was economic update with Richard Wolff heard Wednesdays at 6 30 p.m. right
after the WBAI evening news and it's now 7 p.m. stay tuned for off the hook once
again WBAI New York 99.5 FM and WBAI.org online
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and a very good evening to everybody the program is off the hook and I have
joined tonight by Kyle yes I'm over here present and over in Skypland we have
Gila good evening we have Rob T Firefly good evening and we have Alex good
evening well that went off without a hitch how about that happens
occasionally um well welcome everybody this programming note we are not on next
week so if you were planning a gathering next week by the radio you'll
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all right since we're not on next week I also have to remind people about
something it's kind of a conundrum here because we haven't announced it yet but
the problem is we're not on next week so we can't announce it next week and the
week after that when we're back it's too late I'm referring of course to the
deadline for people to submit their talk proposals for the hope conference coming
up this summer the deadline will be the 31st of May so two weeks from today is
the 1st of June so you'd be out of luck so doing you a favor by letting you know
something that nobody else knows yet that the deadline will be May the 31st
for your talk submissions panel submissions if you have an idea for
something that that you want to talk about in front of a bunch of hackers or
if you have a panel discussion or just something of interest this is your
opportunity hope.net is where you can find all the information as to how to
submit it where to email I can tell you the email address speakers at hope.net
but as far as guidelines on how to shape your talk and the kinds of things we're
looking for that's all findable on the website hope.net hope of course standing
for hackers on planet earth and happening July 22nd through the 24th
and a bunch of us been going through a lot of speaker submissions it's pretty
impressive all over the world we have in person this is our first in-person
conference in four years but we also have virtual talks so if you have an
idea for a talk but there's no way you can make it to New York this summer well
we have a provision for you as well and the same thing holds true for attendees
we have a virtual side to the conference even though the conference is going to
be mostly in person at St. John's University so I think that's that that
covers everything did I leave anything out folks I'm just that we're really
really excited to see what you have to propose and also we say this every time
but we hear this every time every time we've done a hope conference after the
deadline we have people contacting us going is it too late is it too late I
was thinking of submitting something submit something now before it's too
late yeah and we're getting back to the people that last time right now we're
getting if you did that two years ago we're getting back to you now so that's
what happens when you miss a deadline absolutely so go to hope.net for all the
info for the info on travel to and to the conference and you know what to do
when you're in town and how to submit and what sort of things that you might
like to see there if you want to send feedback you can do all that through
hope.net okay I trust we've made our point all right then now getting to the
news this is kind of perplexing and puzzling concerning Twitter and Elon
Musk yeah well apparently he's having cold feet or second thoughts or something
like that the Twitter board yesterday said that it plans and this is a quote
to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement between Elon Musk and
and Twitter the the board and mr. Musk agreed to a transaction at $54 and 20
cents per share Twitter's board said in a statement to the New York Times we
believe this agreement is in the best interest of all shareholders we intend
to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement yeah it must be
something when you're told that you have to cough up 44 billion dollars I I've
been following this and my curiosity out of some of the changes and developments
is the point of buying or purchasing this entity was that these changes and
looking into some of these concerns would be part of taking ownership as a
new new owner and and changing the direction of the company now it seems
like the details around that are contingent on the sale like it has to be
fixed or running a certain way before the new owner steps in and does anything
but it was made out to be like the first priority once they took over and had the
ability to control and be involved is that jive with exam ails hear that in
this reporting I I don't know I was just thinking about all this talk about the
Twitter board and I'm assuming that's spelled b-o-r-e-d yes that's that's
correct well you know the the tweet from from Elon Musk everything by the way is
being done by by by tweet not allowed to speak in person until this deal goes
through my offer was based on Twitter's SEC filings being accurate yesterday
Twitter's CEO publicly refused to show proof of less than sign 5% this deal
cannot move forward until he does what that means is what he's looking for is
evidence that less than 5% of Twitter's accounts are fake I don't know how they
can prove an account is fake or an account is real that's sort of the whole
problem that's what we've been going through with the hell that Twitter has
been over the past few years and now what what Musk is saying is that the
deal can't go through if a certain percentage of users aren't real users
yeah this kind of goes to the boosting numbers thing I was talking about a
couple weeks ago and I'm just really perplexed like I thought they were the
only people that could save us from all the fake accounts and that all that had
to happen was they had to take ownership and they would be the sort of white
knight to solve democracy and discourse online yeah yeah it seems like it's
they're you know wanting it to be served up on a sort of platter before they do
anything that you're saying they you mean Elon Musk or do you mean the
Twitter board well I assume he's not gonna be doing it all by himself right
I'm presuming whatever entity he forms and brings in on his white horse or
whatever what I don't get is isn't Twitter Twitter no matter how many users
are fake or real he knew what he was getting into when he made the offer so
I don't see how if it's 5% or 6% or 10% fake users 50% you know it's still the
same animal it's still you know that is what you are buying that that kind of
influence and whatever it is that you think the Twitter represents I think
maybe Elon Musk is realizing how naive he actually is yes go ahead you know I
think he is and there's also a certain amount of brinksmanship that's at play
here and I'm I just was reading a book I was on jury duty yesterday and while I
was sitting in the jury room I was reading a novel it was great and the
novel I was reading concerned two young people who were getting married and
neither of them really wanted to get married and they just kept expecting
their parents or grandparents or someone to say oh my god you're making a rash
decision and you need to stop and I think Elon Musk is waiting for the
Twitter board to say that because again like I said last week midlife crisis he
sad post breakup so he's you know he can't go buy a sports car so he's doing
this and he's waiting for them to say no stop this is a bad idea you don't know
what you're doing and they're like um no totally you're gonna do this you said
you were gonna do this and now you have to this is brinksmanship in
simultaneously a very huge and very insignificant kind of situation and I
see that two items fighting against each other and this is not going to end well
for anyone well the problem is you know he showed them the money and they want
the money and I don't think they're gonna back down now and he this might
get very spectacular with how he's trying to prove that he's unfit to buy
the company but I don't think they're gonna be interested in that I think they
they just want the payment yes Alex I think part of this too relates to the
naivete that might have been present when he made the offer but now that
he's thinking about it a bit more I think he might be blaming the bogus
accounts on his his reluctance but I think it might have something to do a
bit more with coming to the realization that this notion of free speech
absolutism that he had been espousing for Twitter you know the reverting back
to the days of old before there were community standards for Twitter before
Donald Trump was banned reinstating banned accounts for people like Donald
Trump that this would be an absolute dumpster fire to revert to and this
whole idea of you know the First Amendment being the most important thing
in the world it's all well and good if we're talking about the United States of
America but Twitter as we all know is not an American platform it's a global
platform and the notion of the First Amendment does not necessarily apply to
places like Indonesia or the Philippines or Turkey and so if he plans to to have
this reversion to local laws and to you know uphold the law whatever the law of
the land is with regard to free speech and not have community standards for the
globe as Twitter currently does then he's going to be supporting certain
types of censorship and supporting certain types of suppression and so
there's really no easy way out here to deal with the issue of content
moderation you either have reversion to an absolute dumpster fire I forgot we're
on FCC regulated for the moment to censor myself in in my adjectives and
nouns here but I think so you know he's really caught between a rock and a hard
place is one way of putting it and I and that's why I think he may be having some
cold feet I would also add that Twitter needs those markets a lot of these
transnational like global companies they absolutely want those those customers
they have trouble enough figuring out how to monetize these platforms having
started at the outset offering a free service in exchange for ad revenue so
this expansion is important to them so they'll be compelled I think in many
ways upon entrance into or continuation of activities in those markets to do
their do the most that those local governments want especially if this is
the the overall attitude of the company yeah no doubt yeah you know I think you
know Elon maybe should go for a nice PBS or something if you want to a free
speech experiment and just see what happens you know start small and and and
get good at it but but this it's what's a bad idea from the start we all said
that and I don't know how it's gonna end now it'll end in fire from no doubt but
it's it's not gonna be pretty and this some that's running out about somehow
Elon Musk got onto our timeline at 2600 how did that happen there's a tweet from
him on our timeline we don't follow him but somehow he says and and he is the
word you can't use on the radio but he put a star in the middle of it the word
BS baffles brains that's the statement of the day apparently but it showed up
on our timeline okay you know an investigation has to be launched now as
to how he's he hijacked our time that we don't follow him he shouldn't be there
and it doesn't say promoted so I don't I don't get it did he hack the system is
that what's going on here have we been hacked by Elon Musk well we'll report it
we will who who's gonna listen to him ah we're trying to get verified by him
nothing works oh boy that's the the statement of the year nothing works so
what else do we have that doesn't work well certainly our our country at the
moment isn't working very well as far as safety as far as hatred all these
things well hatreds and great supplies safeties and short supply referring to
the terrorist act in in Buffalo cost ten people their lives at the hands of a
white supremacist with the access to to weaponry and now we're looking at a
situation and this will be interesting to look at where governor Hockel is
proposing a series of measures to combat domestic terrorism her plan is to
strengthen what's known as the red flag law that's meant to bar certain
individuals from owning or possessing weapons which sounds great to me
creating a new homeland security unit to track extremism online well I'm never a
big fan of homeland security anything because it just sounds so Orwellian but
extremism online is definitely an issue and here's here's the the interesting
one investigate the online platforms that broadcast the massacre and sites
where the Buffalo shooter posted racist writings before the attack not said that
these are sites like twitch discord 4chan all very different from each other
but all played a part in this as far as the the shooter had access to them and
was actually able to broadcast part of what he was doing and and discuss in
advance what he was doing and this is this is what the Attorney General
Letitia James said the fact that an individual can post detailed plans to
commit such an act of hate without consequence and then stream it for the
world to see is bone-chilling and unfathomable as we continue to mourn and
honor the lives that was stolen we are taking serious action to investigate
these companies for their roles in this attack time and time again we have seen
the real-world devastation that is born of these dangerous and hateful platforms
and we are doing everything in our power to shine a spotlight on this alarming
behavior and take action to ensure it never happens again not sure the
platforms themselves are dangerous and hateful not sure that's that's really a
fair way to characterize them but they certainly were used for dangerous and
hateful purposes I think that's what needs to be looked at I'm just I'm a
little wary of attacking the technology or the platforms that are using the
technology as as the threat I think they are not being used properly they're
being abused certainly and we need to figure this out but this cannot turn
into a political issue or an issue of speech because I cannot imagine having a
debate about speech where someone is saying yes someone should have the right
to broadcast a massacre as he guns down innocent people I mean we can all agree
that that is something reprehensible that has to be stopped and and and
prevented the question is how do we have that conversation Alex looks like you
want to you want to start that conversation well yeah I do I mean I
it's I think it goes back to the conversation that we tried to end about
Twitter and Elon Musk because what you're driving at in my opinion is the
fact that we do need some kind of community standards and some sort of
universal mores or ethics about what's right and what's wrong and it's not very
hard for us to figure that out with these sorts of extreme examples it's
almost like a universal principle of natural law something you know in every
in every community in every nation society etc it's always bad to murder
somebody in the same way it's always bad to broadcast the murder of somebody I
mean it's absolutely horrific and it goes back to this issue of the dumpster
fire that Twitter would become if there were no rules or there were no rules on
any of the of these other platforms and the fact that this guy the the shooter I
won't even mention his name was radicalized by going to places like 4chan
and 8chan and these unregulated boards should tell us something about the
dangers of unregulated speech and activity you know when it comes to hate
speech and things like that because if we do have these community standards and
they are enforced that prevents the spillover of digital violence to
physical violence and prevents the radicalization of people going into a
mosque let's say in New Zealand and and killing Muslims or going into a
supermarket in Buffalo and killing people but I wanted to go back to the
second point here which is tracking extremism online and as I've mentioned
before I'm a founding board member of the technology advisory board for human
rights first and one of the things that I've been doing with human rights first
is repurposing the DNS or the domain name system intelligence platform that I
created over the last several years to track extremism online in the global
domain name system and I'll tell you yesterday there were two domain names
that were registered that jumped out to me today as being highly dangerous and
really nasty and one of them was whitepowerworldwide.com and the other
was in a new GTLD or in new generic top-level domain dot world it was
whitepower.world both of these were registered by the same exact person at
2223 Zulu on the 17th of May and what was really interesting about these two
domains is if you if you navigate to whitepowerworldwide.com what do you
think you get well I mean since it was just it was just registered yesterday I
imagine it probably haven't had time to set up a nice-looking website probably
just something saying on the construction check back soon something
like well no you you would be wrong because whoever registered those domain
names redirected them to the NAACP okay that's interesting which I thought was
great and when you when you further investigate these domains white
whitepowerworldwide.com these were previously registered they existed and
they had expired so whoever snatched these up yesterday did a public service
by snatching them up before some kind of extremists could could repurpose them
and and now they're redirecting all the traffic that used to go there to the
NAACP so whoever did that kudos to them but but when you described it at the
beginning you said it leaped out at you as dangerous and I think what you're
what you're demonstrating here is how we cannot trust our instincts as what is
dangerous and what is not something that appears to be evil actually could
be an act of good I just wonder you know somebody who actually goes to that
website and winds up the NAACP well you know what what kind of what kind of mood
are they gonna be in at that point and what will be their next step that
worries me a little bit who knows but I think it's a I think it's a great
methodology to look for these expired domain names because you're also you
know you're in you're in charge of the traffic then you also could be in charge
of whatever email addresses existed at that particular domain name as well
well then you're launching a whole new career for yourself tracking down white
supremacists I don't know if everybody is suited for that but wow that's
interesting how do you how do you find a domain that's about to expire though and
how do you how do you get it because every time I've seen something like that
happen it's it's in the hands of a squatter it's in the hands of a company
and either you pay $10,000 for it or some other machine gets it yeah there
are these like domain snap services and things where you can put in some
monitoring services so that when the domain goes back into general
registration when it's a it when the public can re-register it'll snap it
back up though that's one service that you can use another is really just to be
vigilant and watch these types of things and take note of you know the date on
which a domain is going to expire then there's going to be some kind of grace
period after that grace period expires and the domain go back into the general
public and things like white power worldwide they might not be on anybody's
waiting list let's hope not I just want to add the technical solutions we're
mentioning are worthwhile and important and in addition to that I think like the
measures that Governor Hochul was talking about some of the initiatives
whatever however big or small if it's a gun buybacks if it's more education even
I'll say mental health of course yes we all need more mental health care in this
country it seems every day we need it more and more so you know all of those
different levels I think are aspects of this because it is a truly chaotic but
pattern you know a systemic pattern we're noticing in generations of a
particular type of person and we really I think need to have a deep reckoning
about identity cultural identity and race relations needs to continue to be
something that you know we open up and discuss if I don't know what it's gonna
take I don't know I don't think we have any one answer these technical things
are a start the only thing I'm hearing that's dangerous in some of the comments
about these platforms is that thing of slipping into all of the activities on
telegram or on you know end-to-end or otherwise invisible platforms so at
least on these other ones they're easier to spot easier to maybe toy with a
little bit throw them some some honey pots some fun places to go
loiter or or other things maybe challenging some of the conversation
that goes on there or or I don't know I mean I again I think we're all asking
and trying to find out ways to deal with this kind of stuff my point is just it's
gonna take a whole lot of everything we can think of well mastery of these
platforms is key and I think you know if we if we basically suspect a platform of
being evil from the start remember tick-tock couple years ago how
suspicious everybody was not everybody uses tick-tock constantly maybe they're
right but the point is it's not the platform it's what people do with it and
if you have people on the platform who are good people they're the ones that
can make the platform adjust itself so that these kinds of things aren't as
easy to happen as as we're seeing right now what what the Attorney General is
saying the investigations will focus on those platforms that may have been used
to stream promote or plan the event including but not limited to Amazon yeah
I said it that way because you know if you say twitch people don't always know
that twitch is owned by Amazon but that could be host machines on their cloud
services as well as of course yeah twitch platform 4chan 8chan discord all
these platforms it's important that we we understand how they work we we know
what we want out of them you know I think there are things regardless of
whether or not you agree with people on many different items there are things
that I think many of us most of us hopefully all of us can agree on that's
that shouldn't be guns in the hands of people who are going to do things like
this or who are likely to do things like this please platform should not be used
to promote such horrible events and well you know take it from there yeah using
the platforms I think they're already parallel laws related to you know
different types of equipment that if you use it in commission of a crime like
lock-picking sets or body armor it is illegal but in not using you know using
it normally using it for a legitimate purpose more or less or less a non
hateful purpose shall we say in this case then okay you you you can stream
and do as you like but I would be very surprised if this wasn't something that
would escalate some kind of charge because it was used in the commission of
a crime just like any of these kind of equipment things I was talking about but
you know it goes further and it gets you know a bit more debatable when you start
looking at at inspirations for people to become radicalized I'm looking at Fox
News I'm looking at replacement theory that Tucker Carlson's been been pushing
probably pushing at this very moment and you know what do you do about that
how do you how do you counter this besides making people aware of it and
it's tough it really is tough the small thing that I'm doing right now is if you
know if I see Fox News playing in an establishment and walking out of that
establishment and I think everybody can do that you know no no confrontation no
nothing like that but you don't have to support it and you do support it if if
you treat it like this is okay and I would go so far as to say if I have an
apartment at a doctor or a dentist and they're playing Fox News gonna get a
different doctor or dentist and I'm gonna let them know that a couple other
things you can do you know everybody has the same cable remote if you're going
into a place locally odds are they're using the same system that you have
bring your remote with you it's gonna work you can even block that channel
it's a way of doing that I've never done it but you can actually go into an
establishment and and with a couple of keystrokes this this puts TV TV begun to
shame you can make it so they can't even watch that channel I know I'd where's my
freedom of speech but you know what sometimes you just got to act is that
with the parental controls like you can set a password yeah you can set a
password like I'm sure you know you can get the password since you know you're
but the thing is they're just gonna assume it's broken they're not gonna
know what you did there's all kinds of clever ways you can fight back not
always you know 100% the right thing to do but boy it'll make you feel better
yeah absolutely and holding media corporations to better standards having
less consolidation in media generally speaking would be better but uh a lot
less of the illegitimate kinds of smaller news outlets because if you you
you turn your back on larger media organizations media organizations that
have credibility that did employ journalists that really care about
getting their craft right that you know make corrections when they have to that
kind of true reporting you turn your back on that you're gonna get a lot of
those clickbait news sites and you're gonna get the media you deserve and and
you know as a result you'll get the country that you deserve and some people
are totally satisfied with that I'm not and I know there are a lot of other
people that are not so it's the the kind of thing where scrutiny for the
types of media that we're consuming and like you mentioned that kale channel
needs to be referred to as what it is which is mostly commentary it's not
reporting and no it's not news it's not the same thing there's certainly you
know CNN there's other channels that that have their failings but some of
these things don't compare as far as replacement theory and these kinds of
insidious conspiracies and and really ideologically backwards and contrary to
American ideals and values but it's being masqueraded as something
legitimate which it's not well be made to be yeah the thing is you know that
the horse has left the barn and we need to figure out how to coax it back and
and and get back to somewhat of a civilized society we're very far away
from that right now and and the more we we have these naive views of of what's
fair and what's free it's it's gonna get worse because you know everyone has
their opinion on on everything from vaccines to elections to you know
whether or not somebody has rights equal to you it's um it's madness and it's you
know it's definitely getting worse in many places doesn't really make a
difference who's in power at the at the moment it's the it's the the mood of the
nation right now and and and right now you know on the cusp of of Roe versus
Wade being overturned gay and trans people having laws against their
existence being passed everywhere it's it's a scary time and it's gonna continue
to be scary unless we fight back and we have to figure out all different kinds
of ways of fighting back and standing by each other that's very important because
if we if we you know attack each other while we're doing this then it's it's
pointless we won't accomplish anything all right on a different note there is a
UFO hearing in Congress you saw this what's okay what's going on there's
something I need to know about well they're representatives from various
parts of the government specifically naval intelligence and and some of the
other the leads of this UAP task group or committee or whatever they're
basically investigating and creating a process for reporting UAPs they're
formalizing that process it is the new term they're using for UFO and you know
what a UFO is why can't we say UFO we have to say UAP now um this political
correctness is too much yeah I I think that that term allowed for sort of
broader sets of scenarios and they're looking at all of them to kind of create
a database and find patterns okay wait UAP unidentified I'm gonna say it's
unidentified Rob looks like you have a guess for the second word what unless you
already know I do already know well then you can't guess Kenya that's not fair
Alex you guess I can't think of a single word beginning with
a acrobats um okay good guess Gila do you know the answer all right so I got a
guess now unidentified yeah it is hard to think of a word beginning with this
isn't the whole story it's just something we're focusing on no but but
what could begin with a it's a flying object alien alien yeah unidentified
alien something no no alien they don't like to use the word alien for the sake
of this alien yeah that's maybe the eighth time I say alien I'll be right
it's not alien alien no okay let's tell us what it is unidentified aerial
phenomena that's stupid I'm sorry unidentified flying objects made a lot
of sense unidentified aerial phenomena okay whatever what is in a name who
cares about the name well apparently they do they renamed it exciting
interesting fascinating thing and yet again you got a problem with the the way
they're labeling it you call hey they are the ones who changed it I didn't so
anyway unidentified aerial popcorn you know just make up a name for it well
apparently that's what they did so okay what's not the most important part was
what was the most important part I think the most important part is that they are
organizing they're creating a system they're working with civilian as well as
their own pilots so that they'll actively report things and they talked
about well not much because a lot of it ended up being well not as satisfying as
far as answers you what kind of witnesses did they have and you say
civilians as well as military well it was a little comical they played a video
and then the player they were playing the video couldn't advance frame by
frame so they had to get some help to show a frame because every time they
played the video the flying object would fly past the screen they couldn't you
couldn't see it so they would like try to advance the video and it would skip
past wherever this object was so you had like 10 minutes of trying to show this
proof that showed nothing so these are the people telling us about you what I'm
saying it again you have a UA you AP right yeah and and they can't even play
it back technology they have it's how are they supposed to explain technology
we don't understand yet it's it's more Congress that was having trouble
displaying their their exhibits but they did bring stuff they showed scenarios
where they could explain what you were seeing and why it was happening they had
other like the one I was talking about where they eventually got it on this
frame and it is an object that they cannot explain and there were other
instances where they talked about situations that had been reported that
had other data but they couldn't talk about where and what kind of data that
was so you get the sense that there are things they don't know about there are
things that they have pretty good certainty that it is man-made or has an
explanation like scientifically or otherwise but then amidst all the
different categories they talked about the other category where it's just like
we have not enough information we don't really know where or what it is or we
can't explain how it came to be in in the evidence we have so their their
whole presentation was basically about the kind of spectrum of things that
they're looking at and looking into for all the reporting that this is that's
being channeled to them but they're really trying to formalize this thing
instead of it being relegated to crackpot theories and and wild conspiracies and
who is there's a particular committee of Congress I I don't have the exact
details in front of me about who and how it's working but maybe someone with
information services near them can can elaborate for me doesn't appear so I can
go ahead yeah I can certainly try um I let's say this was this was a this was a
panel that held this hearing and it was well I can't explain why it's
unidentified aerial phenomena now because that that covers more a lot more
ground than unidentified flying object something might not be an object it
might be a trick of the light or you know something of that nature so this
this basically opens it up to it's up in the sky and we don't know what it is
okay but then when you when you start to learn what it is couldn't it then become
a UFO because then it's a flying object not a not a you know reflection of light
but if you've identified it it's no longer unidentified it's just a plane or
some swamp gas or you know a spaceship or whatever but it is not identified it
is not unidentified of course if it's identified it's not a UFO but I'm saying
if it's not identified it still could be a UFO and that kind of narrows it
down you know I don't really care what they call it but I saw some of this
hearing and it was disappointingly boring but and and there was not one
single inquiry into the whereabouts of Fox Mulder's sister so I just I had I
had to switch wasn't there a period where somebody was being asked what kind
of science fiction conventions he went to yes what's that all about one of the
leads of this task force or this panel that was being questioned is a former
intelligence officer I don't know if he was the guy from Naval Intelligence I
think he was from Naval Intelligence spent his career doing that and then he
talked a little bit about his fascination with this topic and and how
he grew up during the space race and alongside the actual factual
accomplishments moon conspiracies aside but alongside the leaps and bounds that
were being made in aerospace and exploration in the 60s was this
incredible compendium of media from the 60s the 70s on you have tons and tons of
media and and science fiction stuff so he admitted having an interest and said
he didn't didn't he went to conventions but wouldn't go so far as to say that he
dressed up entirely and then was was Joe prodded a little bit about entirely not
participating like perhaps maybe he has Don some some costume for one of those
but that I think he explained is part of his character and I thought that was a
really good explanation to that yeah the people involved in this are people too
they do have a sense of humor they do have fascinations with you know fantasy
and and stuff that is not true and I think from like my passion and interest
in this that's so crucial got to have an imagination for this you're investigating
things that we don't understand we may not have the capacity to understand the
phenomena or the technology you must have an imagination and appreciation for
the unknown and the mysterious and the things you don't even know you can think
of yet yeah I was impressed by that and I thought that just led to their
credibility but I don't I'm I'm I think a line with Rob here and that I remember
this UAP thing being addressed in Congress last year and leave it to
Congress to take one of the most esoteric fascinating phenomenon of the
20th and century in 21st century and to just you know make it into a incredibly
dull and boring hearing here I mean I frankly I would have preferred to see
you know the person testifying dressed up as like you know as one of the greys
or you know really frankly just just wake me up when they confirm that the
greys exist that they're here on earth and and they're testifying in front of
Congress other than that I feel like I'm done with this well I I would I would
propose that this is by design Alex they want it to be boring it needs to be dry
there needs to be parts of this that people accept and and don't really think
of anymore because there are elements of this that are related to defense and
that do have implications for near-peer competition and sorts of leaps and
bounds and technological and other sorts of technologies that could be a threat
to national security so the dryness I mean if you're not a c-span veteran and
you can't read between what's being said in a testimony spend some more time
listening to the dryness but when you listen that kind of stuff you've got to
read into it you got to think of the person that's testifying I mean we do
this when judges were being you know looked at it's the exact same thing when
you go and you talk you're gonna have our representatives inquire about why
you're there whatever business you're doing and there's even if it is boring
and dry there's so much you can kind of glean now this though I would say you're
you're right in in how brief it was and how little detail there was and they
just basically as is in the case and many things on conflict and intelligent
intelligence or defense stuff like they have an additional session that is
closed and not public so you got this on this they had yeah they had a closed
door session about UFOs or you a break and then they had a close okay if you're
trying to get people to not think there's some kind of a conspiracy going
on involving this that's not the way to do it well right but that there and some
of the reporting I read I think it was a New Yorker comment on it there's a
certain schizophrenia around this topic we're sort of admitting you think yeah
one thing we're saying no we don't know another thing and they were saying oh
this is important to national security it's like there's a lot of things close
the doors and tried out the aliens and and and we don't ever find out about it
yeah it's it's gonna be disappointing it's gonna be a letdown but there's more
admission here and more interesting stuff going on and if you're if you're
fascinated by this stuff follow it if and write about it or you know get
involved maybe you can help investigate you know who they should have talked to
is a member hacker known as Gary McKinnon over in the UK he was accused
of perpetrating the biggest military computer hack of all time when he broke
into 97 US government computers for a time they were trying to extradite him
and it was a big fight to imprison him they might imprison him for up to 60
years but his extradition was blocked after a 10-year legal battle he remains
a free man and he had a couple of things to say he said he did no harm he was
looking for evidence that US government was actively covering up UFOs no doubt
he was he was glued to the TV set yesterday he told the Sun online what he
found left him gobsmacked as he stumbled across thousands of photos during his
cyber sting thousands of photos it's a fact that there are objects we don't
understand flying around in our skies it's also a fact that there are
scientific intelligence and military departments that study these objects he
claims to have found one particularly striking photograph an image of a
cigar-shaped non-man-made craft captured in a satellite photo it appears to be a
very close-up image of the object in space with strangely shaped domes on all
sides that image was the only one Gary managed to see himself before he lost
the connection damn I hate I hate how TV shows play out but sometimes real life
plays out the same way he said there were thousands more photos though yeah
you know talk to this guy I'm sure you'll learn a few things and maybe find
some interesting pictures he had a painfully slow 56k dial-up connection he
was only able to get the one image out of the folder before his remote
connection cut and he lost the chance to print the screen Wow so frustrating but
things like this interesting interesting topics and things that we should in the
hacker world pursue and ask questions yeah and think think as imaginatively as
possible you know some of these maybe they're us from the future you know who
knows who knows what this stuff is and the curious are key to this puzzle I'm
seeing a story here crafty hackers can make a tool to eavesdrop on some 6g
wireless signals in as little as five minutes using office paper and inkjet
printer a metallic foil transfer and a laminator 6g this is a joke what's what
are we doing here well 6g is still being defined as far as I'm aware and it's to
be deployed in 2030 so this seems like a conspiracy the wireless security hack
was discovered by engineering researchers from Rice University and
Brown University which will Brown Rice University I get it which present their
findings and demonstrate the attack this week in San Antonio at ACM Y sec
2022 the Association for Computing Machinery's annual conference on security
and privacy in wireless and mobile networks awareness of a future threat is
the first step to counter that threat said study co-author Edward Knightley
Rice's Schieffer Lindsay professor of electrical and computer engineering the
frequencies that are vulnerable in this attack aren't in use yet but they are
coming and we need to be prepared I agree the working pay the proposal I
think Nokia publish it because Nokia is Bell Labs now I printed out like a year
ago I was gonna read it on air because it was so scary if you read kind of just
I mean people freaked out about 5g and yeah millimeter waves different different
type of energy and radiation and so forth but like 6g is really where some
of the privacy and stuff we've been talking about culminates look it up
check out 6g that'll I'll make you think differently about five in a few years
we'll be talking about these security holes of 6g I know it now Tesla's in the
news again the millions of Tesla vehicles are vulnerable to hacking these
reports are coming up after a paper from the NCC group came out exposing
Bluetooth low-energy we've conducted the world's first link layer relay attack on
Bluetooth low-energy BLE the standard protocol used for sharing data between
devices that has been adopted by companies for proximity authentication
to unlock millions of vehicles residential smart locks commercial
building access control systems smartphones smartwatches laptops and
more as they wrote this is a specific exploit related to BLE it affects
virtually every device that uses the protocol but the reason Tesla is being
singled out is that they demonstrated the vulnerability in Tesla vehicles they
wrote in the report cars with automotive keyless entry an attacker can
unlock start and drive a vehicle NCC group has confirmed and disclosed a
successful exploit of this for Tesla models 3 and Y over 2 million of which
have been sold they're describing a relay attack which has been a known
issue with every car using key fobs and Tesla has moved to BLE key fobs in 2016
thefts of Tesla vehicles are quite rare in North America but in Europe they have
some more sophisticated thieves huh they have more sophisticated thieves in
Europe I didn't know that I thought this is one thing we were leading in well
they're familiar with European cars they'd insult us on every level yeah more
sophisticated thieves wow that's that's that's a smack in the face they managed
a string of Tesla vehicle thefts through relay attacks and most vehicles haven't
been recovered Wow in response to those attacks Tesla started rolling out extra
layers of security with an improved cryptography key fob an optional pin to
drive feature these measures can be applied to greatly decrease the chances
of your Tesla vehicle being stolen even with this BLE vulnerability Wow I had no
idea and you know it makes an old-fashioned key kind of good now
right yeah a little bit more effective in some ways but this is all under the
assumption you want to steal a Tesla go ahead Alex I think you know this is a
really interesting story because this Bluetooth low energy protocol was never
really intended to be used for something like access controls the classic example
of a technology being repurposed for a function for which it was not originally
designed and because it's so ingrained in so many devices in so many places you
know not just Tesla's but yeah being used for access control locks you
mentioned it Emmanuel you know all over the place I think like log 4j which we
dealt with last year yeah this is a vulnerability it's gonna be really hard
to fix or patch because it's so fundamental to so many different devices
around the world and a lot of those devices may not be updated they may not
be patched they may be disused manufacturers may have gone out of
business so it's going to be a vulnerability that's with us for some
time all right our time is up we are going to continue the conversation on
overtime on YouTube just go to channel 2600 on YouTube it's one word or click
on the link that's on the top of 2600 comm web page this final story though if
you're one of the people watching Eurovision over the weekend what a great
contest that was a pretty amazing positive uplifting experience but
Russian hackers were attempting to disrupt the voting to prevent Ukraine
from front from winning the Italian police's cybersecurity department
blocked several attacks on network infrastructure by the kill net hacker
group and its affiliate Legion in February in the wake of Vladimir Putin's
invasion of Ukraine the European Broadcasting Union moved to exclude
Russia from the contest and they succeeded in excluding them and there
were some Russian hackers who promised to to hack the system didn't work didn't
happen and Ukraine won by a record number of popular votes we are going to
go out with that winning song from from the Kalash orchestra called Stefania I
believe it's dedicated to the singer's mother how appropriate
OTH at 2600 comm is our email address write us with any comments you have tune
in 8 o'clock on YouTube for overtime we'll see you in two weeks good night
for a WBA I in New York I'm Linda Perry thanking new BAI buddies