[00:00.000 --> 00:06.640]  Dealing with this problem, which has the potential to really change this society if we can get a hold of it.
[00:07.180 --> 00:12.960]  And as always, I sign off by saying I look forward to speaking with you again next week.
[00:14.340 --> 00:21.160]  The previous program was Economic Update with Richard Wolff, heard usually Wednesdays at 6.30 p.m.
[00:21.180 --> 00:25.640]  here on WBAI New York at 99.5 FM and WBAI.org online.
[00:26.540 --> 00:28.700]  Stay tuned for Off the Hook.
[00:28.920 --> 00:30.660]  Coming up...
[00:44.710 --> 00:48.290]  The toll-free number you have dialed has been disconnected.
[00:48.650 --> 00:51.730]  No further information is available about this number.
[00:52.710 --> 00:53.430]  074T.
[02:36.970 --> 02:40.630]  And the very good evening for the program is...
[02:41.890 --> 02:42.730]  What is the program?
[02:42.990 --> 02:43.730]  Off the Hook.
[02:43.830 --> 02:44.470]  It's Off the Hook.
[02:44.490 --> 02:47.110]  That's what it is on WBAI.
[02:47.370 --> 02:48.650]  This is a manual here.
[02:49.210 --> 02:51.330]  Over on the other side of the room is Kyle.
[02:51.330 --> 02:51.430]  Kyle?
[02:52.050 --> 02:52.490]  Yes.
[02:52.670 --> 02:55.410]  Coming in clear and loud.
[02:55.610 --> 02:55.850]  Good.
[02:55.990 --> 02:56.690]  I expect nothing less.
[02:57.390 --> 03:01.690]  And way over in the distant part of the room is Alex in Skypeland.
[03:02.790 --> 03:03.490]  Good evening.
[03:03.850 --> 03:08.470]  You know, we talked to a friend the other night who happened upon us by accident.
[03:08.990 --> 03:15.670]  And instead of immediately turning to another station, as most people do, he told us that he thought we were all...
[03:15.670 --> 03:17.170]  And this is when we were more people.
[03:17.310 --> 03:18.250]  We were all in the same room.
[03:18.250 --> 03:20.290]  And it seemed like we were all together.
[03:21.030 --> 03:23.650]  In actuality, we are nowhere near each other.
[03:24.010 --> 03:25.010]  In many ways.
[03:25.670 --> 03:27.330]  And this is all virtual.
[03:27.490 --> 03:30.390]  But it sounds like we're all in the same place, doesn't it?
[03:30.910 --> 03:31.950]  We work very hard.
[03:32.050 --> 03:32.790]  It does sound that way.
[03:33.650 --> 03:34.050]  Wow.
[03:34.130 --> 03:35.750]  What a great time to be alive, huh?
[03:35.890 --> 03:36.470]  Isn't that something?
[03:36.470 --> 03:37.770]  We don't have to be around each other.
[03:38.250 --> 03:38.550]  Yeah.
[03:38.770 --> 03:39.530]  Yeah, it really is.
[03:39.570 --> 03:40.230]  It's incredible.
[03:41.510 --> 03:47.210]  I do look forward to the day when we are a little bit nearer to each other geographically.
[03:47.210 --> 03:49.890]  But this does show you the tremendous potential.
[03:50.250 --> 03:56.570]  You know, you could be in another part of the world entirely and still be part of Off the Hook.
[03:56.870 --> 03:58.290]  Well, I'll tell you what I miss.
[03:58.410 --> 04:01.870]  I mean, I miss seeing you guys physically and being in the same room.
[04:02.010 --> 04:07.930]  But, yeah, I miss our Wednesday night rituals after the show, which, you know, I don't want to give away too much of it.
[04:07.930 --> 04:11.810]  But, you know, we usually bicker about where we're going to go get something to eat.
[04:11.950 --> 04:17.950]  And then we go someplace great and have, you know, it's just I miss the camaraderie of Wednesday nights.
[04:17.970 --> 04:19.950]  We bicker over the check, too, at the end.
[04:20.030 --> 04:20.710]  Don't forget that.
[04:21.210 --> 04:21.470]  Mostly.
[04:21.470 --> 04:21.970]  You got it, too.
[04:22.050 --> 04:22.310]  Yeah.
[04:22.570 --> 04:24.450]  Well, and because we're right, that's why.
[04:24.670 --> 04:30.350]  Mostly it's reviewing notes about how the show went and all the different things that we plan on improving.
[04:30.530 --> 04:34.390]  Yeah, and you left out the pre-show sessions where we practiced the script and all that.
[04:35.210 --> 04:35.330]  Yeah.
[04:35.330 --> 04:36.550]  I don't miss that, I'll tell you.
[04:36.670 --> 04:37.570]  And vocal exercises.
[04:37.810 --> 04:38.050]  Yeah.
[04:38.250 --> 04:40.190]  And, of course, it's all the driving.
[04:40.470 --> 04:42.330]  You know, we have to start at about noon to get there.
[04:42.610 --> 04:45.050]  That's one thing that's different.
[04:45.050 --> 05:08.230]  And I think something worthwhile and as unique about being able to take advantage of technology in different ways that people have with working, whether it's flexible working or distance, you know, conferencing to just everyday connecting.
[05:08.230 --> 05:13.930]  I think that people value it and use it in more, but in their own ways.
[05:14.330 --> 05:15.710]  Whereas I think a lot of...
[05:15.710 --> 05:16.230]  I don't know.
[05:16.310 --> 05:18.110]  I was pretty resistant to using it.
[05:18.250 --> 05:18.850]  I still am.
[05:19.010 --> 05:26.130]  Well, you know, in a way, this is a microcosm of what a lot of people are going through with their, you know, work days.
[05:26.650 --> 05:34.850]  And I think maybe what we wind up settling on is kind of a compromise between a virtual presence and an actual real-life presence.
[05:34.930 --> 05:37.410]  Kind of like what we did with the conference where we had some virtual.
[05:37.550 --> 05:40.310]  We had, you know, a lot of in-person as well.
[05:41.530 --> 05:50.850]  But the potential of the technology and also the importance of the in-person get-togethers, I don't think either of those should be cheapened.
[05:51.910 --> 06:01.410]  Yeah, you know, but on the other hand, too, we've built our own rituals here now, you know, as part of the show.
[06:02.630 --> 06:06.670]  No longer able to accept live listener phone calls.
[06:06.830 --> 06:19.430]  It's changed the show a bit, but we've added an extra hour every week, more than an extra hour every week, but in dedicated to solely taking listener phone calls, leveraging a separate technological platform, YouTube.
[06:19.690 --> 06:29.970]  But, you know, it reinforces everything that I thought about those kinds of forums in that they are dwarfed in comparison to the traditional radio forums.
[06:30.250 --> 06:30.590]  Yeah.
[06:30.590 --> 06:35.530]  We hear from people all the time that just, like I mentioned, happen upon us by accident.
[06:36.510 --> 06:41.190]  People remember shows when we open up the phone lines and we're on the air, we get a ton of calls.
[06:42.170 --> 06:44.830]  It's a fraction of that on YouTube, even with all the publicity.
[06:45.050 --> 06:46.350]  It just isn't the same.
[06:46.450 --> 06:47.290]  I know there are exceptions.
[06:47.570 --> 06:51.630]  You know, there are people who have managed to get podcasts in the millions and things like that.
[06:51.730 --> 06:54.950]  But for the most part, you can't match radio.
[06:55.090 --> 07:01.690]  And that's why we cling to radio so desperately, because it is vitally important.
[07:01.690 --> 07:14.390]  I think I speak for most of WBAI, because we recognize the importance of radio over just a multitude of clamoring voices trying to get your attention that you'll find on the Internet.
[07:15.630 --> 07:17.910]  You have to seek them out for the most part.
[07:18.770 --> 07:21.530]  Whereas WBAI, we are in the airwaves.
[07:21.790 --> 07:23.150]  We're there for the taking.
[07:24.150 --> 07:27.110]  Almost every car, I believe, still has an FM radio in it.
[07:27.250 --> 07:29.110]  And a lot of people still...
[07:29.110 --> 07:31.430]  I don't know how many people really listen to the radio in their homes.
[07:31.430 --> 07:45.330]  I'd like to hear, you know, maybe when we take calls on the YouTube part of the show later, people can let us know if they actually do listen, you know, gather around like those pictures from the 1940s of the whole family lying on the floor listening to the radio.
[07:45.550 --> 07:46.710]  I don't know if that happens anymore.
[07:46.710 --> 07:51.350]  But I like to think that there's a radio in people's houses that they turn on.
[07:51.610 --> 07:55.650]  You know, the recent hurricanes, that was a major part up in Nova Scotia.
[07:55.650 --> 08:04.610]  CBC Halifax was so vital for the people that didn't have power listening to what was going on in the overnight period and throughout the daytime.
[08:04.890 --> 08:14.230]  And down in Florida, more recently, people were listening to the radio when they had no power and no idea what was happening next.
[08:14.230 --> 08:24.390]  So you can't get that on the internet because it can, you know, connect to the internet if everything is failing, if the cell towers are down, if there's no power.
[08:26.310 --> 08:33.750]  Yeah, a battery-powered or hand-cranked radio, something I still want to get, that will always keep you connected.
[08:34.250 --> 08:38.270]  Yeah, write in and tell us maybe or call later.
[08:38.430 --> 08:42.330]  Talk to us about your favorite portable radio because I think that's the one thing.
[08:42.450 --> 08:45.450]  It's accessible and it's a very versatile medium.
[08:45.450 --> 08:57.790]  And, like, you're describing situations where you really need to take hold and get information out to people and focus on that, whether it's a – or perhaps an event of national interest.
[08:58.090 --> 09:01.290]  We carry those things here at WBAI.
[09:01.290 --> 09:06.150]  So remember to give at give to WBAI.org.
[09:06.290 --> 09:06.510]  Yes.
[09:06.510 --> 09:31.610]  And, yeah, just a special shout-out to everyone behind the scenes making it happen through all the different fundraising events and milestones we've reached technically just trying to keep things updated and ready for new producers and new information on shows like this.
[09:31.610 --> 09:37.490]  Now, I believe if you call the special pledge line, somebody will answer.
[09:37.790 --> 09:41.650]  I don't know that's for sure, but the phone number is 212-209-2950.
[09:42.670 --> 09:51.370]  Maybe one of our listeners can call and make a contribution and then call us later on the YouTube show and tell us if that worked and if you were able to make a donation.
[09:51.370 --> 09:54.050]  And you'll be the star of the show for that moment anyway.
[09:54.310 --> 10:01.430]  Next week we're not on because the station is doing a fundraiser of a different sort with different people.
[10:01.430 --> 10:02.270]  And that's fine.
[10:02.490 --> 10:05.190]  That's part of the way we operate right now.
[10:06.310 --> 10:10.250]  But you can pledge and say that Off the Hook is your favorite show.
[10:10.390 --> 10:12.530]  You can do that on the site Kyle mentioned.
[10:12.990 --> 10:15.850]  Give to, the number two, give to WBAI.org.
[10:16.290 --> 10:19.430]  Or by trying that phone number, 212-209-2950.
[10:20.650 --> 10:27.950]  Because that support is so key in allowing a station like WBAI to even exist in the first place.
[10:27.950 --> 10:30.930]  And we've existed since 1960, if you can believe that.
[10:31.590 --> 10:34.630]  1960, that's, you know, 62 years ago.
[10:35.090 --> 10:50.210]  And if you look at any other radio station in the New York City area, any other radio station, I defy you to find me one that has been on the air longer at the same frequency with basically the same format that they started out with.
[10:50.210 --> 10:53.170]  Which, in our case, is a format of just about anything.
[10:53.870 --> 11:00.390]  You know, if you listen to WBAI over the course of any day, you will hear so much variety, more so than any other station.
[11:00.570 --> 11:02.310]  So, keep that going.
[11:02.630 --> 11:03.210]  Pay it forward.
[11:03.530 --> 11:04.850]  212-209-2950.
[11:04.850 --> 11:06.570]  Give to WBAI.org.
[11:06.810 --> 11:08.450]  Keep cranking that radio.
[11:08.730 --> 11:09.230]  Yeah, yeah.
[11:09.370 --> 11:09.690]  Hand crank.
[11:09.830 --> 11:10.830]  I really want to hand crank that radio.
[11:10.830 --> 11:15.870]  And, yeah, I bet a couple cranks and you can listen to a good part of the show.
[11:16.410 --> 11:18.630]  Keep going, maybe halfway through the show.
[11:19.830 --> 11:21.110]  We want to hear all about it.
[11:21.230 --> 11:25.250]  We're fascinated by this kind of different technology and ways of using it.
[11:25.310 --> 11:29.490]  It's weird because we didn't start the show thinking about fundraising.
[11:29.490 --> 11:35.010]  We just sort of segued into it because it matters, because this matters to us.
[11:35.370 --> 11:37.630]  You know, we're not being told to say this right now.
[11:37.630 --> 11:39.750]  You know, this is how we feel.
[11:39.950 --> 11:48.730]  This is how we absolutely feel about keeping WBAI on the air, keeping non-commercial radio in the middle of the FM dial strong in New York City.
[11:49.030 --> 11:53.530]  And people all around the world have told us how much that matters to them.
[11:53.570 --> 11:56.910]  So, please, keep it going so that we can do another 62 years.
[11:57.070 --> 11:59.670]  And who knows what the world will look like then.
[12:00.810 --> 12:02.370]  Alex, do you have any closing thoughts on this?
[12:02.450 --> 12:05.610]  And then we're going to move on to some actual news in the world of technology.
[12:06.210 --> 12:07.270]  No, nothing further to add.
[12:07.270 --> 12:08.090]  I think you've got a Cobra.
[12:08.610 --> 12:08.910]  All right.
[12:09.430 --> 12:10.290]  Moving on.
[12:11.190 --> 12:13.450]  We're moving right back to where we were in the spring.
[12:13.830 --> 12:16.110]  Apparently, Elon Musk is going to buy Twitter after all.
[12:16.970 --> 12:17.790]  Oh, my God.
[12:18.070 --> 12:19.130]  This never ends.
[12:20.290 --> 12:20.470]  Okay.
[12:20.650 --> 12:23.250]  So, Alex, correct me if I'm wrong here.
[12:23.330 --> 12:28.310]  What he's offering to do now is pay the original price he offered.
[12:28.390 --> 12:32.430]  So, he offered a price, and that was rejected.
[12:32.670 --> 12:34.770]  And then he offered a higher price, and that was accepted.
[12:34.770 --> 12:37.310]  And they changed his mind and said, I don't want to buy them.
[12:37.410 --> 12:38.550]  And then Twitter sued him.
[12:38.710 --> 12:39.650]  And he said, oh, no.
[12:39.770 --> 12:39.950]  Okay.
[12:40.030 --> 12:42.170]  Well, then I'm going to go back and offer the first price.
[12:43.570 --> 12:44.470]  Is that about right?
[12:45.090 --> 12:45.410]  Yeah.
[12:46.030 --> 12:47.390]  That sounds about right.
[12:47.710 --> 12:51.310]  You know, it's a little imprecise, but probably correct.
[12:51.310 --> 12:51.670]  Okay.
[12:53.610 --> 12:55.370]  So, what do you think happens now?
[12:55.470 --> 12:58.970]  Or has something happened since I printed out this story a couple hours ago?
[12:59.550 --> 13:00.430]  That's a good question.
[13:00.470 --> 13:02.190]  I've been stuck working.
[13:02.310 --> 13:04.950]  But I don't know.
[13:05.030 --> 13:08.250]  I think what happens next is they can possibly strike a deal here.
[13:08.510 --> 13:08.990]  Uh-huh.
[13:09.570 --> 13:13.610]  The trial is set to roll forward, I think, next week or the week thereafter.
[13:13.610 --> 13:19.690]  And I think Elon Musk doesn't want that to happen for whatever reason.
[13:19.690 --> 13:26.810]  And this should have been a trial in the public eye right before the midterm elections.
[13:28.870 --> 13:32.290]  It would have been massive amounts of attention.
[13:32.290 --> 13:44.250]  And I would presume that there are a lot of facts and things like that that perhaps Twitter would not want to be part of that official public record at trial.
[13:44.270 --> 13:52.430]  So, going back to the drawing board and going back to the purchase, it seems to be like what happened here.
[13:52.650 --> 13:56.950]  Well, you know, I'm looking at this with a real sense of dread.
[13:56.950 --> 14:06.350]  Because I don't know if you saw what he said, was it yesterday or the day before, about Ukraine basically saying, so should the people have the right to decide what country they want to belong to?
[14:07.590 --> 14:13.330]  Being super insensitive to the brutality of the invasion against Ukraine.
[14:13.490 --> 14:18.030]  Just basically trying to turn it into a whole big festival of pick your country.
[14:19.330 --> 14:29.810]  Without giving any thought to all the people who don't have that ability right now, who have been driven from their homes, and not to mention the bullying tactics that basically say might makes right.
[14:30.510 --> 14:36.350]  Just to make it into some simplistic, well, do you believe in freedom or not, type of a question.
[14:36.550 --> 14:39.290]  This is the guy that's going to be at the helm of Twitter.
[14:39.630 --> 14:41.150]  It really fills me with dread.
[14:43.450 --> 14:44.670]  Yeah, I'm not optimistic.
[14:45.910 --> 15:06.470]  Yeah, I mean, and it seems to be part of this larger scheme of control over a medium, and also the message, another way to immerse himself in partisan politics, power, Section 230 issues, First Amendment.
[15:06.650 --> 15:14.010]  I mean, I just don't like the whole idea of having to deal with Elon Musk on all of these issues forever.
[15:15.610 --> 15:20.490]  No, it's definitely going to be unpleasant in many ways.
[15:20.650 --> 15:33.970]  And he has pretty much promised to bring Trump back onto the platform, which, you know, that'll basically make it nosedive, I think, and make it completely irrelevant and unpleasant.
[15:35.770 --> 15:38.370]  You know, it's been so nice without him there.
[15:39.830 --> 15:56.430]  But to have somebody say, yeah, you know, let's open it up to all forms of speech, including hate speech, including outright lies, including all kinds of threats and bullying and terrible tactics like that, it's going to be a sad day.
[15:56.550 --> 16:00.330]  But, you know, they haven't accepted the offer yet, I don't think, and they still might decide just to sue him.
[16:02.990 --> 16:06.790]  So, I'm not really in favor of that, but I think it's the better of the two choices.
[16:07.790 --> 16:08.190]  Yeah.
[16:08.510 --> 16:13.230]  I mean, it'd be tricky, I think, to proceed on the basis of the original lawsuit.
[16:13.350 --> 16:24.630]  I think they were asking the court for a specific performance, right, which was essentially asking the court to compel somebody to do what they promised to do in the first place.
[16:25.030 --> 16:32.470]  So, if he's offering to do what he promised to do in the first place, it's hard to go back into court and litigate the issue.
[16:32.730 --> 16:39.190]  Yeah, but if that offer was rejected, it kind of seems like a weird tactic to lowball it.
[16:39.350 --> 16:41.630]  And, of course, I don't know if $44 billion is lowballing it.
[16:41.710 --> 16:50.510]  But, you know, to do that, to have it rejected, to offer something higher, then change your mind and say, okay, well, we can avoid all this if we just do what I wanted to do in the first place.
[16:50.830 --> 16:51.450]  I don't know.
[16:51.870 --> 16:54.210]  I think some judges might have a problem with that.
[16:54.630 --> 16:55.350]  Well, it's nuanced.
[16:55.550 --> 17:06.650]  And then there's also, you know, Twitter could allege that there's been massive reputational damage to the platform as a consequence of all of these shenanigans involving Elon Musk.
[17:06.830 --> 17:10.090]  And, you know, it's quite possible.
[17:10.250 --> 17:17.050]  I mean, he brought to light a lot of issues, the veracity of which I'm not sure if, you know, they've ever been proven.
[17:17.050 --> 17:23.370]  So, you know, there may be additional claims that Twitter would have against Musk.
[17:23.730 --> 17:36.290]  But if you think about this from the perspective of the bottom line, which is, frankly, how Twitter has to think about this, remember, they have to think about shareholder value and their fiduciary relationships.
[17:36.290 --> 17:48.830]  And so if Elon Musk is offering them a sum that would benefit the shareholders without going through costly, burdensome litigation that could further damage the reputation of the platform, they very well may take it.
[17:48.830 --> 17:49.610]  Yeah, you're right.
[17:49.650 --> 17:56.830]  Because, you know, my opinion is that whatever it is he is offering is so overvalued that they'd be fools not to take that.
[17:57.410 --> 17:59.070]  Because, okay, let me ask you this.
[17:59.630 --> 18:00.390]  Live journal.
[18:00.570 --> 18:04.290]  If I offered you a live journal and you had infinite funds, how much would you pay for it?
[18:06.510 --> 18:07.730]  Or what's another one?
[18:08.750 --> 18:09.970]  I don't remember the names.
[18:10.330 --> 18:11.310]  MySpace, was that a thing?
[18:12.010 --> 18:12.410]  Friendster.
[18:12.650 --> 18:13.050]  Friendster.
[18:13.570 --> 18:14.850]  How much would you offer for these?
[18:15.130 --> 18:17.670]  You know, I wouldn't pay a thousand bucks for them.
[18:17.670 --> 18:22.290]  But there was a time when they were probably worth billions in the eyes of some.
[18:23.970 --> 18:26.090]  And then the fad moved on.
[18:26.510 --> 18:28.510]  And they're not worth anything anymore.
[18:28.670 --> 18:30.510]  That's going to happen to Twitter at some point.
[18:30.890 --> 18:32.830]  So you're paying all this money.
[18:32.930 --> 18:34.210]  It's like people who buy racehorses.
[18:34.270 --> 18:35.170]  I can never understand this.
[18:35.430 --> 18:37.350]  You know, the horse is going to die at some point.
[18:37.450 --> 18:40.170]  And what happens to your investment unless you win all these races?
[18:41.110 --> 18:43.990]  I'm going to get all kinds of letters from horse racing fans now.
[18:43.990 --> 18:47.830]  But the point is, this is something that is not... it's not like buying a house.
[18:48.050 --> 18:50.330]  It's not like buying something that's going to last.
[18:50.670 --> 18:51.570]  It's a fad.
[18:51.730 --> 18:56.390]  It's something that will change in value and that value inevitably will go down.
[18:57.250 --> 19:05.790]  Well, I think that one of the strategies, at least the ambition, is to change this into something even more than what it might be.
[19:05.950 --> 19:09.470]  I think there's some visionary stuff, some talk of that.
[19:10.430 --> 19:18.090]  This will be part of an evolution to 3.0 from 2.0.
[19:18.130 --> 19:19.250]  Who knows what we're doing?
[19:19.550 --> 19:20.830]  Now you're scaring me.
[19:20.990 --> 19:21.250]  Right.
[19:21.390 --> 19:22.930]  What's it going to change it into?
[19:22.930 --> 19:24.430]  Okay, you know, I'll watch.
[19:24.550 --> 19:25.710]  I'll sit on the sidelines.
[19:25.730 --> 19:26.570]  I'll get some kettle corn.
[19:26.670 --> 19:27.130]  I'll watch.
[19:28.110 --> 19:35.770]  But there is a very long list of failed dot com companies, you know.
[19:35.950 --> 19:38.490]  So there's... yeah.
[19:38.710 --> 19:46.490]  I mean, is there a peril in this that people are kind of at the mercy of?
[19:46.490 --> 19:48.290]  I think that that's valid.
[19:48.610 --> 19:50.310]  We need more open platforms.
[19:50.310 --> 19:55.870]  We need more, you know, democratically run companies that put on social media networks.
[19:56.050 --> 19:57.870]  That we trust for information.
[19:57.870 --> 20:01.430]  I think that's something that's at stake here.
[20:01.610 --> 20:01.730]  Yeah.
[20:01.930 --> 20:02.290]  Standards.
[20:02.510 --> 20:03.330]  Standards are important.
[20:03.930 --> 20:07.190]  And when somebody misbehaves, you don't let them keep misbehaving.
[20:08.030 --> 20:08.430]  Okay.
[20:09.230 --> 20:13.830]  Interesting story out of Washington State, where I believe you're from, Kyle.
[20:13.830 --> 20:20.230]  Well, this has to do with a hacker who basically was accused of...
[20:20.230 --> 20:22.230]  Well, she was accused of all kinds of things.
[20:22.410 --> 20:23.550]  Alex, I think you'll be interested in this.
[20:24.030 --> 20:25.410]  A 37-year-old former...
[20:25.410 --> 20:28.430]  I'm reading this from, actually, the Department of Justice website.
[20:28.430 --> 20:29.030]  The U.S.
[20:29.230 --> 20:30.710]  Attorney's Office, Western District of Washington.
[20:32.390 --> 20:38.870]  A 37-year-old former Seattle tech worker was sentenced today, again, that was yesterday, in a U.S.
[20:39.150 --> 20:54.790]  District Court in Seattle to time served and five years of probation, including location and computer monitoring for seven federal crimes connected to her scheme to hack into cloud computer data storage accounts and steal data and computer power for her own benefit,
[20:54.790 --> 20:56.610]  announced U.S.
[20:57.070 --> 20:58.150]  Attorney Nick Brown.
[20:58.990 --> 21:00.070]  Paige A.
[21:00.230 --> 21:01.450]  Thompson, a.k.a.
[21:01.610 --> 21:13.610]  Erratic, that's her name, her handle, was arrested in July 2019 after Capital One alerted the FBI to Thompson's hacking activity.
[21:13.830 --> 21:18.770]  A federal jury found her guilty in June of 2022 following a seven-day trial.
[21:18.770 --> 21:21.090]  At the sentencing hearing, U.S.
[21:21.430 --> 21:22.690]  District Judge Robert S.
[21:22.870 --> 21:30.290]  Lasnik said time in prison would be particularly difficult for Ms. Thompson because of her mental health and transgender status.
[21:31.010 --> 21:36.490]  While we understand the mitigating factors, we are very disappointed with the court's sentencing decision.
[21:36.650 --> 21:39.450]  This is not what justice looks like, said U.S.
[21:39.970 --> 21:40.690]  Attorney Nick Brown.
[21:40.950 --> 21:45.630]  Ms. Thompson's hacking and theft of information of 100 million people...
[21:45.630 --> 21:47.050]  I'll read that again.
[21:47.050 --> 21:56.570]  Ms. Thompson's hacking and theft of information of 100 million people did more than $250 million in damage to companies and individuals.
[21:56.910 --> 22:03.550]  Her cybercrimes created anxiety for millions of people who are unjustifiably concerned about their private information.
[22:03.830 --> 22:06.630]  This conduct deserves a more significant sanction.
[22:07.550 --> 22:14.970]  Thompson was found guilty of wire fraud, five counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer, and damaging a protected computer.
[22:14.970 --> 22:26.950]  Using Thompson's own words in text and online chats, prosecutors showed how Thompson used a tool she built to scan Amazon Web Services accounts to look for misconfigured accounts.
[22:27.090 --> 22:34.230]  She then used those misconfigured accounts to hack in and download the data of more than 30 entities, including Capital One Bank.
[22:34.410 --> 22:44.510]  With some of her illegal access, she planted cryptocurrency mining software on new servers with the income from the mining going to her online wallet.
[22:45.010 --> 22:53.890]  Thompson spent hundreds of hours advancing her scheme and bragged about her illegal conduct to others via text or online forums.
[22:54.150 --> 23:07.970]  Asking the court to impose a seven-year sentence, prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo, Thompson's crimes were fully intentional and grounded in spite, revenge, and willful disregard for the law.
[23:07.970 --> 23:13.330]  She exhibited a smug sense of superiority and outright glee while committing these crimes.
[23:13.610 --> 23:23.790]  Thompson was motivated to make money at other people's expense, to prove she was smarter than the people she hacked, and to earn bragging rights in the hacking community.
[23:23.930 --> 23:32.910]  I am proud of how quickly our cyber task force worked together to recover the victim's personal information and prevent further harm, said Richard A.
[23:33.070 --> 23:37.010]  Kalati, special agent in charge of the FBI's Seattle field office.
[23:37.170 --> 23:44.910]  This case is a good example of why companies and individuals who believe their data has been stolen online should immediately contact the FBI.
[23:45.370 --> 23:53.910]  Judge Lasnik scheduled a December 1st, 2022 hearing to determine the amount of restitution Thompson must pay to her victims.
[23:56.970 --> 24:03.370]  Well, interesting case, and interesting to see the Department of Justice not happy with how something turned out.
[24:03.530 --> 24:09.510]  It's also interesting to see a judge actually show some compassion and not send somebody off to prison.
[24:09.510 --> 24:11.250]  Why couldn't we have gotten this judge for Virgil?
[24:11.370 --> 24:12.110]  I'd like to know.
[24:13.410 --> 24:21.870]  I also want to focus on a story that ran in the Seattle Times yesterday, because it phrases things just a little bit differently.
[24:22.330 --> 24:25.490]  So keep in mind what I just read from the Department of Justice.
[24:26.530 --> 24:28.070]  And listen to this now.
[24:28.190 --> 24:38.330]  The former Amazon engineer, whose 2019 hack-compromised 100 million credit card users' accounts, won't spend any additional time in jail.
[24:38.690 --> 24:43.370]  So from the press release, we didn't know she'd spend any time in jail, but yes, she was in jail.
[24:43.990 --> 24:46.610]  Convicted in June on seven hacking-related charges.
[24:46.610 --> 24:56.130]  Seattle resident Paige Thompson was sentenced Tuesday to time served and five years of probation for violating an anti-hacking law known as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
[24:56.810 --> 25:00.790]  Thompson, 37 years old, was responsible for one of the largest data breaches in U.S.
[25:00.930 --> 25:01.110]  history.
[25:01.390 --> 25:09.590]  She downloaded data from more than 100 million Capital One users, including 120,000 Social Security numbers and about 77,000 bank account numbers.
[25:10.090 --> 25:10.630]  U.S.
[25:10.850 --> 25:15.590]  Attorney Nick Brown said Thompson did more than $250 million in damage to companies and individuals.
[25:16.610 --> 25:23.970]  You know, reading the press release made it sound like, to me anyway, that she was responsible for stealing millions of dollars.
[25:24.150 --> 25:28.150]  It just kind of sounded like she was really up to something, and it was all about money.
[25:28.310 --> 25:29.910]  But no, not really.
[25:30.870 --> 25:38.530]  Prosecutors argued successfully that Thompson used a software tool she built via Amazon Web Services to look for misconfigured accounts.
[25:38.670 --> 25:43.170]  She then used the accounts to hack and download the data of more than 30 entities, including Capital One.
[25:43.430 --> 25:52.750]  The bank's internal system recognized Thompson's queries as coming from a friendly computer, so it fulfilled her data requests.
[25:53.770 --> 25:59.550]  Arrested in July 2019, Thompson remained jailed until November of that year.
[25:59.550 --> 26:16.410]  In 2020, Capital One agreed to pay $80 million to federal bank regulators' claims that it lacked security measures it needed to protect customers' information, something that DOJ left out.
[26:16.910 --> 26:18.370]  Yeah, they had to pay $80 million.
[26:18.630 --> 26:28.710]  In December, the bank settled for $190 million in class action lawsuits filed by customers whose data was exposed in the breach.
[26:28.910 --> 26:32.650]  Add those numbers up, and it comes very close to $250 million.
[26:33.690 --> 26:46.570]  Thompson's federal defender, Muhammad Ali Hamadi, said in an email that the $250 million damage figure is a result of Capital One's failure to protect the public's data rather than Thompson's actions.
[26:47.070 --> 26:48.790]  At the sentencing hearing, U.S.
[26:49.090 --> 26:56.650]  District Judge Robert Lasnik said time in prison would be particularly difficult for Thompson because of her well-documented mental health issues and because she is transgender.
[26:57.210 --> 27:05.410]  Thompson had contended she was attempting to collect a bounty for spotting the vulnerability in the systems of the companies she hacked.
[27:05.650 --> 27:13.410]  Such payments are sometimes paid to white hat hackers who try to identify and mend vulnerabilities in companies' online defenses.
[27:13.670 --> 27:24.790]  The jury in her case, and I want you to listen to this, the jury in her case found that she did not intend to commit fraud with personal identifying information that was downloaded onto her computer.
[27:25.090 --> 27:28.390]  In closing arguments, Assistant U.S.
[27:28.490 --> 27:34.130]  Attorney Andrew Friedman said she wanted data, she wanted money, and she wanted to brag.
[27:35.170 --> 27:36.450]  Well, don't we all?
[27:36.690 --> 27:47.850]  In a letter advocating for Thompson, a friend wrote that Page saw a situation where the information on which the financial system depends for its security was left utterly unguarded by its custodians.
[27:47.850 --> 27:56.410]  The individual also wrote that while Thompson was wrong for not reporting it, any random person with a computer could commit nearly limitless fraud.
[27:56.770 --> 27:58.650]  Again, something DLJ left out.
[27:59.110 --> 28:05.150]  Other supporters wrote that Thompson struggled with substance abuse and dependence as a way to self-medicate for her mental health.
[28:07.350 --> 28:17.770]  She was on pre-trial supervision for over three years, did not test positive for using controlled substances, and she was never diagnosed with a substance abuse disorder, according to her attorney.
[28:18.190 --> 28:26.990]  The defense said during the trial that her actions were legal because the breach company's systems performed as they were programmed.
[28:28.570 --> 28:29.870]  So, there you go.
[28:30.010 --> 28:31.770]  Two different sides of the same story.
[28:32.870 --> 28:34.470]  What's your feeling on this, Alex?
[28:35.370 --> 28:37.490]  My thought on this is...
[28:37.490 --> 28:51.630]  Well, I've got a lot of thoughts on this one, but this is exactly what my panel was about at Hope this year, which was about the new interpretations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
[28:51.630 --> 28:57.210]  And as part of that panel, I would invite everybody to go onto YouTube and check it out.
[28:57.370 --> 28:59.270]  It's called... it's from Hope this year.
[28:59.470 --> 29:02.670]  The CFAA has come a long way, or has it?
[29:02.770 --> 29:03.490]  That was the panel.
[29:03.690 --> 29:20.430]  And we had an FBI agent, an active FBI agent, who was involved in computer crime investigations and cybercrime issues, as well as kind of global threat risk and kind of more advanced cyber adversaries and things.
[29:20.430 --> 29:26.750]  We also had the co-chief of the Complex Frauds and Cyber Division of the U.S.
[29:26.990 --> 29:35.450]  Attorney's Office from the Southern District of New York and the Managing Director of the National Cyber Forensics Training Association, who is also a lawyer and former FBI agent.
[29:35.550 --> 29:56.490]  And we were talking about these new guidelines for the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, whereby in May this past year, the Attorney General essentially changed the rules about how prosecutors should look at computer crime and created an exception for good faith security research or,
[29:56.530 --> 29:58.430]  quote-unquote, white hat hackers.
[29:58.650 --> 30:15.470]  And so that, you know, if you didn't have the intention of harming others or harming the public, and you were performing good faith security research, as that was defined, ironically, in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of all acts, of which you are quite familiar,
[30:15.850 --> 30:16.890]  Emanuel.
[30:18.330 --> 30:33.130]  And so long as, you know, the intention was good, that there wasn't any malintending, you didn't intend to do harm, that it was good faith security research and that you intended to address some kind of vulnerability or do this in a manner that wouldn't harm the public,
[30:33.670 --> 30:35.370]  it shouldn't be considered a crime.
[30:37.330 --> 30:47.890]  So, given the facts that you read, at least, you know, from one half of the articles there, it seems to me quite problematic that you have this U.S.
[30:48.210 --> 31:04.050]  Attorney's Office that's incredibly disappointed with the result here, because obviously the intentionality, or the mens reo, which is a critical element of any crime, which is, you know, the intention to commit the crime, seems like it really wasn't present.
[31:04.050 --> 31:17.390]  I mean, maybe she did, obviously, know and intend to transgress certain access controls and parameters of other systems, but if she did it for the purposes of good faith security research, this is something that, according to the U.S.
[31:17.490 --> 31:21.030]  Attorneys' own guidelines, shouldn't be prosecuted anymore.
[31:21.330 --> 31:27.050]  But this is something, again, we addressed directly at Hope this year, which was...
[31:27.050 --> 31:31.190]  and that's why the panel was entitled, the CFAA has come a long way, or has it?
[31:31.190 --> 31:36.090]  Because this new policy change to the U.S.
[31:36.430 --> 31:44.930]  Attorney's Manual about the CFAA and how they should treat all different types of crimes, it really is, in a sense, old wine in a new bottle.
[31:45.350 --> 31:54.290]  Because, as I just mentioned, every time a prosecution occurs, you have to think about the intention of the defendant.
[31:54.890 --> 32:01.990]  And so, what Sagar Ravi, who was the co-chief of the Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit at the U.S.
[32:02.190 --> 32:14.750]  Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Vermont, indicated that, you know, he thinks that this really didn't make much of a change or it shouldn't have made much of a change because those types of good faith security researchers should not have been prosecuted in the first place.
[32:14.750 --> 32:17.670]  So, I see there being...
[32:17.670 --> 32:35.290]  I see this as being a harbinger of hopefully what will be more good news on the horizon, which means that, you know, we should have fewer prosecutors like those that were described in the article being really disappointed about a result here, you know,
[32:35.310 --> 32:44.110]  that doesn't overly and harshly punish somebody who performed a minor amount of computer computer trespass here.
[32:44.790 --> 32:49.290]  And hopefully we see more and more judges recognizing that these are...
[32:49.290 --> 32:51.610]  that the crimes before them are in a sense...
[32:51.610 --> 33:09.330]  or rather in many senses, depending upon the facts and circumstances, could be victimless and shouldn't be treated with the same kind of crazy rigor and overzealousness that we'd seen, you know, people like Kevin Mitnick be charged with or treated in the past.
[33:09.470 --> 33:12.730]  So, I see this as a real positive result, Emmanuel.
[33:12.930 --> 33:30.670]  Well, I certainly agree with the conclusion there, but I'm not quite sure about whether or not the judge was following that line of thinking because, after all, what he said was time in prison for somebody with mental health issues and somebody who's transgender would not be advantageous,
[33:30.810 --> 33:36.830]  implying that if neither of those were the case, that a prison sentence might very well have been handed down.
[33:37.070 --> 33:42.710]  So, I'm not sure that he is totally on board with the changes that you've outlined.
[33:43.010 --> 34:04.030]  Well, quite possibly, but I do think that if the facts were different here and that there was some measure of intentionality or an intent to harm the public or to misuse the data that she had downloaded or that they had downloaded, I think that I think the judge would have come down a lot harsher.
[34:04.150 --> 34:15.810]  I think that the judge taking individual facts and circumstances of a person into account relative to a Computer Fraud and Abuse Act charge here is certainly progress in the right direction.
[34:15.990 --> 34:21.250]  It shows a level of empathy that we don't see very often in these types of cases.
[34:21.450 --> 34:30.410]  So, it's hard to say what was going on in the judge's head, but I think he did take the facts into account and meeting out that decision.
[34:30.570 --> 34:44.730]  Well, you know, what I liked about this story, the story, not the press release, is that the words of the charged friends, you know, they were heard.
[34:45.350 --> 34:52.050]  You know, her friends were heard saying what she did was not wrong.
[34:52.510 --> 34:59.930]  She wasn't trying to do something bad and the security was terrible and someone else could have just done the exact same thing.
[34:59.970 --> 35:02.990]  It's not like the system was compromised.
[35:02.990 --> 35:07.930]  It was already compromised before anything had actually happened.
[35:08.510 --> 35:14.810]  Getting those words out, as we know with Virgil's case recently, it can be impossible.
[35:14.810 --> 35:17.590]  We never got to have those words said in court.
[35:17.590 --> 35:33.890]  All the people who wrote on his behalf to keep him out of jail, we never got to say that he didn't actually break into any system or do something malicious, that he was basically curious and looking for possible holes.
[35:34.470 --> 35:52.110]  All that the public heard was North Korea and cryptocurrency and guy who thinks he's smarter than you and all kinds of things that just triggered people with power to go at him with everything they possibly could.
[35:52.370 --> 35:59.470]  So I'm happy to see a case like this where that didn't happen, but I want to see more cases like that where you actually do get your day in court.
[35:59.650 --> 36:05.630]  We actually are able to say these things and let the truth be laid out there for all to judge.
[36:07.370 --> 36:10.210]  Yeah, I'm in agreement with that.
[36:10.350 --> 36:27.630]  And I think, you know, Virgil's case was really unique in a lot of unfortunate ways, but it does go to show you that the outcome of any case can be contingent on the judge that one draws.
[36:27.630 --> 36:29.370]  And that's entirely random.
[36:29.770 --> 36:45.030]  I mean, this is something that the great legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin famously described in, I think it was Law's Empire is one of his greatest books was that, you know, sometimes it all boils down to what the judge had for breakfast.
[36:45.290 --> 36:47.790]  And that's the sad state of affairs that we live in.
[36:48.410 --> 37:07.810]  One thing I really noticed here was that, yeah, the scalability, like the types, the way that this system that was vulnerable and the way that this data is stored allows for those numbers, the amount of people, the amount of data, it allows it to be just astronomical.
[37:08.230 --> 37:18.110]  And it reminded me of how reliant a lot of these businesses are on contractors, on service providers like Amazon.
[37:18.110 --> 37:29.770]  and they're trusting a very, very large company with a lot of different employees, a lot of surface for access control and stuff.
[37:29.910 --> 37:55.390]  And you've got to wonder, no matter how good a bank, for instance, no matter how great their security is, if all of their infrastructure is susceptible because it's linked up to an even more vast system, because, well, there's no cheaper way than to pay for Amazon buckets and who cares if they leak,
[37:55.470 --> 37:59.970]  there's no other alternative or we don't want to pay for doing it ourselves.
[38:00.750 --> 38:17.610]  This call really, it makes it a huge playground for people that are malicious, that do want to do something, is a target, and can touch a vast amount of sectors if it is found to be vulnerable.
[38:18.330 --> 38:27.270]  That really seems to be an underlying aspect of this, a huge, huge story that is maybe not as clear.
[38:27.630 --> 38:45.150]  Now, given this individual, I can't speak for their character, and I agree with your sentiments in large respect in how they're treated, and leniency, we would like to see it a little bit more, but I'm not clear even from either of those stories that you read,
[38:45.310 --> 38:53.570]  that there was this sort of good faith, like, oh, I'm doing a report for the company.
[38:53.770 --> 39:13.130]  It seems like if you work there, that makes it even worse, because, well, if you're really looking into this, you should be doing this formally with your department, with a team of people, with some supervision and tools, you know, but on the side and then you throw in stuff that's kind of hard to talk about,
[39:13.190 --> 39:26.970]  like, in a good way, like, like, bragging, I don't know what evidence they had, and again, that seems like it can be blown out of proportion and it doesn't speak well of like some kind of formal analytic project, you know?
[39:27.090 --> 39:30.870]  You see, that's the thing, though, with DOJ is that they exaggerate certain things.
[39:31.030 --> 39:32.110]  Bragging, who knows what that could be?
[39:32.210 --> 39:40.510]  That could basically be saying, yeah, I know what I'm doing, wanting money while I was going for a bug bounty, which awards somebody with money.
[39:40.630 --> 39:43.590]  So there you go, that's like, you know, obviously in it for the money.
[39:44.250 --> 39:47.950]  So they have ways of distorting what the actual motivation was.
[39:48.310 --> 39:57.930]  Look, this was something that she was punished for, spent time in jail, and apparently there'll be restitution come December 1st.
[39:58.930 --> 40:02.890]  And having something like this going on in your life since 2019 is a bit disruptive.
[40:03.170 --> 40:04.510]  So I think the message was sent.
[40:04.790 --> 40:08.230]  Why are we so fixated on sending people to prison all the time?
[40:08.590 --> 40:10.130]  You know, 70 years in prison for this?
[40:10.350 --> 40:10.710]  Really?
[40:10.890 --> 40:11.790]  Who was harmed?
[40:11.910 --> 40:12.950]  Who exactly was harmed?
[40:13.250 --> 40:16.790]  You know, if anybody out there is a Capital One customer, hey, guess what?
[40:16.850 --> 40:19.570]  Your data was insecure and somebody was able to download it.
[40:19.850 --> 40:23.010]  And now, you know, that's been revealed.
[40:23.470 --> 40:31.170]  But, you know, I think the security system that was inadequate, you know, Capital One was rightly fined.
[40:31.410 --> 40:35.250]  And you have to look where the blame actually should be.
[40:35.470 --> 40:50.530]  Well, my only question therein is like, okay, you're trusting Capital One, but in trusting them with your business and your info, you're actually implicitly, without your knowledge, you're trusting Amazon.
[40:50.530 --> 40:51.550]  What if you don't?
[40:51.790 --> 40:54.110]  What if you realize how bad that is?
[40:54.650 --> 41:18.510]  And if you were told that you're not, because it's infrastructure, it's operational and stuff like that, it's a black box to you as a customer, you don't realize you're inherently accepting whatever hiring or whatever storage or software design elements that Capital One is taking on as a liability by contracting service from them.
[41:18.670 --> 41:20.430]  So it's kind of, that's a little odd.
[41:20.530 --> 41:26.030]  to realize where your data, you have no control over that, it's a business decision they're making for you.
[41:26.170 --> 41:45.350]  Go ahead, On the subject of this disappointment that was expressed at the sentence here, it strikes me as just more of a fundamental problem that we see within the legal system itself, that it's seen as some kind of zero-sum game between the prosecution and the defense here,
[41:45.510 --> 41:51.210]  when it's not the way it was designed or should be thought of at all.
[41:51.390 --> 41:56.170]  You have to think about these prosecutors work for the Department of Justice.
[41:56.590 --> 41:59.830]  Justice should be the goal here in every single case.
[41:59.970 --> 42:01.570]  You're supposed to work justice.
[42:02.070 --> 42:11.210]  Prosecutorial discretion is just as important, and I think it can be argued, is more important than prosecutorial zeal.
[42:11.490 --> 42:30.030]  And a lot of this is born out of a lot of this need to over-prosecute or to be over-zealous when it comes to this is because they want to have a record of being hard-on crime and getting really great results or harsh sentences when they leave that office.
[42:30.090 --> 42:30.950]  You've got to send a message.
[42:30.950 --> 42:31.930]  You've got to send a message.
[42:32.230 --> 42:32.750]  High convictions.
[42:33.290 --> 42:39.310]  But there's got to be a better way to measure the success or failures of a prosecutor.
[42:39.590 --> 42:41.310]  Hey, they got a guilty verdict.
[42:41.310 --> 42:42.010]  They won.
[42:42.190 --> 42:43.290]  You know, that should have been the end of it.
[42:43.450 --> 42:45.010]  They got a guilty verdict in June.
[42:45.270 --> 42:50.690]  They won on the merits of the case, but they got a meager sentence.
[42:50.950 --> 43:01.230]  And, you know, according to them, but according to the judge and according to the defendant and according to, I think, us, she received a just sentence.
[43:01.570 --> 43:06.630]  You cannot be disappointed when justice is served, when you work for the Department of Justice.
[43:06.830 --> 43:07.390]  Am I wrong?
[43:07.490 --> 43:08.250]  I mean, you're a lawyer.
[43:08.370 --> 43:10.130]  You understand how this all works much better than I do.
[43:10.230 --> 43:19.670]  But am I wrong in thinking that penalties, sentences, that is basically the territory of the judge.
[43:19.890 --> 43:26.310]  The prosecutor should be concerned with moving the case forward and prosecuting the case, not with the sentence.
[43:27.230 --> 43:31.990]  Isn't that something that is inappropriate for the prosecutor to really be a part of?
[43:32.630 --> 43:36.330]  Well, the prosecution recommends certain sentences.
[43:37.230 --> 43:40.970]  And sometimes the judge will go along with it and sometimes the judge will not go along with it.
[43:40.970 --> 43:42.670]  It's up to the discretion of the judge.
[43:42.870 --> 43:44.850]  The prosecution does not sentence a defendant.
[43:45.490 --> 43:54.530]  Sometimes they work out, like in Virgil's case, there was a plea agreement that was worked out and the judge sentenced the defendant in accordance with the plea agreement between the defendant and the government.
[43:54.850 --> 43:59.130]  But the judge always has the discretion to go below that agreement or to go higher than that agreement.
[43:59.290 --> 44:01.310]  It's totally up to the judge.
[44:01.870 --> 44:09.930]  And the judge, I think, rightfully saw what a just result would look like here and shaped his order accordingly.
[44:10.530 --> 44:18.670]  So, you know, it's a bit armchair quarterbacking here, I think, for the government to come in and say it was a bit harsh.
[44:18.670 --> 44:25.190]  It really is up to the judge, but it could be armchair quarterbacking for us to say, you know, a judge's sentence was too harsh in other cases.
[44:25.850 --> 44:30.470]  Well, everyone has their opinion, and I guess DOJ has an opinion as well, so we'll just leave it at that.
[44:30.650 --> 44:41.390]  I want to thank listener Tim for writing in to us last week with some updates on the story we were talking about, Girls Can Code, having their books banned in Pennsylvania.
[44:42.110 --> 44:50.990]  We had an updated article from a newspaper there called Center Daily Times entitled Pennsylvania District didn't actually ban girls who code books.
[44:50.990 --> 44:52.010]  Here are the facts.
[44:52.190 --> 45:07.490]  An uproar over book bans, was reignited when those behind the movement to close the gender gap in technology caught wind that the book series Girls Who Code popped up on a banned book list, but the book series was technically not banned in classrooms,
[45:08.150 --> 45:12.990]  according to the Central York School District in Pennsylvania, at least not officially.
[45:13.330 --> 45:15.290]  It seems like a bunch of conditions here.
[45:15.690 --> 45:23.330]  It's true that four titles from the series appeared on a list of books banned in the 2021-2022 school year.
[45:24.150 --> 45:26.510]  So it's kind kind of seems like they were banned.
[45:27.230 --> 45:42.730]  The free expression non-profit Pan America compiled the list and used the data to publish a report that showed specific groups were behind the book bans sweeping the nation.
[45:43.170 --> 45:56.070]  Pan America researchers documented 2,532 instances of books being banned, some of which were covered in the news media, such as the controversy around girls who code and other bans reported directly to Penn.
[45:56.530 --> 46:02.590]  The report published last week states according to the Central York School District, the series was never banned.
[46:02.810 --> 46:07.370]  Instead, the books were included on a list of resources that was later pulled.
[46:08.610 --> 46:11.070]  Having trouble distinguishing the difference here.
[46:11.530 --> 46:16.950]  Educators in the school district say that meant the book was effectively barred from being taught in classrooms for about 10 months.
[46:16.950 --> 46:17.630]  Okay, you know what?
[46:17.810 --> 46:25.910]  In England, when you get barred from a pub, and I know this is from personal experience, if you get barred from a pub, it's equivalent to being banned from a bar in the States.
[46:26.090 --> 46:28.110]  So banned and barred mean the same damn thing.
[46:28.690 --> 46:31.630]  So, okay, they say the series was never banned, but it was barred.
[46:32.630 --> 46:33.070]  Okay.
[46:33.950 --> 46:45.430]  The Four Girls Who Code Books, which is Team BFF, Race to the Finish, The Friendship Code, Spotlight on Coding Club, and Lights Music Code.
[46:45.590 --> 46:47.090]  Oh, that's the bad.
[46:47.150 --> 46:56.790]  They were included in a diversity resource list of some 200 titles the Central York School District curated after the killing of George Floyd in 2020.
[46:57.570 --> 47:03.830]  The series is a spinoff of tween book series such as The Babysitter's Club and The Saddle Club.
[47:03.930 --> 47:16.490]  It highlights the stories of girls who are into coding and their adventures with the coding club at their school, and many of the protagonists are young girls of color, according to the founder of the Girls Who Code Company, Reshma Sojani.
[47:16.950 --> 47:23.470]  Girls Who Code has an active chapter in the Central York School District and is offered as an after-school program.
[47:24.630 --> 47:25.190]  Wow.
[47:25.910 --> 47:30.790]  Shortly after the school district released the diversity resource list in 2020, there were complaints.
[47:31.350 --> 47:45.090]  The school board voted to put the resource list on hold and that teachers not use the titles for class instruction, with the exception that they could continue to use resources that were already in place before they were put on the diversity resource list,
[47:45.210 --> 47:47.690]  and that included the Girls Who Code series.
[47:48.110 --> 47:53.270]  The decision to withdraw the list that added Black Voices to the curriculum dredged up national attention.
[47:53.270 --> 47:59.110]  The board then voted to reinstate the list and make the resources available to teachers again in September 2021.
[48:01.050 --> 48:02.310]  All right, but you know what?
[48:03.870 --> 48:10.090]  There's some technicalities here, but for all intents and purposes, there was an attempt to ban these books in that district.
[48:10.090 --> 48:18.430]  So, I'm not sure what all this, you know, backpedaling is, but it sure seems like the story was right to have been reported.
[48:18.550 --> 48:22.250]  I just wish the story had been reported when it was happening a couple of years earlier.
[48:22.390 --> 48:33.350]  But what our listener Tim pointed out, an interesting twist, is that Girls Who Code are now being criticized for working with orange dealer Raytheon.
[48:34.130 --> 48:38.630]  So, after the attack from the right, the organization is now being attacked from the left.
[48:39.610 --> 48:51.190]  And yeah, as reported by Motherboard, Girls Who Code, a non-profit to support women pursuing careers in tech, including the games industry, is taking part in a new student mentorship initiative with Raytheon Technologies.
[48:51.530 --> 48:58.990]  Raytheon, as you may know, is a weapons manufacturer that has sold arms to Saudi Arabia, which has been used to kill civilians, et cetera, et cetera.
[48:59.030 --> 48:59.990]  We all know how that ends.
[49:00.550 --> 49:05.770]  So, yeah, it's a never-ending story, I guess, but it's two different stories.
[49:06.590 --> 49:07.710]  But interesting all the same.
[49:07.830 --> 49:09.970]  Thanks, Tim, for writing to us with that update.
[49:10.230 --> 49:10.590]  Go ahead, Alex.
[49:11.270 --> 49:17.170]  I think that the motherboard coverage of the Raytheon connection, by the way, was just absolutely ridiculous.
[49:17.950 --> 49:31.370]  I mean, it seemed to me like utter clickbait designed to capitalize on a leading headline with some smutty, nonsensical crap, frankly.
[49:31.590 --> 49:34.070]  I mean, it was that was just absolutely ridiculous.
[49:34.070 --> 49:43.630]  I mean, sure, Toyotas are also used by ISIS, and it doesn't mean that anybody who works with Toyota is somehow promoting that agenda.
[49:43.890 --> 49:44.530]  I mean, come on.
[49:44.770 --> 49:45.450]  This is ridiculous.
[49:45.870 --> 49:47.690]  These are girls who are getting into coding.
[49:47.910 --> 49:52.250]  Well, yeah, that's certainly true, but I don't want to basically muddy the waters here.
[49:52.310 --> 49:53.690]  Raytheon does build weapons, right?
[49:53.770 --> 49:55.290]  Toyota doesn't actually build weapons.
[49:55.490 --> 49:57.250]  They're a government contractor.
[49:57.250 --> 50:00.470]  Yeah, they might also hire girls who code, so...
[50:00.470 --> 50:00.650]  Right.
[50:00.810 --> 50:03.090]  Yeah, they do a tremendous amount of things.
[50:03.230 --> 50:10.110]  Raytheon doesn't just build weapons, and it's not like girls who code decided to work with them because Raytheon builds weapons.
[50:10.390 --> 50:11.510]  No, that's unlikely.
[50:11.670 --> 50:12.530]  I agree with you there.
[50:12.590 --> 50:18.570]  This was a platform that, you know, was probably giving them some kind of boost up or some kind of funding.
[50:18.990 --> 50:26.650]  You know, I just thought it was particularly exploitative of Motherboard to try to draw out this...
[50:26.650 --> 50:34.270]  But Alex, you know, if Raytheon came to us and said, hey, we'd like to sponsor the next conference you guys put on, don't you think that might be a little problematic?
[50:34.890 --> 50:38.330]  Or if they pledged to the radio show even, not that they ever would?
[50:39.590 --> 50:40.390]  I don't...
[50:40.390 --> 50:41.770]  Honestly, I don't think so.
[50:41.970 --> 50:44.290]  I think there's plenty of good that Raytheon does.
[50:44.410 --> 50:51.230]  I mean, look, and also, you know, Raytheon is not in and of itself an evil, you know, company.
[50:51.650 --> 50:52.210]  I mean, this is...
[50:52.210 --> 51:00.850]  There are plenty of government contractors, part of the defense industrial base, that build things like missiles and weapons, and you know, they keep our country safe.
[51:01.210 --> 51:07.190]  I disagree with the characterization that all government contractors in the defense industry are bad.
[51:07.510 --> 51:08.630]  I think that's wrong.
[51:08.830 --> 51:21.170]  Okay, we're going to have to end on that, and of course, the place to address your letters to Alex will be O-T-H at 2600.com, but we can continue this conversation over time on YouTube.
[51:21.170 --> 51:26.690]  Go to 2600.com, click on the link on the top of the page, or see us in two weeks.
[51:26.950 --> 51:27.750]  Have a good night.
[51:29.170 --> 51:44.210]  As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I take a look at my life and realize there's nothing left, because I've been laughing so long that even my mama thinks that my mind is gone, but I ain't never crossed a man that didn't deserve it.
[51:44.510 --> 51:47.610]  Maybe be treated like a punk, you know that's unheard of.
[51:47.770 --> 51:53.130]  You better watch how you're talking and where you're walking, or you and your homies might be lying in chalk.
[51:53.550 --> 51:59.590]  I really hate the trip, but I gotta know, as they grow, I see myself in the pistol smoke, fool.
[51:59.850 --> 52:05.790]  I'm the kind of cheetah, little homies wanna be like on my knees in the night, saying prayers in the street lot.
[52:28.910 --> 52:38.110]  look at the situation they got me facing I can't live a normal life I gotta be damn with the hood team.
[52:38.250 --> 52:41.090]  Too much television watching, got me chasing dreams.
[52:41.490 --> 52:44.310]  I'm an educated fool with money on my mind.
[52:44.550 --> 52:47.310]  Got my tin in my hand and a gleam in my eye.
[52:47.530 --> 52:50.290]  I'm a low-down gangster, set-tripping banker.
[52:50.510 --> 52:53.130]  And my homies is down, so don't arouse my anger.
[52:53.350 --> 52:56.350]  Fool, death ain't nothing but a heartbeat away.
[52:56.370 --> 52:58.110]  I'm living life through a diet.
[52:58.330 --> 52:59.430]  What can I say?
[52:59.610 --> 53:02.030]  I'm 23 now, but will I live and see?
[53:02.270 --> 53:04.670]  24, the way things is going, I don't know.
[53:04.670 --> 53:10.690]  Tell me, why are we so blind to see?
[53:11.010 --> 53:16.830]  That the ones we hurt are you and me.
[53:16.830 --> 53:23.210]  I've been standing most alive, living in the gangster's paradise.
[53:34.220 --> 53:42.540]  X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray &
[53:42.540 --> 53:55.860]  X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray & X-Ray
[54:47.780 --> 54:48.460]  Greetings.
[55:25.320 --> 55:29.620]  I'm Francesca D'Alessio with the WBAI Community Bulletin Board.
[55:29.840 --> 55:37.840]  On Thursday, October 6th, members of the New York State Nurses Association gather for a rally at 11.30 a.m.
[55:37.980 --> 55:39.280]  on the steps of City Hall.
[00:00.440 --> 00:07.660]  And welcome everybody on YouTube to Off The Hook Overtime, where I think we all made it.
[00:07.760 --> 00:08.700]  Kyle, looks like you made it.
[00:08.860 --> 00:09.420]  Yeah, I'm over here.
[00:09.660 --> 00:09.900]  What's up?
[00:10.080 --> 00:11.280]  And Alex, there you are over there.
[00:12.600 --> 00:13.240]  I'm here.
[00:13.440 --> 00:17.140]  All right, let's make sure our levels are loud enough, because YouTube, for some reason, has low levels.
[00:17.940 --> 00:19.460]  Looks good from my end.
[00:19.480 --> 00:19.860]  I don't know.
[00:19.940 --> 00:20.540]  What do you think, Kyle?
[00:20.840 --> 00:21.680]  Those good levels?
[00:22.160 --> 00:23.280]  They look pretty healthy to me.
[00:24.400 --> 00:24.640]  Ow!
[00:24.800 --> 00:27.760]  Okay, you just dropped your headphones right smack onto the floor.
[00:27.760 --> 00:28.440]  That's not part of the test.
[00:28.900 --> 00:33.480]  No, it just was a reflex pain.
[00:33.640 --> 00:36.600]  Yeah, well, you banged your head as you were getting up at the same time.
[00:36.840 --> 00:37.060]  Ow, with my finger.
[00:37.800 --> 00:38.200]  Wow.
[00:38.680 --> 00:40.760]  Okay, yeah, my headphones fell off.
[00:41.360 --> 00:42.340]  We're all here, though.
[00:42.400 --> 00:42.960]  We all made it.
[00:43.000 --> 00:43.580]  That's the important thing.
[00:43.700 --> 00:43.700]  It looks suitable.
[00:43.900 --> 00:46.720]  If anyone has complaints, please don't hold back.
[00:47.080 --> 00:57.740]  All right, well, any final words on what we were talking about before, about defense contractors and weapons and death and things like that?
[00:57.760 --> 00:58.120]  What, Alex?
[00:58.660 --> 00:59.060]  No?
[00:59.220 --> 01:00.380]  No, I'm good.
[01:00.520 --> 01:00.820]  You're good.
[01:01.080 --> 01:02.200]  I think we can move on.
[01:02.340 --> 01:02.480]  Okay.
[01:03.640 --> 01:04.440]  I'm desensitized.
[01:04.760 --> 01:05.140]  Mm-hmm.
[01:05.460 --> 01:06.120]  Straight up.
[01:06.340 --> 01:06.500]  Yeah.
[01:06.640 --> 01:14.380]  You know, so much of my life has been typified by that, that it's like, okay, you know, you want to be against it.
[01:14.380 --> 01:16.920]  I laud your effort.
[01:17.340 --> 01:18.400]  Go for that.
[01:18.580 --> 01:26.800]  But it is a huge part of a lot of aspects of our society, and there's just no getting around that.
[01:27.060 --> 01:27.760]  So, I don't know.
[01:28.000 --> 01:30.300]  Well, you know, at the very least, I would say...
[01:30.300 --> 01:30.480]  Vote?
[01:30.760 --> 01:31.860]  Well, there's that, of course.
[01:31.960 --> 01:33.260]  That's really the very least.
[01:33.500 --> 01:41.400]  But, you know, if you're working with somebody who might be a bit unsavory, does it affect what you say in any way?
[01:41.500 --> 01:42.860]  Does it affect who you are?
[01:42.860 --> 01:44.620]  If it does, then you're doing the wrong thing.
[01:44.940 --> 01:54.000]  If you can be 100% who you are and unashamed and unreserved, then, you know, keep doing that.
[01:54.520 --> 01:58.740]  And, you know, maybe you can make changes from within or something like that.
[01:58.840 --> 01:59.200]  I don't know.
[02:00.180 --> 02:04.340]  But the moment it starts to affect who you are, and you might not even know that's happening.
[02:04.740 --> 02:08.540]  So, maybe look to others to tell you that, yeah, you know what?
[02:08.580 --> 02:10.720]  You're not hanging out with these people anymore.
[02:10.720 --> 02:14.820]  Or you're not speaking out on this particular issue anymore when you used to.
[02:15.200 --> 02:18.140]  Maybe it's something that you're a little blind to.
[02:18.300 --> 02:19.060]  It's possible.
[02:19.280 --> 02:20.100]  Every case is different.
[02:21.000 --> 02:24.560]  Yeah, and so much is relying on that now.
[02:24.820 --> 02:36.000]  And I think, like, with what we've talked about with hacking for a very, very long time, it was about, you know, what might be going on with communication systems.
[02:36.000 --> 02:45.300]  Of course, the deep history with the inception of the internet and its connections to advanced research programs.
[02:46.480 --> 02:51.260]  And, of course, leaks and whistleblowers and everything along the way.
[02:52.720 --> 02:57.900]  And I think that you have to kind of, you have to look at it now.
[02:58.080 --> 03:12.700]  I think that the domain of cyberspace, and I've talked about this a lot, it keeps coming up, I see it everywhere, is fair game and is ever more lauded and important.
[03:12.700 --> 03:21.220]  And I think every aspect of hacker culture is sort of being translated into that world.
[03:21.340 --> 03:26.980]  And, you know, they're making their own quarterly magazines, they're having their conferences, they're having hackathons.
[03:27.060 --> 03:27.300]  Yeah.
[03:27.500 --> 03:27.920]  That's us.
[03:28.180 --> 03:28.460]  Bite.
[03:28.720 --> 03:29.640]  Yeah, watch out.
[03:29.840 --> 03:30.520]  They're biters.
[03:31.120 --> 03:38.720]  But, look, they, we spent, you know, 30 years deriding cyber, and they were like, yoink.
[03:39.360 --> 03:44.160]  And, and, and, so, it's kind of here to stay.
[03:44.480 --> 03:52.620]  And, and, you know, plenty of people have had their, their critiques, and their reservations about all of that.
[03:52.620 --> 04:04.600]  And I think it's a huge personal preference, and people should be aware of the impact of their work, whether that's a desired effect or, or just a byproduct of it.
[04:05.380 --> 04:13.500]  Yeah, I mean, you do inspire other people, your actions do have an effect on, on other people's actions as well.
[04:13.500 --> 04:15.700]  So, definitely something to, to, to think about.
[04:15.820 --> 04:17.580]  It's no, no easy decisions, all of these things.
[04:17.720 --> 04:19.600]  And it's not for us to judge, either.
[04:20.300 --> 04:27.120]  And, um, it's not, it's for us to observe, for us to, uh, to, how do you, how do you pronounce it, Alex?
[04:27.480 --> 04:27.840]  Opine?
[04:28.040 --> 04:30.700]  Is that, is that, I don't, this is like your kind of language now.
[04:30.820 --> 04:31.140]  Opine?
[04:31.700 --> 04:32.780]  Opine is a word, yeah.
[04:32.780 --> 04:32.960]  Okay.
[04:33.140 --> 04:35.080]  Well, that's, it's, it's for us to opine, then.
[04:36.380 --> 04:37.540]  Also, I never say that again.
[04:37.540 --> 04:44.000]  Um, okay, you know, I get, um, all kinds of hacker stories, um, through Google News.
[04:44.220 --> 04:46.640]  It becomes more difficult to use every day.
[04:46.980 --> 04:50.400]  Uh, and here's, here's another example of that.
[04:50.540 --> 04:54.080]  They've decided to, uh, widely broaden their definition of the word hack.
[04:54.220 --> 05:03.120]  So, I get stories like this one, uh, entitled, Starbucks employee slams customers drink hack and deletes the order.
[05:03.760 --> 05:05.320]  Uh, what does that mean?
[05:05.460 --> 05:07.220]  Well, I'm going to read you the story.
[05:07.540 --> 05:16.400]  Um, there are so many, uh, so many hacks for drinks at Starbucks on the internet, but one may have gone a little too far.
[05:16.680 --> 05:25.300]  A woman named Sinead Robbins, who works at one of the coffee shop's locations in Massachusetts, took to TikTok to show a customer's bold attempt to get a complimentary beverage.
[05:25.660 --> 05:35.960]  Robbins showed an image of the label, which showed that the customer bought a five cent bag in the online app, but then tried to add their whole drink order in the extra order request section.
[05:36.400 --> 05:41.720]  Hi, could I please have a grande strawberry cream frep with no whipped cream and a strawless lid?
[05:42.020 --> 05:44.700]  The request read before it added a joyful thank you.
[05:45.320 --> 05:47.000]  Robbins was not buying the little drink scheme.
[05:47.120 --> 05:48.980]  This is not a Starbucks hack, she said in the clip.
[05:49.060 --> 05:50.100]  Also, it's not a Starbucks hack.
[05:50.240 --> 05:52.100]  It was a little bit funny, but it won't work.
[05:52.240 --> 05:53.160]  We canceled the order.
[05:53.360 --> 05:54.760]  Don't do this, Robbins added.
[05:55.840 --> 06:00.240]  Basically, somebody just said, can you give me a free drink attached to something that they bought for five cents?
[06:00.440 --> 06:03.080]  And that's considered hacking in the eyes of Google now.
[06:05.180 --> 06:06.420]  That's what I have to deal with.
[06:06.840 --> 06:10.760]  I think the word you might have been searching for there was frappe.
[06:11.420 --> 06:13.720]  Yeah, you know, I don't speak the language, I'm sorry.
[06:14.260 --> 06:16.340]  So, yeah, at least I said grande right.
[06:16.900 --> 06:18.620]  Yeah, that's all right.
[06:18.740 --> 06:19.640]  You'll get there.
[06:19.880 --> 06:21.740]  I just think there's a lot of sugar.
[06:22.020 --> 06:25.660]  It's less coffee than you would imagine.
[06:25.660 --> 06:31.200]  And the emphasis on good coffee, I think, is a liability to their business model.
[06:32.160 --> 06:33.480]  Very, very, very true there.
[06:33.680 --> 06:34.400]  So, do better.
[06:34.680 --> 06:35.320]  Yeah, yeah.
[06:37.280 --> 06:37.820]  Let's see.
[06:37.940 --> 06:38.860]  Should we take phone calls?
[06:39.080 --> 06:39.560]  I'm ready.
[06:39.760 --> 06:39.980]  All right.
[06:40.220 --> 06:41.900]  802-321-4225.
[06:42.060 --> 06:44.960]  802-321-HACK is our phone number.
[06:45.080 --> 06:46.520]  Do we have anybody waiting yet, Kyle?
[06:46.700 --> 06:47.020]  No.
[06:47.160 --> 06:48.180]  Okay, we just gave out the phone number.
[06:48.240 --> 06:48.600]  So, that's good.
[06:48.720 --> 06:51.920]  Sometimes people jump the gun and call before we even give out the phone number.
[06:53.340 --> 06:55.580]  Sometimes they're more considerate.
[06:55.900 --> 06:56.940]  This is one of those times.
[06:57.080 --> 06:57.820]  Or we have no listeners.
[06:57.900 --> 06:58.780]  There's also that possibility.
[06:59.360 --> 07:00.840]  Hey, you know what I've been doing recently?
[07:00.840 --> 07:02.040]  That's a lot of fun.
[07:02.160 --> 07:02.780]  I've been...
[07:02.780 --> 07:05.100]  I found a bunch of 3.5-inch floppies.
[07:05.520 --> 07:07.060]  And I've been trying to copy them.
[07:07.460 --> 07:10.140]  And most times it doesn't work, but sometimes it does.
[07:10.140 --> 07:15.200]  And when it does, I'm able to find things from like the early 1990s and late 1980s.
[07:16.140 --> 07:18.100]  That's really, really fascinating.
[07:18.420 --> 07:22.720]  And I've got two floppy drives that I'm using.
[07:22.740 --> 07:24.520]  Because if one fails, I try the other one.
[07:24.520 --> 07:35.000]  And then if I'm not able to copy using Windows, I use a DOS window to copy from drive A, which is where floppies are.
[07:35.440 --> 07:43.480]  Drive A and B, I believe, is reserved for floppies still to this day, if you look at drive letters.
[07:45.840 --> 07:49.920]  So it's kind of a fun thing to do, to go back in history.
[07:50.060 --> 07:52.140]  Those things weren't supposed to last this long.
[07:52.540 --> 07:54.380]  They were supposed to last 10, maybe 20 years.
[07:55.160 --> 07:57.720]  And it's been 30, 35 years.
[07:58.340 --> 08:01.320]  And a lot of them I can't read, but some of them I can.
[08:01.540 --> 08:03.260]  A lot of them I can't read because they're Mac disks.
[08:03.360 --> 08:04.580]  I haven't gotten to that part yet.
[08:04.580 --> 08:07.580]  So that's a whole other part of the challenge.
[08:07.580 --> 08:11.760]  But I thought, Alex, you might appreciate that, since I know you used to use that kind of hardware.
[08:12.420 --> 08:13.480]  Yeah, I do.
[08:13.680 --> 08:15.360]  I very much appreciate it.
[08:15.460 --> 08:18.620]  I love the 5.5 floppies.
[08:18.880 --> 08:22.080]  I mean, what was the capacity of them?
[08:22.140 --> 08:22.620]  I can't even remember.
[08:22.720 --> 08:24.600]  Was it like 320K or something?
[08:24.860 --> 08:27.460]  Well, I know hard-sectored.
[08:27.500 --> 08:28.720]  I think it was 100K.
[08:28.980 --> 08:30.120]  Then it was double-sided.
[08:30.280 --> 08:33.520]  So I think, yeah, it got up to about 300, 360 or something like that.
[08:33.600 --> 08:34.380]  Don't quote me on it, though.
[08:34.840 --> 08:35.280]  Yep.
[08:35.620 --> 08:39.600]  And then the low-density 3.5-inch floppies, they were 720K.
[08:40.080 --> 08:42.500]  High-density was 1.44 megs.
[08:42.520 --> 08:42.940]  That's right.
[08:42.940 --> 08:43.480]  High-density.
[08:44.020 --> 08:44.360]  Yep.
[08:44.620 --> 08:44.820]  Yeah.
[08:45.460 --> 08:47.080]  These are the days, right?
[08:47.240 --> 08:53.620]  The days before bloated code and the days before we left our house with half a terabyte of information on us every day.
[08:54.120 --> 08:56.200]  I have one 8-inch floppy.
[08:56.360 --> 08:58.540]  I have no idea how to ever read this.
[08:58.580 --> 09:00.100]  I'm sure I wouldn't be able to if I could.
[09:00.300 --> 09:03.720]  You're going to have to go to a museum somewhere and say, hey, I got some data.
[09:03.720 --> 09:09.480]  With my luck, it has malware on it or something from the 1980s, and I'm going to infect all their historic machines.
[09:09.640 --> 09:10.880]  So I don't know.
[09:11.060 --> 09:13.380]  It's a cool thing to have hanging on the wall.
[09:13.700 --> 09:14.880]  I nailed it to the wall.
[09:14.880 --> 09:17.200]  You want to bring it to their old-school sandbox.
[09:18.360 --> 09:19.300]  Yo, what's up?
[09:19.520 --> 09:19.720]  Yeah.
[09:20.620 --> 09:23.560]  That, encoding vinyl, finding old tapes.
[09:24.440 --> 09:26.740]  In fact, we even found an old videotape.
[09:26.960 --> 09:28.540]  I don't know if some of you are aware of this.
[09:29.720 --> 09:30.480]  From 1990.
[09:31.040 --> 09:34.620]  We just put this online on this very same channel, Channel 2600.
[09:34.720 --> 09:35.520]  You might want to take a look at it.
[09:36.200 --> 09:39.600]  It's of a fundraiser we did at WUSB.
[09:39.960 --> 09:43.600]  By we, I mean me and a bunch of people at WUSB.
[09:44.320 --> 09:57.800]  And you just basically get to relive, or maybe most people for the first time, live the experience of what it was like to work at a radio station, a community radio station, in 1990 with a whole bunch of really, really interesting people.
[09:58.000 --> 10:03.600]  So I guess the way to go there from the YouTube channel is to click on videos.
[10:03.600 --> 10:06.680]  It should be the first one you see, because it was the most recent one updated.
[10:08.100 --> 10:09.940]  So I recommend people do that.
[10:09.940 --> 10:13.180]  And it was a lot of fun going back down memory lane.
[10:13.440 --> 10:15.420]  Hopefully, it'll be fun for people to go there the first time.
[10:15.720 --> 10:16.440]  We have a call?
[10:16.940 --> 10:17.060]  Yeah.
[10:17.160 --> 10:27.400]  And just being reminded about how people treat one another, and what relationships were like back then, and how they worked in that setting.
[10:27.500 --> 10:28.160]  It was pre-Trump.
[10:28.240 --> 10:29.060]  It was pre-9-11.
[10:29.080 --> 10:30.440]  It was pre-all sorts of things.
[10:30.760 --> 10:31.840]  That's refreshing.
[10:32.140 --> 10:32.360]  Yeah.
[10:32.900 --> 10:33.180]  All right.
[10:33.180 --> 10:33.740]  We have a caller.
[10:33.820 --> 10:34.180]  Good evening.
[10:34.320 --> 10:35.540]  You're on Off Talk Overtime.
[10:36.680 --> 10:37.080]  Yes.
[10:37.180 --> 10:39.060]  I just noticed...
[10:39.060 --> 10:41.900]  So we're back to being the first caller every time, Rebel.
[10:42.040 --> 10:43.300]  Is that how it's going to be now?
[10:43.660 --> 10:46.300]  Back to where we left off in the 1990s.
[10:46.440 --> 10:48.400]  This is a trip down memory lane, too, I guess.
[10:48.580 --> 10:49.600]  So, yeah.
[10:50.740 --> 10:51.420]  Enjoy it.
[10:51.680 --> 11:00.520]  You know, I noticed that the volume, when I listen on my computer, I had my computer all the way up to 100%, and I had the YouTube volume all the way up.
[11:01.060 --> 11:04.640]  And I can hear it, but it's not very loud.
[11:04.640 --> 11:07.840]  But when I listen on my cell phone, I can hear it louder.
[11:08.240 --> 11:09.500]  It's better on my cell phone.
[11:09.580 --> 11:13.200]  But I need my cell phone to, you know, tether for much for the internet.
[11:13.880 --> 11:17.640]  So it sounds like you need good reference speakers or something...
[11:18.220 --> 11:21.200]  Yeah, or I could take my cell phone and hook it up to my TV.
[11:21.660 --> 11:24.780]  I could hook it up to my TV, and then I could turn my TV up to...
[11:24.780 --> 11:26.760]  So it's, you know, fine.
[11:26.760 --> 11:27.980]  But anyway, let's see.
[11:29.860 --> 11:33.180]  Some questions, and then I'm going to tell you about a scam call.
[11:33.560 --> 11:34.220]  Oh, boy.
[11:34.640 --> 11:39.120]  Now, I get calls from, like, student loan things.
[11:39.200 --> 11:40.340]  I mentioned this last week.
[11:40.480 --> 11:42.340]  Now, they're using different numbers.
[11:42.340 --> 11:43.960]  They're using a number from California.
[11:44.160 --> 11:44.940]  They're using a number...
[11:44.940 --> 11:50.680]  Then the same people call from a number in Illinois and then a number in Michigan or whatever.
[11:50.860 --> 11:52.540]  It's the same company, same thing.
[11:52.800 --> 11:53.520]  You know what they're doing?
[11:53.520 --> 11:58.020]  They're using numbers from an adult magazine club.
[11:58.620 --> 12:00.180]  I don't know how they're doing this.
[12:00.240 --> 12:01.400]  How did you find that out?
[12:02.200 --> 12:03.240]  I don't know.
[12:03.380 --> 12:04.000]  I just...
[12:04.000 --> 12:04.540]  What do you mean you don't know?
[12:04.580 --> 12:08.000]  How did you find out they were using numbers from an adult whatever club?
[12:08.340 --> 12:10.800]  He cross-referenced his extensive library.
[12:11.340 --> 12:24.600]  Somebody on YouTube, like somebody named Scambator, and there's a Scambator, and there's a Kiboda on YouTube that, like, people have channels that are devoted to, like, seeing where these scams come from.
[12:24.600 --> 12:30.300]  And, you know, they see the scams that come from India, and they get the people's name, and they get, you know, into their computer.
[12:30.480 --> 12:36.420]  They're basically hackers that, you know, try and take down the scam callers.
[12:36.420 --> 12:46.500]  Yeah, okay, if they're trying to take down the scam callers, and yeah, I guess that does involve a degree of hacking, but certainly the people who are doing the scams aren't doing hacking, they're just doing scamming.
[12:47.460 --> 12:54.960]  Well, but how are they getting, how are they taking numbers from other companies and using it as the cold number, like when I see it on my caller ID?
[12:55.160 --> 12:56.460]  Because you can spoof caller ID.
[12:56.660 --> 12:57.440]  I mean, this is old news.
[12:57.760 --> 12:58.960]  People have been doing this for decades.
[12:59.220 --> 12:59.280]  Yeah, I know.
[12:59.740 --> 13:00.600]  So that's what they're doing.
[13:00.700 --> 13:02.420]  I don't think the number has to match anything.
[13:02.420 --> 13:07.180]  It can just be a random set of numbers, and they can make the call appear to come from there.
[13:08.360 --> 13:11.780]  Right, but then you're not going to answer if it's like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
[13:12.120 --> 13:15.920]  Well, yeah, but you know, I think most people don't answer their cell phone anymore.
[13:16.120 --> 13:18.160]  I think most people don't even read text anymore.
[13:19.020 --> 13:19.740]  I don't know.
[13:20.300 --> 13:25.360]  Communication is just pretty much devolving, but when these devices become so...
[13:25.360 --> 13:26.620]  I mean, I read text, you know.
[13:26.860 --> 13:35.700]  But even text, I get text messages, the same thing, you know, different phone numbers, and then they tell you to go to a certain website, and then, you know, and things like that.
[13:35.800 --> 13:40.480]  And when I call the number, it says, the voicemail is full and all that, and nobody answers.
[13:40.580 --> 13:41.440]  Wait, wait, hold on.
[13:41.520 --> 13:42.520]  Don't call the number.
[13:42.680 --> 13:43.760]  Don't go to the website.
[13:43.820 --> 13:45.040]  That's how they get you.
[13:45.180 --> 13:46.420]  That's how they know you exist.
[13:46.800 --> 13:47.340]  No, no, I call the number from another phone.
[13:47.400 --> 13:48.980]  No, from another phone, I call the number.
[13:49.140 --> 13:51.340]  Okay, then that phone's going to get all kinds of calls.
[13:52.040 --> 13:52.720]  It's a...
[13:52.720 --> 13:53.440]  Well, it's a wireline phone.
[13:53.620 --> 13:54.580]  It's a wireline phone.
[13:54.580 --> 13:55.100]  Okay, fine.
[13:55.200 --> 13:59.400]  But the thing is, you're never going to get anywhere calling those numbers or going to those sites.
[13:59.400 --> 14:00.780]  It's... they're scams.
[14:01.040 --> 14:02.780]  And you're not going to stop them.
[14:02.980 --> 14:06.080]  You're not going to benefit from contacting those people in any way.
[14:06.840 --> 14:16.400]  The best thing you can do is either ignore your phone or figure out a way to block everything except numbers that you recognize or people that you recognize.
[14:16.520 --> 14:17.300]  Well, I mean, that's the thing.
[14:17.400 --> 14:19.820]  I block numbers except for numbers that I recognize.
[14:20.000 --> 14:29.280]  However, they call from... if my number is area code 201-580, something, something, something, something, they're going to call Fernanda.
[14:29.400 --> 14:32.460]  Or 201-581, so whatever.
[14:32.820 --> 14:33.660]  Yeah, it's not hard to do.
[14:33.720 --> 14:39.320]  It's not hard to program a computer to say, I'm going to call this particular exchange, make it seem like it's coming from that same exchange.
[14:39.980 --> 14:44.100]  That's how they get people to pick up because they think it's somebody local or somebody they know.
[14:46.460 --> 14:53.580]  I did call... I was on a wired line and I did star 5-7 and it still said that now the last number you called has been traced.
[14:53.580 --> 15:05.080]  Does star 5-7 work even if... even if the number had like electronic switching or a crossbar... like back when it first came out, star 5-7 and all these customers...
[15:05.080 --> 15:05.840]  It's a rip-off.
[15:06.040 --> 15:11.260]  You pay $1.50, at least that's what it was last time I checked to the phone company, and they say that it's been traced.
[15:11.260 --> 15:15.460]  You never find out what happened and the calls can continue.
[15:15.660 --> 15:22.060]  It's a fake number, so, you know, if you did trace it, quote-unquote, I doubt it does anything.
[15:22.060 --> 15:22.800]  I really do.
[15:24.000 --> 15:42.500]  But, I mean, back in the 80s, the day, like in the 90s, if you did star 5-7 and the phone that was calling you was like an electronic switching phone or a crossbar phone, maybe sometimes it would say your call cannot be traced by this method because the number that called you was not on the SS-7 network or whatever?
[15:42.500 --> 15:47.120]  Yeah, if it was a crossbar number or something that was pre-SS-7, yeah, you probably would get a recording like that.
[15:48.800 --> 15:59.660]  Um, do you have, like, the star... if one had caller ID and somebody dialed, let's say they blocked their number, would this star 5-7 call trace work then?
[16:00.080 --> 16:11.600]  It's supposed to work against a blocked number, yes, but that tells you that it's using caller ID data, which they've already hacked, so it's not likely you're tracing the right number in the first place, but you are paying the phone company for the privilege.
[16:12.700 --> 16:17.760]  Right, no, but if they block their... they just did whatever star or whatever to block their call...
[16:17.760 --> 16:18.720]  It overrides that.
[16:18.800 --> 16:21.880]  It overrides that, but it will not tell you... it won't tell you the number.
[16:22.280 --> 16:22.540]  Right.
[16:23.120 --> 16:23.480]  Right.
[16:23.580 --> 16:24.860]  It won't tell you the number.
[16:25.140 --> 16:25.320]  Mm-hmm.
[16:25.500 --> 16:28.940]  Now, call the following number on it.
[16:29.000 --> 16:29.940]  Can you make calls on the air?
[16:29.940 --> 16:31.340]  This is why I don't use my cell phone.
[16:31.460 --> 16:34.080]  This is why I turn my cell phone off and ignore it.
[16:34.480 --> 16:35.440]  You know, it's useless.
[16:35.440 --> 16:42.720]  No, I mean, you don't... okay, so you can't call on this... on this... on this thing, you can't do...
[16:42.720 --> 16:43.740]  Not while we're talking to you.
[16:44.560 --> 16:44.920]  Yeah.
[16:45.160 --> 16:46.480]  While we're talking to you, okay, maybe we're here...
[16:46.480 --> 16:51.500]  We're dedicated to just... yeah, but if you... if you have a way of conferencing and demonstrating something, we're all ears.
[16:51.800 --> 16:53.040]  Uh, I don't.
[16:53.880 --> 16:54.240]  Actually...
[16:54.240 --> 16:54.840]  Well, there's a project.
[16:54.840 --> 16:56.540]  I could call you from another number.
[16:56.940 --> 17:02.960]  Well, actually, okay, if you can call area code 530, which is California, then the number...
[17:02.960 --> 17:05.200]  Wait, wait, wait, what number are we giving out here?
[17:05.440 --> 17:06.980]  You want to give everyone the opportunity?
[17:07.180 --> 17:08.740]  Because it might be busy once you give it out.
[17:08.820 --> 17:09.860]  What number are you giving out, Rebel?
[17:10.600 --> 17:15.360]  The number that scammed me, that called me, that says, uh, you have college debt.
[17:15.360 --> 17:16.840]  Yeah, but that's not a real number.
[17:17.000 --> 17:20.380]  You're giving out some poor person's real number that was fake.
[17:20.640 --> 17:21.140]  It goes to the person.
[17:21.360 --> 17:23.660]  It goes to the college... it goes to the, um...
[17:23.660 --> 17:24.660]  I got a message.
[17:24.840 --> 17:27.780]  It left the message saying, hi, we tried to call you before.
[17:28.000 --> 17:29.680]  We're in terms of your student loan.
[17:29.840 --> 17:31.140]  We can forgive your student loan.
[17:31.320 --> 17:33.080]  Please, uh, uh, call us back.
[17:33.200 --> 17:35.920]  And then when you call it back, it, uh, you know, you get a person.
[17:36.080 --> 17:40.520]  So maybe, maybe they are calling you intentionally and using their real number.
[17:40.640 --> 17:42.300]  That's what it sounds like to me, what you're describing.
[17:42.300 --> 17:46.720]  No, because they call from different numbers in different, uh, in different, uh, different times.
[17:47.020 --> 17:48.020]  So how did you get this number?
[17:48.420 --> 17:49.520]  How did you get this number?
[17:50.000 --> 17:54.220]  The other day, I got a call from the same place, the same people, from a number in Michigan.
[17:54.760 --> 17:56.860]  Today, I got a call from this number in California.
[17:58.320 --> 18:00.440]  Okay, so that turned out to be their real number.
[18:02.460 --> 18:10.920]  It's, I guess it's a real number because when I call the number, it's the same people, the same company, the same entity.
[18:12.300 --> 18:15.000]  Maybe they screwed up and just gave out their real number for once.
[18:15.140 --> 18:16.140]  I do know one thing, Rebel.
[18:16.220 --> 18:17.020]  This might be helpful to you.
[18:17.180 --> 18:19.400]  What phone service do you use?
[18:19.540 --> 18:20.840]  What mobile company?
[18:21.140 --> 18:21.900]  T-Mobile.
[18:22.240 --> 18:23.220]  Okay, T-Mobile.
[18:23.240 --> 18:24.820]  I believe T-Mobile does this.
[18:24.820 --> 18:29.000]  If they're stupid enough to leave you a voicemail, have they ever done that?
[18:29.140 --> 18:30.000]  Left you a voicemail?
[18:32.140 --> 18:32.940]  They have.
[18:33.080 --> 18:33.340]  Okay.
[18:33.440 --> 18:34.860]  And actually...
[18:34.860 --> 18:35.480]  Do this.
[18:35.880 --> 18:38.360]  Oh, no, I got it on my Google voice number, actually.
[18:38.620 --> 18:42.280]  Well, actually, I know you can say that the caller ID is going to be...
[18:42.300 --> 18:43.200]  ...on the voicemail.
[18:43.300 --> 18:48.940]  Exactly, but the number will be the real number and not the number they're faking.
[18:49.280 --> 19:00.600]  Because I believe what T-Mobile voicemail does is use A&I to record the number that left you a voicemail message, but they use caller ID when the call is coming in.
[19:01.240 --> 19:03.280]  And again, you're right, that might not still work.
[19:03.500 --> 19:06.320]  I know that used to work, and it might be useful to some people.
[19:06.420 --> 19:08.080]  But they have to leave you a voicemail message.
[19:09.140 --> 19:11.400]  Right, but now they're calling me on the Google voice.
[19:11.400 --> 19:14.180]  So I think these calls come in on my Google voice number.
[19:15.540 --> 19:20.280]  You think Google would have some sophisticated way of filtering, you know?
[19:20.420 --> 19:22.100]  But I don't know.
[19:22.260 --> 19:22.680]  Maybe they're in it.
[19:22.680 --> 19:23.800]  No, they have a spam blog.
[19:23.940 --> 19:25.560]  They have a thing called...
[19:25.560 --> 19:28.520]  In the settings, if you go to settings, it says block spam calls.
[19:29.240 --> 19:32.800]  I guess it doesn't, because it looks like a real area code and a real phone number.
[19:33.460 --> 19:40.620]  You know, I would not trust anything that has Google and spam in the same sentence, because their spam filters are the worst I've ever experienced.
[19:40.940 --> 19:45.340]  And, you know, some people might argue with me about this and say that, well, I don't get any spam.
[19:45.520 --> 19:46.680]  You know what else you don't get?
[19:46.760 --> 19:49.720]  You don't get legitimate mail that they've decided is spam.
[19:49.780 --> 19:54.700]  I know this because a lot of our mail from 2600.com winds up in people's spam.
[19:54.700 --> 19:58.100]  And this is mail to people that work with us.
[19:58.220 --> 20:04.620]  This is mail that's a reply to something they sent to us winds up in spam because they're overzealous about it.
[20:04.720 --> 20:11.760]  And I think it's far worse to have false positives and false negatives because, you know, you're actually losing important pieces of mail then.
[20:11.920 --> 20:17.920]  So they really need to develop a much better spam filtering system than what they have for Gmail.
[20:19.300 --> 20:21.020]  Why do you have comments turned off?
[20:21.160 --> 20:23.580]  Why don't you let people comment while you're on?
[20:23.580 --> 20:26.660]  Oh, we're shifting gears here because this is the comment.
[20:26.880 --> 20:27.900]  Rebel, you have the floor.
[20:28.100 --> 20:30.940]  If other people were commenting right now, they wouldn't be listening to you.
[20:32.260 --> 20:47.480]  Okay, but no, the reason I ask is because I'd like to give out the phone number so that people can call it and maybe they can leave a comment on this YouTube video to give their experience of what they...
[20:48.400 --> 21:02.040]  Unfortunately, it might be kind of hard to find if we enabled comments, you know, He wants to leave the phone number and bypass our restriction on giving out a phone number of her potentially...
[21:02.040 --> 21:03.520]  Look, is this a phone number for a company?
[21:03.640 --> 21:04.340]  It's definitely a company?
[21:05.500 --> 21:06.640]  It's a company.
[21:06.760 --> 21:09.020]  I don't know if it's a legitimate company.
[21:09.220 --> 21:12.020]  Well, look, I'm not going to say whether it is or isn't.
[21:12.600 --> 21:20.880]  I just don't want to be, you know, the one telling people to call a particular number if it's a legitimate company.
[21:20.880 --> 21:22.780]  Yeah, it's not like... Yeah, it's a company.
[21:22.980 --> 21:30.020]  It's not like the Indian scammers that call you from different people's phone number, actual personal phone numbers.
[21:30.180 --> 21:31.260]  It's not like that.
[21:31.260 --> 21:32.880]  I know that, so...
[21:33.820 --> 21:38.380]  Well, you know, I've heard tell of this happening in many, many different ways.
[21:38.540 --> 21:41.780]  Sometimes it's people's personal numbers right here, local to you.
[21:42.380 --> 21:47.540]  Sometimes it's people in another part of the world, but almost never is it an actual phone number.
[21:49.900 --> 21:51.540]  Well, this is an actual phone number.
[21:51.860 --> 21:53.760]  Yeah, in this particular case, it seems to be.
[21:53.920 --> 21:54.880]  So that's unusual.
[21:55.200 --> 21:55.980]  I'll give you that.
[21:56.380 --> 21:56.740]  Okay.
[21:56.980 --> 21:58.120]  Why don't you try calling it?
[21:58.120 --> 21:58.960]  I could give you the number.
[21:59.820 --> 22:00.460]  You know what?
[22:00.520 --> 22:01.520]  Why don't you email us?
[22:01.660 --> 22:03.240]  O-T-H at 2600.com.
[22:03.340 --> 22:04.060]  Send us a number that way.
[22:04.060 --> 22:07.520]  We'll do a little investigating, and God help us for...
[22:07.520 --> 22:09.680]  Wait, you want me to email you right now?
[22:10.260 --> 22:11.820]  We're not doing it right now.
[22:11.820 --> 22:14.640]  We're in a totally different part of the broadcast facility.
[22:17.080 --> 22:18.820]  Oh, so you don't have any...
[22:20.700 --> 22:26.200]  I mean, I can't just give it to you, and then somebody will call it, and then call in and say whatever?
[22:26.920 --> 22:34.840]  I don't know what it is you're looking for, but no, we're not going to give out phone numbers for people to call that aren't the phone number we want them to call to talk to us.
[22:35.740 --> 22:37.520]  I don't think that's...
[22:37.520 --> 22:38.180]  Well, because...
[22:38.180 --> 22:38.540]  I don't know.
[22:38.780 --> 22:48.720]  Unless it's, you know, something like, you know, MCI with their, you know, 444, 4444 phone number for 800 that used to give you your caller ID information.
[22:48.720 --> 22:49.540]  That was kind of cool.
[22:49.760 --> 22:50.620]  We'd give that one out.
[22:50.640 --> 22:52.000]  I think it was 2222 or something?
[22:52.200 --> 22:54.180]  Yeah, you know, AT&T numbers, things like that.
[22:54.260 --> 23:04.340]  But if it's just, you know, some poor slob, like, you know, calling people from California that might just be a salesman or something, yeah, I'm not comfortable giving that out.
[23:04.600 --> 23:05.700]  Not without knowing more.
[23:08.690 --> 23:13.870]  But I can suggest, I can suggest, you know, you do research and try certain things.
[23:14.030 --> 23:15.650]  Certainly we can experiment.
[23:17.390 --> 23:17.830]  Okay.
[23:18.510 --> 23:20.370]  I will email you the phone number.
[23:20.590 --> 23:21.030]  All right.
[23:21.190 --> 23:22.550]  I look forward to getting that email.
[23:22.550 --> 23:35.150]  And then you, you see, and you see, you see what the, you know, you see what happens, and you report next week.
[23:35.170 --> 23:36.230]  I just emailed it to you.
[23:36.310 --> 23:37.030]  I just got homework.
[23:37.230 --> 23:37.410]  Okay.
[23:42.480 --> 23:43.080]  All right.
[23:44.300 --> 23:45.260]  Oh, Alex, you'll take care of it?
[23:45.360 --> 23:45.920]  Okay, thank you.
[23:46.020 --> 23:46.300]  Thank you for that.
[23:46.300 --> 23:47.040]  I can call, you know what?
[23:47.040 --> 23:49.060]  I can call you on my regular phone.
[23:49.280 --> 23:51.100]  Well, no, I can't do that because then...
[23:51.100 --> 23:51.860]  Yeah, why would you do that?
[23:52.940 --> 23:55.180]  No, because then, that's the other thing.
[23:55.320 --> 23:56.960]  They can block certain numbers.
[23:57.200 --> 23:58.960]  When I call from my cell phone...
[23:58.960 --> 23:59.980]  They can block certain numbers.
[24:00.140 --> 24:00.360]  Wow.
[24:00.600 --> 24:02.280]  Maybe you should take a lesson from them.
[24:05.080 --> 24:12.420]  They, when I call from my cell phone, I must have, like, talked to them and said, you know, like, they didn't like what I was asking them.
[24:12.520 --> 24:15.440]  And so, they, it doesn't go through or...
[24:15.440 --> 24:19.660]  How could anybody have a conversation with you and not like where it's going?
[24:19.660 --> 24:23.360]  How could anybody ever say that?
[24:23.660 --> 24:24.600]  I just...
[24:24.600 --> 24:27.100]  I've been speaking to you for over 30 years now.
[24:27.180 --> 24:28.160]  It feels like I never hung up.
[24:28.240 --> 24:29.960]  And I can't say that.
[24:31.460 --> 24:35.560]  Well, when I call from my Google Voice number, I get through to people.
[24:37.500 --> 24:38.440]  I'll bet you do.
[24:39.740 --> 24:46.520]  Well, and then when I go to, like, the New York City Link, the NYC Link kiosks, I call from there and I still get through.
[24:46.520 --> 24:46.940]  Uh-huh.
[24:52.680 --> 24:56.000]  Anyone else have any questions for Rebel before we move on to another phone call?
[24:57.920 --> 24:58.640]  I'm okay.
[24:59.500 --> 25:00.100]  Are you?
[25:00.640 --> 25:01.040]  Yeah.
[25:01.280 --> 25:01.560]  All right.
[25:02.220 --> 25:02.620]  Yeah.
[25:02.800 --> 25:04.220]  That's reassuring to hear, Alex.
[25:04.300 --> 25:04.600]  Thank you.
[25:05.580 --> 25:06.140]  Well, you know.
[25:06.320 --> 25:06.560]  Yeah.
[25:06.740 --> 25:08.880]  We only have one phone line, though.
[25:09.060 --> 25:12.580]  So, actually, you know, we do have more, but they go...
[25:12.580 --> 25:13.520]  We don't know where they go.
[25:14.000 --> 25:17.280]  So, if you're calling now and it's ringing, it's not ringing anywhere near us.
[25:17.380 --> 25:18.860]  So, we don't know where you're winding up.
[25:18.860 --> 25:22.780]  Well, I mean, you're calling now, but Google Voice doesn't give you enough time for it to ring.
[25:22.900 --> 25:26.760]  It gives you, like, five rings before it says, you know, your voicemail.
[25:26.880 --> 25:27.780]  It's a busy signal.
[25:28.840 --> 25:30.140]  Is it really a busy signal?
[25:30.220 --> 25:31.060]  Does it give you a busy?
[25:31.160 --> 25:36.800]  Well, no, because, you know, Google Voice doesn't, you know, believe in busy signals.
[25:36.980 --> 25:38.780]  So, you know, you have to hear voicemail instead.
[25:39.000 --> 25:39.260]  Mm-hmm.
[25:40.140 --> 25:41.780]  And I don't know where that voicemail is.
[25:41.900 --> 25:45.700]  If people are leaving us messages somewhere, we have no clue where that is.
[25:45.700 --> 25:46.480]  Wait a minute.
[25:46.680 --> 25:48.940]  You can leave a message and you didn't get it?
[25:49.100 --> 25:50.060]  No, we don't get those messages.
[25:50.060 --> 25:51.540]  We have no idea where that is.
[25:51.660 --> 25:53.800]  And if we did know where it is, we don't know what the password is.
[25:53.940 --> 25:56.420]  So, it's not something that's a priority.
[25:56.600 --> 25:58.380]  There's probably a thousand messages waiting for us.
[25:58.860 --> 26:00.420]  Who set this up for you, then?
[26:00.800 --> 26:01.180]  What?
[26:02.400 --> 26:03.400]  Who set this up?
[26:03.820 --> 26:04.920]  What are you setting up?
[26:07.120 --> 26:09.120]  Your Google Voice, this number.
[26:09.240 --> 26:10.140]  Who set it up for you?
[26:10.720 --> 26:11.660]  Who's... I don't know.
[26:11.800 --> 26:13.560]  It's something that we inherited from...
[26:13.560 --> 26:14.200]  I don't know.
[26:14.420 --> 26:15.540]  You're asking a lot of questions.
[26:15.540 --> 26:17.320]  And I just know it works.
[26:17.320 --> 26:18.400]  And that's all I care about.
[26:18.600 --> 26:21.460]  And I know there's other people trying to get through.
[26:21.640 --> 26:23.820]  So, can we let them get through now?
[26:25.800 --> 26:28.240]  Yeah, I believe there are a couple other calls, Rebels.
[26:28.460 --> 26:29.920]  So, is there any...
[26:29.920 --> 26:30.240]  All right.
[26:30.380 --> 26:31.200]  Do you have any other...
[26:31.200 --> 26:31.600]  Closing thoughts?
[26:31.820 --> 26:32.760]  ...items to report?
[26:33.200 --> 26:33.600]  Because...
[26:33.600 --> 26:35.060]  I guess that's it.
[26:35.260 --> 26:38.660]  You know, you have to hear commercials in the supermarket now, you know.
[26:38.660 --> 26:40.880]  You mentioned that topic last week, yes.
[26:41.120 --> 26:43.400]  And we expressed our outrage, too.
[26:44.760 --> 26:45.640]  It's horrible.
[26:45.880 --> 26:46.500]  It's horrible.
[26:46.660 --> 26:48.920]  You can always go in there with headphones, blast your own...
[26:48.920 --> 26:49.920]  Why don't you check your email?
[26:49.980 --> 26:51.060]  Why don't you check your email?
[26:51.240 --> 26:52.140]  Yeah, I gave you the number.
[26:52.460 --> 26:54.180]  Because I'm not in the email room.
[26:55.700 --> 26:57.320]  We segregate everything here.
[26:57.460 --> 27:00.260]  We don't have email where we do telephones.
[27:00.260 --> 27:03.080]  And we don't do telephones where we do radio.
[27:03.080 --> 27:05.260]  We only do telephones where we do podcasts.
[27:05.660 --> 27:06.560]  I mean, come on.
[27:06.620 --> 27:07.380]  This is common sense.
[27:08.280 --> 27:08.600]  It's...
[27:08.600 --> 27:09.760]  Wait, yeah, but this is not a podcast.
[27:09.960 --> 27:10.460]  This is like a vlog.
[27:10.460 --> 27:11.160]  It is a podcast.
[27:11.180 --> 27:12.020]  It's not a radio show.
[27:12.100 --> 27:12.660]  What is it, then?
[27:12.800 --> 27:16.800]  But if we weren't doing that, and we were doing email, we wouldn't be doing this.
[27:17.940 --> 27:18.460]  That's right.
[27:18.680 --> 27:28.680]  Well, you know, the real YouTuber, they have, you know, the microphone, the pocket, the vlog, you know, the studio, the thing, the whole, you know...
[27:28.680 --> 27:30.960]  Yeah, but it distracts from the dialogue.
[27:31.260 --> 27:33.580]  Like, if we were watching something and, like...
[27:33.580 --> 27:35.040]  Yeah, we couldn't be having this conversation now.
[27:35.120 --> 27:36.740]  ...typing up things and...
[27:37.960 --> 27:42.580]  making coffees and stuff off to the side and frying up an omelette.
[27:42.600 --> 27:44.180]  I guess you can have a podcast on YouTube.
[27:44.640 --> 27:46.200]  Maybe I should have a podcast.
[27:46.540 --> 27:51.060]  And then your podcast could call this podcast and have a co-podcast.
[27:51.060 --> 27:52.220]  You can just compete with us.
[27:52.500 --> 27:56.520]  Just compete with us and be on at the same time and do our own things separately.
[27:57.100 --> 27:57.960]  That would be nice.
[27:58.380 --> 27:59.840]  Maybe I'll give out my YouTube channel.
[28:00.080 --> 28:01.260]  Go ahead, you can do that.
[28:02.840 --> 28:04.160]  It's Richard Conti.
[28:05.140 --> 28:06.740]  Okay, how do you spell that?
[28:07.840 --> 28:08.920]  C-O-N-T-E.
[28:09.140 --> 28:10.640]  Okay, and people know how to spell Richard.
[28:10.800 --> 28:12.140]  So, okay, cool.
[28:12.320 --> 28:14.500]  So, I'm sure people are on their way over to your...
[28:14.500 --> 28:17.680]  I have a video of me calling these, you know, people.
[28:18.540 --> 28:19.480]  Okay, all right.
[28:20.120 --> 28:23.920]  And it hasn't been blocked, so I guess it's okay then.
[28:24.560 --> 28:25.460]  No, it hasn't been blocked.
[28:25.500 --> 28:26.100]  Why would it be blocked?
[28:26.120 --> 28:26.740]  I don't know.
[28:27.540 --> 28:29.320]  I don't know what you do on your video channel.
[28:30.640 --> 28:35.560]  I mean, unless I play music that doesn't, you know, is copyrighted or something.
[28:35.760 --> 28:38.280]  Well, yeah, that can get you in all kinds of hassles.
[28:38.400 --> 28:38.880]  I know that.
[28:39.320 --> 28:39.980]  What's that, Alex?
[28:40.100 --> 28:41.060]  It looks like you have something to say.
[28:42.560 --> 28:56.420]  No, I'm just not surprised at all that Rebels shares a surname with a certain Russian threat actor group known for really nasty ransomware events.
[28:56.420 --> 28:57.140]  Richard?
[28:58.400 --> 28:58.840]  Conte.
[28:59.000 --> 28:59.320]  Conte.
[28:59.540 --> 28:59.780]  Oh.
[29:00.600 --> 29:01.040]  Oh.
[29:01.320 --> 29:04.580]  I know there was an actor called Richard Conte, but it's not...
[29:04.580 --> 29:07.600]  I know when you can't Google Richard Conte, it's going to come up that.
[29:08.020 --> 29:10.120]  No, he's a threat actor, but yeah.
[29:10.540 --> 29:12.700]  Please, stop saying Rebels' real name over and over again.
[29:13.140 --> 29:18.640]  The threat actor, we're talking about, you know, the Russian group of criminals going around ransomware-ing everybody for several years.
[29:18.880 --> 29:20.100]  Alleged criminals, Alex.
[29:20.420 --> 29:21.240]  Alleged criminals.
[29:21.620 --> 29:22.000]  Russian group of...
[29:22.000 --> 29:22.700]  When was this?
[29:22.760 --> 29:23.480]  They ended with an I.
[29:23.520 --> 29:25.720]  Oh, that's a totally different group, so don't defame Rebel.
[29:26.160 --> 29:28.200]  Yeah, no, they're phonetically similar.
[29:28.440 --> 29:29.840]  I'm sorry, I meant to say don't defame them.
[29:30.000 --> 29:31.260]  And they could be reformed now.
[29:31.480 --> 29:32.860]  Yeah, that's true.
[29:32.940 --> 29:35.660]  They could have definitely served their sentence.
[29:36.100 --> 29:39.320]  Changed their ways and all, found rebirth and all.
[29:39.920 --> 29:41.160]  It's very common.
[29:41.640 --> 29:43.280]  Rebel, regrettably, it's time for us to go.
[29:44.940 --> 29:45.300]  Okay.
[29:46.460 --> 29:52.300]  When I get texts like that, I send them pictures, you know, like pictures of me.
[29:53.140 --> 29:55.120]  Well, if that doesn't stop them, I don't know what will.
[29:56.520 --> 29:57.520]  Be careful out there.
[29:57.820 --> 29:58.080]  Yeah, yeah.
[29:58.260 --> 29:58.900]  All right, thank you.
[29:59.000 --> 30:02.460]  Thank you for calling and for making this night so special.
[30:02.600 --> 30:03.440]  We'll catch up with you.
[30:03.580 --> 30:03.740]  Okay.
[30:03.940 --> 30:05.060]  We've been at this a half hour already.
[30:05.220 --> 30:05.700]  Can you believe that?
[30:05.820 --> 30:06.120]  Bye.
[30:06.560 --> 30:06.740]  Bye.
[30:06.940 --> 30:07.040]  Bye.
[30:07.040 --> 30:07.700]  He's still there.
[30:08.380 --> 30:11.480]  Phone number is 802-321-4225.
[30:11.680 --> 30:12.020]  My God.
[30:12.220 --> 30:14.440]  802-321-4225.
[30:15.740 --> 30:16.940]  That's phone number.
[30:17.020 --> 30:18.320]  Call quickly before he calls back.
[30:19.480 --> 30:26.700]  And takes up another 20 minutes of talking about harassing phone calls and things like that.
[30:26.700 --> 30:28.480]  Almost as if he doesn't want to stop talking.
[30:29.100 --> 30:32.020]  No, I mean, do any of us really want to stop talking?
[30:32.040 --> 30:33.080]  I kind of do.
[30:33.620 --> 30:34.140]  I kind of do.
[30:34.240 --> 30:34.780]  We have a call?
[30:35.220 --> 30:35.860]  Good evening.
[30:36.960 --> 30:38.820]  Let me just greet you first.
[30:38.960 --> 30:39.220]  Good evening.
[30:39.420 --> 30:40.520]  You're on Off the Hook Overtime.
[30:40.620 --> 30:40.800]  Hello.
[30:42.140 --> 30:42.620]  Hi.
[30:43.400 --> 30:48.320]  This is Alex's sister again on the other side of the hurricane.
[30:48.660 --> 30:51.320]  Oh, now you've gotten out of the hurricane safely, I hope.
[30:51.360 --> 30:51.960]  It's been a week.
[30:52.260 --> 30:52.960]  Hey, Rachel.
[30:53.340 --> 30:54.640]  It's been a week.
[30:57.360 --> 30:59.720]  I'm still safe, obviously.
[30:59.720 --> 31:01.000]  I'm calling you guys.
[31:01.480 --> 31:01.960]  Good.
[31:05.620 --> 31:07.160]  It got real fucked up.
[31:07.260 --> 31:08.080]  Am I allowed to curse?
[31:08.580 --> 31:11.780]  Well, you know, we discourage it, but it's YouTube, so anything goes.
[31:12.020 --> 31:14.180]  But, you know, on the radio, that would definitely be a problem.
[31:14.380 --> 31:18.560]  So we don't like to because we might forget if we're on the radio or on YouTube.
[31:18.880 --> 31:20.880]  So you're okay for now.
[31:20.880 --> 31:26.000]  I'll do my best not to, but, yeah.
[31:26.700 --> 31:31.520]  So I'm still in the house that we evacuated to.
[31:31.840 --> 31:32.500]  Okay.
[31:33.640 --> 31:41.420]  The bridges, both to the island I live on and the island I work on, got destroyed.
[31:41.420 --> 31:41.980]  Oh, my God.
[31:42.080 --> 31:44.080]  While we were on the phone last week.
[31:44.260 --> 31:45.400]  What islands were those?
[31:46.960 --> 31:49.540]  Pine Island and Sanibel Island.
[31:49.720 --> 31:50.100]  Oh, my God.
[31:50.200 --> 31:50.840]  So Sanibel.
[31:50.960 --> 31:51.160]  Wow.
[31:51.300 --> 31:56.880]  That's the one that really got destroyed and people are stranded still.
[31:57.020 --> 31:58.120]  They're still being rescued over there.
[31:58.240 --> 31:58.520]  Yeah.
[31:59.040 --> 32:09.140]  The layout of the island is that Sanibel, like, geographically, you know, as the storm is coming in, is before Pine Island.
[32:09.540 --> 32:11.420]  Pine Island is a barrier island.
[32:11.660 --> 32:12.540]  It's Channel Island.
[32:14.180 --> 32:17.380]  So it was in between the mainland and Sanibel.
[32:17.880 --> 32:18.160]  Okay.
[32:18.320 --> 32:19.320]  Pine Island is where I live.
[32:19.460 --> 32:20.520]  Sanibel is where I worked.
[32:20.800 --> 32:26.140]  So as the storm came in, I mean, Sanibel also is the place of the beautiful beaches.
[32:26.500 --> 32:26.800]  Mm-hmm.
[32:27.840 --> 32:29.360]  That's why it got hit first.
[32:29.360 --> 32:30.760]  It got bowled over.
[32:31.720 --> 32:41.040]  And then it bowled over my island, and it sat there for, like, 12 hours.
[32:41.060 --> 32:41.500]  Yeah.
[32:41.600 --> 32:42.940]  It stalled for a while.
[32:43.260 --> 32:45.800]  So Sanibel, that's where you work, or that's where you live?
[32:46.880 --> 32:48.320]  Sanibel is where I work.
[32:48.480 --> 32:48.600]  Okay.
[32:49.580 --> 32:51.300]  Pine Island is where I live.
[32:51.560 --> 32:51.840]  Okay.
[32:51.900 --> 32:55.540]  So I got double hit.
[32:56.280 --> 32:59.060]  Now, did you get an evacuation order?
[32:59.060 --> 33:02.020]  And if so, do you think you had enough time to act on it?
[33:02.960 --> 33:05.140]  Um, I do.
[33:05.920 --> 33:13.940]  But also, um, it was my job told me we weren't going to be open until Friday.
[33:14.160 --> 33:16.940]  I know not a lot of people had that.
[33:17.660 --> 33:25.800]  A lot of people of middle to low-income workers were told to come into work the next day.
[33:26.780 --> 33:27.220]  Wow.
[33:27.220 --> 33:29.620]  Uh, but we were told we didn't have to work until Friday.
[33:29.940 --> 33:32.180]  My husband is part owner of his business.
[33:32.260 --> 33:32.660]  Uh-huh.
[33:33.640 --> 33:36.280]  So he could do whatever he needed to do.
[33:36.440 --> 33:40.200]  And they're Floridians, so they knew what they needed to do.
[33:40.440 --> 33:40.600]  Right.
[33:41.640 --> 33:45.560]  Um, so yeah, we evacuated on Tuesday.
[33:46.260 --> 33:46.820]  Okay.
[33:47.360 --> 33:48.200]  Tuesday afternoon.
[33:50.260 --> 34:01.160]  But yeah, I know there was a lot of people who lived out there who worked Wednesday day or morning and went home and thought they could leave or decided not to.
[34:01.740 --> 34:07.600]  But yeah, the evacuation orders were probably a bit late.
[34:09.680 --> 34:10.220]  Mm-hmm.
[34:10.500 --> 34:11.340]  I'm not sure.
[34:11.540 --> 34:14.860]  I'm not sure it's the first storm like this I've ever been through.
[34:15.260 --> 34:15.480]  Right.
[34:15.680 --> 34:15.900]  Yeah.
[34:16.060 --> 34:31.160]  It just seems, you know, I don't know very much about the way the area is laid out, but it just seems that, you know, an island with a single bridge, with a hurricane like that coming, um, that's not something you, you wait on issuing the evacuation order for.
[34:31.420 --> 34:32.820]  It's, you, you get out quickly.
[34:32.820 --> 34:33.100]  I agree.
[34:33.600 --> 34:41.800]  And, and, and, and, you know, if you, if you don't have to, then, okay, you know, you were a little bit overcautious, but so much better than not being cautious enough.
[34:41.800 --> 34:44.820]  And I think a lot of people, unfortunately, fell victim to that.
[34:46.100 --> 34:47.560]  I 100% agree.
[34:47.800 --> 34:49.020]  I 100% agree.
[34:49.020 --> 34:49.100]  Right.
[34:49.360 --> 34:56.600]  And my, my husband is a person who stayed on the island during Hurricane Charlie.
[34:56.860 --> 34:57.100]  Uh-huh.
[34:57.940 --> 35:01.600]  And Hurricane Ian took basically the same exact path.
[35:01.780 --> 35:06.740]  And that was part of why he was waking me up Tuesday morning saying, we gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go.
[35:07.340 --> 35:08.780]  Because he had been through it before.
[35:09.740 --> 35:13.200]  He had been through it before and he stayed during Charlie.
[35:15.140 --> 35:15.640]  So.
[35:15.640 --> 35:18.920]  And his windows blew out and his, and his roof blew off.
[35:19.020 --> 35:19.300]  Uh-huh.
[35:20.380 --> 35:20.460]  So.
[35:20.680 --> 35:22.760]  While he was in the, while he was in the house.
[35:22.900 --> 35:23.080]  So.
[35:23.080 --> 35:25.820]  If he stayed for Charlie, how come he didn't stay for this one?
[35:25.900 --> 35:27.320]  Was there something different about this one?
[35:27.940 --> 35:30.320]  Because it was traumatic and terrible.
[35:31.340 --> 35:31.580]  Uh-huh.
[35:31.720 --> 35:32.700]  His house blew off.
[35:32.800 --> 35:34.920]  I mean, his roof blew off while he was in the house.
[35:36.920 --> 35:38.740]  So, so why would you want to go through that again?
[35:38.900 --> 35:39.800]  That's the, that's the.
[35:41.080 --> 35:41.620]  Oh, yeah.
[35:41.720 --> 35:42.780]  That's why he said we could go.
[35:43.640 --> 35:43.960]  Yeah.
[35:44.040 --> 35:46.580]  Well, if your roof blows off, I think that is the time to go.
[35:46.880 --> 35:48.920]  But I didn't, I didn't know you still had the opportunity.
[35:48.920 --> 35:50.300]  To go at that point.
[35:50.440 --> 35:51.580]  I thought maybe it would be too late.
[35:51.680 --> 35:52.980]  No, it was, it was too late.
[35:53.220 --> 35:56.920]  Charlie, similar to Ian, did like a hook to the right.
[35:57.100 --> 35:57.320]  Uh-huh.
[35:58.540 --> 36:00.140]  And hit right where we live.
[36:00.760 --> 36:05.920]  Similarly, but Charlie was like a third of the size of Ian.
[36:06.220 --> 36:07.780]  Ian covered the whole state.
[36:08.820 --> 36:09.300]  Yeah.
[36:09.300 --> 36:12.880]  The entirety of Charlie could fit inside Ian's eye.
[36:13.920 --> 36:15.460]  Yeah, I heard things like that.
[36:15.540 --> 36:21.780]  And, you know, we've, we've been out here on the East Coast, we've been getting the remnants of Ian for, for the last four days.
[36:22.260 --> 36:23.340]  That's how long it's been.
[36:23.620 --> 36:23.800]  Yeah.
[36:23.800 --> 36:26.320]  And, um, it's nothing like what you guys went through.
[36:26.540 --> 36:29.460]  But it just goes to show how big this thing is and how powerful.
[36:31.000 --> 36:35.120]  Yeah, it's, it's crazy what Mother Nature can do, man.
[36:36.600 --> 36:41.680]  Now, are you, have you been in touch with everybody else that you know in the area?
[36:41.820 --> 36:45.080]  And, um, are, are, are people for the most part safe?
[36:46.000 --> 36:48.660]  For, for the most part, people are safe.
[36:48.740 --> 36:50.600]  Uh, cause I work on Sanibel.
[36:50.900 --> 36:59.340]  Some of my regular bar guests had my number and I was getting very nervous about some of them.
[36:59.520 --> 37:01.560]  Like I got a text Wednesday night.
[37:01.560 --> 37:03.900]  We decided to say, Hey, it's very scary.
[37:04.400 --> 37:05.920]  The water is rising.
[37:06.620 --> 37:09.760]  And then I couldn't get in touch with them until like Friday.
[37:11.640 --> 37:13.020]  That was really scary.
[37:13.360 --> 37:15.260]  There are people I've grown to love.
[37:15.440 --> 37:21.320]  They would come and sit in my bar and basically we had dinner all the time.
[37:21.880 --> 37:27.340]  I was serving them and they were paying it, but it doesn't mean they're not people I care about.
[37:27.560 --> 37:28.120]  Of course.
[37:28.120 --> 37:29.660]  It was really scary.
[37:29.660 --> 37:42.460]  And because cell service and obviously internet went out, but like cell service, finally some of them got back to me and they're okay, but they lost their home.
[37:43.940 --> 37:47.560]  Um, a lot of people on the island we live lost their homes.
[37:48.780 --> 37:49.340]  Wow.
[37:49.520 --> 37:50.900]  We are extremely lucky.
[37:51.180 --> 37:53.900]  Our home on Pine Island, as far as we know.
[37:55.280 --> 37:59.260]  Uh, last time someone went to check on it was pretty good.
[37:59.440 --> 37:59.860]  Really?
[38:00.100 --> 38:07.560]  Because we live in one of the higher, uh, elevations of that, you know, zero elevation island.
[38:08.920 --> 38:17.140]  Um, but there's also been a lot of looting and pretty much lawlessness from what we've heard on Pine Island.
[38:17.140 --> 38:24.100]  So if someone broke into our house and took our TVs and slept on our bed, I don't mind.
[38:25.480 --> 38:31.540]  Well, the most important thing is, is, is to survive in the first place and everything else is kind of incidental to that.
[38:31.540 --> 38:39.860]  I don't, I don't, I don't think people are going to be rummaging through my house for the photos of my family from the nineties.
[38:40.220 --> 38:41.000]  Hopefully not.
[38:42.020 --> 38:43.460]  It would be, it would be strange.
[38:43.580 --> 38:45.120]  No one's going to run off with that.
[38:45.340 --> 38:49.280]  So there, as long as the roof's still there, my keepsakes are there.
[38:49.620 --> 38:52.380]  Now, you mentioned, um, um, cell phones.
[38:52.560 --> 38:59.060]  I'm just curious how overall did cell phones do, uh, in the, in the day or two days after the storm?
[38:59.060 --> 39:00.400]  Were you able to use them at all?
[39:02.620 --> 39:03.180]  Barely.
[39:04.520 --> 39:05.560]  Not great.
[39:05.900 --> 39:06.200]  Mm-hmm.
[39:06.320 --> 39:20.440]  Um, even for me, where we evacuated to, like you, you heard me last week on the phone, it was real windy and it was, it was probably 110 mile per hour winds out here where we evacuated to.
[39:21.140 --> 39:24.200]  Um, and then we barely had anything.
[39:24.200 --> 39:26.040]  It was very hard to communicate.
[39:26.040 --> 39:37.020]  And even now my, my coworkers who are in Cape Coral, I still get like a flood of multiple texts from them.
[39:37.860 --> 39:40.660]  Like their cell service is very spotty.
[39:40.840 --> 39:44.620]  They, some of them I know just thought electricity today.
[39:44.620 --> 39:46.140]  Hey, some of them are still waiting.
[39:46.140 --> 39:47.580]  They're still waiting on water.
[39:48.860 --> 39:52.640]  That's basically in a space between where I left and where I went.
[39:52.880 --> 39:53.160]  Mm-hmm.
[39:54.580 --> 39:58.220]  And, um, yeah, it's been really tough for Cape Coral.
[39:58.320 --> 40:00.220]  They also have so many canals.
[40:00.220 --> 40:06.240]  So when the water rose, so much of that city got flooded.
[40:08.920 --> 40:14.020]  And from what I understand, a lot of places are still experiencing flooding.
[40:14.140 --> 40:14.800]  Is that, is that correct?
[40:15.720 --> 40:41.020]  As far as I know, um, not in my immediate, um, living area, like Pine Island, Cape Coral, Fort Myers, but then again, I, it's hard to get the news as it comes, especially when you don't have internet and power and the TV news keeps playing the same things over and over.
[40:41.940 --> 40:45.700]  So getting news up to date is, is very difficult.
[40:46.480 --> 40:47.560]  I can imagine.
[40:47.840 --> 40:58.920]  But, um, I know that other parts of Florida, there's been levees that have been overflown and, and whatnot.
[40:58.920 --> 41:12.940]  It's, I, I'm not the one to ask, you know, like, uh, we've been watching news for our home and where we work and where our friends are.
[41:13.200 --> 41:17.660]  And beyond that, it's hard to have a bandwidth for.
[41:18.760 --> 41:21.120]  Yeah, that, that is, uh, true.
[41:21.120 --> 41:28.020]  You know, you're kind of just dealing with the immediate effects around you to the, the, your space and your loved ones and neighborhoods.
[41:28.340 --> 41:30.380]  So, uh, it takes a while.
[41:30.500 --> 41:42.800]  I think we've all wanted like reports and, and assessments and it's, it's, uh, yeah, like you said, kind of just a lot of repeated stuff and the details are only really coming to light.
[41:42.940 --> 41:55.680]  I think a lot of people are confronting all that inundation of water and the after effects, whether it's like keeping food or getting rid of stuff and, uh, uh, uh, trying to prevent mold, that kind of stuff.
[41:55.840 --> 42:00.780]  There's been a lot of talk about just basically the fall on effects of like, okay, you don't have power for five days.
[42:00.880 --> 42:01.560]  What does this mean?
[42:02.060 --> 42:07.860]  And practically speaking, it's, it's just really tough beyond the, just the acute damage from the storm.
[42:08.160 --> 42:12.420]  So, um, yeah, did, did we just change who I'm speaking to?
[42:12.680 --> 42:12.960]  Yes.
[42:13.060 --> 42:13.420]  That's Kyle.
[42:14.680 --> 42:15.160]  Okay.
[42:15.400 --> 42:15.560]  Hi.
[42:18.020 --> 42:19.280]  I'm Alex's sister.
[42:20.220 --> 42:20.740]  Yes.
[42:20.960 --> 42:21.740]  I've been told that.
[42:22.040 --> 42:22.860]  We, we all know.
[42:23.040 --> 42:24.620]  Uh, and Alex is here too.
[42:24.740 --> 42:26.100]  I don't know if you're aware of that.
[42:26.880 --> 42:27.140]  Yeah.
[42:27.360 --> 42:27.780]  Hi brother.
[42:28.740 --> 42:29.560]  Hey, Rachel.
[42:31.200 --> 42:36.480]  Hey, have you, uh, have you heard anything concerning uncle James?
[42:39.440 --> 42:41.760]  I know uncle James wasn't there.
[42:42.820 --> 42:43.340]  Okay.
[42:43.340 --> 42:51.080]  But I'll ask, uh, Becky's husband if their condo was okay, but I mean, that's honestly the least of my concerns.
[42:52.040 --> 42:52.600]  Wow.
[42:52.900 --> 42:54.840]  He was another family.
[42:55.380 --> 42:55.600]  Becky's our cousin.
[42:57.640 --> 42:58.600]  Becky's our cousin.
[42:58.860 --> 43:04.200]  Our uncle has a home on the same island that I work on, but I know that they weren't there.
[43:05.040 --> 43:05.580]  All right.
[43:05.660 --> 43:06.060]  That's good.
[43:06.240 --> 43:07.180]  But uncle James is okay.
[43:08.380 --> 43:09.640]  Uncle James is fine.
[43:09.860 --> 43:10.080]  Okay.
[43:10.200 --> 43:10.980]  That's all I care about.
[43:11.240 --> 43:13.580]  Not 9% sure he's in New Jersey.
[43:14.600 --> 43:15.320]  Oh, yeah.
[43:15.480 --> 43:16.700]  If he's in Jersey, he's fine.
[43:17.600 --> 43:17.820]  Yeah.
[43:17.980 --> 43:18.080]  Yeah.
[43:18.160 --> 43:19.360]  Everything in New Jersey is fine.
[43:19.740 --> 43:20.260]  I mean...
[43:20.260 --> 43:20.860]  I didn't say that.
[43:20.980 --> 43:21.480]  I didn't say that.
[43:22.720 --> 43:23.160]  It's all fine.
[43:23.160 --> 43:27.480]  Part of me wanted to ask Noah that, but Noah, Noah is our cousin's husband.
[43:27.480 --> 43:30.940]  He reached out to me the other day, and he was like, are you okay?
[43:31.100 --> 43:31.540]  Are you okay?
[43:31.640 --> 43:35.280]  And I, you know, just got back to him and said, yeah, all right.
[43:35.340 --> 43:36.180]  We evacuated.
[43:36.380 --> 43:36.780]  We're fine.
[43:38.060 --> 43:39.700]  So, Rachel, why don't you go...
[43:39.700 --> 43:47.820]  I can message Noah and ask him about their condo, but in the grand scheme of things, Uncle James and Aunt Josie are okay.
[43:49.040 --> 43:49.400]  Yeah.
[43:49.740 --> 43:51.000]  No, that's true.
[43:52.480 --> 43:52.840]  Yeah.
[43:52.960 --> 43:54.800]  They wouldn't be there in September.
[43:56.420 --> 43:56.780]  Yeah.
[43:56.780 --> 43:58.280]  They're smarter than that.
[43:59.160 --> 43:59.500]  Yeah.
[43:59.780 --> 44:00.800]  Yeah, that's true.
[44:00.940 --> 44:01.320]  That's true.
[44:01.500 --> 44:03.980]  It is October, though, but I'm sure they're not there now.
[44:04.180 --> 44:06.580]  Well, it was September when the...
[44:06.580 --> 44:07.580]  Yeah, you're right.
[44:07.840 --> 44:09.720]  Boy, time passes fast, doesn't it?
[44:10.300 --> 44:10.780]  Mm-hmm.
[44:11.020 --> 44:12.540]  Alex, you had something to say?
[44:12.940 --> 44:14.720]  Yeah, Rachel, when are you going home?
[44:15.720 --> 44:17.320]  When are you going to make the trek?
[44:19.100 --> 44:20.060]  I don't know.
[44:20.060 --> 44:29.360]  Oh, they built kind of a dirt and asphalt bridge to my island, Pine Island.
[44:32.320 --> 44:35.160]  And people were getting over it today.
[44:35.160 --> 44:38.900]  I mean, which is absolutely wild, because I don't know if you saw the news.
[44:38.900 --> 44:40.960]  It was the town called Matlaché.
[44:42.000 --> 44:48.180]  If you saw that on the news, it was the town in between Pine Island and the mainland.
[44:48.820 --> 44:49.380]  Okay.
[44:49.380 --> 44:52.600]  So every day when I left my house, I had to drive through Matlaché.
[44:52.600 --> 44:57.620]  It's spelled Matlaché, but it's pronounced Matlaché.
[44:57.960 --> 45:03.120]  Anyway, so that area was, like, destroyed.
[45:03.560 --> 45:06.160]  Also, the water is very shallow.
[45:06.460 --> 45:09.540]  It's, like, at most, like, six feet deep or something.
[45:09.540 --> 45:09.960]  I don't know.
[45:10.020 --> 45:10.840]  I could ask my husband.
[45:11.040 --> 45:14.260]  But it's a very shallow channel.
[45:17.060 --> 45:23.180]  And so these companies came in and filled it in and made a road.
[45:24.480 --> 45:28.140]  And they announced earlier today, you can just drive back in if you're a resident.
[45:28.980 --> 45:33.900]  And my husband and I were like, we're just going to wait, because we're going to let the utilities come in.
[45:33.980 --> 45:34.180]  Yeah.
[45:34.520 --> 45:39.060]  And let them bring debris off, and who knows what else off.
[45:40.820 --> 45:43.880]  And then they apparently shut it down.
[45:44.080 --> 45:48.860]  And getting actual news from what's going on there is very frustrating.
[45:49.960 --> 45:55.580]  Because it's just people on Facebook and people on the Internet spreading nonsense.
[45:56.900 --> 46:04.800]  And you don't know who to trust, because there's no, like, legitimate source.
[46:05.560 --> 46:17.240]  We talked about this a little earlier, but if you have a transistor radio or something, that's probably the best source of information, where you can just listen to what they're saying on the radio.
[46:18.320 --> 46:18.900]  Yeah.
[46:24.700 --> 46:27.400]  Any other thoughts or questions?
[46:29.100 --> 46:30.280]  No, that's it.
[46:30.400 --> 46:38.140]  That's just my update from being amputated from my home.
[46:38.380 --> 46:38.680]  Mm-hmm.
[46:39.660 --> 46:40.940]  Since the last time we spoke.
[46:41.120 --> 46:42.860]  Because last time we spoke, we didn't know.
[46:43.100 --> 46:43.300]  Yeah.
[46:43.840 --> 46:44.540]  That stuff.
[46:45.380 --> 46:47.460]  Yeah, it hadn't happened quite yet.
[46:47.980 --> 46:48.560]  It hadn't happened.
[46:48.580 --> 46:48.960]  Go ahead, Alex.
[46:49.640 --> 47:02.460]  By the way, there is just, hours ago, a story that broke about Sanibel Island and a ham radio operator who had somehow...
[47:02.460 --> 47:04.780]  I mean, it's an insanely long story.
[47:06.520 --> 47:10.940]  It's very, very detailed for some reason in narrative form.
[47:11.080 --> 47:11.800]  But the...
[47:11.800 --> 47:26.280]  I think the gist of it is that this ham radio operator was able to communicate with people that were stranded in Sanibel Island and helped rescue, I think, eight people and a dog that would have perished.
[47:26.280 --> 47:26.720]  Wow.
[47:26.940 --> 47:36.540]  But for the ham radio operator, always in the wake of these disasters, there are finally some new stories about the heroism of ham radio operators.
[47:36.820 --> 47:42.360]  And people who also have ham radio operators... ham radios that can talk to the people with ham radio operators.
[47:42.580 --> 47:44.920]  So it's a good thing they were able to connect.
[47:45.080 --> 47:47.360]  Yeah, people were listening to the ham radio, yeah.
[47:47.360 --> 47:50.180]  Alex, was this recent, Alex?
[47:50.860 --> 47:51.420]  Yeah.
[47:52.100 --> 47:54.460]  Did the story come out recently or did this happen recently?
[47:54.780 --> 47:55.640]  Did this happen recently?
[47:55.780 --> 47:57.540]  Are people still getting rescued like this?
[47:57.660 --> 47:58.440]  Yeah, it must have.
[47:58.440 --> 48:01.360]  I think probably a few days ago or something.
[48:01.520 --> 48:02.600]  It actually doesn't give a...
[48:03.400 --> 48:05.000]  It's a very detailed story.
[48:05.360 --> 48:06.560]  Yeah, the people who I...
[48:07.380 --> 48:15.520]  I knew who didn't evacuate the storm on Sanibel, it took them several more days to leave the island.
[48:16.320 --> 48:17.780]  And they couldn't...
[48:18.860 --> 48:21.160]  They literally couldn't go anywhere.
[48:21.340 --> 48:25.260]  They were just stuck in their underwater homes or...
[48:25.880 --> 48:29.080]  You know, the water had receded, but they're stuck in their crumbling homes.
[48:29.700 --> 48:29.880]  Yeah.
[48:31.520 --> 48:33.140]  It's very disturbing.
[48:33.140 --> 48:43.960]  What I think a lot of people forget is that, you know, it's easy to say you should evacuate, but for some people, people might not have cars, people might not have, you know, mobility.
[48:43.960 --> 48:45.820]  It's not always that easy.
[48:46.060 --> 48:48.060]  It's not always as easy as we think it is.
[48:49.240 --> 48:49.440]  Yeah.
[48:49.720 --> 48:50.400]  I had...
[48:50.400 --> 48:52.300]  Sanibel is a very wealthy island.
[48:53.560 --> 48:59.120]  Like, you could buy a house the size of a postage stamp there.
[48:59.120 --> 49:00.020]  It's like New York City.
[49:00.200 --> 49:01.880]  And it'll cost you a million dollars.
[49:02.200 --> 49:02.580]  Wow.
[49:02.580 --> 49:10.960]  But they do also have low-income housing for people who work on Sanibel, and a few of my co-workers live in those.
[49:11.820 --> 49:21.200]  And we couldn't get in contact with a number of them because they were men who worked super hard who rode their bikes to work.
[49:22.180 --> 49:23.640]  They were the dishwasher.
[49:24.100 --> 49:25.440]  They were the pastry guy.
[49:26.560 --> 49:28.720]  They were immigrants.
[49:29.220 --> 49:30.840]  And we couldn't get a hold of them.
[49:31.560 --> 49:32.720]  They couldn't leave.
[49:33.080 --> 49:34.980]  What were they going to do, ride their bike off?
[49:36.220 --> 49:36.860]  You know?
[49:36.940 --> 49:37.720]  That's crazy.
[49:37.980 --> 49:38.800]  They couldn't leave.
[49:38.960 --> 49:39.700]  They're all okay.
[49:39.820 --> 49:43.660]  We later found out, days later, that they were okay.
[49:44.680 --> 49:46.480]  But they didn't have a way off.
[49:48.930 --> 49:49.450]  Wow.
[49:50.310 --> 49:54.030]  And that's really disturbing because it didn't have to turn out that way.
[49:54.030 --> 49:59.110]  And I wonder if for some people it went worse.
[49:59.410 --> 50:00.010]  You know?
[50:00.370 --> 50:00.630]  Yeah.
[50:00.750 --> 50:01.630]  It certainly is possible.
[50:02.550 --> 50:02.890]  Yeah.
[50:03.730 --> 50:04.170]  Wow.
[50:04.350 --> 50:05.250]  That's insane, Rachel.
[50:05.250 --> 50:05.970]  I didn't know that.
[50:07.170 --> 50:07.610]  Yeah.
[50:07.610 --> 50:08.430]  I didn't know that either.
[50:09.570 --> 50:11.110]  Well, I'm glad you guys are okay.
[50:11.330 --> 50:14.970]  And hopefully you get home in a reasonable amount of time.
[50:15.070 --> 50:17.890]  And then you're going to have to call back and tell us what home is like.
[50:19.930 --> 50:20.370]  Yeah.
[50:20.790 --> 50:21.070]  Yeah.
[50:21.570 --> 50:22.270]  I will.
[50:22.270 --> 50:24.170]  And you're okay now?
[50:24.330 --> 50:26.430]  You have power where you are right now?
[50:27.090 --> 50:29.390]  We have power where we are.
[50:29.730 --> 50:33.270]  We are living on the kindness of strangers.
[50:35.170 --> 50:41.450]  Specifically, my husband's, cousin's, neighbors had an extra house.
[50:42.250 --> 50:46.330]  Alex, they're from right outside Allentown, Pennsylvania.
[50:46.730 --> 50:47.510]  Oh, yeah.
[50:47.690 --> 50:47.910]  Sure.
[50:48.130 --> 50:48.310]  Yep.
[50:48.670 --> 50:48.770]  Yep.
[50:48.770 --> 50:51.730]  So they have two houses here on this street.
[50:51.970 --> 50:54.270]  This one house they, like, never use.
[50:55.970 --> 51:00.610]  So they were like, you can come stay there literally as long as you need.
[51:01.290 --> 51:01.810]  Wow.
[51:01.810 --> 51:04.350]  And we are so incredibly lucky.
[51:04.350 --> 51:06.610]  That is not a normal situation.
[51:08.750 --> 51:15.330]  It's just community and kindness and family and all those things tied into one.
[51:15.810 --> 51:20.010]  That gave us a roof over our head and power and flushing toilets.
[51:21.070 --> 51:21.370]  Yeah.
[51:21.810 --> 51:22.390]  Yeah.
[51:22.570 --> 51:25.870]  I mean, you never know when a cousin's neighbor is going to come through.
[51:28.970 --> 51:29.290]  Yeah.
[51:29.710 --> 51:29.990]  Yeah.
[51:30.690 --> 51:31.130]  Absolutely.
[51:31.450 --> 51:34.310]  That's why you always need to get to know your cousin's neighbors.
[51:35.830 --> 51:36.270]  Absolutely.
[51:36.270 --> 51:37.610]  I've been saying that for a long time.
[51:38.750 --> 51:42.490]  Which makes me think of Aunt Janet's neighbors, who are wonderful.
[51:42.930 --> 51:43.770]  Yeah, that's true.
[51:44.030 --> 51:44.590]  That's true.
[51:45.110 --> 51:45.510]  You know.
[51:45.890 --> 51:46.210]  That's amazing.
[51:46.210 --> 51:48.070]  That was Patchogue.
[51:49.190 --> 51:51.350]  And, you know, many years ago.
[51:51.570 --> 51:53.570]  I think they would have done the same thing.
[51:54.290 --> 51:54.610]  Yep.
[51:54.810 --> 51:55.350]  No, no doubt.
[51:55.370 --> 51:56.750]  Be nice to your neighbors, everybody.
[51:57.290 --> 52:00.010]  Yeah, I think that's always a good thing, to be nice to your neighbors.
[52:00.670 --> 52:03.470]  Listen, Rachel, thank you so much for calling, for sharing that with us.
[52:03.710 --> 52:09.890]  And we hope things get better and that all your friends, neighbors, also get through this.
[52:10.050 --> 52:11.770]  We'll certainly be watching what happens.
[52:12.030 --> 52:16.390]  And please keep contacting us, letting us know what happens next.
[52:18.070 --> 52:18.510]  Sure.
[52:19.610 --> 52:23.710]  Yeah, I can't believe last week I was saying, maybe I'll call you from the bar.
[52:26.690 --> 52:29.410]  That was long before we knew that the bridge was destroyed.
[52:30.030 --> 52:30.530]  Yeah, yeah.
[52:30.590 --> 52:34.230]  So, and when I can call you from the bar, I will.
[52:34.790 --> 52:35.930]  Okay, look forward to that.
[52:37.090 --> 52:37.450]  Okay.
[52:37.730 --> 52:38.630]  All right, you take care.
[52:39.550 --> 52:40.310]  All right, bye, Rachel.
[52:40.930 --> 52:41.270]  We love you.
[52:41.330 --> 52:41.930]  We'll talk to you later.
[52:42.150 --> 52:42.270]  Love you, brother.
[52:42.950 --> 52:43.790]  Love you too, sister.
[52:44.010 --> 52:44.290]  Bye.
[52:44.910 --> 52:45.130]  Bye.
[52:55.340 --> 52:59.060]  You know, it's a night of family tonight, I guess, calling in.
[52:59.160 --> 53:02.920]  Because I know you consider Rebel to be, you know, like a close family member.
[53:03.660 --> 53:05.220]  You've said that for many, many years.
[53:05.500 --> 53:07.760]  And so, you know, something about that.
[53:08.320 --> 53:10.560]  I know where you are, Alex, so just remember that.
[53:10.780 --> 53:10.920]  Okay.
[53:14.360 --> 53:16.320]  So, we have time maybe for one more?
[53:16.620 --> 53:18.040]  Yeah, I think so.
[53:18.200 --> 53:19.080]  Any calls coming in?
[53:22.400 --> 53:23.420]  Yeah, let's do it.
[53:23.760 --> 53:25.600]  Yeah, what's the phone number again?
[53:25.600 --> 53:30.640]  We want to make sure people that aren't familiar, who need to know what the number is.
[53:30.860 --> 53:31.880]  You really don't know what the number is.
[53:31.920 --> 53:33.180]  Yeah, you might want to repeat it for them.
[53:34.600 --> 53:34.960]  802.
[53:37.280 --> 53:37.880]  I forgot.
[53:38.300 --> 53:48.720]  Oh, 802-321-422-5.
[53:52.020 --> 53:52.380]  Right?
[53:52.740 --> 53:54.700]  802-321-422-5 is our phone number.
[53:56.280 --> 53:57.200]  And what's that spell?
[53:57.200 --> 53:57.980]  Oh, come on.
[53:58.060 --> 53:58.800]  Pick up the damn phone.
[54:03.710 --> 54:04.350]  Good evening.
[54:04.370 --> 54:05.670]  You're on off-the-hook over time.
[54:05.770 --> 54:05.970]  Go ahead.
[54:06.690 --> 54:06.930]  Yes.
[54:07.130 --> 54:08.250]  One quick thing about...
[54:08.250 --> 54:08.770]  No, Alex.
[54:09.130 --> 54:09.530]  Alex.
[54:09.890 --> 54:10.930]  No, no, no, no, no.
[54:11.730 --> 54:12.550]  It's just wrong.
[54:13.110 --> 54:13.870]  It's just wrong.
[54:13.990 --> 54:14.170]  Okay.
[54:15.490 --> 54:17.330]  You get one shot, all right?
[54:17.470 --> 54:21.130]  And, you know, if that happens again, you won't call next week.
[54:21.190 --> 54:21.810]  How about that?
[54:22.170 --> 54:22.370]  Yeah.
[54:23.890 --> 54:25.330]  802-321-422-5.
[54:26.010 --> 54:27.190]  And we'll give it a minute.
[54:27.190 --> 54:28.870]  If we don't get another call, we'll just move on.
[54:28.950 --> 54:30.750]  Because we have other things to do, believe me.
[54:38.880 --> 54:43.280]  Any new topics that didn't get a chance?
[54:43.480 --> 54:44.260]  There's always new topics.
[54:44.260 --> 54:53.860]  But, you know, I don't want to open up a whole new subject to debate and go into details and things like that.
[54:53.960 --> 54:56.240]  Well, we talked a lot about disaster recovery.
[54:56.480 --> 54:56.760]  Mm-hmm.
[54:57.160 --> 55:02.500]  You know, how to survive when systems come crashing down.
[55:02.520 --> 55:03.540]  You know, the old stuff.
[55:03.740 --> 55:04.340]  The old radios.
[55:05.560 --> 55:05.960]  That's right.
[55:05.960 --> 55:07.060]  Or short way to ham.
[55:07.280 --> 55:07.840]  You know, all that.
[55:07.980 --> 55:11.240]  I should point out, there are 2,600 meetings this Friday.
[55:11.440 --> 55:12.000]  Oh, good.
[55:12.000 --> 55:13.200]  In most places.
[55:13.540 --> 55:19.300]  So, go to 2600.com slash meetings and you will see the most recent listing.
[55:20.020 --> 55:22.100]  And there might be some new ones added in.
[55:22.180 --> 55:22.520]  We'll see.
[55:23.120 --> 55:24.260]  You can always write to us.
[55:24.400 --> 55:33.680]  If you have a meeting that you'd like to start in your particular state or city or town, then go right ahead and do that.
[55:34.500 --> 55:34.900]  Okay.
[55:35.000 --> 55:36.480]  You want to give it one more try?
[55:36.600 --> 55:36.880]  Good evening.
[55:37.020 --> 55:38.000]  You're on off the hook over time.
[55:38.080 --> 55:38.260]  Go ahead.
[55:39.580 --> 55:40.440]  Hey, Emmanuel.
[55:40.700 --> 55:41.400]  Hey, what's on your mind?
[55:41.400 --> 55:43.880]  We've been listening since I've been 20 or so.
[55:44.280 --> 55:45.580]  About the mid-2000s.
[55:45.800 --> 55:46.240]  I'm sorry.
[55:46.320 --> 55:46.620]  Say again?
[55:46.760 --> 55:47.180]  We can't.
[55:47.820 --> 55:49.060]  I can't make out what you're saying.
[55:49.060 --> 55:50.720]  You said he was listening since the mid-2000s?
[55:50.780 --> 55:52.800]  You've been listening to the mid-2000s?
[55:53.360 --> 55:54.540]  Oh, you're listening to it.
[55:55.840 --> 55:58.320]  Well, I think there's a bit of delay in the phone.
[55:59.260 --> 56:01.520]  Yeah, there might be if you listen to the radio.
[56:01.720 --> 56:03.440]  So, just talk to us on the phone.
[56:04.040 --> 56:04.580]  Right.
[56:04.860 --> 56:10.960]  So, I wanted to talk to you today about the Elon Musk Twitter buy.
[56:11.260 --> 56:11.580]  Uh-huh.
[56:12.720 --> 56:13.260]  Yeah.
[56:13.560 --> 56:15.440]  We talked about that earlier on the show.
[56:15.620 --> 56:16.560]  But, yeah, it's...
[56:16.560 --> 56:16.760]  Right.
[56:16.960 --> 56:22.240]  So, as far as social media goes, what's your opinion on that?
[56:24.420 --> 56:29.300]  As far as social media, it's not necessarily...
[56:29.300 --> 56:35.460]  Well, as far as the big three or four, like the Facebook, the Twitter, the Instagram.
[56:37.780 --> 56:40.480]  Just generally, like, what do we think about them?
[56:40.640 --> 56:42.900]  Or what do we think about them in light of this changing?
[56:43.040 --> 56:44.760]  Like, the ownership?
[56:46.120 --> 56:50.080]  If you were to ask me a question about how can they get taken over?
[56:53.930 --> 56:55.310]  How can they get taken over?
[56:56.030 --> 56:56.270]  Like...
[56:56.930 --> 56:58.110]  Like MySpace was.
[56:59.110 --> 56:59.310]  Mm-hmm.
[57:01.070 --> 57:01.670]  Well, true.
[57:01.870 --> 57:01.970]  Yeah.
[57:02.130 --> 57:08.810]  I mean, it's kind of up to the business dynamics in the market.
[57:08.950 --> 57:10.090]  A lot of these are public companies.
[57:12.330 --> 57:13.130]  So, yeah.
[57:13.310 --> 57:18.230]  This is about the interest of the shareholders and the direction they want to take the business.
[57:20.650 --> 57:25.210]  Well, I'm more of saying, like, how can somebody else take over?
[57:27.610 --> 57:35.330]  Like, let's say I was the smallest person in the world, and I want to take over one of the big companies.
[57:35.830 --> 57:36.270]  Ah.
[57:37.270 --> 57:37.790]  Yeah.
[57:37.790 --> 57:39.970]  Well, I mean, it's...
[57:39.970 --> 57:41.950]  At the outset, I think just...
[57:41.950 --> 57:43.430]  That's daunting, right?
[57:43.430 --> 57:51.190]  That would be maybe the first conclusion, or it might be tempting to assume that.
[57:51.450 --> 57:55.470]  But there are different models that people have taken.
[57:55.670 --> 58:03.830]  But it takes a coalition of many people, I think, if you are yourself not of means or do not have the...
[58:03.830 --> 58:06.890]  Can't really navigate the private equity world.
[58:07.910 --> 58:09.810]  That would be my reaction.
[58:11.430 --> 58:17.290]  But make a co-op, you know, some kind of organization that kind of represents that.
[58:17.450 --> 58:18.570]  And, yeah, compete.
[58:18.750 --> 58:19.430]  Do the same thing.
[58:19.570 --> 58:23.170]  Play the game harder with a different initiative, maybe.
[58:24.030 --> 58:25.590]  And give them a run for their money.
[58:25.590 --> 58:35.730]  But to do it yourself without the kind of teams and resources, specifically lawyers, I don't know, and business...
[58:35.730 --> 58:37.050]  Well, lawyers are one thing.
[58:37.290 --> 58:38.430]  Scripting is a different thing.
[58:38.670 --> 58:50.630]  So, like, you've got to get your product prepared before you get somebody to say it's illegal, more or less.
[58:54.530 --> 58:57.410]  Like, I can steal somebody's content, right?
[58:57.410 --> 58:58.770]  I can script somebody.
[58:58.970 --> 59:03.410]  I can clone somebody's web page.
[59:04.830 --> 59:06.450]  But is that illegal to do?
[59:08.430 --> 59:14.730]  It's not illegal to, you know, just clone a web page, keep an archive of it or something.
[59:14.810 --> 59:23.410]  But if you were going to reuse that exact content, you could be violating their copyright or something.
[59:24.330 --> 59:25.790]  Right, now the sort of lawyer comes in.
[59:26.550 --> 59:28.230]  But I'm only doing it for fun.
[59:28.470 --> 59:29.610]  I'm not getting paid.
[59:29.790 --> 59:30.690]  So how...
[59:30.690 --> 59:31.990]  What are they going to sue me for?
[59:33.510 --> 59:39.830]  Well, they sue you for some kind of copyright violation or maybe diluting their brand or something like that.
[59:39.930 --> 59:40.290]  I mean...
[59:40.290 --> 59:43.090]  But there are exceptions to that as well.
[59:43.410 --> 59:45.910]  You know, there are certain things that would fall under fair use.
[59:46.470 --> 59:47.670]  You know, if you were...
[59:47.670 --> 59:50.370]  I don't know if it's your volume or my volume, but it's coming in pretty low.
[59:51.810 --> 59:52.950]  Oh, yeah, sorry.
[59:52.950 --> 59:53.010]  Anyway,
[59:56.070 --> 01:00:02.150]  I think, you know, there are certain usages that would fall under the doctrine of fair use.
[01:00:02.530 --> 01:00:13.110]  And that would involve if you were using, you know, their image or likeness of it or a replica for some kind of parody or some kind of satire or criticism.
[01:00:13.110 --> 01:00:15.610]  Then that would be fine.
[01:00:16.850 --> 01:00:19.030]  But, yeah, I'm not...
[01:00:19.030 --> 01:00:23.570]  I don't know if I'm entirely following the use case here.
[01:00:24.750 --> 01:00:33.130]  The use case is more or less what I see and I want my friends to see, right?
[01:00:33.130 --> 01:00:36.690]  So, I'm a tech guy at work.
[01:00:38.690 --> 01:00:43.330]  And I see a lot of stuff that a lot of my friends don't see, right?
[01:00:43.330 --> 01:00:44.870]  I see all the memes on Reddit.
[01:00:45.210 --> 01:00:46.970]  I see all the memes on Imgur.
[01:00:47.830 --> 01:00:49.890]  They don't know this until I show them them.
[01:00:51.390 --> 01:01:01.670]  But I show them the memes in person, as opposed to online, where you get the ad money from.
[01:01:04.730 --> 01:01:05.370]  So...
[01:01:07.330 --> 01:01:10.330]  I think that seems to be fine to me.
[01:01:11.290 --> 01:01:12.770]  I would think.
[01:01:12.770 --> 01:01:14.330]  I think, you know...
[01:01:15.310 --> 01:01:18.350]  Yeah, it's an interesting question.
[01:01:19.410 --> 01:01:20.090]  All right, listen.
[01:01:20.170 --> 01:01:21.670]  We are kind of at the end of our time.
[01:01:21.790 --> 01:01:22.730]  But thanks for your call.
[01:01:23.530 --> 01:01:25.110]  And please keep listening.
[01:01:25.290 --> 01:01:25.790]  Write to us.
[01:01:26.950 --> 01:01:28.170]  And we'll see what happens.
[01:01:28.330 --> 01:01:28.670]  Appreciate it.
[01:01:29.090 --> 01:01:31.410]  All right.
[01:01:31.710 --> 01:01:32.050]  Take care.
[01:01:32.350 --> 01:01:32.890]  Have a good night.
[01:01:33.690 --> 01:01:34.270]  All right.
[01:01:35.370 --> 01:01:36.730]  I think that's it for tonight.
[01:01:37.090 --> 01:01:39.670]  Because it's all over an hour.
[01:01:39.810 --> 01:01:41.010]  But thank you, everybody, who called in.
[01:01:41.770 --> 01:01:42.630]  You don't want to do one more?
[01:01:42.770 --> 01:01:44.590]  We'll do this again in a couple of weeks.
[01:01:45.470 --> 01:01:46.310]  Not next week.
[01:01:46.430 --> 01:01:47.530]  But please go to the meetings.
[01:01:47.850 --> 01:01:49.470]  And meet some other people.
[01:01:50.270 --> 01:01:51.430]  And share your stories.
[01:01:51.890 --> 01:01:52.490]  And write to us.
[01:01:52.550 --> 01:01:54.130]  OTH at 2600.com.
[01:01:54.250 --> 01:01:55.030]  That's our email address.
[01:01:55.530 --> 01:01:56.650]  We'd be happy to hear from you.
[01:01:57.450 --> 01:01:58.230]  Thanks for listening.
[01:02:00.290 --> 01:02:01.030]  Good night, Alex.
[01:02:01.910 --> 01:02:02.910]  Oh, good night, everybody.
[01:02:03.810 --> 01:02:04.630]  Didn't hurt, did it?
[01:02:05.190 --> 01:02:05.490]  No.
[01:02:05.810 --> 01:02:06.430]  Not this time.