[00:00.000 --> 00:01.480] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you both so much.
[00:02.140 --> 00:11.120] [SPEAKER_00]: You've been listening to the Electronic Intifada with Ali Abunima and Nora Barrows Friedman speaking with Haider Ayit and Ahmed Abufoul.
[00:11.360 --> 00:22.540] [SPEAKER_00]: This is listener-sponsored non-commercial Pacifica Radio, WBAI New York, broadcasting at 99.5 FM, streaming at WBAI.org.
[00:25.180 --> 00:27.420] [SPEAKER_09]: The time now is 7 p.m.
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[01:14.960 --> 01:19.560] [SPEAKER_12]: The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
[01:20.400 --> 01:25.080] [SPEAKER_12]: I cut myself off shaving, now I can't make a cough.
[01:26.140 --> 01:33.280] [SPEAKER_12]: We couldn't get much worse, from the rebound, but the best respect for worst.
[01:33.940 --> 01:36.860] [SPEAKER_12]: I hope that's understood, but make me more.
[03:03.090 --> 03:05.490] [SPEAKER_08]: And a very good evening to try by the program is Off The Hook.
[03:05.590 --> 03:08.010] [SPEAKER_08]: Emmanuel Goldstein here with you, joined tonight by Kyle.
[03:09.030 --> 03:09.470] [SPEAKER_03]: Kyle?
[03:09.490 --> 03:10.150] [SPEAKER_03]: Over here.
[03:10.250 --> 03:10.690] [SPEAKER_08]: How you doing?
[03:11.310 --> 03:14.130] [SPEAKER_08]: Over in Skype-land, we have Rob T. Firefly.
[03:15.130 --> 03:15.910] [SPEAKER_08]: Good evening.
[03:16.110 --> 03:16.710] [SPEAKER_08]: We have Gila.
[03:17.110 --> 03:17.870] [SPEAKER_02]: Good evening.
[03:18.030 --> 03:19.090] [SPEAKER_08]: And we have Alex.
[03:19.670 --> 03:20.990] [SPEAKER_04]: Good evening as well.
[03:21.500 --> 03:21.850] [SPEAKER_08]: Okay.
[03:22.450 --> 03:24.770] [SPEAKER_08]: It's been an interesting week.
[03:26.210 --> 03:29.690] [SPEAKER_08]: Update on all the whole business we were talking about last week.
[03:29.810 --> 03:43.250] [SPEAKER_08]: We are still working on getting more people involved, but we've had some amazing meetings since last week with core organizers and staff people from all over the world.
[03:43.250 --> 04:00.490] [SPEAKER_08]: And I realize, you know, I was worried last week that we weren't getting as strong a response as we're used to, but after having conferred with all the different people that we are so lucky to have working with us, it's going to be an awesome event.
[04:00.590 --> 04:07.930] [SPEAKER_08]: Regardless, no matter how many people are there or aren't there, we are going to have some incredible things going on.
[04:07.930 --> 04:20.470] [SPEAKER_08]: So, looking forward to the conference coming up July 12th through the 14th at St. John's University, HOPE XV, our 15th HOPE conference, HOPE being Hackers on Planet Earth.
[04:20.650 --> 04:24.970] [SPEAKER_08]: There's going to be more information tomorrow on the 2600.com webpage.
[04:25.490 --> 04:33.670] [SPEAKER_08]: And also, if you go to that webpage, you'll see a link on the top of it right now that'll take you to our overtime show that follows this show on YouTube.
[04:33.670 --> 04:42.230] [SPEAKER_08]: So, all you need to do is click on that and you'll be transported over there where you can join in, call us, or just listen to more of us.
[04:42.870 --> 04:50.230] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, spread the word and absolutely stay tuned for more updates and information in the weeks and months ahead.
[04:51.090 --> 04:51.810] [SPEAKER_08]: Yes, Alex.
[04:52.810 --> 04:57.070] [SPEAKER_04]: I wanted to ask, did the CFP for HOPE come out yet?
[04:57.070 --> 04:58.410] [SPEAKER_04]: The call for participation?
[04:58.810 --> 04:59.130] [SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[04:59.270 --> 05:01.130] [SPEAKER_08]: In fact, we talked about that last week.
[05:01.270 --> 05:01.810] [SPEAKER_08]: You were there.
[05:02.690 --> 05:03.670] [SPEAKER_08]: This is the problem.
[05:03.790 --> 05:04.450] [SPEAKER_08]: We can't communicate.
[05:04.790 --> 05:05.010] [SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[05:05.170 --> 05:07.530] [SPEAKER_08]: The call for participation has been out for about a week now.
[05:07.950 --> 05:08.650] [SPEAKER_08]: And we've...
[05:08.650 --> 05:09.770] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I'll tell you why.
[05:09.770 --> 05:13.910] [SPEAKER_04]: Because I was looking for it in my inbox to forward it to somebody who wanted to participate.
[05:14.150 --> 05:14.950] [SPEAKER_04]: And I couldn't...
[05:14.950 --> 05:16.690] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, okay.
[05:16.690 --> 05:17.270] [SPEAKER_08]: That's a good point.
[05:17.330 --> 05:21.230] [SPEAKER_08]: We sent out an announcement saying that the CFP was out.
[05:21.450 --> 05:24.350] [SPEAKER_08]: We didn't send the CFP to people.
[05:24.450 --> 05:25.130] [SPEAKER_08]: Maybe we should do that.
[05:25.450 --> 05:26.490] [SPEAKER_08]: Maybe that's a better idea.
[05:26.810 --> 05:27.970] [SPEAKER_04]: That was my question.
[05:28.170 --> 05:28.270] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[05:28.410 --> 05:30.350] [SPEAKER_04]: Did the official CFP come out?
[05:30.350 --> 05:31.750] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, it came out.
[05:31.750 --> 05:34.890] [SPEAKER_08]: It came out, but it came out on the hope.net website.
[05:35.270 --> 05:44.150] [SPEAKER_08]: So what you're saying is that it's better if we take the CFP, make copies of it, and send it to thousands of people instead.
[05:44.910 --> 05:45.290] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[05:45.450 --> 05:45.690] [SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[05:45.730 --> 05:47.830] [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I wouldn't say copies, but yeah.
[05:48.090 --> 05:49.050] [SPEAKER_04]: Email is fine.
[05:49.230 --> 05:49.610] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, yeah.
[05:49.610 --> 05:52.450] [SPEAKER_08]: We'll fire up the digital Xerox machine and take care of that.
[05:52.890 --> 05:53.210] [SPEAKER_04]: All right.
[05:53.270 --> 05:53.610] [SPEAKER_04]: Very good.
[05:53.710 --> 05:54.270] [SPEAKER_04]: I look forward to it.
[05:54.270 --> 05:55.530] [SPEAKER_08]: No, that's a very good suggestion.
[05:55.670 --> 05:57.690] [SPEAKER_08]: And these are the things we're bad at, Alex.
[05:57.890 --> 06:01.130] [SPEAKER_08]: You know, we are not good at marketing ourselves.
[06:01.670 --> 06:02.790] [SPEAKER_08]: We are terrible at that.
[06:03.110 --> 06:03.490] [SPEAKER_08]: You know?
[06:03.630 --> 06:09.430] [SPEAKER_08]: And I'm not really, you know, that upset that we're terrible at that, but it does hurt us.
[06:09.430 --> 06:11.870] [SPEAKER_08]: Because so many people come to me and say, when's HOPE?
[06:12.030 --> 06:13.870] [SPEAKER_08]: And, you know, HOPE was last week.
[06:14.550 --> 06:15.750] [SPEAKER_08]: They don't know about it.
[06:15.830 --> 06:19.750] [SPEAKER_08]: Or they think it's in odd years when it's in even years and things like that.
[06:19.870 --> 06:23.330] [SPEAKER_08]: So for now, hope.net is where you get all the information.
[06:23.510 --> 06:26.050] [SPEAKER_08]: 2600.com, you'll also get information there.
[06:26.430 --> 06:30.530] [SPEAKER_08]: And we will be updating people quite a bit in the weeks ahead.
[06:31.650 --> 06:32.930] [SPEAKER_08]: Hey, some news.
[06:33.150 --> 06:35.250] [SPEAKER_08]: And by the way, we have a special guest coming on in just a couple of minutes.
[06:35.250 --> 06:37.190] [SPEAKER_08]: So it's going to be pretty awesome and interesting.
[06:38.670 --> 06:39.290] [SPEAKER_08]: We have...
[06:39.290 --> 06:40.210] [SPEAKER_08]: Kyle, is everything okay?
[06:40.290 --> 06:41.930] [SPEAKER_08]: You're looking at computers and checking things.
[06:42.090 --> 06:42.730] [SPEAKER_03]: Everything is great.
[06:42.830 --> 06:44.430] [SPEAKER_08]: You have a crisis look on your face.
[06:44.910 --> 06:45.450] [SPEAKER_08]: It's okay?
[06:45.610 --> 06:46.790] [SPEAKER_03]: How would anyone know that?
[06:46.830 --> 06:47.490] [SPEAKER_08]: I don't know.
[06:47.610 --> 06:50.070] [SPEAKER_08]: But I know there was something going on with connections.
[06:50.270 --> 06:51.810] [SPEAKER_08]: And it's all sorted, though, right?
[06:51.830 --> 06:52.910] [SPEAKER_08]: I don't have to panic about this.
[06:52.930 --> 06:53.910] [SPEAKER_03]: It's smooth sailing.
[06:54.090 --> 06:55.110] [SPEAKER_08]: This is radio, E.
[06:55.170 --> 06:55.830] [SPEAKER_08]: I know that.
[06:55.930 --> 06:57.790] [SPEAKER_08]: In fact, there's a big sign that says, don't panic.
[06:57.950 --> 06:58.630] [SPEAKER_08]: It's only radio.
[07:00.470 --> 07:02.250] [SPEAKER_08]: When we get online, that's when we panic.
[07:02.670 --> 07:03.090] [SPEAKER_08]: All right.
[07:03.090 --> 07:11.130] [SPEAKER_08]: So, you know, you remember the trial, the DECSS trial back in the year 2000 that I got hauled into court for?
[07:11.670 --> 07:12.890] [SPEAKER_08]: That was a lot of fun.
[07:13.230 --> 07:14.890] [SPEAKER_08]: We've been looking to do something like that again.
[07:15.270 --> 07:21.710] [SPEAKER_08]: The closest thing so far, though, is that my judge, Judge Lewis Kaplan, has been in the news lately.
[07:21.710 --> 07:25.330] [SPEAKER_08]: So he's getting to have all kinds of fun in the courtroom still.
[07:25.890 --> 07:28.450] [SPEAKER_08]: Today, he threatened to throw Donald Trump out of the court.
[07:28.710 --> 07:30.730] [SPEAKER_08]: My judge, my judge did this.
[07:30.730 --> 07:32.830] [SPEAKER_08]: I like to think that I was a good influence.
[07:33.050 --> 07:41.730] [SPEAKER_08]: You know, I like to think that there was something about the way I conducted myself that gave this guy the courage to stand up to one of the biggest bullies that we've ever known.
[07:42.110 --> 07:45.650] [SPEAKER_08]: Now, he said, and there's news accounts of this everywhere.
[07:46.310 --> 07:48.310] [SPEAKER_08]: Lewis Kaplan is the judge.
[07:48.450 --> 07:50.830] [SPEAKER_08]: He said, Mr. Trump has a right to be present here.
[07:51.250 --> 07:52.690] [SPEAKER_08]: That right can be forfeited.
[07:52.690 --> 07:59.830] [SPEAKER_08]: And it can be forfeited if he is disruptive, which is what has been reported to me, and if he disregards court orders.
[08:00.990 --> 08:04.950] [SPEAKER_08]: So during this particular trial, you know, I'm not even sure which one this is.
[08:05.030 --> 08:05.770] [SPEAKER_08]: There are so many of them.
[08:05.770 --> 08:11.870] [SPEAKER_08]: But it's, I think it's the sexual harassment and abuse trial.
[08:12.470 --> 08:13.090] [SPEAKER_08]: One of those.
[08:13.230 --> 08:13.970] [SPEAKER_08]: There's several of those two.
[08:14.110 --> 08:14.510] [SPEAKER_08]: I don't know.
[08:14.990 --> 08:15.230] [SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[08:15.410 --> 08:16.870] [SPEAKER_08]: You need a chart to keep track of all this.
[08:17.370 --> 08:26.730] [SPEAKER_08]: But basically, after an initial warning, Trump could still be heard making remarks to his lawyers, including, it's a witch hunt.
[08:26.870 --> 08:27.810] [SPEAKER_08]: And it really is a con job.
[08:27.810 --> 08:34.610] [SPEAKER_08]: This is while his victim is testifying that, basically, accusing him of sexual abuse.
[08:34.810 --> 08:36.590] [SPEAKER_08]: He's already been found liable for this.
[08:37.350 --> 08:42.250] [SPEAKER_08]: The judge, Judge Kaplan, then said, Mr. Trump, I hope I don't have to consider excluding you from the trial.
[08:42.990 --> 08:46.530] [SPEAKER_08]: I understand you're probably eager for me to do that.
[08:47.070 --> 08:49.010] [SPEAKER_08]: And Trump said, I would love it.
[08:49.090 --> 08:49.770] [SPEAKER_08]: He shot back.
[08:49.910 --> 08:50.550] [SPEAKER_08]: I would love it.
[08:51.390 --> 08:54.130] [SPEAKER_08]: And Judge Kaplan said, I know you would like it.
[08:54.190 --> 08:56.930] [SPEAKER_08]: You just can't control yourself in this circumstance, apparently.
[08:58.290 --> 08:59.870] [SPEAKER_08]: And apparently, that's where it stopped.
[09:00.390 --> 09:01.650] [SPEAKER_08]: You know, he didn't throw him out.
[09:01.830 --> 09:03.930] [SPEAKER_08]: But he got right up to the edge of the cliff.
[09:04.930 --> 09:07.050] [SPEAKER_08]: Just didn't do that final push.
[09:07.210 --> 09:11.210] [SPEAKER_08]: And I'm hoping, I'm hoping, Judge Kaplan, look, I know we've had our disagreements in the past.
[09:11.450 --> 09:11.930] [SPEAKER_08]: All right?
[09:12.070 --> 09:14.150] [SPEAKER_08]: You basically ruled against me.
[09:15.050 --> 09:17.010] [SPEAKER_08]: I was upset at the time, but I've gotten over it.
[09:17.110 --> 09:19.570] [SPEAKER_08]: It's been 25 years, 24 years.
[09:20.770 --> 09:29.770] [SPEAKER_08]: But now, I'm hoping that you can find it within yourself to kick that guy out of your courtroom tomorrow, if he's there, or whenever he misbehaves next.
[09:31.230 --> 09:31.890] [SPEAKER_08]: Go ahead, Alex.
[09:31.890 --> 09:41.870] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I will tell you this, E, and if I recall from the DeCSS trial, because I was there for quite a bit of it.
[09:42.090 --> 09:43.890] [SPEAKER_04]: And it was, in fact, it was before I was a lawyer.
[09:44.090 --> 09:45.850] [SPEAKER_04]: It was a couple of years before I became a lawyer.
[09:45.910 --> 09:48.410] [SPEAKER_04]: But it was one of the things that was actually quite inspiring to me.
[09:49.810 --> 09:55.310] [SPEAKER_04]: And one of the things that I think was really like an exhortation for me to become a lawyer.
[09:55.490 --> 09:57.110] [SPEAKER_04]: So it was part of my...
[09:57.110 --> 09:59.290] [SPEAKER_04]: Those were some of my very formative years.
[09:59.970 --> 10:09.890] [SPEAKER_04]: But I remember you playing some silly games with Judge Kaplan yourself, as a matter of fact, when he had ruled that an injunction was to be put in place.
[10:09.890 --> 10:20.470] [SPEAKER_04]: If I recall correctly, you were enjoined from posting a link on the 2600 web page that would link to the source code for DeCSS.
[10:20.810 --> 10:26.950] [SPEAKER_04]: And for listeners that don't recall from 24 years ago, DeCSS stands for D, Content Scrambling System.
[10:27.050 --> 10:34.550] [SPEAKER_04]: The Content Scrambling System was the encryption system that was used on DVDs, which were essentially a monument to stupidity.
[10:34.630 --> 10:38.970] [SPEAKER_04]: And it was a teenager, I believe, from Norway who came up with this code from DeCSS.
[10:38.970 --> 10:48.570] [SPEAKER_04]: So Judge Kaplan said, if I recall correctly, and I might be recalling incorrectly, or slightly incorrectly, that you weren't allowed to post a link on 2600.com.
[10:48.750 --> 10:49.630] [SPEAKER_08]: It wasn't just a link.
[10:49.810 --> 10:51.090] [SPEAKER_08]: It was many links.
[10:51.230 --> 10:54.470] [SPEAKER_08]: It was links to where DeCSS was hosted all over the world.
[10:54.670 --> 10:56.810] [SPEAKER_08]: And yes, we had sort of a directory there.
[10:57.410 --> 10:58.210] [SPEAKER_04]: Right, that's right.
[10:58.310 --> 11:00.110] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so you weren't allowed to do that.
[11:00.210 --> 11:03.490] [SPEAKER_04]: So he enjoined you from posting this so people couldn't access the source code.
[11:03.650 --> 11:06.690] [SPEAKER_04]: So what you did was you just removed the hyperlink.
[11:06.990 --> 11:08.810] [SPEAKER_08]: Excuse me, if I may, I complied.
[11:08.970 --> 11:10.070] [SPEAKER_08]: I complied.
[11:10.190 --> 11:11.830] [SPEAKER_08]: That's the first thing you need to say, Alex.
[11:11.990 --> 11:14.670] [SPEAKER_08]: I complied with the judges or Judge Kaplan's orders.
[11:15.090 --> 11:16.750] [SPEAKER_08]: Unlike Trump, I complied.
[11:17.030 --> 11:17.570] [SPEAKER_04]: All right?
[11:17.690 --> 11:17.790] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[11:18.270 --> 11:20.390] [SPEAKER_04]: As minimally as you possibly could.
[11:20.550 --> 11:24.210] [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, that was definitely coming close to the line there, I got to say.
[11:24.350 --> 11:25.290] [SPEAKER_08]: What did I do?
[11:25.450 --> 11:27.570] [SPEAKER_08]: I mean, yeah, I didn't have links up.
[11:27.630 --> 11:30.030] [SPEAKER_08]: I was told not to have links on the website.
[11:30.570 --> 11:38.430] [SPEAKER_04]: So everybody could see the link, see what the link was, Ctrl-C, and then Ctrl-V it into their browser bar, and then access the same materials.
[11:38.610 --> 11:42.030] [SPEAKER_08]: I can't control what people do on their computers, all right?
[11:42.090 --> 11:45.330] [SPEAKER_08]: Now, the judge told me not to put links up, all right?
[11:45.390 --> 11:46.730] [SPEAKER_08]: And I took the links down.
[11:47.230 --> 11:51.410] [SPEAKER_08]: Then we put up a list of website addresses.
[11:51.410 --> 11:53.070] [SPEAKER_08]: And that seemed...
[11:53.070 --> 11:54.350] [SPEAKER_08]: Nobody told me to take that down.
[11:54.870 --> 11:55.150] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[11:55.430 --> 11:58.130] [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, this was a lot of fun.
[11:58.270 --> 11:58.610] [SPEAKER_04]: It was.
[11:58.790 --> 11:59.870] [SPEAKER_04]: It was so much fun.
[12:00.250 --> 12:02.850] [SPEAKER_08]: Being sued, you know, you got to try it.
[12:02.910 --> 12:03.770] [SPEAKER_08]: You got to try it a few times.
[12:04.330 --> 12:05.190] [SPEAKER_08]: It's something else.
[12:05.370 --> 12:08.830] [SPEAKER_08]: And that was the year we were getting sued by everybody, you know?
[12:09.050 --> 12:17.230] [SPEAKER_08]: All the motion picture companies, the NFL for some reason got involved, and then Ford decided to sue us on top of everything else.
[12:17.330 --> 12:18.210] [SPEAKER_08]: So it's just...
[12:18.210 --> 12:18.670] [SPEAKER_08]: It was crazy.
[12:18.770 --> 12:19.550] [SPEAKER_08]: We won that one, though.
[12:19.610 --> 12:20.130] [SPEAKER_08]: We won that one.
[12:20.130 --> 12:24.110] [SPEAKER_08]: But, again, Judge Kaplan, good to hear he's still...
[12:24.110 --> 12:24.610] [SPEAKER_08]: He's still...
[12:24.610 --> 12:25.650] [SPEAKER_08]: I can't believe he was...
[12:25.650 --> 12:29.270] [SPEAKER_08]: He was old back then, in 2000, yet he's still on the bench.
[12:29.450 --> 12:31.010] [SPEAKER_08]: And I mean this with all due respect.
[12:31.870 --> 12:34.750] [SPEAKER_08]: He seems to be as capable as ever.
[12:34.950 --> 12:36.510] [SPEAKER_08]: And hopefully this time he'll get it right.
[12:37.610 --> 12:38.630] [SPEAKER_04]: I think so.
[12:38.750 --> 12:40.050] [SPEAKER_04]: Look, I think he's a great judge.
[12:40.210 --> 12:40.610] [SPEAKER_04]: He's tough.
[12:40.730 --> 12:41.410] [SPEAKER_04]: He's no nonsense.
[12:41.610 --> 12:44.770] [SPEAKER_04]: And also he's kind of fun to be in front of as a lawyer.
[12:45.070 --> 12:49.530] [SPEAKER_04]: And also with respect to the DMCA, that's still very, very much in the news.
[12:49.530 --> 12:50.950] [SPEAKER_04]: And in the courts.
[12:51.230 --> 13:00.330] [SPEAKER_04]: And in fact, I'm involved in a DMCA case right now that involves Altice and Sony and BMG.
[13:00.810 --> 13:03.970] [SPEAKER_04]: And it's just nonstop fun.
[13:04.070 --> 13:08.270] [SPEAKER_04]: 24 years later, here we are, still litigating in federal court over the DMCA.
[13:08.270 --> 13:09.790] [SPEAKER_08]: That is something.
[13:10.010 --> 13:11.130] [SPEAKER_08]: That is incredible.
[13:12.490 --> 13:15.710] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, any other news from the world of technology?
[13:15.890 --> 13:17.290] [SPEAKER_08]: Anything interesting happening?
[13:17.890 --> 13:18.530] [SPEAKER_08]: Changes?
[13:18.870 --> 13:19.370] [SPEAKER_08]: Developments?
[13:20.410 --> 13:21.530] [SPEAKER_08]: Things falling apart?
[13:21.670 --> 13:21.750] [SPEAKER_08]: No?
[13:22.910 --> 13:24.270] [SPEAKER_08]: Just a lot of blank stares.
[13:25.130 --> 13:25.310] [SPEAKER_08]: No.
[13:26.550 --> 13:27.450] [SPEAKER_07]: Go ahead, Rob.
[13:27.450 --> 13:40.190] [SPEAKER_07]: There was a fun story about OpenAI kind of quietly deleting some wording in its terms of use.
[13:41.350 --> 13:56.970] [SPEAKER_07]: The wording that it deleted referred to a ban on activity that has a high risk of physical harm, including specifically weapons development and military and warfare.
[13:57.250 --> 13:59.450] [SPEAKER_07]: That language is no longer in their TOS.
[13:59.770 --> 14:06.170] [SPEAKER_07]: And people have noticed that and wondered just what military applications are in the works for things like OpenAI.
[14:06.170 --> 14:13.650] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I heard that story, and that was pretty disturbing that suddenly that was just left out.
[14:14.690 --> 14:30.510] [SPEAKER_07]: I just keep thinking of how bad OpenAI, ChatGPT, things like that are at, like, stating simple facts, giving good advice, and now they're going to be instructed to, I don't know, bomb certain people and not bomb others.
[14:32.070 --> 14:40.330] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, you know, I got to say, we should be worried about artificial intelligence and these quote-unquote advances.
[14:40.330 --> 14:59.750] [SPEAKER_08]: It just seems like every time they try to do something, whether it be robotic checkouts at supermarkets or, you know, Tesla's driving around in sub-zero temperatures, something really bad happens, and it doesn't work out.
[14:59.830 --> 15:03.150] [SPEAKER_08]: And they have to go back to the old way of doing things because they just didn't think it through.
[15:03.590 --> 15:05.490] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I'm not saying there isn't a danger here.
[15:05.550 --> 15:05.910] [SPEAKER_08]: There is.
[15:06.910 --> 15:09.610] [SPEAKER_08]: But we're going to have a lot of fun with the mistakes that they make.
[15:09.610 --> 15:15.310] [SPEAKER_08]: Now, in this particular case, artificial intelligence being involved in military, that could be a really bad mistake.
[15:15.490 --> 15:16.770] [SPEAKER_08]: So we have to be vigilant.
[15:16.950 --> 15:19.050] [SPEAKER_08]: We have to keep our eyes open on that one.
[15:19.210 --> 15:19.790] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, Alex, go ahead.
[15:22.030 --> 15:25.290] [SPEAKER_04]: Another thing that I think is worth mentioning is the...
[15:25.870 --> 15:42.830] [SPEAKER_04]: because there's irony, I think, abounds in this particular story, was the story about the Twitter account or X account, whatever the hell you want to call it, of the SEC being compromised last week and then used to announce the approval of a Bitcoin ETF or exchange-traded fund,
[15:42.930 --> 15:47.210] [SPEAKER_04]: which would be essentially a way for you to invest in cryptocurrencies with actually having to...
[15:47.210 --> 15:54.250] [SPEAKER_04]: well, by investing in a fund and not investing directly in the currency itself, like through Byman or some other exchange or something like that.
[15:54.250 --> 16:00.790] [SPEAKER_04]: So it was particularly funny because the SEC account was actually compromised.
[16:00.790 --> 16:06.450] [SPEAKER_04]: It was an unauthorized post that came from the SEC announcing the approval of an ETF.
[16:06.970 --> 16:17.030] [SPEAKER_04]: Yet at the same time, you know, this is the SEC that has taken such a very active role in policing companies' cybersecurity disclosures.
[16:17.030 --> 16:27.290] [SPEAKER_04]: And in fact, this is the SEC that has recently sued SolarWinds, the company that was breached by the Russians, what was, I guess it was about two years ago.
[16:28.590 --> 16:39.370] [SPEAKER_04]: Their software, Orion, which is used to manage massive amounts of IT system, was compromised and used as the basis of a supply chain attack that affected thousands of companies worldwide.
[16:39.710 --> 16:44.810] [SPEAKER_04]: And the SEC recently brought suit against them and their CISO for misrepresentations about cybersecurity.
[16:45.270 --> 16:52.850] [SPEAKER_04]: And there they are, a couple of weeks later, getting compromised on Twitter, making false announcements to the world that are actually market-moving.
[16:53.190 --> 17:09.670] [SPEAKER_04]: And I think this is, you know, such a great example of why, and I know I keep banging on about this both here on the radio and within the magazine, but why social media is just an inappropriate forum for official governmental announcements.
[17:09.670 --> 17:14.330] [SPEAKER_04]: We shouldn't be looking to X or Twitter for official SEC announcements.
[17:14.530 --> 17:16.010] [SPEAKER_08]: Alex, I have to step in, please.
[17:16.330 --> 17:17.430] [SPEAKER_08]: Don't say X.
[17:17.670 --> 17:18.530] [SPEAKER_08]: Don't say X.
[17:18.950 --> 17:19.530] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I know.
[17:19.530 --> 17:20.690] [SPEAKER_08]: Use the right name.
[17:21.110 --> 17:21.650] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, Twitter.
[17:21.850 --> 17:22.230] [SPEAKER_04]: It's Twitter.
[17:22.590 --> 17:23.130] [SPEAKER_08]: It's Twitter.
[17:23.370 --> 17:23.870] [SPEAKER_04]: It's Twitter.
[17:23.870 --> 17:24.650] [SPEAKER_04]: It is still Twitter.
[17:24.870 --> 17:28.590] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, it's not still Twitter, but that's what we're going to call it until it's dying day.
[17:29.310 --> 17:29.530] [SPEAKER_04]: Sure.
[17:29.870 --> 17:30.110] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[17:30.370 --> 17:35.750] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, why Twitter or Facebook or any of these are just so inappropriate for official communications.
[17:35.750 --> 17:52.110] [SPEAKER_04]: When you cannot guarantee the security of your accounts, and especially when many of these accounts are managed through third-party service providers who have some kind of API access or persistent session access to these accounts, there are so many different ways that they can be compromised.
[17:52.250 --> 17:56.070] [SPEAKER_04]: And I just think this shows they are inherently untrustworthy.
[17:56.970 --> 17:57.490] [SPEAKER_08]: Okay.
[17:57.810 --> 18:03.010] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, let's leave that there because I want to bring in our special guest who is Micah Lee.
[18:03.250 --> 18:16.790] [SPEAKER_08]: He is Director of Information Security over at The Intercept, a security engineer, open-source software developer who writes about technical topics and leaked data sets and the far right, frequent HOPE contributor as well.
[18:16.950 --> 18:26.030] [SPEAKER_08]: And he has just put out a book, which is going to be fascinating to many of our listeners, I believe, called Hacks, Leaks, and Revelations.
[18:26.150 --> 18:27.130] [SPEAKER_08]: Micah, welcome to the show.
[18:28.190 --> 18:28.750] [SPEAKER_06]: Hello.
[18:29.330 --> 18:30.590] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm excited to be here.
[18:30.950 --> 18:35.430] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, I want to read a little bit from the intro here before we dive in.
[18:35.950 --> 18:46.170] [SPEAKER_08]: Unlike any other point in history, hackers, whistleblowers, and archivists now routinely make off with terabytes of data from governments, corporations, and extremist groups.
[18:46.430 --> 18:54.090] [SPEAKER_08]: These data sets often contain gold mines and revelations in the public interest, and in many cases, are freely available for anyone to download.
[18:54.410 --> 19:01.550] [SPEAKER_08]: Yet, these digital tomes can prove extremely difficult to analyze or interpret, and few people today have the skills to do so.
[19:01.850 --> 19:07.290] [SPEAKER_08]: Now, this book, entitled Hacks, Leaks, and Revelations, just came out on NoStarch.
[19:07.510 --> 19:10.150] [SPEAKER_08]: It's available throughout wherever you get books.
[19:11.750 --> 19:23.310] [SPEAKER_08]: And Micah says he wrote it for journalists, researchers, hacktivists, and anyone else who wants to learn the technologies and coding skills required to investigate these troves of hacked or leaked data.
[19:23.470 --> 19:24.430] [SPEAKER_08]: So this is not only a book.
[19:24.530 --> 19:27.750] [SPEAKER_08]: This is an incredible tool from what I'm hearing.
[19:27.850 --> 19:30.390] [SPEAKER_08]: First of all, Micah, congratulations on getting this done.
[19:31.390 --> 19:31.850] [SPEAKER_06]: Thank you.
[19:32.170 --> 19:34.170] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it's my first time writing a book.
[19:34.250 --> 19:35.550] [SPEAKER_06]: It turns out it's a lot of work.
[19:35.810 --> 19:46.710] [SPEAKER_08]: Now, can you give us a specific or even a theoretical example of leaked data being made available to people who don't have the necessary skills to process it?
[19:46.730 --> 19:49.130] [SPEAKER_08]: What kind of vital details might they miss?
[19:51.370 --> 20:00.050] [SPEAKER_06]: I'll use a big example that I use throughout the book, which is the BlueLeaks data set, which was basically...
[20:01.050 --> 20:05.910] [SPEAKER_06]: It was dumped on the Internet in 2020 in the middle of the Black Lives Matter uprising.
[20:07.230 --> 20:09.290] [SPEAKER_06]: Anonymous took credit for hacking.
[20:10.010 --> 20:12.690] [SPEAKER_06]: Hundreds of different police websites.
[20:13.030 --> 20:14.950] [SPEAKER_06]: Most of them were fusion centers.
[20:15.310 --> 20:19.970] [SPEAKER_06]: And they all basically had the same kind of shoddy web application.
[20:20.250 --> 20:22.430] [SPEAKER_06]: And they were all hosted in the same place and stuff.
[20:22.530 --> 20:23.430] [SPEAKER_06]: So they hacked them all.
[20:23.530 --> 20:25.290] [SPEAKER_06]: And it was 270 gigabytes of data.
[20:27.310 --> 20:31.170] [SPEAKER_06]: And yeah, this data basically includes a whole lot of stuff.
[20:31.370 --> 20:39.810] [SPEAKER_06]: But a lot of it that I was interested in was a lot of police misconduct around spying on the Black Lives Matter activists.
[20:40.370 --> 20:49.490] [SPEAKER_06]: And also around fusion centers and how they work and how they, you know, sometimes even spread disinformation to local cops and things like that.
[20:50.830 --> 20:51.350] [SPEAKER_08]: Wow.
[20:51.470 --> 20:51.630] [SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[20:51.730 --> 20:53.470] [SPEAKER_08]: Now, we heard about BlueLeaks.
[20:53.470 --> 20:56.590] [SPEAKER_08]: And that's prominently featured in your book.
[20:57.950 --> 21:02.790] [SPEAKER_08]: And most of BlueLeaks, your claim has not even been reported on yet.
[21:02.950 --> 21:07.350] [SPEAKER_08]: It's all this 270 gigs of data and it hasn't even been processed.
[21:07.850 --> 21:08.390] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[21:08.690 --> 21:22.610] [SPEAKER_06]: So when that was happening, I spent a whole lot of time looking in one little corner of BlueLeaks, the NICREC folder, which is the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, which is my local fusion center.
[21:22.630 --> 21:24.690] [SPEAKER_06]: So I spent a lot of time looking at that.
[21:25.230 --> 21:29.210] [SPEAKER_06]: A few people in like Austin, Texas, looked at the Austin Fusion Center.
[21:29.210 --> 21:31.970] [SPEAKER_06]: A few people in Maine looked at the fusion center.
[21:32.130 --> 21:33.990] [SPEAKER_06]: But there's just so much more than that.
[21:34.630 --> 21:36.690] [SPEAKER_06]: It's all across the United States.
[21:36.870 --> 21:41.450] [SPEAKER_06]: And for the most part, most of it hasn't even been reported on, which is interesting.
[21:41.550 --> 21:55.950] [SPEAKER_06]: And actually, like, I noticed that in the last few weeks, there's actually been a few new stories coming out of BlueLeaks, even though this was from 2020, including like the Guardian in December posted a story that was like U.S.
[21:56.070 --> 21:58.690] [SPEAKER_06]: police agencies took intelligence directly from IDF.
[21:58.690 --> 22:00.130] [SPEAKER_06]: Leaks Files show.
[22:00.450 --> 22:00.470] [SPEAKER_06]: Wow.
[22:00.650 --> 22:08.970] [SPEAKER_06]: And it was, yeah, so I guess training materials about Muslim extremists were taken from, you know, IDF and pro-azil groups.
[22:09.210 --> 22:11.890] [SPEAKER_06]: And so that's, so yeah, there's still stuff in there.
[22:12.910 --> 22:17.610] [SPEAKER_06]: And I'm hoping that more people will look into their local police.
[22:18.090 --> 22:24.770] [SPEAKER_08]: Now, you, if I'm not mistaken, got your start working with this kind of thing with the Snowden Archive.
[22:24.870 --> 22:25.210] [SPEAKER_08]: Is that correct?
[22:26.130 --> 22:27.070] [SPEAKER_06]: Yes, it is.
[22:27.170 --> 22:34.670] [SPEAKER_06]: The Snowden Archive was, the first data set that I started working with and also kind of how I accidentally fell into journalism.
[22:35.770 --> 22:41.270] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, while Snowden was leaking documents, I actually was working at EFF.
[22:41.730 --> 22:43.350] [SPEAKER_06]: I was a staff technologist.
[22:43.730 --> 22:53.290] [SPEAKER_06]: And I got an anonymous email from just, you know, someone I had no idea who it was, and it was encrypted to my PGT key.
[22:53.290 --> 22:59.510] [SPEAKER_06]: And it was like, like, hey, can you please help me teach some journalists how to use encryption?
[23:01.210 --> 23:02.250] [SPEAKER_06]: And I was like, okay.
[23:02.550 --> 23:05.170] [SPEAKER_06]: And so I ended up teaching some journalists how to use encryption.
[23:05.170 --> 23:15.030] [SPEAKER_06]: And it turned out that I was talking to Edward Snowden, and I ended up kind of doing a lot of the, like, communication and security work for the Snowden link.
[23:15.030 --> 23:29.890] [SPEAKER_06]: And so after The Intercept was founded, like, Laura Poitras was, like, contacting me and being like, would you like to come work with us and do, you know, this security for journalists full-time?
[23:30.410 --> 23:36.310] [SPEAKER_06]: And then I started, you know, after I started working at The Intercept, I also kind of did a bunch of journalism myself.
[23:36.570 --> 23:39.170] [SPEAKER_06]: I didn't really, I was never trained in it.
[23:39.230 --> 23:44.130] [SPEAKER_06]: I didn't really expect it to happen, but it's very interesting, and I like it.
[23:44.310 --> 23:47.150] [SPEAKER_08]: So you weren't a journalism major or anything like that?
[23:47.850 --> 23:48.750] [SPEAKER_06]: No, no, no.
[23:48.790 --> 23:50.290] [SPEAKER_06]: I was actually a college dropout.
[23:50.550 --> 23:50.930] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay.
[23:51.190 --> 23:52.150] [SPEAKER_06]: Good for you, then.
[23:52.890 --> 23:53.530] [SPEAKER_06]: Thank you.
[23:54.110 --> 24:03.730] [SPEAKER_08]: I mean, it probably inspires a lot of listeners that, yes, you can become a renowned journalist and investigator just by having the passion to follow this.
[24:03.770 --> 24:11.790] [SPEAKER_08]: But let me just ask you, since working on the Snowden Archive, how would you say your skills have improved and being able to process that kind of material?
[24:13.890 --> 24:18.190] [SPEAKER_06]: So, like, starting working on the Snowden Archive, I was really into hacking.
[24:18.210 --> 24:23.070] [SPEAKER_06]: I was really into, like, going to HOPE and going to DEFCON and things like that.
[24:23.090 --> 24:25.870] [SPEAKER_06]: And I worked as a web developer.
[24:25.870 --> 24:28.430] [SPEAKER_06]: I did a lot of, like, PHP, MySQL stuff.
[24:29.190 --> 24:33.910] [SPEAKER_06]: And I was really interested in this stuff, but I had never actually, I didn't really have a background in, like, data science.
[24:33.930 --> 24:37.450] [SPEAKER_06]: I never actually, like, worked with big sets of data.
[24:37.450 --> 24:49.470] [SPEAKER_06]: And so I sort of kind of taught myself a lot with the Snowden Archive, which is a very difficult way to teach yourself because, you know, you have to do it on air-gapped computers and you have all sorts of restrictions and all sorts of stuff.
[24:50.010 --> 24:51.730] [SPEAKER_06]: It was an intense time.
[24:51.950 --> 24:56.330] [SPEAKER_06]: But since then, I've spent, like, the last 10 years doing this.
[24:56.330 --> 25:01.690] [SPEAKER_06]: And there's just so many data sets that keep coming out that are, like, you know, in lots of different formats.
[25:01.870 --> 25:03.390] [SPEAKER_06]: Sometimes you have big jumps of emails.
[25:03.650 --> 25:06.070] [SPEAKER_06]: Sometimes you have, like, a SQL database.
[25:06.590 --> 25:15.110] [SPEAKER_06]: Sometimes you have, I don't know, like, a scrape of thousands or millions of JSON files or whatever or collections of Office documents.
[25:15.270 --> 25:18.350] [SPEAKER_06]: And so basically, like, I've learned how to look through all of these.
[25:18.910 --> 25:25.990] [SPEAKER_06]: And, you know, in this book, I'm trying to go through all these different types of data sets and show you how to deal with them.
[25:26.590 --> 25:28.010] [SPEAKER_08]: Alex, I believe you had a question.
[25:29.330 --> 25:29.770] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[25:30.430 --> 25:35.270] [SPEAKER_04]: Mike, I just want to say, I think it's fantastic that you're self-taught in so many respects.
[25:35.650 --> 25:47.610] [SPEAKER_04]: And I want to go back to one of the things that you mentioned, which was that Snowden had contacted you asking if you could teach others to use PGP and encryption, which I think is hilarious.
[25:47.890 --> 25:55.850] [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, knowing what we know now, I think people forget that Glenn Greenwald had no idea how to use encryption back then.
[25:56.030 --> 26:05.530] [SPEAKER_04]: And then I think it was very ironic that he became such a pro-privacy advocate and was so internationally known for being pro-privacy.
[26:05.690 --> 26:12.150] [SPEAKER_04]: But at the time, Snowden actually had to pass him over and it seems like go to you so he could...
[26:12.150 --> 26:16.790] [SPEAKER_04]: And you and Laura, presumably, could go and help him understand how to use encryption.
[26:16.970 --> 26:19.310] [SPEAKER_04]: I think that's really funny.
[26:20.050 --> 26:21.430] [SPEAKER_04]: That's exactly what happened.
[26:22.310 --> 26:25.330] [SPEAKER_06]: And I spent, like, a few weeks trying to...
[26:25.930 --> 26:30.090] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, Glenn was living in Brazil and I was living in Berkeley.
[26:30.370 --> 26:42.150] [SPEAKER_06]: So just, like, trying to, as much as I could, you know, over not-encrypted channels because he wasn't really using encryption yet, teach him how to use encryption and teach him how to use PGP.
[26:42.530 --> 26:43.530] [SPEAKER_06]: It was very...
[26:43.530 --> 26:44.390] [SPEAKER_06]: It was difficult.
[26:44.530 --> 26:47.130] [SPEAKER_06]: But PGP is, like, notoriously, like, pulling teeth.
[26:47.290 --> 26:49.150] [SPEAKER_06]: It's a very hard technology to use.
[26:49.770 --> 26:55.690] [SPEAKER_06]: Ultimately, we ended up actually getting Pigeon and OTR encryption working, like, with over-Jabber.
[26:56.010 --> 26:58.630] [SPEAKER_06]: And that turned out to be much simpler.
[26:59.630 --> 27:01.170] [SPEAKER_06]: But, like, I don't know.
[27:01.310 --> 27:03.330] [SPEAKER_06]: Today, those problems have been solved.
[27:03.490 --> 27:03.810] [SPEAKER_06]: It's great.
[27:03.990 --> 27:07.850] [SPEAKER_06]: You could just use Signal and you have end-to-end encryption and it's easy.
[27:08.750 --> 27:12.890] [SPEAKER_06]: Security is much, much, much better today than it was in 2013.
[27:12.890 --> 27:16.430] [SPEAKER_06]: And I think a big part of that is thanks to the Snowden link.
[27:17.650 --> 27:18.950] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, no doubt.
[27:19.190 --> 27:26.270] [SPEAKER_04]: And one of the other things I wanted to ask you about in terms of working with these data sets, you mentioned the BlueLeaks data set.
[27:26.450 --> 27:30.630] [SPEAKER_04]: I think, if I recall correctly, that came from Distributed Denial of Secrets, right?
[27:30.750 --> 27:33.130] [SPEAKER_04]: Is that where that was originally distributed?
[27:33.890 --> 27:35.030] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah, it was.
[27:36.150 --> 27:41.930] [SPEAKER_06]: The group that claimed responsibility was anonymous and they leaked it to Distributed Denial of Secrets.
[27:42.070 --> 27:42.290] [SPEAKER_06]: And so,
[27:51.730 --> 27:53.190] [SPEAKER_06]: I work closely data sets as examples.
[27:53.450 --> 27:58.770] [SPEAKER_06]: And so, all of the data sets that you download as you're following along all come from DDoS Secrets.
[27:59.350 --> 28:02.090] [SPEAKER_06]: And they're all public and available for everyone to download.
[28:02.670 --> 28:06.390] [SPEAKER_06]: But yeah, BlueLeaks is the big one that's from DDoS Secrets.
[28:07.310 --> 28:09.330] [SPEAKER_04]: That's fantastic to know.
[28:09.550 --> 28:15.870] [SPEAKER_04]: We've had Distributed Denial of Secrets, DDoS Secrets, on here a couple of times over the last few years.
[28:15.950 --> 28:17.230] [SPEAKER_04]: And they've always been fantastic.
[28:17.410 --> 28:19.690] [SPEAKER_04]: They do such great fearless work.
[28:19.690 --> 28:32.670] [SPEAKER_04]: One of the issues that came up, and I guess, God, this had to be about a year and a half, two years ago, was that in the immediate wake of the Russian aggression in Ukraine, the Russia v.
[28:32.730 --> 28:42.750] [SPEAKER_04]: Ukraine war starting, I don't know if you recall, there were these massive data leaks from Russian enterprises, from companies, from government institutions all around the world.
[28:42.930 --> 28:45.430] [SPEAKER_04]: And DDoS Secrets was putting them out there.
[28:45.530 --> 28:50.550] [SPEAKER_04]: But the problem that they had was that there just weren't enough Russian speakers.
[28:50.950 --> 28:56.970] [SPEAKER_04]: And with all these documents being in a foreign language, all of them being in Cyrillic, it became really difficult to separate the signal from the noise.
[28:57.270 --> 29:00.230] [SPEAKER_04]: Is this still a big problem, do you think, Micah?
[29:01.150 --> 29:02.910] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, this is definitely still a big problem.
[29:03.050 --> 29:03.930] [SPEAKER_06]: And I remember that a lot.
[29:03.990 --> 29:11.830] [SPEAKER_06]: I actually, I wrote all about the, like, dozens and dozens of huge data sets that DDoS Secrets was publishing at the time.
[29:11.970 --> 29:16.450] [SPEAKER_06]: And I worked on this big international collaboration, like,
[29:19.550 --> 29:34.010] [SPEAKER_06]: in fact, actually, one of them is VGCRK, which is a massive, like, state-owned TV station or a company full of TV stations across Russia.
[29:35.150 --> 29:46.570] [SPEAKER_06]: And in the example of email, of, like, reading email dumps, reading other people's email in my book, there's a, I had searched for the Cyrillic transliteration of Tucker Carlson.
[29:46.810 --> 29:58.550] [SPEAKER_06]: And I showed, like, a screenshot of, like, a Tucker Carlson segment that's being played on Russian TV where he's, I forget exactly, but basically saying Hunter Biden Ukraine conspiracist.
[29:59.290 --> 30:14.870] [SPEAKER_06]: But, but, yeah, like, that's definitely still a problem, especially with the Russia stuff, because there's, like, a lot of, you know, Russian-speaking journalists who are in Russia, but it's really not safe for them to be looking through this data.
[30:15.190 --> 30:20.370] [SPEAKER_06]: And there's, like, a handful of, you know, Russian journalists that are kind of in exile working on it.
[30:20.790 --> 30:27.390] [SPEAKER_06]: And there's a few really good newsrooms that are doing a lot of critical reporting on Putin and on Russia.
[30:28.410 --> 30:32.550] [SPEAKER_06]: But, you know, like, like, the scale of the data is intense.
[30:33.410 --> 30:39.250] [SPEAKER_06]: But also, this isn't just a problem with the, you know, massive amounts of Russian data sets.
[30:39.350 --> 30:52.510] [SPEAKER_06]: It's kind of a problem with all the data sets, because basically, like, every single day, pretty much, there's new big data sets that, you know, probably a lot of them have really interesting newsworthy stuff that the public should know about.
[30:52.950 --> 31:05.170] [SPEAKER_06]: And there's so few people that really know how to, how to even download them, much less, once you get them, how to actually, like, dig into them and figure out what all their revelations are.
[31:06.430 --> 31:19.390] [SPEAKER_06]: And so I feel like I'm kind of drowning in data sets, and there's just, nearby data sets, like, you know, a tiny percentage of them, I, like, go and grab and look at, because I'm normally busy working on other projects and stuff.
[31:19.530 --> 31:25.850] [SPEAKER_06]: So what I'm hoping to do is make a lot more people that have these skills and that can start doing this work.
[31:25.850 --> 31:27.810] [SPEAKER_08]: You're building an army, it sounds like.
[31:28.790 --> 31:29.270] [SPEAKER_06]: Exactly.
[31:29.510 --> 31:30.630] [SPEAKER_08]: Wow, that's awesome.
[31:30.730 --> 31:31.150] [SPEAKER_08]: Go ahead, Alex.
[31:31.970 --> 31:41.870] [SPEAKER_04]: And Mike, what about, speaking of just, you know, the volume of data sets, I mean, the volume and velocity of data that's being leaked or exfiltrated in some way is so extraordinary lately.
[31:42.070 --> 31:46.130] [SPEAKER_04]: And I think a lot of that is born out of things like supply chain attacks.
[31:47.090 --> 31:54.410] [SPEAKER_04]: Have you looked at any of the data or played around with any of the data from the recent breach of the MoveIt file transfer system?
[31:54.410 --> 32:10.150] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if you recall or if our listeners recall, but the MoveIt file transfer system was hacked ostensibly by a Russian group by the name of CLOP, which translates roughly to bedbugs in Russian.
[32:10.430 --> 32:14.430] [SPEAKER_04]: And MoveIt is essentially like an FTP program or file transfer protocol program.
[32:14.630 --> 32:28.690] [SPEAKER_04]: And a lot of companies just left data in this FTP system, which had this universal vulnerability that was automated, that was the exploitation of which was automated by CLOP, and they were able to steal massive amounts of data from hundreds of companies.
[32:29.430 --> 32:36.770] [SPEAKER_04]: And then, Mike, as you probably saw, they posted a lot of this data out on the dark web if companies did not pay them an extortion to take it down.
[32:36.990 --> 32:45.910] [SPEAKER_04]: So there's massive amounts of data from CLOP that's out there right now that relates to a huge chunk of the Fortune 1000 in the U.S.
[32:45.930 --> 32:46.710] [SPEAKER_04]: and around the world.
[32:53.990 --> 32:57.570] [SPEAKER_06]: much somewhat, but I haven't actually looked at any of the data from it.
[32:58.690 --> 33:00.230] [SPEAKER_06]: And that's like an example.
[33:00.370 --> 33:07.630] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm sure that it's full of stuff, especially for massive international conglomerates and big companies.
[33:07.630 --> 33:10.930] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm sure that there's a lot of really interesting stuff in there.
[33:11.070 --> 33:14.710] [SPEAKER_06]: But no, I haven't looked at any of those specific ones.
[33:15.390 --> 33:31.310] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, basically, what I kind of tend to focus on is I follow DDoS secrets really closely, like what they kind of curate, which is, you know, they put out so many data sets so frequently, but it's still just like a tiny slice of what's out there.
[33:31.850 --> 33:41.030] [SPEAKER_06]: So I follow what they curate and then also if people like reach out to me directly to, you know, tell me about something or to just privately send me data or something like that.
[33:42.850 --> 33:44.830] [SPEAKER_06]: But yeah, so I had heard about that.
[33:44.990 --> 33:48.210] [SPEAKER_06]: I followed it in the news, but I didn't actually download any of that data.
[33:49.030 --> 33:49.430] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[33:51.490 --> 33:59.270] [SPEAKER_04]: I'll tell you, and speaking of downloading, it's actually kind of funny what happened with it too, is because they had all the data available on the dark web.
[33:59.390 --> 34:00.030] [SPEAKER_04]: This is CLOP.
[34:00.470 --> 34:09.350] [SPEAKER_04]: So everything was through a .onion site and some of these data sets would be like 300 gigabytes, huge amount of data to download.
[34:09.410 --> 34:10.710] [SPEAKER_06]: It's not going to work over a tour.
[34:11.050 --> 34:11.830] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, it's going to work.
[34:11.830 --> 34:13.050] [SPEAKER_06]: It's just going to take you weeks.
[34:13.050 --> 34:14.290] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, exactly.
[34:14.630 --> 34:38.030] [SPEAKER_04]: And companies themselves whose data were released, I've represented a number of them, and it became impossible to get the data and then to validate that it was in fact their data or even try to figure out what the hell was in it until CLOP got wise to the fact that their download system was horribly broken and they created torrents for these companies' data.
[34:38.210 --> 34:39.810] [SPEAKER_04]: So that was how they solved it.
[34:40.750 --> 34:41.310] [SPEAKER_08]: All right.
[34:41.370 --> 34:41.770] [SPEAKER_08]: Go ahead, Kyle.
[34:41.770 --> 34:42.310] [SPEAKER_08]: you have a question?
[34:43.610 --> 34:43.910] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[34:44.030 --> 34:44.750] [SPEAKER_03]: Hi, Micah.
[34:44.850 --> 34:47.370] [SPEAKER_03]: I was wondering, were there any...
[34:47.370 --> 35:02.030] [SPEAKER_03]: This has a lot of different software tools and things that I had never heard of, and so I really encourage a lot of people that are interested in the steps involved in doing this kind of investigative work.
[35:02.030 --> 35:19.130] [SPEAKER_03]: But my question was, are there any tools that you wish you had or are there things that you don't have or that haven't been created yet and shared that would be useful in this that you haven't yet stumbled upon good solutions for?
[35:20.950 --> 35:22.690] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, I'm sure there's a lot.
[35:22.850 --> 35:32.270] [SPEAKER_06]: There's like what I often end up doing and what like a big part of the book actually is devoted to is writing custom stuff.
[35:32.630 --> 35:48.750] [SPEAKER_06]: So if you have a specific data set that doesn't really fit the existing tools, that's why a big chunk of the book is to teach you Python programming so that you can just start writing your own like very simple scripts but that are able to just like go through stuff.
[35:48.870 --> 35:58.410] [SPEAKER_06]: And I feel like there could be tools that could improve a lot of that work and make it easier for people to do without having to do any programming.
[35:59.590 --> 36:12.150] [SPEAKER_06]: But also you know for everyone who's intimidated by programming it's like there is definitely programming in the book but it's it like holds your hand for the entire thing.
[36:12.330 --> 36:14.010] [SPEAKER_06]: It doesn't expect any prior experience.
[36:14.170 --> 36:40.050] [SPEAKER_06]: So if you're interested in this but you are you know not sure about the programming stuff you could totally do it and you can totally follow along and it teaches you not just how it works but the whole process it's like okay try running your code now you see this output now try and add this thing and run it again and another thing about that is that if you use I mean you were talking about like
[36:40.050 --> 36:56.330] [SPEAKER_06]: ChatGPT earlier you know ChatGPT for evil but ChatGPT could actually be very useful for helping you write code And so I think that if you pair this with ChatGPT, where you don't actually share any data with ChatGPT or OpenAI, you just say, I'm writing a program.
[36:56.330 --> 37:01.290] [SPEAKER_06]: I want to look through all the rows in a spreadsheet and do this.
[37:01.350 --> 37:04.130] [SPEAKER_06]: And it can give you a little bit of example code, but then you could edit.
[37:04.390 --> 37:06.590] [SPEAKER_06]: And I think that that could actually save a lot of time.
[37:07.350 --> 37:14.950] [SPEAKER_06]: And actually, speaking of... you were asking about tools that will be great to exist that don't really exist.
[37:15.690 --> 37:20.930] [SPEAKER_06]: I think that there are potentially some AI things that could be helpful.
[37:21.190 --> 37:26.370] [SPEAKER_06]: But for most of this stuff, I really don't want to trust third parties with the data.
[37:26.630 --> 37:35.310] [SPEAKER_06]: So I don't want to, like, give a copy of my whole data sets to OpenAI or to Microsoft or to Google or whatever.
[37:35.310 --> 37:41.210] [SPEAKER_06]: I think that there's a lot of open-source machine learning and AI things that could happen locally on your computer.
[37:41.510 --> 37:59.130] [SPEAKER_06]: And so the more of that, if there's tools where it's, like, you know, to translation tools and transcription tools to convert, like, audio into text and, you know, summarization and all types of stuff where you can just do this all, like, on your own computer or even on an AirGraph computer.
[37:59.130 --> 37:59.930] [SPEAKER_06]: You don't need the Internet.
[37:59.930 --> 38:00.950] [SPEAKER_06]: You don't need to share the data.
[38:01.310 --> 38:04.910] [SPEAKER_06]: That type of stuff will be really helpful, especially if it's easy to use.
[38:05.310 --> 38:07.570] [SPEAKER_08]: You're listening to Off The Hook on WBAI.
[38:07.730 --> 38:16.890] [SPEAKER_08]: We're talking with Micah Lee, author of the just-released book, Hacks, Leaks, and Revelations, available at NoStoragePress and all kinds of other places where you get books.
[38:17.370 --> 38:18.430] [SPEAKER_08]: Gila, you had a question.
[38:18.670 --> 38:19.370] [SPEAKER_02]: I did.
[38:19.530 --> 38:24.150] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, Micah, it's not even necessarily a question, but I really wanted to thank you.
[38:24.150 --> 38:35.210] [SPEAKER_02]: As a person who is fascinated by data, but definitely intimidated by programming, I was sitting there reading the introduction.
[38:35.630 --> 38:38.430] [SPEAKER_02]: I had the biggest smile on my face.
[38:38.430 --> 38:41.190] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm really excited to read this book.
[38:41.350 --> 38:42.130] [SPEAKER_02]: I had a twitch.
[38:42.350 --> 38:50.190] [SPEAKER_02]: I was reading the intro on my phone, and I'm sorry I didn't have a computer next to me because I wanted to start using the stuff you're talking about in the book.
[38:51.770 --> 39:07.930] [SPEAKER_02]: This is really exciting stuff to be talking about, and the way that you have kind of removed some of the barriers to entry, I'm really, really excited to sit down and do this, not least because of the real-world examples you're using.
[39:07.950 --> 39:17.110] [SPEAKER_02]: These data sets that we've been talking about here on this particular program over the course of the last couple of years are the real-world examples that are being used in the book.
[39:17.110 --> 39:28.830] [SPEAKER_02]: This is, you know, I'm a programming neophyte, I will admit it, but I don't feel like this is something that is impossible or intimidating.
[39:29.310 --> 39:34.630] [SPEAKER_02]: So, thank you so much for opening this all up to someone like me.
[39:35.110 --> 39:38.350] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm really excited to dive in more, Micah, and thank you.
[39:38.350 --> 39:40.370] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, absolutely.
[39:40.370 --> 39:42.150] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm really happy to hear that.
[39:42.870 --> 39:54.610] [SPEAKER_06]: One of the chapters that I had a lot of fun writing that is the data set that I believe you've probably talked about in this show is the Parler data set, which included a lot of videos from January 6th.
[39:54.610 --> 40:14.910] [SPEAKER_06]: But basically, this one, so on January 6th, 2021, when Trump supporters were trying to, you know, subvert democracy and everything, they, you know, stormed the Capitol building, and they all had their phones, and they all took videos of themselves doing it.
[40:14.910 --> 40:18.730] [SPEAKER_06]: And they posted those videos to this right-wing social network called Parler.
[40:19.830 --> 40:24.430] [SPEAKER_06]: And a lot of those videos had metadata with their GPS coordinates in it.
[40:24.630 --> 40:27.970] [SPEAKER_06]: So, there was, like, a whole lot of stuff.
[40:28.190 --> 40:40.390] [SPEAKER_06]: After January 6th, the AWS, which is the Parler's hosting provider, announced that it was going to de-platform them and kick them off the service because they wouldn't moderate content that incited violence.
[40:40.390 --> 40:44.350] [SPEAKER_06]: And then, also, Google and Apple did the same for the Parler app.
[40:44.810 --> 40:53.610] [SPEAKER_06]: And an activist was like, oh, these videos probably contain a lot of important evidence about the January 6th insurrection.
[40:53.990 --> 41:06.330] [SPEAKER_06]: And she basically, like, wrote a script to go through and download over a million videos, which was something like 54 terabytes of data from Parler over, like, the two-day period before they got taken offline.
[41:06.330 --> 41:12.770] [SPEAKER_06]: And so, one of the data sets is the metadata from over a million videos from Parler.
[41:13.030 --> 41:17.790] [SPEAKER_06]: And so, you end up, like, it walks you through writing the code to, like, the very, very simple code.
[41:17.870 --> 41:28.970] [SPEAKER_06]: These are, like, you know, 20-line Python scripts to do stuff like loop through each of the million files and figure out which of these videos were filmed in Washington, D.C.
[41:28.970 --> 41:29.970] [SPEAKER_06]: on January 6th.
[41:29.970 --> 41:38.010] [SPEAKER_06]: And then, like, how to actually, like, plot them on Google Earth so you can go around and be like, oh, here's what happened outside of the Capitol.
[41:38.190 --> 41:39.290] [SPEAKER_06]: Here's inside the Capitol.
[41:39.450 --> 41:40.210] [SPEAKER_06]: Let's watch this video.
[41:40.630 --> 41:46.870] [SPEAKER_06]: So, yeah, you could totally go ahead and do that using the book by following one of the chapters.
[41:46.870 --> 41:52.510] [SPEAKER_06]: And I'm really excited that you are so into the books.
[41:53.470 --> 41:54.910] [SPEAKER_08]: You know, it's amazing.
[41:55.130 --> 42:02.890] [SPEAKER_08]: You give readers the opportunity to actually download genuine leaked data sets and show them how to extract information from them.
[42:03.090 --> 42:10.210] [SPEAKER_08]: You give them an opportunity to work with the Oath Keepers data set, which sounds really scary, but it's also super intriguing.
[42:11.070 --> 42:14.970] [SPEAKER_08]: And I can see this being a really popular project among the readers.
[42:16.230 --> 42:17.630] [SPEAKER_08]: Is there enough to go around?
[42:19.610 --> 42:21.250] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, yeah.
[42:21.450 --> 42:33.850] [SPEAKER_06]: So, I use a bunch of specific data sets that I had, like, you know, like, looked at and worked with in my own journalism over the last few years as examples for this.
[42:34.630 --> 42:40.030] [SPEAKER_06]: And, you know, like, when you read the book and follow along, you'll be using these same data sets.
[42:41.030 --> 42:44.550] [SPEAKER_06]: But the real purpose was just, like, as teaching tools.
[42:44.730 --> 42:49.350] [SPEAKER_06]: The idea is that you should be able to take any data set that you end up getting your hands on.
[42:50.550 --> 42:56.490] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, you go to DDoS Secrets and see what has been, you know, released through them recently.
[42:56.710 --> 43:02.690] [SPEAKER_06]: And then you can go ahead and just download that one that you're interested in and then just use the skills to look through that.
[43:02.690 --> 43:06.490] [SPEAKER_06]: So, yeah, there's definitely enough data sets to go around.
[43:07.730 --> 43:14.750] [SPEAKER_06]: There's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of terabytes of data that are just, you know, out there with a lot of really interesting stuff in them.
[43:14.750 --> 43:15.170] [SPEAKER_08]: Uh-huh.
[43:15.330 --> 43:19.730] [SPEAKER_08]: We've had the folks from Distributed Denial Service on many times...
[43:19.730 --> 43:22.330] [SPEAKER_08]: Secrets, rather, on many times, or a few times, anyway.
[43:22.930 --> 43:29.370] [SPEAKER_08]: Would you consider them a model in how to process and share leaked data sets?
[43:30.410 --> 43:34.850] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I mean, I really like how they work.
[43:34.850 --> 43:41.570] [SPEAKER_06]: And I actually think that it would be great if it wasn't just them, if there was, like, more organizations that did similar things.
[43:42.990 --> 43:46.690] [SPEAKER_06]: And it wasn't, like, just this one group is all we have.
[43:46.830 --> 43:50.170] [SPEAKER_06]: Because things have been kind of, like, tenuous in terms...
[43:50.170 --> 43:55.250] [SPEAKER_06]: It's like a tiny, scrappy collective that, you know, have very few...
[43:55.250 --> 43:58.370] [SPEAKER_06]: They have, like, two paid staff, and they live on a stipend.
[43:58.370 --> 44:01.710] [SPEAKER_06]: And, I don't know, I'm always nervous about the future of it.
[44:01.830 --> 44:06.110] [SPEAKER_06]: And I think that, yeah, go ahead and donate to ZDOT Secrets if you can.
[44:07.610 --> 44:11.090] [SPEAKER_06]: But it would be great if more organizations started doing this type of work.
[44:11.230 --> 44:14.370] [SPEAKER_06]: But, you know, obviously, there's a lot of risks.
[44:14.590 --> 44:18.710] [SPEAKER_06]: People tend to really not like it when you publish their leaked data.
[44:20.450 --> 44:23.870] [SPEAKER_06]: But I really like that they make a lot of data sets public.
[44:24.050 --> 44:27.910] [SPEAKER_06]: But then they also make a lot of data sets what they call limited distribution.
[44:28.370 --> 44:40.450] [SPEAKER_06]: Which means, instead of making them just available for anyone to go online and download, they give them to journalists and to researchers that request access.
[44:40.730 --> 44:43.210] [SPEAKER_06]: And so this is a way that they can protect a lot of privacy.
[44:43.390 --> 44:53.290] [SPEAKER_06]: Because one of the things about data sets is oftentimes you end up with, like, huge databases of people's phone numbers and email addresses and other private information.
[44:53.290 --> 44:59.090] [SPEAKER_06]: And maybe there's some really interesting stuff in there, but also there's a lot of private data in there.
[44:59.230 --> 45:01.550] [SPEAKER_06]: And so what they're able to do is...
[45:01.550 --> 45:03.330] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, actually, a good example is the Oath Keepers.
[45:04.370 --> 45:07.510] [SPEAKER_06]: The Oath Keepers data set, there was actually two parts of it.
[45:07.570 --> 45:09.090] [SPEAKER_06]: There's a public part that anyone can download.
[45:09.130 --> 45:14.950] [SPEAKER_06]: And that's just a dump of all of their email from the Oath Keepers email server, from Oath Keepers.org email addresses.
[45:14.950 --> 45:20.050] [SPEAKER_06]: And then the private part is, like, membership lists and donation lists and things like that.
[45:20.190 --> 45:39.330] [SPEAKER_06]: And so what ended up happening is, like, a lot of newsrooms requested access to the private parts and then spent a lot of time doing, like, real investigative journalism, tracking down all these people who, you know, had at one point, you know, maybe been an Oath Keepers member or a donor or signed a petition for them or something like that,
[45:39.330 --> 45:47.630] [SPEAKER_06]: and figuring out how many of these are, you know, currently active law enforcement, how many of them are politicians in elected office right now and things like that.
[45:47.790 --> 45:55.090] [SPEAKER_06]: But, you know, just because your name is on one of these lists doesn't necessarily mean that it should be public for the whole world.
[45:55.210 --> 45:55.350] [SPEAKER_06]: Right.
[45:55.790 --> 45:59.350] [SPEAKER_06]: Especially if somebody else, you know, like, you never know.
[45:59.450 --> 46:01.430] [SPEAKER_06]: You have to do real work to verify data.
[46:02.710 --> 46:06.710] [SPEAKER_06]: And so I think the whole limited distribution model does a whole lot to solve that.
[46:07.850 --> 46:08.270] [SPEAKER_08]: Interesting.
[46:08.270 --> 46:12.770] [SPEAKER_08]: But, you know, DDoS Secrets is also targeted just for doing this.
[46:12.870 --> 46:14.250] [SPEAKER_08]: You can't even link to them on Twitter.
[46:14.730 --> 46:16.930] [SPEAKER_08]: That's been the case since before Elon Musk.
[46:17.650 --> 46:22.210] [SPEAKER_08]: So they've really had to deal with some degree of hardship.
[46:22.350 --> 46:26.870] [SPEAKER_08]: And I'm sure, as you say, there are people who aren't that thrilled that their data is out there.
[46:27.370 --> 46:33.010] [SPEAKER_08]: But, you know, related to that, how is it so much of this information is getting leaked?
[46:33.130 --> 46:34.550] [SPEAKER_08]: What are these people doing wrong?
[46:34.550 --> 46:40.450] [SPEAKER_08]: It seems almost everybody is having their data sets leaked at one point or another.
[46:41.870 --> 46:47.570] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, I think the crux of the matter is that computer security is hard.
[46:48.050 --> 46:48.930] [SPEAKER_06]: It's really hard.
[46:49.010 --> 46:51.790] [SPEAKER_06]: It's like, it's like, it's really hard to be a defender.
[46:52.070 --> 46:58.690] [SPEAKER_06]: It's much easier in some ways to be an attacker, especially if you, you know, don't really care about leaving tracks.
[47:00.410 --> 47:10.990] [SPEAKER_06]: And so I think that's the big crux of it is, yeah, like, data breaches happen constantly because computer security is really, really hard to get done.
[47:11.150 --> 47:18.310] [SPEAKER_06]: But also there's a lot of, a lot of the data sets are not necessarily even like a data breach exactly.
[47:18.310 --> 47:23.250] [SPEAKER_06]: Like the Parler one I was talking about, this was actually just public data on the Internet that was scraped.
[47:23.250 --> 47:31.230] [SPEAKER_06]: It's like somebody decided to sit down and write some code to download a million videos and extract the metadata from them.
[47:31.370 --> 47:34.510] [SPEAKER_06]: And anyone could have done this because they were just on the Internet.
[47:34.510 --> 47:40.250] [SPEAKER_06]: And it turned out that like a lot of those videos were used in Trump's second impeachment inquiry.
[47:40.930 --> 47:43.670] [SPEAKER_06]: And so that's, that's one way.
[47:43.810 --> 48:03.810] [SPEAKER_06]: There's also like some other ways that aren't, aren't, you know, hacking is sometimes groups have open S3 buckets or open like Google Drive folders or whatever, where it, where they just have the permissions that wrong to just like allow anyone with the link.
[48:04.110 --> 48:05.270] [SPEAKER_06]: And this actually happened.
[48:05.410 --> 48:06.710] [SPEAKER_06]: What was the, what was the name of the group?
[48:06.770 --> 48:14.950] [SPEAKER_06]: It was this, it's this, uh, uh, anti-trans groups, um, the American College of Pediatricians.
[48:15.030 --> 48:17.070] [SPEAKER_06]: This is one of the data sets that's on, uh, D.C.
[48:17.530 --> 48:21.690] [SPEAKER_06]: They're like the SP, the Southern Property Law Center called them an anti-trans hate group.
[48:21.690 --> 48:24.630] [SPEAKER_06]: And they like did legal briefings to help overturn Roe v.
[48:24.710 --> 48:24.870] [SPEAKER_06]: Wade.
[48:25.170 --> 48:30.490] [SPEAKER_06]: They had a open Google Drive folder with 20 gigabytes of like internal documents.
[48:30.770 --> 48:31.190] [SPEAKER_08]: Oh, wow.
[48:31.250 --> 48:35.830] [SPEAKER_06]: And somebody found the link, downloaded the 20 gigabytes, and now that's the data set.
[48:36.010 --> 48:37.530] [SPEAKER_06]: And that's not exactly a hack.
[48:37.650 --> 48:39.210] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, sort of.
[48:39.290 --> 48:40.990] [SPEAKER_06]: It was just like a mistake that someone made.
[48:41.130 --> 48:50.850] [SPEAKER_06]: Someone just like wanted to share it with, you know, someone and didn't feel like, you know, sharing it directly with their Google account and just made it public and sent them the link and thought that would be good.
[48:50.850 --> 48:52.770] [SPEAKER_06]: But now the data is out there.
[48:52.870 --> 48:57.190] [SPEAKER_06]: And I feel like that's actually a lot of, a lot of the case how these data sets get out there, too.
[48:57.410 --> 49:09.190] [SPEAKER_08]: We only have a couple of minutes left, but I'd like to give you a chance to talk about your, uh, work investigating America's frontline doctors, what you're able to uncover about them using, um, a collection of, of hacked files.
[49:10.190 --> 49:10.550] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[49:10.930 --> 49:13.890] [SPEAKER_06]: So this is one of the, um, case studies of the book.
[49:14.530 --> 49:35.130] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, uh, so basically in the middle of the pandemic or, uh, early in the pandemic, in like 2021, um, a hacker messaged me, uh, anonymously on signal and, um, uh, said that they had hacked the horse paste peddlers and, uh, that they were hilariously easy to hack.
[49:35.310 --> 49:38.730] [SPEAKER_06]: And basically it was, uh, this group called America's frontline doctors.
[49:38.910 --> 49:41.590] [SPEAKER_06]: And really it was these telehealth companies that they were working with.
[49:41.590 --> 49:54.770] [SPEAKER_06]: This is an anti-vaccine group that was founded by Simone Gold, who, um, is, like, a very prominent, uh, uh, uh, kind of anti-science doctor.
[49:55.510 --> 49:58.710] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, uh, she was also a January 6th insurrectionist.
[49:58.930 --> 50:02.190] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, she served a few months in prison for, for that.
[50:02.530 --> 50:11.510] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, but basically what they were doing was, uh, teaching everyone that, uh, you know, wearing masks is bad.
[50:11.510 --> 50:12.850] [SPEAKER_06]: Vaccines are bad.
[50:13.150 --> 50:17.450] [SPEAKER_06]: The only way to protect yourself from COVID is hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.
[50:17.630 --> 50:19.470] [SPEAKER_06]: And then they were selling it to people.
[50:19.670 --> 50:31.290] [SPEAKER_06]: And so they had this whole network of, like, um, uh, uh, things where, where basically, if you believe this propaganda, you can go and pay $90 for a telehealth consultation.
[50:31.290 --> 50:33.490] [SPEAKER_06]: And then you, you get on the phone and you talk to somebody.
[50:33.490 --> 50:37.450] [SPEAKER_06]: And then they write you a prescription for ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine.
[50:37.650 --> 50:46.510] [SPEAKER_06]: And, uh, I found that basically, like, um, over 72,000 people were tricked into paying at least $15 million.
[50:46.510 --> 50:50.550] [SPEAKER_06]: But probably it was actually a lot more for fake health care during the pandemic.
[50:51.090 --> 50:54.290] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and yeah, there's a whole case study on how all this worked.
[50:54.310 --> 50:56.650] [SPEAKER_06]: In this case, it was, this isn't the public data set.
[50:56.750 --> 51:00.170] [SPEAKER_06]: This is a private data set that a hacker just sent me, um, privately.
[51:00.170 --> 51:01.970] [SPEAKER_06]: And so it's not public data.
[51:02.090 --> 51:07.170] [SPEAKER_06]: And in fact, it really shouldn't be public data because it's, uh, you know, patient records.
[51:07.430 --> 51:10.510] [SPEAKER_06]: And it was actually like 250,000 patient records.
[51:10.690 --> 51:18.430] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and only 72,000 of them had ended up paying, but, um, uh, yeah, people, private health information and that shouldn't be public.
[51:18.610 --> 51:27.110] [SPEAKER_06]: But I basically ended up finding, uh, uncovering this huge scam that ended up, uh, you know, triggering a congressional investigation into them.
[51:28.050 --> 51:28.530] [SPEAKER_08]: Amazing.
[51:28.530 --> 51:30.930] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, Micah, this has been so fascinating.
[51:31.370 --> 51:33.510] [SPEAKER_08]: And, um, again, congratulations on the book.
[51:33.770 --> 51:40.550] [SPEAKER_08]: Uh, it's called Hacks, Leaks, and Revelations, available through NoStoragePress and wherever you get books.
[51:40.730 --> 51:43.330] [SPEAKER_08]: Anything, uh, that, that you, uh, want to tell our listeners?
[51:43.470 --> 51:46.090] [SPEAKER_08]: Any, uh, links or, or contact info or anything like that?
[51:46.410 --> 51:46.810] [SPEAKER_06]: Yes.
[51:47.210 --> 51:49.230] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, go to hacksandleaks.com.
[51:49.430 --> 51:50.470] [SPEAKER_06]: That's the book's website.
[51:51.270 --> 51:55.790] [SPEAKER_06]: And, uh, you know, so this is a book that's, uh, for sale.
[51:55.790 --> 52:03.910] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, but one of the things that I really wanted to do is make sure that this information is available to everybody, uh, even if they can't afford it.
[52:04.330 --> 52:09.870] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, uh, and so I've released the entire book under a Creative Commons license.
[52:09.870 --> 52:16.130] [SPEAKER_06]: And so the whole book is actually available to start reading now, um, on the website, hacksandleaks.com, if you want.
[52:16.290 --> 52:20.090] [SPEAKER_06]: And if you like it, and if you can afford it, then you can totally buy a copy, too.
[52:20.330 --> 52:27.910] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and it's probably, at least for me personally, way nicer to read a physical book that, uh, has all this information than just in a web browser.
[52:28.330 --> 52:31.810] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, but yeah, so please go and check it out.
[52:31.970 --> 52:34.670] [SPEAKER_06]: And, uh, I have some conduct information on that website.
[52:35.010 --> 52:36.810] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and if you like it, let me know.
[52:36.810 --> 52:39.310] [SPEAKER_08]: All right, Michael Lee, thank you so much for joining us tonight.
[52:39.450 --> 52:40.970] [SPEAKER_08]: You're welcome to, uh, stay on for Overtime.
[52:41.250 --> 52:45.870] [SPEAKER_08]: Uh, listeners, you can write to us, oth@2600.com.
[52:46.370 --> 52:49.670] [SPEAKER_08]: Please support WBAI, give2wbai.org.
[52:50.310 --> 52:54.430] [SPEAKER_08]: We will see you again on WBAI next week at 7 p.m.
[52:54.850 --> 52:59.450] [SPEAKER_08]: And again, on Overtime, starting in about eight minutes on YouTube.
[52:59.970 --> 53:00.230] [SPEAKER_08]: Good night.
[53:24.100 --> 53:28.440] [SPEAKER_13]: We'll see you again on WBAI
[53:38.320 --> 53:40.700] [SPEAKER_13]: next week at 7 p.m.
[53:48.180 --> 53:49.880] [SPEAKER_13]: Come and go.
[53:52.100 --> 54:00.420] [SPEAKER_13]: And I'll drag, drag, drag, to think what the future will bring when we're
[54:04.810 --> 54:04.910] in.
[54:05.150 --> 54:07.050] [SPEAKER_13]: Go, go, please, go, babe.
[54:32.290 --> 54:36.730] [SPEAKER_13]: Don't it all rock while I'm talking.
[54:46.650 --> 54:54.870] [SPEAKER_13]: What do you say for
[55:00.960 --> 55:01.860] [SPEAKER_13]: the recollection?
[55:12.340 --> 55:12.600] [SPEAKER_13]: A bit
[56:01.400 --> 56:03.580] [SPEAKER_10]: This is Ralph Pointer.
[56:03.920 --> 56:08.500] [SPEAKER_10]: Join me and others every Wednesday, 8 to 9 p.m.
[56:08.700 --> 56:13.680] [SPEAKER_10]: Eastern Time on WBAI 99.5 on your radio town.
[56:14.720 --> 56:30.900] [SPEAKER_10]: It would appear the human movement is such that at any moment in history, there are too few that understand possibilities of existence that would benefit all who inhabit this planet, and are willing to act on this understanding.
[56:31.420 --> 56:34.200] [SPEAKER_10]: This program will feature that few.
[56:34.540 --> 56:39.140] [SPEAKER_10]: What are your views on these issues that impact your life today?
[56:39.480 --> 56:42.840] [SPEAKER_10]: What are your views on America today?
[56:42.840 --> 56:46.700] [SPEAKER_10]: What are your views on America's future?
[56:47.220 --> 56:48.380] [SPEAKER_10]: Can we talk?
[56:48.900 --> 56:53.580] [SPEAKER_10]: Call in 212-209-2877.
[56:53.580 --> 56:55.900] [SPEAKER_10]: Wednesday, 8 to 9 p.m.
[56:55.960 --> 57:00.420] [SPEAKER_10]: on WBAI 99.5 on your radio town.
[57:04.180 --> 57:06.980] [SPEAKER_08]: And welcome to everybody over on YouTube.
[57:06.980 --> 57:10.180] [SPEAKER_08]: This is Overtime, an extension of Off The Hook.
[57:10.660 --> 57:14.160] [SPEAKER_08]: And let's make sure everybody made it into YouTube-land.
[57:14.600 --> 57:15.240] [SPEAKER_08]: Kyle, are you here?
[57:15.620 --> 57:16.260] [SPEAKER_08]: I am.
[57:16.500 --> 57:16.780] [SPEAKER_08]: Okay.
[57:16.900 --> 57:17.420] [SPEAKER_08]: Not a surprise.
[57:17.420 --> 57:18.120] [SPEAKER_08]: You're in the same room.
[57:19.020 --> 57:20.720] [SPEAKER_08]: Rob, Gila, did you make it okay?
[57:21.280 --> 57:22.240] [SPEAKER_08]: We did, yes.
[57:22.240 --> 57:23.580] [SPEAKER_02]: We did, indeed.
[57:24.520 --> 57:25.580] [SPEAKER_02]: And, yes.
[57:26.120 --> 57:26.820] [SPEAKER_08]: And Alex.
[57:28.100 --> 57:31.440] [SPEAKER_07]: Alex had to step off Mike for a brief moment.
[57:31.440 --> 57:32.760] [SPEAKER_07]: He'll be back in a couple of minutes, he said.
[57:33.480 --> 57:35.100] [SPEAKER_08]: And we are, in fact, on YouTube.
[57:35.760 --> 57:37.420] [SPEAKER_07]: We are, and we're sounding good, I think.
[57:37.480 --> 57:38.600] [SPEAKER_08]: It's always good to verify that.
[57:38.760 --> 57:40.600] [SPEAKER_08]: And, Micah Lee, have you joined us?
[57:41.480 --> 57:41.940] [SPEAKER_08]: I have.
[57:42.120 --> 57:42.660] [SPEAKER_08]: I'm still here.
[57:42.820 --> 57:43.220] [SPEAKER_08]: Great.
[57:43.680 --> 57:44.080] [SPEAKER_08]: Okay.
[57:44.280 --> 57:49.080] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, since Micah's on the phone, we're not going to be able to take phone calls, but we are...
[57:49.080 --> 57:49.520] [SPEAKER_08]: Right, Kyle?
[57:49.740 --> 57:50.720] [SPEAKER_08]: There's only one phone line.
[57:50.720 --> 57:51.580] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's correct.
[57:51.820 --> 57:57.760] [SPEAKER_08]: But we have a chat for people who are listening on the YouTube stream, so ask your questions there.
[57:57.860 --> 58:01.680] [SPEAKER_08]: Gila will read them, and we can proceed in that way.
[58:02.240 --> 58:05.220] [SPEAKER_08]: But, Micah, again, a fascinating book.
[58:05.900 --> 58:12.600] [SPEAKER_08]: I just feel so inspired that there's finally a way to get out there and process this information.
[58:12.600 --> 58:22.500] [SPEAKER_08]: I was feeling the same frustration, just with so much of a glut of data being thrown at us and so much being lost in the noise.
[58:24.980 --> 58:25.460] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[58:25.460 --> 58:26.540] [SPEAKER_06]: I hope it works.
[58:26.780 --> 58:36.980] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't know how many people have actually read the book yet, but, like, I'm really hoping that a lot of people get really inspired by this and start digging through all of this data.
[58:36.980 --> 58:40.500] [SPEAKER_08]: How long have you been putting this together?
[58:42.000 --> 58:43.800] [SPEAKER_06]: It took me about two years.
[58:44.180 --> 58:45.560] [SPEAKER_06]: I basically started...
[58:47.820 --> 58:51.620] [SPEAKER_06]: I started, actually, the America's Frontline Doctors stuff.
[58:52.300 --> 58:54.980] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, right around then, I was basically like...
[58:54.980 --> 59:02.280] [SPEAKER_06]: I thought that it was a really, really, like, interesting set of work that I did for that journalism.
[59:02.280 --> 59:06.200] [SPEAKER_06]: And I was like, I really wanted to tell people about it and get more people to learn how to do it.
[59:06.240 --> 59:08.040] [SPEAKER_06]: And that was one of the big things that inspired it.
[59:08.360 --> 59:11.540] [SPEAKER_06]: And I have been kind of thinking about it for a few years before that, even.
[59:13.280 --> 59:16.660] [SPEAKER_06]: But, yeah, I've been working on it, basically, for about two years.
[59:16.660 --> 59:19.380] [SPEAKER_06]: And it was just published earlier this month.
[59:20.100 --> 59:20.460] [SPEAKER_08]: Wow.
[59:22.320 --> 59:29.980] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, are you at all concerned, though, about, quote-unquote, the wrong people picking up these skills?
[59:29.980 --> 59:34.040] [SPEAKER_08]: Is there any potential danger involved in becoming good at this?
[59:35.620 --> 59:37.100] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, yes.
[59:37.480 --> 59:39.960] [SPEAKER_06]: I think that there is some danger involved in being good at this.
[59:40.040 --> 59:44.060] [SPEAKER_06]: But I also think that the wrong people, like, in a lot of cases, already have these skills.
[59:44.380 --> 59:59.420] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, I think that, you know, like, a lot of police or, you know, intelligence people or, like, you know, people who work for repressive regimes and stuff.
[01:00:00.020 --> 01:00:05.320] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, they're the people who already have these skills, really, to, like, dig through data sets and find stuff.
[01:00:05.340 --> 01:00:11.200] [SPEAKER_06]: And I think that the people who don't have these skills are everyone else.
[01:00:12.560 --> 01:00:15.260] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, so, I don't know.
[01:00:15.640 --> 01:00:19.780] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm a really big proponent of more people earning more skills and information being free.
[01:00:20.000 --> 01:00:23.220] [SPEAKER_06]: And so, I think...
[01:00:23.220 --> 01:00:29.160] [SPEAKER_06]: And then, also, like, you know, maybe some more, like, kind of fascist-y people might get these skills by reading this book.
[01:00:29.340 --> 01:00:34.500] [SPEAKER_06]: But they just don't really have, you know, the truth on their side.
[01:00:34.620 --> 01:00:36.520] [SPEAKER_06]: They have a lot of disinformation on their side.
[01:00:36.520 --> 01:00:40.080] [SPEAKER_06]: And these skills aren't really helpful with disinformation, so...
[01:00:40.080 --> 01:00:40.620] [SPEAKER_08]: Interesting.
[01:00:41.420 --> 01:00:43.280] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I guess that would be true.
[01:00:43.580 --> 01:00:52.400] [SPEAKER_08]: Have you ever come across a leaked data set of a group that you might feel some sympathy for, like, you know, puppies for orphans or something like that?
[01:00:52.740 --> 01:00:56.460] [SPEAKER_08]: Would that make a difference in how the information got processed?
[01:00:57.980 --> 01:01:14.900] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I mean, I always make decisions about, like, you know, like, I definitely prefer when I'm picking any sort of journalism to work on to kind of pick things that I don't like and want to change, you know?
[01:01:15.000 --> 01:01:16.120] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, I really try to have impact.
[01:01:16.120 --> 01:01:36.160] [SPEAKER_06]: And so, if there's a data leak for, you know, puppies, like, unless it was, unless, you know, I had some sort of reason to believe that this, like, puppy charity is actually, you know, a terrible front for, you know, arms dealing or something, and I could actually,
[01:01:36.160 --> 01:01:40.680] [SPEAKER_06]: like, prove that with the data, like, I would just skip it and move on.
[01:01:40.680 --> 01:01:44.840] [SPEAKER_08]: Or maybe, you know, Rudy Giuliani got a puppy or something, and we should all be concerned.
[01:01:46.140 --> 01:01:47.140] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, that's true.
[01:01:47.240 --> 01:01:49.600] [SPEAKER_06]: That could be some hard-hitting news.
[01:01:50.140 --> 01:01:50.560] [SPEAKER_08]: Wow.
[01:01:50.940 --> 01:02:02.600] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, you know, there's so much out there, and it's just really incredible that these tools are becoming known to people, and I think it's all part of spreading knowledge and educating people.
[01:02:02.840 --> 01:02:07.960] [SPEAKER_08]: Now, Kyle brought up, you know, the tools, and I see a bunch of them here that I haven't used.
[01:02:07.960 --> 01:02:14.800] [SPEAKER_08]: There's Danger Zone, Onion Share, of course, the Tor browser we're familiar with, Signal App, and we use SecureDrop at 2600.
[01:02:14.980 --> 01:02:18.380] [SPEAKER_08]: But can you tell us something about those other apps and what they do?
[01:02:18.460 --> 01:02:27.900] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, so actually, in addition to doing journalism, I'm a software developer, and both Danger Zone and Onion Share are both software that I made, that I developed.
[01:02:28.340 --> 01:02:32.960] [SPEAKER_06]: And here, actually, I can post some links in the chat.
[01:02:34.080 --> 01:02:35.540] [SPEAKER_08]: Oh, you're in the chat as well.
[01:02:35.580 --> 01:02:35.940] [SPEAKER_08]: That's great.
[01:02:35.940 --> 01:02:36.860] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[01:02:39.020 --> 01:02:39.980] [SPEAKER_06]: Here's Onion Share.
[01:02:40.400 --> 01:02:45.640] [SPEAKER_06]: So basically, oh, wait, I have to wait 24 seconds before making another post.
[01:02:45.820 --> 01:02:48.000] [SPEAKER_08]: Yes, Gila can explain why that is.
[01:02:52.930 --> 01:02:55.770] [SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, we have slow mode enabled, Micah.
[01:02:55.910 --> 01:02:56.410] [SPEAKER_02]: Sorry about that.
[01:02:58.130 --> 01:02:59.470] [SPEAKER_02]: Actually, not sorry.
[01:02:59.610 --> 01:03:00.810] [SPEAKER_02]: It is very helpful.
[01:03:01.130 --> 01:03:03.690] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, so hang in there.
[01:03:03.830 --> 01:03:07.770] [SPEAKER_02]: Actually, if you're trying to send links, you may not be able to post them.
[01:03:07.770 --> 01:03:09.910] [SPEAKER_02]: I may need to, so...
[01:03:09.910 --> 01:03:11.830] [SPEAKER_06]: Are you seeing the links that I posted?
[01:03:11.950 --> 01:03:15.190] [SPEAKER_06]: I just posted, it says DangerZone.rocks and OnionShare.org.
[01:03:15.730 --> 01:03:16.250] [SPEAKER_02]: Negatory.
[01:03:16.910 --> 01:03:19.030] [SPEAKER_02]: You said DangerZone.rocks?
[01:03:19.510 --> 01:03:21.230] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, because DangerZone rocks.
[01:03:22.070 --> 01:03:22.590] [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[01:03:22.590 --> 01:03:22.870] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wow.
[01:03:23.010 --> 01:03:23.790] [SPEAKER_06]: That's cool.
[01:03:25.730 --> 01:03:27.290] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know that was a TLD.
[01:03:27.510 --> 01:03:28.010] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and OnionShare .org.
[01:03:30.690 --> 01:03:37.530] [SPEAKER_06]: So basically, DangerZone was kind of inspired by Qubes, the Qubes operating system.
[01:03:37.850 --> 01:03:49.490] [SPEAKER_06]: The idea is, like, when you're working with, you know, data assets that include office documents or PDFs, just opening those could hack your computer.
[01:03:50.130 --> 01:03:53.870] [SPEAKER_06]: But a lot of times, you really need to open them because that's what the data is.
[01:03:53.870 --> 01:03:59.810] [SPEAKER_06]: And so, like, you can't be sure what's safe to open and what's safe not to open, or what will hack you if you open it.
[01:03:59.970 --> 01:04:08.330] [SPEAKER_06]: And so DangerZone is basically a program that takes office documents like this and converts them into PDFs that you know that you could open that won't hack your computer.
[01:04:08.910 --> 01:04:21.390] [SPEAKER_06]: And it works in a very similar way to how, like, the Qubes operating system trusted PDF feature works, where it's basically, except with DangerZone, it works on any computer.
[01:04:21.390 --> 01:04:26.450] [SPEAKER_06]: It works on Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and it uses Docker containers.
[01:04:27.010 --> 01:04:40.490] [SPEAKER_06]: So it's sort of a digital version of, like, taking a document and then printing it out and then re-scanning it so that if it has any malware, if it has anything that tries to phone home, all that stuff will be stripped, and you just get, like, the re-scanned version.
[01:04:40.850 --> 01:04:48.650] [SPEAKER_06]: And then it also does, like, OCR, so optical character recognition, so that you have a text player still, so you can still, like, copy and paste from the document.
[01:04:49.390 --> 01:04:51.350] [SPEAKER_06]: But, yeah, that's basically what DangerZone is.
[01:04:51.630 --> 01:05:05.210] [SPEAKER_06]: And so, yeah, it's useful for working with leaked data sets, but it's also just, like, let's say you get an email with an attachment and you're not quite sure if it's legitimate or if it's phishing, and it's safer to just run that document, that attachment,
[01:05:05.370 --> 01:05:08.130] [SPEAKER_06]: through DangerZone before you open it, because then you won't get hacked.
[01:05:08.130 --> 01:05:10.590] [SPEAKER_06]: So, that's what DangerZone is.
[01:05:12.490 --> 01:05:24.290] [SPEAKER_06]: And then OnionShare is software that I first started developing back in, like, 2014, and now there's a big team of people that work on it, and it's basically uses...
[01:05:24.830 --> 01:05:27.110] [SPEAKER_06]: It's software that uses Tor Onion services.
[01:05:27.330 --> 01:05:32.490] [SPEAKER_06]: It turns your computer into a Tor Onion service to do a variety of things, like, primarily sharing files.
[01:05:32.490 --> 01:05:49.330] [SPEAKER_06]: So, if I wanted to securely and anonymously send you a bunch of files, I could open Onion Share, drag the files into it, click Start, and then there's just an Onion address in my window, and I can copy and paste that to you through, like, an encrypted messaging app,
[01:05:49.390 --> 01:05:58.210] [SPEAKER_06]: and then you can load that URL in Tor browser, and what you're actually doing is loading a website hosted directly on my computer, and then you can download files directly from me.
[01:05:58.210 --> 01:06:05.890] [SPEAKER_06]: And so it's like, no third parties involved, but I can send you files, you don't have to know who I am at all, because it's an Onion service.
[01:06:06.630 --> 01:06:11.130] [SPEAKER_06]: And it can also work the other way, you could turn your computer into, like, an anonymous Dropbox.
[01:06:11.530 --> 01:06:24.730] [SPEAKER_06]: So, you can make it so your computer has an Onion address, and then you can share that in your, you know, social media bio or whatever, and then anyone on the Internet can go and upload files to your computer.
[01:06:25.170 --> 01:06:29.570] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, which, you know, is another reason to use DangerZone, because they can also upload malware to your computer.
[01:06:29.950 --> 01:06:30.650] [SPEAKER_08]: Right, right, wow.
[01:06:31.550 --> 01:06:42.370] [SPEAKER_08]: That's a lot, and, uh, it's, it's something that I think we all should be familiar with, because, um, it's, it's, you know, it's dangerous out there, and, and you have to be careful of what you're, what you're uploading and downloading and, and, and all that.
[01:06:42.990 --> 01:06:44.950] [SPEAKER_08]: Um, do you use, uh, SecureDrop at all?
[01:06:46.030 --> 01:06:47.790] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah, I, I use SecureDrop.
[01:06:47.950 --> 01:06:52.810] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, actually, like, early on in, in SecureDrop's life, I, like, contributed some code to it also.
[01:06:53.430 --> 01:07:05.950] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, but I, uh, so at the Intercept, um, we have a SecureDrop, and, uh, uh, I, like, manage the SecureDrop servers, and, um, we have other people that, that check it, but I occasionally check it myself.
[01:07:06.630 --> 01:07:10.830] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, uh, yeah, I'm a, I'm a big supporter of SecureDrop.
[01:07:11.430 --> 01:07:11.750] [SPEAKER_08]: Great.
[01:07:11.890 --> 01:07:15.030] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, we use it here at, uh, 2200 as well, and it's, uh, it's very effective.
[01:07:15.130 --> 01:07:15.290] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, we got good stuff.
[01:07:15.650 --> 01:07:22.470] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, it's, it, well, mostly we get, we get, uh, um, I don't want to say spam, but it's a lot of religion for some reason.
[01:07:22.530 --> 01:07:23.590] [SPEAKER_08]: I'm not sure why that is.
[01:07:25.730 --> 01:07:26.370] [SPEAKER_08]: Go ahead, Gila.
[01:07:26.450 --> 01:07:26.850] [SPEAKER_08]: Just saying.
[01:07:27.230 --> 01:07:33.990] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, we do have a comment from our good pal Johnny Fusion, who probably would call us, but can't right now.
[01:07:34.510 --> 01:07:39.730] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, he says, so looking at the book on the website, I see he talks about Epic, and I dug into that leak quite a bit.
[01:07:39.730 --> 01:07:43.990] [SPEAKER_02]: The hardest part was importing the databases as they were so big.
[01:07:46.130 --> 01:07:46.550] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[01:07:46.550 --> 01:07:49.310] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, so they are, they are huge.
[01:07:49.510 --> 01:07:56.170] [SPEAKER_06]: And so part of this, so let's see, so actually if you go to hacksandleaks.com and click start reading, um, this is the entire book.
[01:07:56.370 --> 01:07:58.310] [SPEAKER_06]: And so Epic is chapter 12.
[01:07:59.090 --> 01:08:02.050] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and so this actually goes over the Epic data set.
[01:08:02.370 --> 01:08:08.990] [SPEAKER_06]: So the example, well, the first half of the chapter is just teaching you how to write, how to do SQL, uh, like SQL queries.
[01:08:09.630 --> 01:08:11.690] [SPEAKER_06]: But then the second half is the Epic data set.
[01:08:12.190 --> 01:08:14.230] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, it's huge.
[01:08:14.510 --> 01:08:18.590] [SPEAKER_06]: And one of the smaller, there's like nine different MySQL databases.
[01:08:19.110 --> 01:08:23.170] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and the smallest one is like about two gigabytes.
[01:08:23.550 --> 01:08:27.270] [SPEAKER_06]: And the bigger ones are like 15 gigabytes or 20 gigabytes.
[01:08:27.590 --> 01:08:32.510] [SPEAKER_06]: And so they're enormous and take a lot to, uh, import with this book.
[01:08:32.710 --> 01:08:35.970] [SPEAKER_06]: You just import the smallest one, which is still big and it still takes a while.
[01:08:36.390 --> 01:08:47.910] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, but it does actually like walk you through exactly how to do it and exactly how to even like, like if something fails in the middle of the import, how to, how to, you know, dump your, drop your database and start over.
[01:08:48.210 --> 01:08:52.010] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and, uh, there's some tips on, on using cloud servers.
[01:08:52.150 --> 01:09:06.870] [SPEAKER_06]: So this is one of the things when I'm working with data like this, um, uh, that's so big, it's really helpful to, um, uh, use a, a server that's just always on, that's not your own like laptop.
[01:09:07.190 --> 01:09:09.270] [SPEAKER_06]: And so you can like SSH into it.
[01:09:09.390 --> 01:09:10.270] [SPEAKER_06]: You can connect to it remotely.
[01:09:10.970 --> 01:09:15.150] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, you can, uh, set up a MySQL server there and then import it.
[01:09:15.290 --> 01:09:23.490] [SPEAKER_06]: And then, and then, you know, it might take you a few days of your import script run before it's finished, but a few days later it'll be finished.
[01:09:23.650 --> 01:09:30.650] [SPEAKER_06]: And that's just like really annoying if it's just on your laptop and you're trying to like suspend it and like use other software and stuff.
[01:09:30.770 --> 01:09:33.450] [SPEAKER_06]: So using a server to do this stuff is really, really helpful.
[01:09:33.950 --> 01:09:42.110] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and, uh, yeah, definitely it's time consuming to import the data, but once you have it imported, there's, there's a lot of really interesting data.
[01:09:42.350 --> 01:09:53.190] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and that chapter also goes into, uh, uh, you know, exactly how to get past Epic's who is privacy, which, which, which I think is probably the most interesting stuff.
[01:09:53.330 --> 01:09:53.590] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't know.
[01:09:54.430 --> 01:09:55.850] [SPEAKER_06]: Are you all familiar with Epic?
[01:09:57.170 --> 01:09:58.390] [SPEAKER_06]: Like what the company is?
[01:09:58.630 --> 01:10:01.030] [SPEAKER_04]: That was the, that was the question I was going to ask you, Mike.
[01:10:01.250 --> 01:10:01.590] [SPEAKER_04]: This is Alex.
[01:10:01.810 --> 01:10:02.630] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm, I'm back here.
[01:10:02.790 --> 01:10:06.390] [SPEAKER_04]: The, um, we're, we're talking about Epic, the domain name registrar.
[01:10:06.510 --> 01:10:06.890] [SPEAKER_04]: Is that right?
[01:10:07.630 --> 01:10:08.030] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[01:10:08.250 --> 01:10:09.210] [SPEAKER_06]: E P I K.
[01:10:09.750 --> 01:10:13.030] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, it's, it's, it's like a Christian nationalist company.
[01:10:13.190 --> 01:10:13.490] [SPEAKER_06]: Basically.
[01:10:14.190 --> 01:10:18.130] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, they, they, uh, are a domain name registrar.
[01:10:18.210 --> 01:10:19.310] [SPEAKER_06]: They also have a few other services.
[01:10:19.330 --> 01:10:25.130] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, uh, they do some web hosting and, um, they have like a kind of cloud flare competitor type thing.
[01:10:25.470 --> 01:10:28.170] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, it's run by a guy named Rob monster.
[01:10:28.530 --> 01:10:33.070] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, but it's, uh, you can't make it up.
[01:10:33.210 --> 01:10:33.350] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[01:10:34.470 --> 01:10:37.190] [SPEAKER_06]: But so their domain name, um, uh, stuff.
[01:10:37.290 --> 01:10:41.190] [SPEAKER_06]: So a lot of people move to Epic when they get like de-platformed from other places.
[01:10:41.470 --> 01:11:00.530] [SPEAKER_06]: So like, um, um, 8chan, uh, uh, uh, uh, the, the person, the mass shooter who went into like, I think a grocery store or a Walmart in Texas and killed like dozens of, um, Latino people, um, posted his manifesto on 8chan.
[01:11:00.730 --> 01:11:06.310] [SPEAKER_06]: And so then I think 8chan was using GoDaddy and GoDaddy kicked them off after that.
[01:11:06.430 --> 01:11:07.770] [SPEAKER_06]: And then they just moved to Epic.
[01:11:07.770 --> 01:11:28.090] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and, uh, like Gab, uh, which is like this far right social network that's also hosted, uh, uh, you know, like, like, like, like the, the, um, tree of life synagogue shooter, um, that, uh, a few years ago that killed a bunch of Jews who were, uh, like on Shabbat in the synagogue,
[01:11:28.850 --> 01:11:34.870] [SPEAKER_06]: um, posted to Gab, like right before, uh, he went in and did the shooting.
[01:11:35.190 --> 01:11:37.310] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and, and so Gab is using Epic.
[01:11:37.530 --> 01:11:42.290] [SPEAKER_06]: So basically like it's, it's a lot of websites like this, um, and some neo-Nazi websites and stuff.
[01:11:42.990 --> 01:11:52.030] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, uh, and so all of these domain names are protected by Epic's who is privacy service and this is their databases.
[01:11:52.030 --> 01:12:07.990] [SPEAKER_06]: So basically like, uh, at the point of time when the attack happened, which was, uh, I think like September, 2021, maybe, um, any domain registered at that point or earlier, you could actually go through and find the real owners of these domain names.
[01:12:08.410 --> 01:12:17.710] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, so you can like, so like, like as part of the example, uh, so 8chan renamed to 8coon, I guess, to kind of rebrand itself.
[01:12:17.710 --> 01:12:24.950] [SPEAKER_06]: And also like the, the people who own it are also probably the people behind, um, QAnon, which is a whole other mess.
[01:12:24.950 --> 01:12:35.090] [SPEAKER_06]: But, uh, as, as, as an example, I show you how to like run the queries to go and find the like actual ownership information behind the, uh, uh, 8coon website.
[01:12:35.290 --> 01:12:37.990] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and also Oathkeepers.org uses Epic.
[01:12:38.290 --> 01:12:47.490] [SPEAKER_06]: And, and I, and I figured out like, uh, the technical contact was like someone else that I cross-referenced in the, in the Oathkeepers, uh, email dump.
[01:12:47.670 --> 01:12:52.750] [SPEAKER_06]: And, and it's basically like, this seems to be their tech support guy who runs some like little company in New Jersey.
[01:12:53.130 --> 01:12:55.570] [SPEAKER_06]: So yeah, there's, there's a lot of stuff like that.
[01:12:55.990 --> 01:12:56.210] [SPEAKER_08]: Wow.
[01:12:57.990 --> 01:12:59.930] [SPEAKER_08]: And how, how do you keep up with it all?
[01:13:00.010 --> 01:13:06.730] [SPEAKER_08]: I mean, there's just so much out there, you know, be good just to, just to read a summary of what's been done so far because it really is impressive.
[01:13:07.750 --> 01:13:08.110] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[01:13:08.210 --> 01:13:10.090] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, I don't keep up with all of it.
[01:13:11.030 --> 01:13:18.930] [SPEAKER_06]: I keep up with my own little, like, you know, what I've, I've managed to, um, to, to track and to follow.
[01:13:19.310 --> 01:13:25.450] [SPEAKER_06]: But, um, but yeah, there is so much out there and there's also like, you know, a lot of good work that I probably am not that aware of.
[01:13:25.570 --> 01:13:32.950] [SPEAKER_06]: And also, you know, like this, this happens all over the world and I only speak English and like a little bit of Spanish.
[01:13:33.170 --> 01:13:38.550] [SPEAKER_06]: So, so, but there's like a huge, like, you know, we were talking on the show, like Russian language data breaches.
[01:13:38.550 --> 01:13:50.810] [SPEAKER_06]: There's huge, um, Spanish language data breaches, like the entire, uh, Mexican military, like exchange server, their email server was, um, hacked and, uh, leaked.
[01:13:50.990 --> 01:14:05.110] [SPEAKER_06]: And, and this was like a huge scandal throughout Mexico and also throughout a lot of Latin America was like, here's all the internal secrets of, um, uh, uh, the Mexican military and, and, and, and stuff like that.
[01:14:05.110 --> 01:14:10.850] [SPEAKER_06]: Like that barely even like touched the United States, but that was like, like 500 gigabytes of email or something.
[01:14:11.070 --> 01:14:16.890] [SPEAKER_08]: So, you know, on that, on that topic, because that certainly wouldn't sit well with the military people in Mexico.
[01:14:17.230 --> 01:14:23.150] [SPEAKER_08]: Uh, but have you, have you gotten any kind of, uh, negative, uh, response from, from putting out this book?
[01:14:23.270 --> 01:14:24.810] [SPEAKER_08]: People who don't want to see that out there.
[01:14:26.130 --> 01:14:29.090] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, I haven't gotten very much negative response yet.
[01:14:29.350 --> 01:14:32.110] [SPEAKER_06]: I have, I've definitely, well, actually that's not true.
[01:14:32.290 --> 01:14:39.450] [SPEAKER_06]: I did notice that like a profile for me appeared on like a, like Antifa watcher website.
[01:14:40.050 --> 01:14:45.910] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, uh, so I guess that was a negative response, but like someone just pointed it out to me.
[01:14:46.010 --> 01:14:58.810] [SPEAKER_06]: Like I didn't actually even notice on my own except for someone, someone showed me, um, I am expecting some of that will happen more because just because there is so much of this book is kind of like about researching the far right.
[01:14:58.990 --> 01:15:02.290] [SPEAKER_06]: So I'm expecting probably there will be some, some more stuff like that.
[01:15:02.930 --> 01:15:14.130] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, but so, but, but pretty much like it's mostly been positive, uh, uh, reaction, but I also think that a lot of people haven't like actually gone through and read the whole book yet.
[01:15:14.130 --> 01:15:16.030] [SPEAKER_06]: And maybe, maybe that'll change.
[01:15:16.170 --> 01:15:17.610] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, yeah.
[01:15:18.010 --> 01:15:23.630] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, didn't you get your Twitter account suspended for, for, for being a journalist and reporting on Twitter?
[01:15:24.330 --> 01:15:25.210] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:15:25.350 --> 01:15:30.850] [SPEAKER_06]: I was one of the, uh, the journalists that like right after Elon Musk took over Twitter, he suspended my Twitter account.
[01:15:31.090 --> 01:15:40.370] [SPEAKER_06]: And the actual tweet that I had, that I got suspended over was, um, a tweet about how Twitter is now censoring mastodon links.
[01:15:40.850 --> 01:15:43.010] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, at the time, I think they stopped doing that.
[01:15:43.430 --> 01:15:54.270] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and, uh, yeah, so, and I think it also, I think it was, I was, uh, had a screenshot of the like, Elon jet mastodon account or something.
[01:15:54.690 --> 01:15:56.910] [SPEAKER_06]: Uh, but yeah, so I got, I got kicked off Twitter.
[01:15:57.470 --> 01:16:10.530] [SPEAKER_06]: And then, uh, you know, Elon Musk did this whole like Twitter poll and decided to like, it was, I was like permanently suspended and he decided to like, unpermanently suspend me, but I was still suspended until I like logged in and deleted the tweet.
[01:16:10.750 --> 01:16:14.590] [SPEAKER_06]: And I basically didn't log in and delete this week for like six months or something.
[01:16:14.750 --> 01:16:15.770] [SPEAKER_06]: So I kind of stopped using Twitter.
[01:16:15.850 --> 01:16:18.230] [SPEAKER_06]: But then I decided to log in and just delete all of my tweets.
[01:16:18.230 --> 01:16:19.910] [SPEAKER_06]: And now I just don't use Twitter.
[01:16:20.190 --> 01:16:26.170] [SPEAKER_06]: I have tried to use it a little bit to tweet about my book, because I just published a book.
[01:16:26.290 --> 01:16:30.330] [SPEAKER_06]: But I'm pretty sure I'm pretty shadowbanned.
[01:16:30.630 --> 01:16:34.890] [SPEAKER_06]: I have like 50,000 followers, but I get like 300 views when I tweet.
[01:16:34.890 --> 01:16:35.590] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, no engagement.
[01:16:35.950 --> 01:16:42.350] [SPEAKER_08]: This is the same problem we had with HOPE last week, trying to get people to buy tickets, and nobody's responding.
[01:16:42.750 --> 01:16:47.230] [SPEAKER_08]: Usually, we at least get a lot of trolls saying something to us, but nobody.
[01:16:47.230 --> 01:16:50.250] [SPEAKER_08]: And you look at the number of views, and it's like a couple of hundred.
[01:16:50.430 --> 01:16:52.130] [SPEAKER_08]: And we have, what, 50,000 followers?
[01:16:53.550 --> 01:16:57.110] [SPEAKER_08]: And we used to get so much... and no matter what we said, we'd get a lot of engagement.
[01:16:57.370 --> 01:16:59.470] [SPEAKER_08]: So it's... and Mastodon is great.
[01:16:59.630 --> 01:17:06.410] [SPEAKER_08]: We get a good response there, but it doesn't compare yet to what we had on Twitter before Elon Musk got his hands on it.
[01:17:06.430 --> 01:17:07.310] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I know.
[01:17:07.570 --> 01:17:07.870] [SPEAKER_06]: Same.
[01:17:08.090 --> 01:17:10.370] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, I use Mastodon and Bluesky.
[01:17:10.370 --> 01:17:23.170] [SPEAKER_06]: I recently decided to try using the corporate ones, like Threads, but it's just not... none of it compares to the old days, the pre-Elon Musk days of Twitter.
[01:17:23.510 --> 01:17:24.430] [SPEAKER_08]: No, it doesn't.
[01:17:24.530 --> 01:17:26.210] [SPEAKER_08]: And I refuse to call it X.
[01:17:26.410 --> 01:17:28.670] [SPEAKER_08]: I just, you know, I feel like that would be giving him something.
[01:17:29.390 --> 01:17:29.790] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[01:17:30.070 --> 01:17:32.210] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, he already owns it, though.
[01:17:34.390 --> 01:17:36.250] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, he... I don't know.
[01:17:36.390 --> 01:17:45.550] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, like, I'm sort of, you know, on the, like, maybe just completely just abandoned Twitter to the trolls.
[01:17:46.350 --> 01:17:47.190] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, camp.
[01:17:47.770 --> 01:17:50.090] [SPEAKER_06]: And, yeah, I don't know.
[01:17:50.390 --> 01:17:51.010] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't know.
[01:17:51.490 --> 01:17:52.190] [SPEAKER_08]: It's tough.
[01:17:52.290 --> 01:17:52.630] [SPEAKER_08]: It's tough.
[01:17:52.730 --> 01:17:53.410] [SPEAKER_08]: Rob, do you have something?
[01:17:55.190 --> 01:17:55.630] [SPEAKER_08]: Rob?
[01:17:56.970 --> 01:17:58.050] [SPEAKER_08]: I think they're frozen.
[01:17:58.510 --> 01:17:58.950] [SPEAKER_08]: Okay.
[01:18:00.270 --> 01:18:02.070] [SPEAKER_08]: Hey, Rob, you had your hand up, but then you froze.
[01:18:02.210 --> 01:18:03.230] [SPEAKER_08]: So, I'm not sure if you were talking.
[01:18:03.750 --> 01:18:04.150] [SPEAKER_08]: Okay.
[01:18:04.290 --> 01:18:04.670] [SPEAKER_08]: Are you there?
[01:18:05.270 --> 01:18:07.350] [SPEAKER_07]: I was not, but hello.
[01:18:08.070 --> 01:18:15.710] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I experienced similar symptoms on Twitter when I did what you did, Micah, and I deleted all my old tweets.
[01:18:15.870 --> 01:18:18.350] [SPEAKER_07]: I just figured, you know, blow this for a game of soldiers.
[01:18:18.550 --> 01:18:24.750] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm done actually participating in Twitter, and I just kept it to a few tweets about, you know, I'm releasing this thing.
[01:18:24.830 --> 01:18:25.490] [SPEAKER_07]: I did this thing.
[01:18:26.730 --> 01:18:29.790] [SPEAKER_07]: And since I did that, I also saw...
[01:18:29.790 --> 01:18:40.290] [SPEAKER_07]: And also, you know, this may be just a factor of what era Twitter is in now and how they're doing things, but compared to how much engagement I used to get, there's almost nothing now.
[01:18:40.290 --> 01:18:42.250] [SPEAKER_07]: And it's sad.
[01:18:42.690 --> 01:18:48.490] [SPEAKER_07]: It's, you know, an era has well and truly ended, but Mastodon's great.
[01:18:48.690 --> 01:18:59.230] [SPEAKER_07]: And in fact, you were talking about responses to your book, Micah, and we did notice that on your Mastodon, you posted one of your first Amazon reviews, which was rather entertaining.
[01:19:00.490 --> 01:19:00.890] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[01:19:01.330 --> 01:19:01.390] [SPEAKER_06]: Yes.
[01:19:02.190 --> 01:19:04.350] [SPEAKER_06]: Wait, let me pull up the toot.
[01:19:07.310 --> 01:19:09.050] [SPEAKER_08]: I still can't get used to that word.
[01:19:09.930 --> 01:19:10.210] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[01:19:13.030 --> 01:19:13.870] [SPEAKER_05]: Where is it?
[01:19:13.970 --> 01:19:14.490] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, here it is.
[01:19:14.590 --> 01:19:14.730] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[01:19:15.530 --> 01:19:16.250] [SPEAKER_05]: Great book.
[01:19:16.430 --> 01:19:17.750] [SPEAKER_05]: Just leave politics out of it.
[01:19:18.310 --> 01:19:20.810] [SPEAKER_08]: You know, when people say that, we get that all the time.
[01:19:20.810 --> 01:19:23.950] [SPEAKER_08]: It just basically means that they disagree with us on some issue.
[01:19:23.950 --> 01:19:30.230] [SPEAKER_08]: And, you know, if you're talking about, yeah, well, you know, these people are starving in this particular country.
[01:19:30.370 --> 01:19:30.970] [SPEAKER_08]: Don't get political.
[01:19:31.250 --> 01:19:33.970] [SPEAKER_08]: You know, it's just something they don't want us to talk about.
[01:19:34.330 --> 01:19:37.490] [SPEAKER_08]: And, you know, politics, we're all political.
[01:19:37.730 --> 01:19:50.290] [SPEAKER_06]: How do you leave politics out of a book when you're like, you know, like covering leaked statuses of like police documents or, you know, Russia during a war or whatever?
[01:19:50.290 --> 01:19:54.290] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, I don't really see how to leave politics, how that's even possible.
[01:19:54.850 --> 01:19:59.630] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, let's just talk about, you know, leaks of non-controversial places, like, you know, Macy's or something.
[01:20:00.810 --> 01:20:02.090] [SPEAKER_08]: I don't know what they want.
[01:20:02.250 --> 01:20:07.710] [SPEAKER_06]: But then, like, what's the news value to, like, why does anybody care about that?
[01:20:07.930 --> 01:20:13.170] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, obviously privacy, but, like, I feel like that's where you will want to report on that.
[01:20:13.170 --> 01:20:18.290] [SPEAKER_06]: It's like, all of these Macy's customers were hacked and their information was leaked.
[01:20:18.510 --> 01:20:23.610] [SPEAKER_06]: But, like, the actual, like, revelations, the big stories that change things, it's not going to be there.
[01:20:23.670 --> 01:20:24.490] [SPEAKER_03]: That's what they're afraid of.
[01:20:24.630 --> 01:20:35.370] [SPEAKER_03]: That characterization, that reply, in this context, actually, it, I mean, it, it kind of, it nullifies itself.
[01:20:35.370 --> 01:20:54.570] [SPEAKER_03]: It's the, it, functionally, using these techniques, there, there's no application in, in a situation that is not inherently got some political angle to it or some action because they're, they're data sets that are from breaches.
[01:20:54.590 --> 01:20:57.750] [SPEAKER_03]: So, inherently, it's sort of an ignorant comment.
[01:20:58.510 --> 01:20:58.850] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[01:20:59.190 --> 01:20:59.390] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[01:21:01.050 --> 01:21:04.430] [SPEAKER_08]: So, so you're on Amazon, so people can get the book through Amazon.
[01:21:04.430 --> 01:21:08.010] [SPEAKER_08]: Uh, but I, I saw on your page, it's Amazon, if you must.
[01:21:09.610 --> 01:21:12.070] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, Amazon is, uh, pretty evil.
[01:21:12.510 --> 01:21:22.910] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, uh, yeah, so if you want to get the book, the, so if you go to, uh, hacksandleaks.com and, and click buy, uh, I have three options.
[01:21:23.230 --> 01:21:29.730] [SPEAKER_06]: And basically, um, buying directly from the publisher, NoStarch Press, is a good way of doing it.
[01:21:29.830 --> 01:21:35.490] [SPEAKER_06]: And NoStarch is great, and actually, if you wanted to buy it from NoStarch, uh, you'll, they have, uh, discounts all the time.
[01:21:35.630 --> 01:21:40.530] [SPEAKER_06]: And actually, if you wanted to wait until HOPE, um, and I'm sure they'll have, uh, copies of it at HOPE.
[01:21:40.710 --> 01:21:43.790] [SPEAKER_06]: Uh, they always have, like, discounts while they're at conferences and stuff.
[01:21:43.930 --> 01:21:46.870] [SPEAKER_08]: And I hope you'll be at HOPE signing, I hope you'll be at HOPE signing books, too.
[01:21:47.230 --> 01:21:48.910] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I would love to be at HOPE signing books.
[01:21:48.990 --> 01:21:54.770] [SPEAKER_06]: And in fact, I've been meaning to, I haven't done it yet, but, um, I noticed the call for papers is open, and I want to submit a talk about my book.
[01:21:55.290 --> 01:21:59.290] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, but, uh, but yeah, I'll totally, I'm totally planning on coming to HOPE.
[01:21:59.470 --> 01:22:01.590] [SPEAKER_06]: And I went last time, and it was great.
[01:22:01.750 --> 01:22:03.270] [SPEAKER_06]: It was my first time in Queens, actually.
[01:22:03.510 --> 01:22:04.450] [SPEAKER_08]: What'd you think of Queens?
[01:22:04.730 --> 01:22:06.290] [SPEAKER_08]: What'd you think of Queens being a first time?
[01:22:06.830 --> 01:22:08.230] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, I kind of loved it.
[01:22:08.470 --> 01:22:12.130] [SPEAKER_06]: I, like, it was, it was kind of, like, hard to get to.
[01:22:12.390 --> 01:22:17.690] [SPEAKER_06]: But once you're there, like, I think I stayed in, uh, Airbnb, kind of near, um, the university.
[01:22:17.930 --> 01:22:18.110] [SPEAKER_14]: Okay.
[01:22:18.110 --> 01:22:33.010] [SPEAKER_06]: And I really liked it, like, like, I felt like it was a whole different part of New York City that I hadn't really experienced, and that it was very, like, I don't know, a lot more relaxing than, like, Manhattan and even Brooklyn, and, like, yeah, I liked it.
[01:22:33.290 --> 01:22:39.350] [SPEAKER_06]: I never lived in New York, but, um, but, but yeah, I definitely, I definitely enjoy Queens, and so I'm excited to go back.
[01:22:39.350 --> 01:22:41.270] [SPEAKER_08]: It's gotten a lot easier to get to.
[01:22:41.410 --> 01:22:42.990] [SPEAKER_08]: The transit has improved significantly.
[01:22:43.010 --> 01:22:50.270] [SPEAKER_08]: And also, um, uh, you're only minutes away from the biggest Chinatown in the world outside of China, so that's, that's something right there.
[01:22:50.550 --> 01:22:56.870] [SPEAKER_06]: I was really, like, when I heard about that, I was super excited, and, uh, and so, like, when I was at HOPE last time, I went to the biggest Chinatown.
[01:22:57.030 --> 01:23:02.250] [SPEAKER_06]: I went kind of late, and a lot of things were closed, but I found, like, this amazing, like, hot pot restaurant, and it was very cool.
[01:23:02.350 --> 01:23:06.130] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, no, we went at, like, uh, two in the morning and, and, and found things on a Sunday.
[01:23:06.450 --> 01:23:07.330] [SPEAKER_08]: So that was incredible.
[01:23:08.490 --> 01:23:08.730] [SPEAKER_06]: Nice.
[01:23:09.590 --> 01:23:21.170] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, oh, yeah, but, so, you can buy my book from No Starch Press, and if you buy a copy of the physical book, then they give you the e-book for free, too, which is, like, the PDF, or the e-pub, or the Mobi, like, all of those.
[01:23:21.410 --> 01:23:25.150] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, so, so, so that's cool, or you can just buy the e-book, it's a little cheaper.
[01:23:25.550 --> 01:23:43.370] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, or you, there's a link to, uh, bookshop.org that you can, um, uh, order online, and that's basically, like, a way more ethical way of buying books than buying them from Amazon, because, um, bookshop.org actually, like, uh, if you want to, you can choose your favorite local bookshop,
[01:23:43.650 --> 01:23:56.430] [SPEAKER_06]: and a chunk of all of the things that you buy will go, a chunk of the money will go to that bookshop, but if you don't choose one, then distribute it between all these local bookshops, so it's a way of actually supporting local bookshops, but still just ordering it online and getting it shipped to you.
[01:23:57.050 --> 01:24:04.290] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and then also, like, you can buy it on Amazon, um, and it's in the, it's in Amazon, it's on, in the Kindle store and all that.
[01:24:04.870 --> 01:24:12.110] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, uh, but if you have a local bookshop, you could actually just go to them and ask them ...to order the book for you, and they will.
[01:24:13.010 --> 01:24:17.270] [SPEAKER_06]: And so that gets even more money to your local bookshop if you want to do that.
[01:24:18.250 --> 01:24:26.310] [SPEAKER_06]: And also, like, if y'all are able to, go to the library and, like, request that the library get a copy of the book.
[01:24:26.390 --> 01:24:27.130] [SPEAKER_14]: Yes, good idea.
[01:24:27.390 --> 01:24:33.010] [SPEAKER_06]: It doesn't seem like there's a, like, global, centralized way of doing that.
[01:24:33.010 --> 01:24:38.590] [SPEAKER_06]: I think it really helps if just someone who that's actually their library goes in and asks.
[01:24:38.590 --> 01:24:39.150] [SPEAKER_08]: Uh-huh.
[01:24:39.270 --> 01:24:40.250] [SPEAKER_08]: Just going into your library.
[01:24:40.250 --> 01:24:41.010] [SPEAKER_08]: That's a good idea.
[01:24:41.130 --> 01:24:42.670] [SPEAKER_08]: People need to do that, you know?
[01:24:42.850 --> 01:24:43.070] [SPEAKER_06]: Yes.
[01:24:43.350 --> 01:24:45.090] [SPEAKER_06]: I did that in my library.
[01:24:45.090 --> 01:24:45.590] [SPEAKER_06]: It was great.
[01:24:45.670 --> 01:24:49.690] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, I guess I said that I was the author, but, like, they were just like, oh, yeah, absolutely.
[01:24:49.830 --> 01:24:50.230] [SPEAKER_06]: We'll get it.
[01:24:50.330 --> 01:24:53.230] [SPEAKER_06]: And then they... Actually, I should go check.
[01:24:53.230 --> 01:24:54.210] [SPEAKER_06]: I wonder if they have it now.
[01:24:54.250 --> 01:24:55.530] [SPEAKER_06]: You could probably host a signing there.
[01:24:56.150 --> 01:24:57.710] [SPEAKER_08]: You could host a signing there as well.
[01:24:58.650 --> 01:24:58.970] [SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
[01:24:59.250 --> 01:24:59.590] [SPEAKER_08]: Go ahead, Kyle.
[01:24:59.790 --> 01:25:02.250] [SPEAKER_03]: I just wanted to say that's a great idea as far as housing.
[01:25:02.430 --> 01:25:08.170] [SPEAKER_03]: A lot of people I know volunteering and attending the conference were able to go in on a place.
[01:25:08.170 --> 01:25:10.110] [SPEAKER_03]: And that helps locally.
[01:25:10.370 --> 01:25:13.150] [SPEAKER_03]: And the other thing about libraries that's so crucial.
[01:25:13.370 --> 01:25:16.510] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, we're living in the information age.
[01:25:16.810 --> 01:25:18.090] [SPEAKER_03]: That is a resource.
[01:25:19.230 --> 01:25:20.670] [SPEAKER_03]: We've had questions.
[01:25:21.310 --> 01:25:27.850] [SPEAKER_03]: We have sometimes people accessing the new system that we developed for digital subscriptions.
[01:25:27.850 --> 01:25:37.430] [SPEAKER_03]: And just generally, you know, we cater to people across age groups and people have varying levels of experience with technology.
[01:25:37.430 --> 01:25:57.970] [SPEAKER_03]: And that is something that we think about and will advise people if they don't have friends or family that can help navigate them through uncompressing a file or, you know, using something in a particular operating system that is the one that they have access to,
[01:25:58.130 --> 01:26:02.150] [SPEAKER_03]: but they're inexperienced and they're literally trying to access information.
[01:26:02.150 --> 01:26:10.690] [SPEAKER_03]: That is exactly what librarians do, is help people access information and answer questions and walk them through that stuff.
[01:26:11.210 --> 01:26:31.090] [SPEAKER_03]: And a lot of those institutions have workshops and people available that can help with that, especially to those that don't have family members or individuals around them that can help and guide them through a lot of that process.
[01:26:32.310 --> 01:26:48.170] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, libraries are amazing, and this is sort of off-topic, but if you all don't know about it, there's an app called Libby, where you can put in any library cards that you have, and then you can check out e-books and audio books through your local library.
[01:26:48.670 --> 01:26:54.350] [SPEAKER_06]: So you're like, yeah, and then you can, like, get the e-books delivered to a Kindle or other e-book readers.
[01:26:54.350 --> 01:27:05.610] [SPEAKER_06]: So, like, if you want to listen to a new audio book, you can just, like, put your library card in Libby, search for audio books that are available, and then check one out and just listen to it, and it's free because it's a library.
[01:27:05.790 --> 01:27:06.450] [SPEAKER_06]: You just have to return it.
[01:27:06.570 --> 01:27:08.150] [SPEAKER_08]: That means getting a library card, people.
[01:27:08.430 --> 01:27:09.890] [SPEAKER_08]: If you don't have one, get one.
[01:27:09.990 --> 01:27:25.770] [SPEAKER_06]: You need a library card, because it actually, even though it's all digital and really, I don't know, it's all, like, artificial scarcity, it still is, like, your local library needs to have bought a license of this e-book or a license of this audio book in order to check it out.
[01:27:25.990 --> 01:27:26.810] [SPEAKER_07]: Go ahead, Rob.
[01:27:27.750 --> 01:27:39.930] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, and having done some work in the industry, your local library is, because there's no centralized way to just request all libraries order something, because the way libraries work, they serve their own community.
[01:27:39.990 --> 01:27:45.830] [SPEAKER_07]: So your local library is, it's their job to get the books in that your local area wants.
[01:27:46.270 --> 01:27:51.730] [SPEAKER_07]: And so, yeah, everyone, wherever you are, you should go to your local library, and you should request books you want.
[01:27:51.970 --> 01:28:07.770] [SPEAKER_07]: And all the people at libraries whose job it is to select and order books love when that happens, because that's a suggestion that they don't have to just come up with something they think might be something somebody wants, because they actually have proof positive that it will serve one of their users.
[01:28:08.050 --> 01:28:10.310] [SPEAKER_07]: So, yes, request Micah's book from your library.
[01:28:10.470 --> 01:28:14.770] [SPEAKER_07]: Request all the books you like from your library, and it'll be there for everyone.
[01:28:14.770 --> 01:28:22.430] [SPEAKER_03]: Especially this one, because it's self-help, and it's about going through and accessing and using tools with information.
[01:28:22.550 --> 01:28:23.650] [SPEAKER_08]: Self-help, I like that.
[01:28:23.730 --> 01:28:23.930] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[01:28:24.370 --> 01:28:25.310] [SPEAKER_08]: Definitely, definitely.
[01:28:26.310 --> 01:28:33.290] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, you know, also, I was thinking this book is a great gift for anyone that you think might have technical knowledge or just interest.
[01:28:33.890 --> 01:28:35.530] [SPEAKER_08]: They won't be able to put it down, right?
[01:28:35.610 --> 01:28:42.190] [SPEAKER_08]: I mean, it's just, it's so open and easy to walk through the various stages.
[01:28:42.190 --> 01:28:44.290] [SPEAKER_08]: And, boy, the payoff is amazing.
[01:28:46.150 --> 01:28:47.190] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, absolutely.
[01:28:47.530 --> 01:28:59.190] [SPEAKER_06]: And, like, please, I'm available if you have questions, or if you are, if you, like, end up, like, publishing a blog post with some, like, cool shit you found.
[01:28:59.290 --> 01:29:00.350] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, let me know.
[01:29:00.490 --> 01:29:01.770] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm really into it.
[01:29:03.590 --> 01:29:06.850] [SPEAKER_08]: Gil, any questions from our chat listeners?
[01:29:09.430 --> 01:29:13.890] [SPEAKER_08]: Or are they chatting amongst themselves, which is why I was always a critic of the chat?
[01:29:14.770 --> 01:29:16.050] [SPEAKER_02]: They're listening.
[01:29:16.970 --> 01:29:22.730] [SPEAKER_02]: We had people ask about Micah's Twitter handle, which he very graciously provided.
[01:29:22.730 --> 01:29:27.390] [SPEAKER_02]: And, hang on, we did get a...
[01:29:27.390 --> 01:29:39.730] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, if you're looking for Micah, your information for Mastodon and Bluesky is available on the page for the book on hacksleaks.com.
[01:29:39.810 --> 01:29:42.810] [SPEAKER_02]: But you can also find Micah at Micah F. Lee at Twitter and at Micah F. Lee at infosec.exchange on Mastodon
[01:29:49.430 --> 01:29:51.850] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, basically, if you look for Micah F. Lee, you'll find Micah.
[01:29:54.270 --> 01:30:00.350] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and I, um, did want to share one very other, one good comment.
[01:30:01.230 --> 01:30:15.670] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, part of the idea, says our good friend, listener Lex, says part of the idea is to shine a light onto things that need to be highlighted, but, as Micah was describing earlier, the decipherer can choose how widely to share the data, which mitigates danger.
[01:30:16.930 --> 01:30:20.050] [SPEAKER_02]: So, I think, very excellent cut to the heart of it.
[01:30:20.470 --> 01:30:23.110] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, yes, we...
[01:30:24.570 --> 01:30:26.130] [SPEAKER_02]: We love hearing from you guys.
[01:30:26.170 --> 01:30:29.390] [SPEAKER_02]: We have 53 people watching right now, which is great.
[01:30:30.170 --> 01:30:30.650] [SPEAKER_05]: Um...
[01:30:30.650 --> 01:30:31.570] [SPEAKER_05]: And they're all listening intently.
[01:30:32.490 --> 01:30:33.390] [SPEAKER_02]: We hope so.
[01:30:33.490 --> 01:30:33.870] [SPEAKER_02]: As well, they should be.
[01:30:34.070 --> 01:30:34.190] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[01:30:35.110 --> 01:30:38.770] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, the Mac Geek says, great show, I'm enjoying the talk.
[01:30:39.030 --> 01:30:42.190] [SPEAKER_02]: And, yes, um, they are listening intently.
[01:30:43.550 --> 01:30:48.290] [SPEAKER_02]: And, um, if you guys want to be part of the conversation, the chat is the way to do it this week.
[01:30:48.450 --> 01:30:53.730] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, not because we have Rebel on the phone, but because we have Micah on the phone.
[01:30:54.070 --> 01:31:02.650] [SPEAKER_02]: And, um, you can't call us, but please do feel free to hop in the chat, um, share anything you might like with us.
[01:31:03.690 --> 01:31:04.850] [SPEAKER_02]: And, yeah, that is true.
[01:31:05.010 --> 01:31:06.770] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, someone says we're listening, not watching.
[01:31:07.490 --> 01:31:09.370] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe someday that sticker will move.
[01:31:09.510 --> 01:31:10.110] [SPEAKER_02]: You don't know.
[01:31:10.630 --> 01:31:14.410] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, it's YouTube, technically it's a video, but we're not going to put our faces on it.
[01:31:16.230 --> 01:31:17.470] [SPEAKER_08]: Um, yes.
[01:31:17.910 --> 01:31:29.590] [SPEAKER_07]: Although, talking of, uh, YouTube, we, we did get a comment on Mastodon, uh, referring to the fact that, uh, the YouTube vendetta against Firefox appears to be continuing as, uh, they're finding YouTube is buffering like crazy.
[01:31:29.830 --> 01:31:34.370] [SPEAKER_07]: Which is especially funny for a video like ours, which has no, uh, video movement.
[01:31:34.370 --> 01:31:39.930] [SPEAKER_07]: So the bandwidth needed for it must be negligible compared to, like, an HD, uh, moving video.
[01:31:40.570 --> 01:31:50.850] [SPEAKER_07]: And, uh, yeah, a lot of people have been reporting over the past weeks that, uh, YouTube has been, uh, slowing down for people using Firefox, especially using Firefox with ad blockers.
[01:31:51.030 --> 01:31:52.670] [SPEAKER_07]: And, uh, the grumblings are grumbling.
[01:31:52.850 --> 01:31:56.470] [SPEAKER_08]: We don't have ads on our YouTube, uh, uh, feed here.
[01:31:56.690 --> 01:31:58.570] [SPEAKER_08]: So why would it be buffering for us?
[01:31:59.230 --> 01:32:03.530] [SPEAKER_07]: Because YouTube is punishing everyone using ad blockers, or at least they're trying to.
[01:32:03.890 --> 01:32:12.990] [SPEAKER_07]: And, uh, for a lot of people that's succeeding, um, usage of ad blockers has actually gone down a little bit, uh, among people who want to watch YouTube in their browser.
[01:32:12.990 --> 01:32:21.850] [SPEAKER_08]: You know, we seem to be moving into a world of evil, and we, we need all the tools we can to fight back this kind of, uh, uh, corporate oppression of one sort or another.
[01:32:22.230 --> 01:32:33.810] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, you know, I was, I, I had this conspiracy theory that, uh, Google was also, uh, uh, making Google Meet work less well for Firefox users.
[01:32:33.810 --> 01:32:41.130] [SPEAKER_06]: Because I use Firefox all the time, and, um, for years and years, you couldn't have the, like, special, the, like, uh, what's it called?
[01:32:41.210 --> 01:32:48.310] [SPEAKER_06]: The effects on Google Meet, where you can, like, change your virtual background or, like, look like a dog or whatever, um, unless you were using Chrome.
[01:32:48.770 --> 01:32:51.790] [SPEAKER_06]: And it just wasn't, wasn't available when you go to it in Firefox.
[01:32:52.010 --> 01:32:54.130] [SPEAKER_06]: It's like, sorry, your browser is not supported.
[01:32:54.230 --> 01:32:55.050] [SPEAKER_06]: And I'm like, what is this?
[01:32:55.110 --> 01:32:55.890] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, Internet Explorer.
[01:32:56.310 --> 01:32:59.730] [SPEAKER_06]: But then, as of, like, two months ago or something, it just started working.
[01:33:00.170 --> 01:33:02.650] [SPEAKER_06]: So I guess they updated Google Meet to support Firefox.
[01:33:02.650 --> 01:33:04.930] [SPEAKER_06]: So I think that my conspiracy theory was wrong.
[01:33:05.130 --> 01:33:10.690] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, I, I wouldn't let go of that conspiracy theory too quickly, because, uh, there's certainly a lot of evil we can point to.
[01:33:10.830 --> 01:33:14.790] [SPEAKER_08]: We, we've encountered, um, our email about hope going into spam boxes.
[01:33:15.390 --> 01:33:24.830] [SPEAKER_08]: Our own staff, people that are on the organizing committee, uh, mailed to them from another member, uh, on a mailing list, went into spam.
[01:33:25.030 --> 01:33:32.630] [SPEAKER_08]: And, and it's just incredible that these companies can, can block communications or, uh, the ability to see something.
[01:33:32.650 --> 01:33:36.070] [SPEAKER_08]: Uh, just because they can, and they're, they're, they're...
[01:33:36.590 --> 01:33:45.010] [SPEAKER_06]: Did you hear about what, um, uh, Elon Musk did with, uh, Twitter with, uh, the t.co URL shortener and, like, link time?
[01:33:45.390 --> 01:33:45.610] [SPEAKER_08]: No.
[01:33:45.810 --> 01:33:51.910] [SPEAKER_06]: Basically, like, um, I, I can maybe try and see if I can find the actual, uh, like, research that people did.
[01:33:51.910 --> 01:33:55.790] [SPEAKER_06]: But, uh, I think the markup, it's this non-profit newsroom, uh, figured it out.
[01:33:55.950 --> 01:34:02.030] [SPEAKER_06]: But basically, when, there's, like, a list of sites that, uh, Twitter considered competitors.
[01:34:02.470 --> 01:34:11.690] [SPEAKER_06]: And so that included Mastodon and included, um, I think Bluesky and I think also, um, uh, Substack and Patreon and a few other things.
[01:34:11.690 --> 01:34:12.210] [SPEAKER_06]: Right.
[01:34:12.210 --> 01:34:20.390] [SPEAKER_06]: And any links to those, uh, the t.co URL shortener would work, but it would take an extra, like, 500 milliseconds.
[01:34:20.710 --> 01:34:26.470] [SPEAKER_06]: So if you click on a Mastodon link, you have to wait a second or, like, half a second before it redirects.
[01:34:26.570 --> 01:34:28.330] [SPEAKER_06]: But if you click on anything else, it redirects immediately.
[01:34:28.650 --> 01:34:33.690] [SPEAKER_06]: And basically, they were just trying to make it, like, like, make the UI of their competitors feel worse.
[01:34:34.750 --> 01:34:35.150] [SPEAKER_08]: Wow.
[01:34:35.590 --> 01:34:38.530] [SPEAKER_08]: I mean, it doesn't sound like much time, but I guess it adds up.
[01:34:39.370 --> 01:34:40.170] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah.
[01:34:40.210 --> 01:34:45.490] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, it's not much time, but it's definitely, like, like, it's one of those things that, like, annoys you.
[01:34:45.730 --> 01:34:47.010] [SPEAKER_06]: And it, like, puts friction.
[01:34:47.030 --> 01:34:50.890] [SPEAKER_06]: And you're just like, ugh, I'm not going to click on these links anymore because it's slow.
[01:34:51.070 --> 01:34:51.610] [SPEAKER_06]: Right, right.
[01:34:51.770 --> 01:34:56.270] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, it makes it feel like, you know, Twitter is nice and fast, but these other sites suck.
[01:34:56.870 --> 01:35:03.150] [SPEAKER_08]: You know, has Twitter had a data set, uh, released or found anywhere?
[01:35:03.690 --> 01:35:04.870] [SPEAKER_08]: I'd like to jump on that.
[01:35:05.670 --> 01:35:15.830] [SPEAKER_06]: So, so, I mean, there was the Twitter file, which, uh, uh, I don't really think is, it was not a data set that was released because it wasn't public.
[01:35:15.990 --> 01:35:23.170] [SPEAKER_06]: It was, like, a bunch of, like, conservative journalists that were, like, handpicked by Elon Musk to, like, share data internally.
[01:35:23.170 --> 01:35:24.910] [SPEAKER_06]: It was more like an authorized leak.
[01:35:25.170 --> 01:35:25.330] [SPEAKER_06]: Right.
[01:35:25.630 --> 01:35:32.590] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, but I was thinking that if there is, like, a big data leak from Twitter, it should be called the X-Files.
[01:35:32.830 --> 01:35:33.350] [SPEAKER_08]: Oh, wow.
[01:35:34.450 --> 01:35:35.170] [SPEAKER_08]: Of course.
[01:35:35.470 --> 01:35:36.290] [SPEAKER_08]: That makes perfect sense.
[01:35:38.430 --> 01:35:40.810] [SPEAKER_07]: That would be the one good result if they had name change.
[01:35:41.130 --> 01:35:41.290] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[01:35:42.070 --> 01:35:43.570] [SPEAKER_08]: Then, then, then I'll say X.
[01:35:43.750 --> 01:35:44.770] [SPEAKER_08]: That'll make me say X.
[01:35:47.790 --> 01:35:48.130] [SPEAKER_04]: Wow.
[01:35:48.590 --> 01:35:49.370] [SPEAKER_08]: Uh, go ahead, Alex.
[01:35:50.370 --> 01:35:53.130] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I was just going to suggest that we give out the phone number.
[01:35:53.290 --> 01:35:54.510] [SPEAKER_08]: How can we do that, Alex?
[01:35:54.590 --> 01:35:56.730] [SPEAKER_08]: Because Mike is on the phone.
[01:35:56.950 --> 01:35:57.810] [SPEAKER_08]: Because Mike is on the phone.
[01:35:57.810 --> 01:35:59.550] [SPEAKER_08]: We only have one phone, so we can't do that.
[01:35:59.550 --> 01:36:00.170] [SPEAKER_08]: We only have one line.
[01:36:00.330 --> 01:36:00.510] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[01:36:00.930 --> 01:36:01.850] [SPEAKER_08]: That's the whole point.
[01:36:01.930 --> 01:36:04.370] [SPEAKER_08]: Otherwise, you would have been hearing a rebel diatribe by now.
[01:36:04.630 --> 01:36:10.810] [SPEAKER_08]: By the way, Mike, a rebel is one of our regular callers who basically stays on for about 10 or 15 minutes despite every attempt.
[01:36:10.950 --> 01:36:12.030] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, there's no basically.
[01:36:12.750 --> 01:36:14.610] [SPEAKER_03]: Just stop with that talk right now.
[01:36:14.610 --> 01:36:18.170] [SPEAKER_08]: Oh, it's, it's just something we've learned to swallow and, um, yeah.
[01:36:18.730 --> 01:36:22.870] [SPEAKER_08]: But that's why we're asking people on the chat to, to ask questions or people, people here to ask questions.
[01:36:23.030 --> 01:36:23.190] [SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[01:36:23.850 --> 01:36:24.210] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[01:36:24.510 --> 01:36:24.930] [SPEAKER_04]: Very good.
[01:36:26.070 --> 01:36:26.430] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[01:36:26.990 --> 01:36:32.190] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, no, I, I think this has been a fantastic show and I think it's great to, to have you on, Micah.
[01:36:32.310 --> 01:36:36.150] [SPEAKER_04]: And I think, um, I think this will be a really interesting hot topic at HOPE, too.
[01:36:36.290 --> 01:36:37.850] [SPEAKER_04]: So this will be, this will be excellent.
[01:36:38.810 --> 01:36:39.470] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I really.
[01:36:39.550 --> 01:36:40.410] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm excited.
[01:36:40.410 --> 01:36:44.230] [SPEAKER_03]: I, I really am, uh, intrigued by, uh, some of these tools.
[01:36:44.370 --> 01:36:50.370] [SPEAKER_03]: I hope people with idle machines start, start building their own sort of investigative labs.
[01:36:50.370 --> 01:36:52.990] [SPEAKER_03]: And it's just a great step-by-step.
[01:36:53.310 --> 01:37:06.590] [SPEAKER_03]: So thanks for putting this out into the world to, uh, really get people up to speed on what it takes to go through the kind of data that, um, we're talking about all the time and, and that is all around us.
[01:37:07.930 --> 01:37:18.830] [SPEAKER_06]: If you're interested in, in building your own investigative lab, you should check out chapter five, which is about Alice, which is, um, basically software.
[01:37:18.830 --> 01:37:19.510] [SPEAKER_06]: You could run it.
[01:37:19.730 --> 01:37:25.890] [SPEAKER_06]: It's, it's, it's meant to be on, like on a server and multiple people can use it, but you could also run it locally on your laptop and Docker.
[01:37:26.730 --> 01:37:29.370] [SPEAKER_06]: And it's basically lets you index data sets.
[01:37:29.510 --> 01:37:39.750] [SPEAKER_06]: So it doesn't, it doesn't work with everything, but with, with most data sets that you got a hold of, you can basically like run an Aleph server and then you could, you could just pump gigabytes of data into it.
[01:37:39.830 --> 01:37:47.790] [SPEAKER_06]: And it'll look at each document and extract all of the text and like OCR, the images and all sorts of stuff, and then make it searchable for you.
[01:37:47.930 --> 01:37:53.890] [SPEAKER_06]: And then you can also, um, uh, use it to like find connections between multiple data sets and things like that.
[01:37:53.970 --> 01:37:54.550] [SPEAKER_06]: And it's very cool.
[01:37:54.670 --> 01:38:00.090] [SPEAKER_06]: And it's like, it's what I think of when I think of building your own little data lab for, uh, like leased data sets.
[01:38:00.330 --> 01:38:01.270] [SPEAKER_03]: I love that.
[01:38:01.390 --> 01:38:01.510] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[01:38:01.730 --> 01:38:15.330] [SPEAKER_03]: Um, because we, we have a lot of spare and like old storage and, and just, I think people should really dig through their basements and think about all of the different possibilities when they're repurposing equipment.
[01:38:15.730 --> 01:38:32.590] [SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, I mean, maybe it uses a little bit more power, but if it's doing something that, um, that takes advantage of the, the kinds of tools and, and puts, puts information together that is valuable, it'll be worth that extra power.
[01:38:32.790 --> 01:38:42.690] [SPEAKER_03]: And I just think, yeah, it's, it's great to give people an idea of that this can, this is, this is what it's used for, but it can be used for anything.
[01:38:42.690 --> 01:38:56.730] [SPEAKER_03]: Uh, and, and having that kind of, um, drive to purpose build stuff that you can apply to all kinds of other problem solving is, is just really empowering.
[01:38:56.850 --> 01:39:08.410] [SPEAKER_03]: I really, I know that there's a lot of, uh, hackers out there that are into problem solving that like, uh, working with equipment and, uh, and breathing new life into it.
[01:39:08.410 --> 01:39:14.670] [SPEAKER_03]: That's, that's something that I've done a lot of and, and we're, we have things that are just looking for, for things to do.
[01:39:15.090 --> 01:39:18.810] [SPEAKER_03]: And, um, well, I had one more question that, that you touched on earlier.
[01:39:19.110 --> 01:39:27.770] [SPEAKER_03]: How far out do you think, um, we are from having some of those AI, uh, tools that work offline?
[01:39:28.270 --> 01:39:38.310] [SPEAKER_03]: How long do you think it'll be before we can really bring those into our, our little labs and, and into things that we're putting together ourselves with, with off the shelf?
[01:39:38.310 --> 01:39:38.970] [SPEAKER_03]: Off the shelf parts.
[01:39:39.630 --> 01:39:42.610] [SPEAKER_06]: Honestly, there's already off the shelf parts that work pretty well.
[01:39:42.730 --> 01:39:46.510] [SPEAKER_06]: And a lot of the work that could be done is making them easy to use.
[01:39:47.030 --> 01:39:52.690] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, I don't know if you, if you're familiar with hugging face, uh, hugging face.co.
[01:39:52.850 --> 01:39:59.030] [SPEAKER_06]: It's basically like, uh, it's like GitHub or something, except instead of, uh, source code repositories, it's machine learning models.
[01:39:59.050 --> 01:40:01.570] [SPEAKER_06]: And they're like almost all like open-source.
[01:40:02.230 --> 01:40:05.570] [SPEAKER_06]: And you, so you can just go in there and search for different types of models.
[01:40:06.650 --> 01:40:10.630] [SPEAKER_06]: And, um, uh, I've only played with it a little bit, but it's really impressive.
[01:40:10.830 --> 01:40:17.750] [SPEAKER_06]: Like you could actually, like, none of it's going to be as fast or as, as good as like chat TPT.
[01:40:17.930 --> 01:40:28.270] [SPEAKER_06]: Like the, um, the LLMs are trained on much smaller sets, but they're still trained on enough that, you know, they can summarize documents for you and stuff.
[01:40:28.270 --> 01:40:32.010] [SPEAKER_06]: And you can run them directly on your, um, on your laptop.
[01:40:32.310 --> 01:40:38.410] [SPEAKER_06]: And so like, like one that I've used a bunch is called whisper and it's actually wasn't released by open AI, but it's open-source.
[01:40:38.710 --> 01:40:40.650] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, let me see.
[01:40:40.810 --> 01:40:44.070] [SPEAKER_06]: Open AI with, if you just search for open AI whisper, you'll find it.
[01:40:44.510 --> 01:40:54.470] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and this is a, uh, text or a speech to text, uh, uh, transcription, uh, machine learning model.
[01:40:54.470 --> 01:40:55.610] [SPEAKER_06]: And it's really cool.
[01:40:55.750 --> 01:41:02.270] [SPEAKER_06]: What you can do is like, um, I've heard of people like you can just like download YouTube videos and then run it, run the video through whisper.
[01:41:02.490 --> 01:41:06.690] [SPEAKER_06]: And then you just get a transcript of the video and it does like a very good job at it.
[01:41:06.710 --> 01:41:10.370] [SPEAKER_06]: And it can also even like, uh, translate stuff into English.
[01:41:10.490 --> 01:41:20.270] [SPEAKER_06]: It can't translate it into other languages, but if you find like, you know, uh, a speech in Russian, you can run that through whisper and then you get an English translation in text that you can just read.
[01:41:20.570 --> 01:41:24.430] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and I found that like, it totally works on my laptop.
[01:41:24.470 --> 01:41:25.430] [SPEAKER_06]: And it works fine.
[01:41:25.630 --> 01:41:26.430] [SPEAKER_06]: It's a little bit slow.
[01:41:26.570 --> 01:41:31.590] [SPEAKER_06]: So like, if I have like 10 minutes of audio, it takes about 20 minutes to process it.
[01:41:31.730 --> 01:41:34.050] [SPEAKER_06]: But like, that's not that bad.
[01:41:34.330 --> 01:41:41.370] [SPEAKER_06]: So I feel like there's actually like a good amount of open-source, uh, AI stuff that already exists.
[01:41:41.550 --> 01:41:45.390] [SPEAKER_06]: And that the hard part is that like, you have to be a Python programmer.
[01:41:45.390 --> 01:41:47.710] [SPEAKER_06]: You have to like write a little script to do it.
[01:41:47.710 --> 01:41:53.390] [SPEAKER_06]: And there isn't just some like easy to use software that you can just like, that anyone can just install.
[01:41:53.570 --> 01:41:59.990] [SPEAKER_06]: You have to be kind of nerdy about it and like experiment with it some, but I feel like a lot of that stuff is already, is already there.
[01:42:00.130 --> 01:42:03.790] [SPEAKER_06]: They're just, they haven't been, the pieces haven't been put together yet to make usable tools.
[01:42:04.610 --> 01:42:05.810] [SPEAKER_08]: And Gila, you have something.
[01:42:06.130 --> 01:42:07.470] [SPEAKER_02]: We have a listener question.
[01:42:08.170 --> 01:42:13.650] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, Micah, what's the process of finding a publisher and getting a book like this published?
[01:42:14.970 --> 01:42:18.850] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, so no starch is my publisher.
[01:42:18.850 --> 01:42:30.630] [SPEAKER_06]: And actually, if you go to no starch.com and up at the top of the website, you click right for us, um, no starch is actually like, they're very chill and they're very, uh, transparent about how everything works.
[01:42:31.070 --> 01:42:35.390] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and they're probably one of the easiest publishers to work with.
[01:42:35.590 --> 01:42:40.310] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, uh, and so you can actually just like email them a book proposal.
[01:42:40.310 --> 01:42:47.050] [SPEAKER_06]: And if, if they're into it, then, uh, uh, they, they very likely will, will, will get it published.
[01:42:47.510 --> 01:42:50.750] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, this is the only book that I've ever tried to get published.
[01:42:50.750 --> 01:42:57.970] [SPEAKER_06]: And I only actually tried to get it published through no starch because, um, uh, I like no starch books.
[01:42:58.010 --> 01:43:03.370] [SPEAKER_06]: And it was basically like the first, I, I basically like had this idea for a book that I've been thinking of for a while.
[01:43:03.810 --> 01:43:08.870] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and then I emailed them and they were like really excited about it.
[01:43:08.870 --> 01:43:09.710] [SPEAKER_06]: And I was like, great.
[01:43:09.910 --> 01:43:11.350] [SPEAKER_06]: And then that was kind of bad.
[01:43:11.770 --> 01:43:17.030] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, uh, but so I'm sure the process is different in different ways.
[01:43:17.050 --> 01:43:23.370] [SPEAKER_06]: And, and I've actually been like totally off topic, uh, experimenting with writing a fiction and learning about how that publishing world works.
[01:43:23.470 --> 01:43:24.330] [SPEAKER_06]: And it's entirely different.
[01:43:24.710 --> 01:43:32.610] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, but, uh, uh, no starch is my only experience and they're very easy to work with.
[01:43:32.610 --> 01:43:39.450] [SPEAKER_06]: And so, so if you are wanting to write a book, like a technical book, um, through no starch, then just read their like write for us page.
[01:43:39.650 --> 01:43:45.030] [SPEAKER_06]: And, uh, uh, yeah, I, I think you could probably, you could probably get it done.
[01:43:45.270 --> 01:43:46.890] [SPEAKER_06]: It is a lot of work to write a book.
[01:43:47.110 --> 01:43:51.250] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, you have to like read your own book at least like 20 times.
[01:43:51.350 --> 01:43:56.350] [SPEAKER_06]: You have to go through, uh, like each chapter, get several rounds of editing and stuff like that.
[01:43:56.350 --> 01:43:59.930] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, but, uh, but yeah, it's very cool.
[01:44:00.070 --> 01:44:01.250] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm, I'm very glad I did it.
[01:44:01.810 --> 01:44:02.170] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[01:44:02.230 --> 01:44:07.370] [SPEAKER_08]: I guess it's, um, uh, fair to say that, uh, without no starch, this book wouldn't have been published, right?
[01:44:07.590 --> 01:44:08.390] [SPEAKER_08]: At least not easily.
[01:44:09.250 --> 01:44:09.490] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[01:44:09.650 --> 01:44:09.750] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[01:44:09.830 --> 01:44:09.890] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[01:44:09.990 --> 01:44:10.330] [SPEAKER_06]: Not easily.
[01:44:10.490 --> 01:44:14.330] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, I, I mean, I don't know, like, I think that they were just very enthusiastic about it.
[01:44:14.430 --> 01:44:18.310] [SPEAKER_06]: Like I, it definitely would have been a much harder thing for me.
[01:44:18.650 --> 01:44:21.070] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, uh, and I really like, you know, starch.
[01:44:21.250 --> 01:44:23.050] [SPEAKER_06]: They're like always at the conferences I go to.
[01:44:23.230 --> 01:44:23.450] [SPEAKER_06]: Yes.
[01:44:23.730 --> 01:44:23.950] [SPEAKER_06]: Agreed.
[01:44:24.530 --> 01:44:26.110] [SPEAKER_08]: And, you know, so I, I guess that's reason enough.
[01:44:26.110 --> 01:44:35.110] [SPEAKER_08]: For people, if you want to buy the book, buy it through NoStarch and, and look through NoStarch's catalog and, and see what else they have because they, they, uh, have a history of publishing really interesting, relevant material.
[01:44:36.150 --> 01:44:39.510] [SPEAKER_08]: Uh, NoStarch, NoStarchPress, NoStarch.com.
[01:44:40.270 --> 01:44:40.990] [SPEAKER_06]: NoStarch.com.
[01:44:41.130 --> 01:44:41.930] [SPEAKER_08]: NoStarch.com.
[01:44:42.390 --> 01:44:43.030] [SPEAKER_08]: Uh, okay.
[01:44:43.270 --> 01:44:44.170] [SPEAKER_08]: Uh, Rob and then Alex.
[01:44:45.370 --> 01:44:59.170] [SPEAKER_07]: Hey, um, talking of, uh, NoStarch, I mean, we've had, uh, you know, a friend of the show, Cory Doctorow, has often spoken about how he also puts his work out, uh, as you have, uh, simultaneously free online under Creative Commons at the same time as he's publishing it.
[01:44:59.410 --> 01:45:07.130] [SPEAKER_07]: And he's spoken about having to talk to people in the traditional publishing world and convince them that this wasn't, um, a ridiculous idea.
[01:45:07.350 --> 01:45:10.510] [SPEAKER_07]: Um, did you, did you find NoStarch to be, uh, chill about that as well?
[01:45:11.230 --> 01:45:13.410] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, NoStarch was very chill about that.
[01:45:13.570 --> 01:45:23.590] [SPEAKER_06]: And I think that also, partially because a lot of their other authors have, have done similar things and, and other authors have, have, like, specifically wanted to release their books under Creative Commons licenses.
[01:45:24.030 --> 01:45:26.490] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, so they have, like, a lot of experience with it.
[01:45:26.950 --> 01:45:33.850] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, I mean, personally, I think that if people want my book, they're going to pirate it.
[01:45:33.850 --> 01:45:36.610] [SPEAKER_06]: And that's fine, because I want more people to read it.
[01:45:37.030 --> 01:45:39.690] [SPEAKER_06]: And I think, uh, it just makes sense to make it easier.
[01:45:39.830 --> 01:45:49.130] [SPEAKER_06]: And, like, I guess I don't really have real numbers, but I think that the more, the more the book is getting spread around to everybody, probably the more people are going to buy it anyway.
[01:45:49.430 --> 01:45:57.690] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, like, I don't think that it's, like, uh, every single person that, like, yes, that is able to read a copy of it for free would have bought it.
[01:45:57.870 --> 01:46:04.190] [SPEAKER_06]: I think that, you know, if someone reads it for free, and then they like it and they talk about it, other people are going to buy it from that.
[01:46:04.350 --> 01:46:06.290] [SPEAKER_06]: And so, yeah, I don't know.
[01:46:06.350 --> 01:46:11.130] [SPEAKER_06]: I just feel like making it free is probably good business sense anyway.
[01:46:11.570 --> 01:46:12.790] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, I mean, I don't know.
[01:46:12.850 --> 01:46:15.870] [SPEAKER_06]: This comes from the whole, like, the Pirate Bay days.
[01:46:16.090 --> 01:46:17.690] [SPEAKER_06]: The whole...
[01:46:17.690 --> 01:46:21.550] [SPEAKER_06]: That's that ideology that I probably have retained.
[01:46:22.390 --> 01:46:26.350] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, we found that the community tends to support that which it values.
[01:46:26.670 --> 01:46:33.130] [SPEAKER_08]: And, uh, yeah, there'll be some copying going on, but, um, uh, you know, people will realize, they'll see the connection.
[01:46:33.610 --> 01:46:36.450] [SPEAKER_08]: If, uh, this is not supported, it's not going to continue.
[01:46:36.670 --> 01:46:39.710] [SPEAKER_08]: And, um, um, it's not a very hard calculation to make.
[01:46:39.810 --> 01:46:43.230] [SPEAKER_08]: And that also applies, uh, in how you publish.
[01:46:43.370 --> 01:46:48.970] [SPEAKER_08]: If you publish digital material, uh, do you want people to have the ability to copy it onto a different device?
[01:46:49.110 --> 01:46:51.450] [SPEAKER_08]: For us, you know, it's a very short question.
[01:46:51.730 --> 01:47:04.310] [SPEAKER_08]: Of course, people should have every right, as opposed to, um, uh, with Amazon's way of doing it, where, uh, basically the information can disappear from your Kindle or it can be, um, uh, prevented from being copied to other devices.
[01:47:04.530 --> 01:47:18.370] [SPEAKER_08]: So we find the most support comes from people, uh, who are able to appreciate the fact that they can, uh, uh, copy a magazine from their laptop to their, their phone to, uh, whatever other device they can think of that they can, they can read it on.
[01:47:20.370 --> 01:47:23.790] [SPEAKER_06]: See, I should check the Kindle version of my book and make sure that it's DRM-free.
[01:47:23.790 --> 01:47:26.870] [SPEAKER_06]: I think it should be, but I should verify.
[01:47:27.210 --> 01:47:28.110] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, it's good to know.
[01:47:28.270 --> 01:47:28.770] [SPEAKER_08]: It's good to know.
[01:47:28.910 --> 01:47:33.390] [SPEAKER_08]: And, and, you know, with, with Amazon, you don't really have the amount of control you should have.
[01:47:33.510 --> 01:47:36.050] [SPEAKER_08]: Uh, they wouldn't even tell us who the subscribers were.
[01:47:36.190 --> 01:47:37.650] [SPEAKER_08]: We couldn't address them.
[01:47:37.790 --> 01:47:38.590] [SPEAKER_08]: We had to trick them.
[01:47:38.710 --> 01:47:52.050] [SPEAKER_08]: We had to put out a farewell issue before they cut off magazine subscriptions last summer and, um, and, and basically, uh, tell people how to subscribe directly through us and still get the magazine on the Kindle, but just not use Amazon.
[01:47:54.610 --> 01:47:55.710] [SPEAKER_08]: So that was, that was fun.
[01:47:55.810 --> 01:47:56.270] [SPEAKER_08]: Alex, go ahead.
[01:47:57.850 --> 01:47:58.470] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, sure.
[01:47:58.750 --> 01:48:09.450] [SPEAKER_04]: You know, Mike, uh, as, uh, as a, as a lawyer, who's also a coder and, and a hacker, I also don't have a, uh, computer science background, didn't study computer science or computer engineering.
[01:48:09.890 --> 01:48:25.610] [SPEAKER_04]: I, in fact, I studied philosophy as, as an undergraduate, but one of the things that I've found to be most useful when coding is writing effective loops, like, you know, even in bash, you know, it doesn't even have to be in something as complicated as Python,
[01:48:25.750 --> 01:48:42.670] [SPEAKER_04]: but just figuring out how to iterate through data, you know, everything for every domain in this particular text file or for every, you know, whatever the hell it is, you know, just the loops can be so, uh, you know, incredibly powerful, I think.
[01:48:42.810 --> 01:48:51.550] [SPEAKER_04]: And, and I'm, I'm wondering, you know, what you think the most basic, but yet effective programming technique is in, in your experience.
[01:48:52.030 --> 01:48:52.550] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[01:48:52.710 --> 01:48:58.350] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, I agree with you, like specifically for, for, for, for data sets, like loops are amazing.
[01:48:58.350 --> 01:49:12.470] [SPEAKER_06]: And in fact, like, um, so the, the structure of my book is like, it starts out with some like, here's how some computer security stuff, uh, like using password managers a bit and, and here's how to use BitTorrent, here's how to download data.
[01:49:12.830 --> 01:49:18.510] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, but then it moves on to like the technical stuff, which is like how to use the terminal and then it moves on to Python.
[01:49:18.710 --> 01:49:34.570] [SPEAKER_06]: But like the beginning of the terminal section is like, um, you download BlueLeaks and now you have a folder with like 200, uh, like 70 zip files and it teaches you how to use a for loop and bash to unzip them all in a single command.
[01:49:35.350 --> 01:49:39.710] [SPEAKER_06]: And you could like right click on each one and go to unzip, but this saves a lot of time.
[01:49:39.710 --> 01:49:48.390] [SPEAKER_06]: And then, and then it like goes on to like, here's how, like using a for loop is really, really, really, really a common thing and a really powerful thing.
[01:49:48.530 --> 01:49:59.170] [SPEAKER_06]: And it means that instead of having, it basically lets you automate stuff instead of having to do this thing a hundred times or a thousand times or a million times manually, you do it once and then you just automate it in a loop.
[01:49:59.170 --> 01:50:01.490] [SPEAKER_06]: And I completely agree with that.
[01:50:01.650 --> 01:50:07.990] [SPEAKER_06]: And then like after, after like, you know, it introduces loops by unzipping a bunch of files, which is, you know, a common task.
[01:50:08.390 --> 01:50:20.090] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, but then it does the same sort of thing when it goes into Python, it's like you're in Python and it's like, okay, here's how you, uh, open a spreadsheet and then you loop through all the rows and then you can just loop through millions of rows and,
[01:50:20.210 --> 01:50:21.850] [SPEAKER_06]: and run the same block of code.
[01:50:21.850 --> 01:50:38.510] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, uh, yeah, so I, I guess I wanted second that loops are incredibly powerful and are one of the ways that make it so that, um, it's possible for a mere human to sift through millions and millions and millions of records.
[01:50:39.170 --> 01:50:52.410] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, I mean, I'm sure there's lots of other powerful, uh, things like I, I got JSON is a really powerful way of structuring, like arbitrarily complex data.
[01:50:52.630 --> 01:51:13.150] [SPEAKER_06]: And there's a whole like chapter on JSON and like, and actually the example for that is like, uh, uh, uh, from, uh, a Russian ransomware gang called Conti, they, uh, got hacked right after, uh, or I guess, I guess there were, I think, I believe that they were infiltrated by a Ukrainian guy who was like a security researcher who was infiltrating them already.
[01:51:13.150 --> 01:51:23.350] [SPEAKER_06]: Then Russia invaded Ukraine and Conti, um, kind of declared its support for Russia and threatened to like attack critical infrastructure of anyone who goes against Russia.
[01:51:23.610 --> 01:51:29.230] [SPEAKER_06]: And then Conti got like, like gigabytes of data leaks and it included all of their internal chat logs.
[01:51:29.430 --> 01:51:31.630] [SPEAKER_06]: And, um, those were all on JSON format.
[01:51:31.770 --> 01:51:41.470] [SPEAKER_06]: And so part of the book shows you how to like load this JSON file and then how to actually like look through the chat log using like four loops and very simple stuff.
[01:51:41.470 --> 01:51:46.570] [SPEAKER_06]: Like all, all of Python is like very concise and short and, and pretty easy to understand.
[01:51:46.570 --> 01:51:51.990] [SPEAKER_06]: There's like little 10 lines of code that do these things, but they're all incredibly powerful things.
[01:51:52.630 --> 01:51:53.470] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, yeah.
[01:51:55.070 --> 01:51:55.570] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[01:51:55.810 --> 01:51:56.810] [SPEAKER_04]: It's that, that's fantastic.
[01:51:56.870 --> 01:52:09.530] [SPEAKER_04]: I went through those Conti leaks myself as well, because it was fascinating because I've dealt with Conti, um, quite a bit as a, as a ransomware threat actor and, and dealt with quite a few of their incidents.
[01:52:09.530 --> 01:52:20.230] [SPEAKER_04]: And I will say though, they, they had excellent customer service, you know, much better than most, uh, technical, you know, any kind of tech service you get from, uh, any other companies.
[01:52:20.530 --> 01:52:22.290] [SPEAKER_08]: You get to fill out a survey after you dealt with them?
[01:52:22.910 --> 01:52:23.350] [SPEAKER_04]: Probably.
[01:52:23.370 --> 01:52:24.370] [SPEAKER_04]: I wouldn't be surprised.
[01:52:24.490 --> 01:52:25.810] [SPEAKER_04]: Everybody wants a goddamn survey now.
[01:52:26.050 --> 01:52:31.230] [SPEAKER_04]: But you know, one of the things that your whole story about loops and the power of it and JSON things is funny.
[01:52:31.230 --> 01:52:43.510] [SPEAKER_04]: I, it reminds me of a couple of years ago, I had a case where, uh, I, I got dumped on me just a massive amount of transcripts and PDFs from like years of, of hearings.
[01:52:44.050 --> 01:52:50.690] [SPEAKER_04]: And I had to figure out, um, from all these, these transcripts, you know, any references to Yahoo.
[01:52:51.330 --> 01:52:54.990] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, this was about, you know, potential Yahoo breach and whatnot.
[01:52:54.990 --> 01:53:00.150] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, and I remember saying on the air, like, you know, I got all these, these PDFs and things.
[01:53:00.230 --> 01:53:05.410] [SPEAKER_04]: I wish I, you know, that they were text files and I could go through them and, um, but you know, it's really hard.
[01:53:05.530 --> 01:53:13.510] [SPEAKER_04]: And then one of our listeners wrote to us, I think, and said, no, there's this, there's this Linux based command line tool called PDF, uh, grep PDF or PDF grep.
[01:53:13.930 --> 01:53:22.030] [SPEAKER_04]: And I literally just wrote a for loop script that said, go through every single file in this particular directory and search for Yahoo.
[01:53:22.030 --> 01:53:36.130] [SPEAKER_04]: And then because it had all of the structures and the regex that was associated with grep itself, but yet was specifically designed for PDFs, I could then have it give me the context around any reference to Yahoo as well.
[01:53:36.230 --> 01:53:38.410] [SPEAKER_04]: So give me 10 lines above and 10 lines below.
[01:53:38.610 --> 01:53:46.370] [SPEAKER_04]: And I will tell you, it saved me probably 40, 50 hours of going through these transcripts, just writing a for loop to do this.
[01:53:46.530 --> 01:53:47.690] [SPEAKER_06]: So it's really incredible.
[01:53:47.830 --> 01:53:50.570] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, grep is also another, one of those amazing tools.
[01:53:50.570 --> 01:54:02.290] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, I never actually heard of PDF grep, um, but somebody told me what I've used before is a PDF to text, which, uh, maybe part of like popular or something.
[01:54:02.390 --> 01:54:05.970] [SPEAKER_06]: I forgot what the package it comes from, but PDF to text can just like convert PDF.
[01:54:06.210 --> 01:54:07.870] [SPEAKER_06]: It just extracts the text content from it.
[01:54:08.050 --> 01:54:16.670] [SPEAKER_06]: And so what I probably would have done is that in two steps, like one convert all the PDF to text files and then grep through the text files with the, like getting the context around it.
[01:54:17.370 --> 01:54:28.490] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and then also there's Alice, that, that thing that I was talking about, you can totally just like, like give it a folder with thousands of PDFs and then it'll just crunch through them and then you can search it.
[01:54:28.670 --> 01:54:31.810] [SPEAKER_06]: And it, but it's like really nice and easy to use and stuff like that.
[01:54:32.050 --> 01:54:32.250] Wow.
[01:54:33.290 --> 01:54:33.650] [SPEAKER_06]: Fantastic.
[01:54:34.090 --> 01:54:35.110] [SPEAKER_06]: How do you spell that?
[01:54:36.090 --> 01:54:38.570] [SPEAKER_06]: Uh, a L E P H.
[01:54:38.830 --> 01:54:39.730] [SPEAKER_06]: It's, um...
[01:54:39.730 --> 01:54:40.010] [SPEAKER_06]: Got it.
[01:54:40.990 --> 01:54:41.210] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[01:54:41.690 --> 01:54:43.290] [SPEAKER_06]: It's OCCRP makes it.
[01:54:43.570 --> 01:54:46.550] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, it's the organized crime and corruption reporting project.
[01:54:47.050 --> 01:54:52.610] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, uh, they do a lot of like, uh, organized crime stuff in Eastern Europe.
[01:54:52.810 --> 01:54:58.790] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, but like docs.alice.occrp.org is the website for the software and it's open-source.
[01:54:59.090 --> 01:55:01.730] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and yeah, there's a whole chapter on, on how to use it.
[01:55:02.310 --> 01:55:05.090] [SPEAKER_08]: Uh, Michael, we're in on the last couple of minutes, but, uh, I don't know.
[01:55:05.090 --> 01:55:18.150] [SPEAKER_08]: I'd just like to ask if, if there are people out there, I mean, it's, it's obvious how passionate, uh, we all are about, uh, coding and, and, and getting things to work, but I imagine some readers might run into some difficulty or just have mental roadblocks towards this kind of thing.
[01:55:18.590 --> 01:55:22.710] [SPEAKER_08]: Um, is there any place they can go to get assistance or guidance?
[01:55:24.570 --> 01:55:26.590] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, that's a good question.
[01:55:26.690 --> 01:55:34.590] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, there's like tons and tons of resources, um, for like my, my book covers a lot of different technologies.
[01:55:35.450 --> 01:55:40.210] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, like, like, I think stack overflow is probably going to be a, a common place.
[01:55:40.630 --> 01:55:47.810] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, but, uh, uh, yeah, I don't actually have like a chat room or anything set up.
[01:55:47.910 --> 01:55:50.350] [SPEAKER_06]: Like you're welcome to email me personally.
[01:55:50.990 --> 01:55:58.210] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, I, as long as I don't get warmed and overflowing with email, I'm happy to just help people who are interested in it.
[01:55:58.770 --> 01:56:10.050] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, uh, but yeah, like I think, uh, uh, asking questions on social media, um, and, and maybe I could like respond to help publicly to help more people.
[01:56:10.830 --> 01:56:13.410] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, yeah, I wish I had a better answer.
[01:56:13.610 --> 01:56:14.390] [SPEAKER_08]: No, that's, that's fine.
[01:56:14.470 --> 01:56:16.750] [SPEAKER_08]: That's, that's, that's, that's more than I would do actually.
[01:56:17.070 --> 01:56:26.010] [SPEAKER_08]: Uh, but on the, on the subject of, uh, social media, do you want to give out any, any handles or addresses or things like that in this, uh, uh, fractured and, and, and confusing time?
[01:56:26.730 --> 01:56:27.130] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[01:56:27.970 --> 01:56:30.890] [SPEAKER_06]: So I'm, um, on, on Mastodon.
[01:56:31.090 --> 01:56:33.170] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm, uh, at Micah F.
[01:56:33.310 --> 01:56:35.230] [SPEAKER_06]: Lee at imposex.exchange.
[01:56:35.810 --> 01:56:37.450] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and I'm on Bluesky.
[01:56:37.830 --> 01:56:39.070] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm micahflee.com
[01:56:40.310 --> 01:56:42.390] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and actually my website is Micah F. Lee.com.
[01:56:42.950 --> 01:56:45.790] [SPEAKER_06]: And if you go to that and click on about, it just has links to everything else.
[01:56:45.870 --> 01:56:46.630] [SPEAKER_06]: That's probably the easiest.
[01:56:47.310 --> 01:56:49.030] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, uh, yeah.
[01:56:49.110 --> 01:56:49.810] [SPEAKER_06]: So you go to Micah F.
[01:56:49.890 --> 01:56:53.290] [SPEAKER_06]: Lee.com and the website, for the book is hacks and leaks.com.
[01:56:53.930 --> 01:56:56.270] [SPEAKER_08]: And the book is hacks, leaks, and revelations.
[01:56:56.690 --> 01:57:01.810] [SPEAKER_08]: And, um, I have a feeling a lot of people are going to be plunging into it in the, uh, in the weeks, months ahead.
[01:57:01.950 --> 01:57:03.890] [SPEAKER_08]: And we look forward to seeing you at the conference this summer.
[01:57:04.650 --> 01:57:05.690] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I'm excited.
[01:57:05.950 --> 01:57:06.150] [SPEAKER_06]: All right.
[01:57:06.310 --> 01:57:06.570] [SPEAKER_06]: Thank you.
[01:57:07.110 --> 01:57:07.690] [SPEAKER_08]: Thanks Micah.
[01:57:07.910 --> 01:57:08.270] [SPEAKER_08]: Take care.
[01:57:09.130 --> 01:57:09.450] [SPEAKER_06]: Bye.
[01:57:10.690 --> 01:57:13.150] [SPEAKER_08]: And I guess that's going to do it for us here and Off The Hook Overtime.
[01:57:13.750 --> 01:57:14.610] [SPEAKER_08]: So thanks everybody.
[01:57:15.150 --> 01:57:17.590] [SPEAKER_08]: We'll, uh, we'll meet here again next week.
[01:57:18.290 --> 01:57:19.450] [SPEAKER_08]: Alex looks like you have something to say.
[01:57:19.950 --> 01:57:21.910] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I just thought that was a great show.
[01:57:22.050 --> 01:57:23.270] [SPEAKER_04]: It was excellent to have Micah on.
[01:57:23.750 --> 01:57:24.110] [SPEAKER_04]: Fantastic.
[01:57:24.350 --> 01:57:26.110] [SPEAKER_08]: Let our listeners decide if it's a great show or not.
[01:57:26.210 --> 01:57:33.890] [SPEAKER_08]: You can write to us oth@2600.com and tell us if it was a good show or a bad show, or, uh, if you don't care, in which case you probably won't write an email.
[01:57:35.390 --> 01:57:35.750] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[01:57:35.890 --> 01:57:40.890] [SPEAKER_03]: And, um, I encourage everyone to be political, whether they're hacking or not.
[01:57:41.110 --> 01:57:41.410] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[01:57:41.890 --> 01:57:43.350] [SPEAKER_03]: Especially if people tell you not to.
[01:57:43.870 --> 01:57:44.030] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[01:57:44.130 --> 01:57:44.230] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[01:57:44.450 --> 01:57:48.330] [SPEAKER_08]: Do the most non-political thing, you know, like buying ice cream and make it political.
[01:57:48.330 --> 01:57:48.670] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[01:57:48.990 --> 01:57:49.390] [SPEAKER_08]: Show them.
[01:57:50.230 --> 01:57:51.150] [SPEAKER_08]: You can put it anywhere.
[01:57:51.710 --> 01:57:52.810] [SPEAKER_08]: Um, all right, that's it.
[01:57:52.890 --> 01:57:53.490] [SPEAKER_08]: We'll see you next week.
[01:57:53.610 --> 01:57:53.730] [SPEAKER_08]: Good night.