saying, YouTube is not receiving enough video to maintain smooth streaming.
[02:58.980 --> 03:01.540]  As such, viewers will experience buffering.
[03:02.760 --> 03:04.500]  Well, first of all, we're not a video show.
[03:04.680 --> 03:05.240]  We're just audio.
[03:07.300 --> 03:10.540]  But apparently our bandwidth has been reduced.
[03:11.140 --> 03:14.620]  It's, yeah, it's not happy with how much bandwidth we have right now.
[03:14.700 --> 03:15.340]  We had a call.
[03:15.480 --> 03:16.360]  I heard the phone ring.
[03:16.720 --> 03:17.840]  Did you pick it up or not?
[03:18.080 --> 03:18.600]  Of course.
[03:18.880 --> 03:19.740]  Okay, so we have a call.
[03:20.420 --> 03:20.740]  Okay.
[03:21.860 --> 03:23.840]  Let's, now, we don't know if they'll be able to hear us.
[03:24.380 --> 03:30.600]  You know, if I was something, if I was a piece of technology looking to thwart all of our efforts, I would make it so that the caller could not hear us.
[03:31.000 --> 03:32.400]  Caller, can you hear us?
[03:33.180 --> 03:34.040]  Yes, I can.
[03:34.260 --> 03:34.760]  Well, then.
[03:35.040 --> 03:37.160]  Okay, but my voice somehow changes when we have a caller.
[03:38.340 --> 03:39.800]  Okay, what's on your mind?
[03:39.860 --> 03:40.600]  Tell us what's going on.
[03:42.880 --> 03:50.300]  I called Verizon to try to get them to fix the hum on my phone line.
[03:50.420 --> 03:51.180]  We hear it.
[03:51.500 --> 03:53.060]  That's quite a hum you got there.
[03:53.260 --> 03:54.740]  For once, it's not our hum.
[03:56.060 --> 03:57.460]  It is not your hum.
[03:58.500 --> 04:02.420]  It's on every single call that I get.
[04:02.700 --> 04:03.260]  Wow.
[04:03.920 --> 04:04.940]  Or that I make.
[04:05.680 --> 04:18.020]  And they told me, we are now ready to switch to Fios, and we refuse to treat your copper.
[04:19.540 --> 04:25.580]  And we give you 20 days to make some sort of decision what you're going to do.
[04:26.440 --> 04:29.880]  And after the 20 days, well, it's Jim's day.
[04:30.240 --> 04:35.560]  Yeah, that's what they do all around the country now, maybe even the world.
[04:35.960 --> 04:38.860]  I just realized, guys, there's probably no way you can hear the caller, right?
[04:39.020 --> 04:39.580]  Is that right, Rob?
[04:40.640 --> 04:41.540]  Indeed, we can't.
[04:42.500 --> 04:46.420]  We can try and bring it up on the stream here and listen to it with a delay.
[04:46.420 --> 04:48.360]  Yeah, it'll be a good long delay.
[04:48.780 --> 04:52.740]  But, and also, our voices get awfully weird when we have the caller up.
[04:52.960 --> 04:53.100]  Yes.
[04:53.440 --> 05:02.460]  Well, the letter that they were supposed to send, and they never sent it, so I called them back, and they sent it by email.
[05:03.120 --> 05:11.260]  And they say, you know, I have to tell them to switch to Fios, or they're going to cut off my service.
[05:11.820 --> 05:22.280]  But what I want to do, they say, you know, you have to find some other company that will deal with copper, but there aren't any other companies that will deal with copper.
[05:22.280 --> 05:29.300]  And we can't give you a list of who our rivals are, because we don't know.
[05:29.800 --> 05:40.540]  Which, yeah, I really truly believe, truly believe that, that Verizon does not know what other companies are also covering my area.
[05:40.680 --> 05:41.220]  Ha, ha, ha.
[05:41.460 --> 05:57.060]  But I was wondering whether you or listeners or anyone could please help me in finding a phone company that will deal with my copper in Manhattan, in the Chelsea area.
[05:57.320 --> 06:00.660]  Well, I think what we'll have to do is appeal to listeners.
[06:00.840 --> 06:07.980]  If they know of anybody that is supporting copper to this day, write to us, OTH at 2600.com.
[06:08.120 --> 06:09.160]  We'll certainly share that information.
[06:09.320 --> 06:17.560]  We have so many listeners that are going through this right now, and even people who don't listen to the show, I hear the complaint many, many times in various forums.
[06:17.560 --> 06:26.300]  It just seems like another ill-fated move on the part of these companies, where they say, yeah, it's old technology.
[06:26.300 --> 06:27.460]  We have no use for it anymore.
[06:27.460 --> 06:29.740]  We're just going to stop having it.
[06:29.840 --> 06:36.440]  You know, when we were traveling, Kyle, you know, I noticed where there are pay phones, and they're useful.
[06:37.300 --> 06:38.280]  AM radio.
[06:38.280 --> 06:48.720]  People still use AM radio, believe it or not, and a lot of information is passed in that particular format, in that particular realm.
[06:50.040 --> 06:54.360]  You don't just abandon something because there's something new.
[06:54.460 --> 06:55.720]  You enhance it.
[06:55.840 --> 06:57.500]  You figure out a way to integrate it.
[07:00.100 --> 07:10.180]  Having a landline, having a copper line that doesn't require you to run a generator or to have some power source between you and the central office, that's a godsend.
[07:10.180 --> 07:18.320]  When there's a hurricane, when there's a blizzard, when there's an earthquake, because many times, many times you will lose power, but you will not lose that landline.
[07:18.560 --> 07:22.080]  There are different wires, and they stay up longer.
[07:22.780 --> 07:25.220]  I can't count the number of times that has happened.
[07:25.220 --> 07:40.740]  But when you change it so that, well, you no longer support copper, you only can support fiber, and that requires power, which will only last maybe a day, you take away that remarkable flexibility.
[07:40.740 --> 07:47.860]  When you don't have any pay phones anywhere, you're telling people you have to have a cell phone or you can't even report an emergency.
[07:48.480 --> 07:53.280]  You can't be in touch with anyone unless you buy into this.
[07:53.280 --> 07:59.420]  Because it's short-sighted, it's absurd, and we learn time and time again that it's just a bad idea.
[07:59.700 --> 08:01.380]  And I'm sorry it's happening to you.
[08:01.420 --> 08:07.660]  I'm sorry it's happening to all of us, because copper lines are a good thing to have.
[08:07.840 --> 08:08.480]  They really are.
[08:08.600 --> 08:15.340]  They're not as fast for data as a cell phone, perhaps.
[08:15.840 --> 08:19.120]  They don't have as many features, but they do serve a purpose.
[08:19.120 --> 08:26.940]  And I'm just really frustrated that so many people in charge can't seem to realize that.
[08:28.560 --> 08:29.860]  I'd like to give you...
[08:29.860 --> 08:31.520]  Yeah, it's one of those crazy issues.
[08:31.660 --> 08:32.720]  I mean, we have...
[08:32.720 --> 08:34.860]  It's like we have a microwave oven in our house.
[08:35.060 --> 08:44.940]  Those came out and they were a fantastic new appliance and wave of the future, and they do so many things more quickly and more conveniently than traditional stoves and ovens.
[08:44.940 --> 08:48.180]  But they didn't take out the stove and oven when they put it in a microwave.
[08:48.480 --> 08:53.200]  It's like we still have the older technology around, because there's still so many things that it's better for.
[08:53.380 --> 08:55.420]  And it's just nice to still have around.
[08:55.860 --> 08:57.800]  So I don't know why...
[08:57.800 --> 08:59.320]  You know, we have the copper.
[08:59.500 --> 09:02.000]  It's in the ground, or it's on the poles, or whatever.
[09:02.000 --> 09:02.680]  It is there.
[09:02.820 --> 09:04.440]  Why can we not just use it?
[09:04.700 --> 09:09.000]  Why do we have to actively get rid of it, especially in areas where it's not...
[09:09.000 --> 09:11.360]  The area is not well served by other technology yet.
[09:12.260 --> 09:13.260]  Caller, go ahead.
[09:13.260 --> 09:14.800]  I apologize for Rob stepping on you.
[09:14.860 --> 09:16.100]  He can't hear you.
[09:16.180 --> 09:18.000]  So that's why he did that.
[09:18.080 --> 09:19.400]  But it was nothing personal.
[09:20.300 --> 09:21.000]  So sorry.
[09:21.120 --> 09:33.280]  Okay, I'd like to give you my email so that you can let me know what you learned, and give it to the listeners, for that matter, so they can contact me directly if they wish to.
[09:33.500 --> 09:38.640]  Oh, you want to give your email address out to the thousands, perhaps millions of people who are listening right now?
[09:40.140 --> 09:43.680]  To the 18 watching right now, yes.
[09:43.760 --> 09:50.880]  Okay, you say that as if that's all we have, but that's simply who's watching right now with all the technical problems we have.
[09:51.000 --> 09:57.180]  But I should let you know that over the week, many, many, many people download the show and stream the show.
[09:57.180 --> 10:05.300]  And also, this will be forever, throughout history, your email address will be a part of this archive.
[10:06.080 --> 10:08.840]  I trust people to be responsible.
[10:09.220 --> 10:10.280]  Big mistake, but go ahead.
[10:11.600 --> 10:20.700]  E-E-F as in Frank, W-W-W at Yahoo.com.
[10:22.100 --> 10:23.400]  Yahoo.com.
[10:23.800 --> 10:25.920]  You have courage, I'll say that.
[10:28.220 --> 10:30.660]  Yahoo.com takes courage?
[10:30.960 --> 10:31.180]  Okay.
[10:31.360 --> 10:31.720]  It does.
[10:31.980 --> 10:32.200]  If you say so.
[10:32.320 --> 10:33.140]  It does, yeah.
[10:33.540 --> 10:34.440]  But thank you.
[10:34.700 --> 10:38.940]  I was thinking about the 11-year-old also.
[10:40.400 --> 10:47.960]  And I was wondering whether, you know, they said that he had to do five things, and I think four things were mentioned.
[10:48.900 --> 11:00.000]  And I was wondering whether there was any sort of thing that he did to help make up for all the school that all the other kids lost.
[11:01.660 --> 11:07.360]  Well, I don't think the kids expect him to do anything to make up for that.
[11:09.020 --> 11:19.940]  But in this last year of stay-at-home teaching, I think, you know, there's plenty of opportunity if there are days that actually need to be made up to do that.
[11:20.680 --> 11:22.300]  I don't think that was really the issue.
[11:22.360 --> 11:28.900]  I think the issue here, as it is in most cases, is lack of control of the people supposedly in charge.
[11:29.740 --> 11:33.920]  That's what drives them crazy when an 11-year-old is the one running things.
[11:33.920 --> 11:35.440]  And I think that's what made them panic.
[11:35.620 --> 11:36.640]  That's what made them overreact.
[11:38.500 --> 11:41.240]  And hopefully lessons will be learned by them.
[11:41.700 --> 11:42.280]  We'll see.
[11:42.540 --> 11:43.440]  Thanks for your call.
[11:43.640 --> 11:46.060]  We're going to see if we can take any more.
[11:46.260 --> 11:51.100]  I know this is very frustrating, people not being able to interact.
[11:51.280 --> 11:52.180]  We're going to fix this.
[11:52.220 --> 11:53.080]  We're going to figure this out.
[11:53.560 --> 11:55.680]  You know, I just got an update from FedEx.
[11:55.680 --> 12:02.840]  FedEx, they just now admitted that the package only now just left Indianapolis.
[12:02.840 --> 12:07.460]  Instead of at 9 in the morning, they said it just departed their facility.
[12:07.620 --> 12:10.940]  So I'd like to know, FedEx, how is it going to get here by the end of the day?
[12:10.940 --> 12:12.640]  What day are you talking about exactly?
[12:13.140 --> 12:16.060]  And how do I get reimbursed for this?
[12:16.200 --> 12:17.420]  That's the real question.
[12:17.420 --> 12:19.680]  The real question that nobody seems to have an answer for.
[12:21.280 --> 12:22.040]  So sad.
[12:22.040 --> 12:25.940]  Alex, you're in a corporate meeting room, it looks like.
[12:26.400 --> 12:30.060]  There's a whole bunch of people there, all staring at us.
[12:31.500 --> 12:33.420]  And it's a bit unnerving.
[12:33.680 --> 12:35.480]  Are you about to give some kind of an address?
[12:35.780 --> 12:37.040]  What's going on here?
[12:38.980 --> 12:43.960]  Well, you know, I can't really discuss exactly what I'm about to do.
[12:44.080 --> 12:48.920]  But suffice it to say, it is time for me to bid adieu.
[12:49.180 --> 12:51.180]  Those are some pretty high-level...
[12:51.180 --> 12:51.900]  Yeah, I saw that.
[12:52.000 --> 12:53.600]  But high-level executives you got there.
[12:53.900 --> 12:55.140]  Those people in tuxedos.
[12:55.280 --> 12:56.160]  I mean, that's...
[12:57.220 --> 12:57.620]  Wow.
[12:57.740 --> 12:58.020]  All right.
[12:58.060 --> 12:58.600]  I'm impressed.
[12:58.780 --> 12:59.660]  I am very impressed.
[13:00.440 --> 13:05.580]  When you see a cummerbund in a conference room, you know business is about to happen.
[13:05.740 --> 13:06.400]  I do.
[13:06.580 --> 13:08.140]  And it's mortifying.
[13:09.080 --> 13:10.720]  Well, Alex, we'll see you next week.
[13:10.860 --> 13:13.200]  Hopefully, we'll be able to communicate better than we did this week.
[13:14.040 --> 13:15.640]  Yeah, I certainly hope so.
[13:15.820 --> 13:19.580]  You guys have some work cut out for you on the tech side there.
[13:19.580 --> 13:20.180]  Yeah, we do.
[13:20.540 --> 13:21.260]  All my best.
[13:21.720 --> 13:25.580]  Great to see you guys back in the makeshift studio.
[13:26.340 --> 13:27.960]  Rob and Gila, good to see you.
[13:28.100 --> 13:30.800]  And we'll all catch up next week, if not sooner.
[13:31.420 --> 13:31.940]  All right.
[13:31.980 --> 13:32.680]  Bye for now, everyone.
[13:32.920 --> 13:33.160]  All right.
[13:33.240 --> 13:34.240]  Say hi to everybody for us.
[13:35.080 --> 13:35.520]  I will.
[13:35.700 --> 13:37.120]  That was Alex.
[13:37.580 --> 13:39.900]  We will talk to him again next week.
[13:39.900 --> 13:47.580]  And that leaves us with Rob and Gila, who we're happy to have you, but you still can't hear the callers.
[13:48.180 --> 13:49.460]  So, I don't know.
[13:49.620 --> 13:49.820]  We cannot.
[13:50.080 --> 13:53.360]  Well, we'll stay quiet during the calls and listen on YouTube.
[13:53.360 --> 14:00.000]  And then maybe you can cue us when it's safe to speak, because there is a delay and we can't be sure that they've stopped speaking.
[14:00.180 --> 14:01.100]  It's a long delay.
[14:01.100 --> 14:02.200]  It's a pretty long delay.
[14:02.360 --> 14:05.580]  It's about 30 seconds or so is even more than that.
[14:05.580 --> 14:06.380]  I'm not sure.
[14:07.140 --> 14:08.380]  But our phone line is open.
[14:08.460 --> 14:09.460]  Our phone line is open, right?
[14:09.580 --> 14:14.220]  Because I don't know if we have to hang up on the caller or if they hang up when we say the call is over.
[14:14.980 --> 14:17.240]  But 802-321-4225.
[14:18.140 --> 14:20.020]  802-321-HACK is our phone number.
[14:20.020 --> 14:27.440]  If anyone is out there and wishes to say something, we won't stay on for too long because of all these technical snafus that we are going through.
[14:27.580 --> 14:28.140]  But it's okay.
[14:28.320 --> 14:30.520]  It's just good to establish contact again.
[14:30.900 --> 14:34.900]  Our email address, once again, OTH at 2600.com.
[14:34.900 --> 14:39.160]  Rob, there was another 2600 meeting this month.
[14:39.180 --> 14:39.760]  How did that go?
[14:41.220 --> 14:42.220]  It went well.
[14:42.420 --> 14:45.880]  We had it indoors for the first time since lockdown.
[14:46.180 --> 14:51.440]  And it was a fun experience.
[14:51.440 --> 14:55.180]  We were back in the atrium at 53rd Street and 3rd Avenue.
[14:55.180 --> 15:04.700]  And we are actually looking for the next meeting next month to see if we can go into the rebuilt Citigroup Center on 53rd and Lexington.
[15:04.900 --> 15:05.720]  We're investigating that.
[15:06.180 --> 15:10.180]  Stay tuned to nyc2600.net for updates.
[15:10.460 --> 15:21.300]  One thing that did not work that we were trying to do but couldn't manage to maintain was we wanted to see if we could have a link between the virtual meeting, which was going over Zoom, and the physical meeting.
[15:21.300 --> 15:30.260]  But it turns out that when you're inside, the echoes and everything else just create too much noise for the Zoom connection to be useful if you're in a food court full of talking people.
[15:30.540 --> 15:33.960]  So we were not able to connect the virtual meeting and the physical.
[15:34.140 --> 15:35.220]  That's something we wanted to do.
[15:35.300 --> 15:39.820]  But it turns out it's not practical if you're indoors, at least not in the circumstances we were under.
[15:39.820 --> 15:42.820]  So, you know, apologies to the folks who were hoping for that.
[15:42.960 --> 15:47.160]  But, you know, we're doing our best and we will go forward.
[15:47.440 --> 15:56.300]  You know, the technical problems we have, even in an open mall, are just unbelievable sometimes.
[15:56.640 --> 16:00.280]  So, yeah, I guess if you're in an echoey room, who knew?
[16:00.620 --> 16:02.100]  They won't be able to hear you very well.
[16:02.340 --> 16:06.100]  Maybe everybody should bring their own microphone, you know, just have like sort of a headset on.
[16:06.340 --> 16:07.560]  That might be the best way to do it.
[16:07.720 --> 16:08.280]  We'll see.
[16:09.900 --> 16:10.380]  All right.
[16:10.480 --> 16:12.120]  Well, we don't seem to be getting phone calls.
[16:13.820 --> 16:17.120]  And, you know, it's challenging, all of this.
[16:17.200 --> 16:18.840]  So maybe we should wrap things up.
[16:19.580 --> 16:21.800]  How about some final words from you guys?
[16:23.800 --> 16:24.700]  Final words from us.
[16:24.820 --> 16:27.000]  Well, it's good to see you guys back in town.
[16:27.260 --> 16:29.160]  I'm, you know, glad you had a good trip.
[16:29.320 --> 16:33.940]  And, you know, I hope you had a good stop off at the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota on your way.
[16:34.120 --> 16:34.800]  Did not go there.
[16:34.960 --> 16:35.600]  Did not go there.
[16:36.660 --> 16:37.740]  You're missing out, you guys.
[16:38.280 --> 16:38.360]  Definitely.
[16:38.540 --> 16:47.480]  I mean, I will say that because I was not eligible to enter the tell you guys where to go roundup, I did not say you should swing by Car Henge.
[16:47.840 --> 16:51.320]  But you should swing by Car Henge the next time you're in the center of the country.
[16:51.620 --> 16:52.620]  Wait, what's Car Henge?
[16:53.380 --> 16:55.380]  Oh, it's Stonehenge built out of karst.
[16:56.060 --> 16:58.260]  How is that different than Cadillac Ranch?
[17:00.120 --> 17:01.020]  It's in Nebraska.
[17:01.500 --> 17:01.820]  Okay.
[17:02.040 --> 17:02.220]  All right.
[17:02.260 --> 17:03.000]  Well, that's one difference.
[17:04.160 --> 17:04.560]  Okay.
[17:04.680 --> 17:05.520]  Well, we'll consider that.
[17:05.600 --> 17:06.060]  That's the thing.
[17:06.160 --> 17:09.420]  When you travel cross country and you go to the smaller places, you see more.
[17:09.860 --> 17:11.400]  You don't just see the tourist traps.
[17:11.400 --> 17:17.500]  You see more sites and you just have more interesting encounters with people.
[17:19.020 --> 17:20.220]  So I recommend it.
[17:20.960 --> 17:21.540]  All right.
[17:21.640 --> 17:23.120]  Well, great talking to you guys.
[17:23.640 --> 17:26.820]  I guess we are going to sign off a little bit early tonight.
[17:26.840 --> 17:27.640]  And that's fine.
[17:27.760 --> 17:28.160]  That's fine.
[17:28.160 --> 17:31.160]  We're still getting things working again.
[17:32.100 --> 17:32.600]  Baby steps.
[17:32.900 --> 17:33.160]  Yes.
[17:34.100 --> 17:34.780]  All right.
[17:34.780 --> 17:38.320]  Well, write to us, OTH at 2600.com.
[17:38.920 --> 17:39.780]  Good night, everybody.