Off The Hook - 2024-05-29

[00:58.920 --> 01:01.360]  [SPEAKER_10]: Thank you for listening to Off The Hook.
[02:30.630 --> 02:32.690]  [SPEAKER_09]: And a very good evening to everybody.
[02:32.770 --> 02:34.410]  [SPEAKER_09]: The program is Off The Hook.
[02:34.470 --> 02:35.930]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm sorry nobody answered the phone before.
[02:36.110 --> 02:37.650]  [SPEAKER_09]: I really thought somebody was going to pick up.
[02:37.650 --> 02:41.050]  [SPEAKER_09]: We went back in time, and we were trying a thing.
[02:41.110 --> 02:41.910]  [SPEAKER_09]: It didn't work.
[02:42.510 --> 02:43.390]  [SPEAKER_09]: We'll figure it out.
[02:43.890 --> 02:44.650]  [SPEAKER_09]: This is Emmanuel.
[02:44.890 --> 02:47.210]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm here for this hour.
[02:47.830 --> 02:48.650]  [SPEAKER_09]: Kyle's over there.
[02:48.910 --> 02:49.190]  [SPEAKER_09]: Hi.
[02:49.390 --> 02:49.770]  [SPEAKER_09]: How are you doing?
[02:50.570 --> 02:54.830]  [SPEAKER_09]: Over in Skype-land, we have... hang on, I know this.
[02:55.430 --> 02:56.610]  [SPEAKER_09]: Rob, is that you, Rob?
[02:57.530 --> 02:58.210]  [SPEAKER_13]: Good evening.
[02:58.370 --> 02:59.070]  [SPEAKER_13]: It is indeed me.
[02:59.170 --> 03:00.850]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's been such a long time since we've been on the air.
[03:00.950 --> 03:02.630]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's why I'm having trouble recognizing...
[03:02.630 --> 03:05.970]  [SPEAKER_09]: And, whoa, is that Gila over there on the other side?
[03:05.970 --> 03:06.490]  [SPEAKER_12]: Good evening.
[03:06.790 --> 03:07.030]  [SPEAKER_09]: Hello.
[03:07.030 --> 03:07.450]  [SPEAKER_09]: How are you doing?
[03:07.630 --> 03:08.070]  [SPEAKER_09]: How are you doing?
[03:08.170 --> 03:09.630]  [SPEAKER_09]: And that must be Alex, right?
[03:10.770 --> 03:11.950]  [SPEAKER_07]: It is I.
[03:12.230 --> 03:12.650]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[03:12.810 --> 03:14.010]  [SPEAKER_09]: I got all the names right.
[03:14.590 --> 03:16.070]  [SPEAKER_09]: Folks, we've been super busy.
[03:16.550 --> 03:18.470]  [SPEAKER_09]: All kinds of things going on.
[03:18.690 --> 03:19.850]  [SPEAKER_09]: Life keeps getting in the way.
[03:20.530 --> 03:22.330]  [SPEAKER_09]: And there's no alternative.
[03:22.610 --> 03:24.410]  [SPEAKER_09]: But we're glad to be back.
[03:24.910 --> 03:28.430]  [SPEAKER_09]: We've got all your cards and letters and emails and things like that.
[03:28.430 --> 03:30.070]  [SPEAKER_09]: And we have a lot to talk about.
[03:30.270 --> 03:38.630]  [SPEAKER_09]: A lot, as always, in the world of high technology, low intelligence, and whatever else is out there.
[03:39.730 --> 03:41.910]  [SPEAKER_09]: Can I start by complaining?
[03:42.350 --> 03:44.530]  [SPEAKER_09]: I mean, I'm told I don't do that enough.
[03:44.750 --> 03:47.450]  [SPEAKER_09]: And I need to get better at it.
[03:47.530 --> 03:48.850]  [SPEAKER_09]: But I do have something to complain about.
[03:48.970 --> 03:52.590]  [SPEAKER_09]: I've actually complained about this already on the social media network.
[03:52.730 --> 03:57.850]  [SPEAKER_09]: So if you're a fan of those, you might already be familiar with this particular issue of mine.
[03:57.850 --> 03:58.790]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay with you guys?
[03:59.850 --> 04:00.630]  [SPEAKER_09]: Go for it.
[04:00.750 --> 04:00.910]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[04:02.690 --> 04:06.750]  [SPEAKER_09]: There's this service out there on the television called Netflix.
[04:07.150 --> 04:08.150]  [SPEAKER_09]: You may have heard about it.
[04:08.770 --> 04:12.930]  [SPEAKER_09]: And there's a button on my remote, on my television set, that says Netflix.
[04:13.270 --> 04:17.710]  [SPEAKER_09]: If I push that button, my television set goes to Netflix.
[04:18.050 --> 04:18.570]  [SPEAKER_09]: Right?
[04:19.270 --> 04:21.070]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's something that other people have.
[04:21.250 --> 04:25.190]  [SPEAKER_09]: A button, a Netflix button that immediately takes you to a Netflix screen.
[04:25.190 --> 04:31.190]  [SPEAKER_09]: And you log in, or you're already logged in, and you can view Netflix fair.
[04:31.570 --> 04:35.990]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, a couple of weeks ago, I hit that button.
[04:36.150 --> 04:44.910]  [SPEAKER_09]: And much to my surprise, I got a message on my television set saying, this device is no longer supported.
[04:46.030 --> 04:51.910]  [SPEAKER_09]: To watch instantly, please see the list of supported devices on our website.
[04:55.120 --> 04:56.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: I was fit to be tied.
[04:57.120 --> 04:58.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: You know, here it is.
[04:58.260 --> 04:59.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm looking at a television set.
[04:59.820 --> 05:05.460]  [SPEAKER_09]: And the screen on the TV is telling me that my television is no longer supported.
[05:06.160 --> 05:16.320]  [SPEAKER_09]: Now, can you imagine if you turned on a television set in the past, and you tuned to Channel 2 or something, and Channel 2 said, no, TV's no good anymore.
[05:16.320 --> 05:19.440]  [SPEAKER_09]: You have to go get a new TV in order to watch Channel 2.
[05:19.440 --> 05:21.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: Why, there'd be riots in the street.
[05:22.080 --> 05:23.040]  [SPEAKER_09]: There'd be insurrections.
[05:23.140 --> 05:25.300]  [SPEAKER_09]: There'd be all kinds of things going on.
[05:25.400 --> 05:26.720]  [SPEAKER_09]: People would not tolerate it.
[05:27.160 --> 05:41.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yet today, for some reason, this is considered normal, where a service that you pay for is basically unavailable to you if you don't continue to buy new hardware.
[05:42.940 --> 05:47.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: So, I said some things about this on the Internet.
[05:47.640 --> 05:51.800]  [SPEAKER_09]: And the response was not surprising.
[05:52.040 --> 05:52.780]  [SPEAKER_09]: Not surprising.
[05:52.900 --> 06:02.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: And the reason I say that is because, no matter what, if you complain about something involving technology, there are always people who will stand up for the bad technology.
[06:03.860 --> 06:05.780]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, let's read a couple of these.
[06:06.040 --> 06:08.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: Your TV was never supported by Netflix.
[06:08.340 --> 06:17.100]  [SPEAKER_09]: It just happened to have a Netflix client, which worked for an earlier version of their service and hasn't been updated since because your TV vendor kept its firmware.
[06:18.320 --> 06:20.420]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, how does that help me exactly?
[06:20.700 --> 06:23.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: So, I'm supposed to be mad at my TV now instead of Netflix?
[06:24.200 --> 06:29.200]  [SPEAKER_09]: I just want to watch a damn TV show and I have to jump through hoops.
[06:29.420 --> 06:30.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's not right.
[06:30.980 --> 06:34.940]  [SPEAKER_09]: The next response was, Life offline is great.
[06:35.120 --> 06:35.540]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, great.
[06:35.540 --> 06:43.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: So, I need a lecture now on not watching television after complaining about something that I spent a lot of money on no longer working.
[06:44.160 --> 06:47.380]  [SPEAKER_09]: So, now you're telling me that, yeah, you're stupid to be watching TV.
[06:47.560 --> 06:48.200]  [SPEAKER_09]: Why don't you go outside?
[06:48.420 --> 06:51.240]  [SPEAKER_09]: First of all, it's two in the morning when I'm trying to do this, all right?
[06:51.380 --> 06:52.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: And I'm not going to go outside.
[06:54.300 --> 06:56.300]  [SPEAKER_09]: And then, okay, response number three.
[06:57.040 --> 06:58.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: People still use Netflix?
[06:58.720 --> 07:03.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: Oh, yeah, now I'm an old grandpa for like wanting to use Netflix.
[07:03.700 --> 07:05.480]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, I'm not cool anymore.
[07:07.920 --> 07:11.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: I've yet, yet to see a positive response.
[07:12.240 --> 07:15.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: Something that doesn't blame the end user.
[07:15.480 --> 07:17.780]  [SPEAKER_09]: And yeah, I'm an end user at times.
[07:17.980 --> 07:20.420]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm proud to be an end user.
[07:22.680 --> 07:23.620]  [SPEAKER_09]: Here's a suggestion.
[07:23.620 --> 07:28.440]  [SPEAKER_09]: Why not just buy a NUC and you see or something and run it that way?
[07:28.540 --> 07:31.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: Then you'd have the added benefit of having an actual computer connected to your TV.
[07:31.740 --> 07:33.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: Maybe I don't want a computer connected to my TV.
[07:33.760 --> 07:35.020]  [SPEAKER_09]: Maybe I just want a damn TV set.
[07:35.820 --> 07:40.120]  [SPEAKER_09]: You know, maybe I just want to do things the way they're supposed to work.
[07:40.260 --> 07:41.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: I have a Netflix button on my remote.
[07:42.540 --> 07:46.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: That, to me, is an implied contract right there.
[07:46.840 --> 07:49.820]  [SPEAKER_09]: And I'm sure Alex, you'd stand next to me in court and swear to that.
[07:50.300 --> 07:59.980]  [SPEAKER_09]: That, you know, having that on the remote is my promise to be able to watch Netflix by pushing that button instead of getting a scolding.
[08:01.200 --> 08:06.380]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, if the TV is that old, my TV is less than 10 years old.
[08:06.440 --> 08:06.720]  [SPEAKER_09]: You know what?
[08:07.700 --> 08:09.280]  [SPEAKER_09]: I grew up in Queens.
[08:10.480 --> 08:15.140]  [SPEAKER_09]: And in my entire life in Queens, we had the same TV set.
[08:15.280 --> 08:16.820]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's huge, black and white.
[08:17.000 --> 08:18.580]  [SPEAKER_09]: I think it was a Sylvania or something.
[08:19.740 --> 08:23.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: And we would never think of getting another television set.
[08:23.260 --> 08:24.220]  [SPEAKER_09]: It was the only one.
[08:24.480 --> 08:25.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: Occasionally, it had to get fixed.
[08:25.920 --> 08:26.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: That was a big deal.
[08:28.260 --> 08:30.940]  [SPEAKER_09]: But, yeah, things are meant to last.
[08:31.200 --> 08:32.480]  [SPEAKER_09]: And I like to hold on to things.
[08:32.540 --> 08:33.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: I like to hold on to technology.
[08:34.360 --> 08:36.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm using a laptop right now that...
[08:36.360 --> 08:37.500]  [SPEAKER_09]: How old is this laptop, Kyle?
[08:37.700 --> 08:38.720]  [SPEAKER_09]: How old would you say this one is?
[08:39.140 --> 08:40.200]  [SPEAKER_08]: It's like 10...
[08:41.040 --> 08:42.400]  [SPEAKER_08]: Almost 10 or 12 years.
[08:42.520 --> 08:43.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: I think it's 12 years.
[08:43.460 --> 08:43.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: I think it's... yeah.
[08:44.420 --> 08:45.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, it still works.
[08:45.400 --> 08:46.320]  [SPEAKER_09]: It does everything I want to do.
[08:46.860 --> 08:49.200]  [SPEAKER_09]: You know, I'm not composing symphonies on it.
[08:49.280 --> 08:49.980]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm not doing...
[08:57.080 --> 09:05.940]  [SPEAKER_09]: And just follow the instructions all the time about upgrades and what becomes no longer relevant.
[09:06.420 --> 09:07.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: No longer supported.
[09:09.100 --> 09:12.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: So, if your TV is that old, it's 1080p at most.
[09:12.400 --> 09:14.240]  [SPEAKER_09]: So, any streaming stick or device should work.
[09:15.160 --> 09:16.020]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, fine.
[09:16.140 --> 09:19.240]  [SPEAKER_09]: They're telling me to go use an iPhone or an iPad, which I don't have.
[09:20.480 --> 09:21.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: And other services.
[09:22.440 --> 09:23.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, great.
[09:23.460 --> 09:24.180]  [SPEAKER_09]: You know, I can do all this.
[09:24.300 --> 09:25.220]  [SPEAKER_09]: I know I can do all this.
[09:26.160 --> 09:28.540]  [SPEAKER_09]: The point is, I shouldn't have to do all this.
[09:28.660 --> 09:29.620]  [SPEAKER_09]: It should still work.
[09:29.800 --> 09:33.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: Why is my TV all of a sudden not supported?
[09:34.840 --> 09:37.140]  [SPEAKER_09]: Because somebody made a programming decision someplace.
[09:37.560 --> 09:39.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: And everybody is expected to follow it.
[09:40.660 --> 09:44.000]  [SPEAKER_09]: Here's probably the most helpful response that I got out of all these responses.
[09:44.140 --> 09:44.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: And there are many, many more.
[09:45.100 --> 09:45.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm skipping over.
[09:46.040 --> 09:48.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: This is why I want a dumb TV.
[09:49.100 --> 09:50.120]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's not an insult.
[09:50.260 --> 09:51.000]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's a thing.
[09:51.180 --> 09:52.040]  [SPEAKER_09]: A dumb TV.
[09:52.180 --> 09:53.860]  [SPEAKER_09]: A TV should only be a display.
[09:54.640 --> 09:55.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: Maybe also a speaker.
[09:56.420 --> 09:56.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: Nothing else.
[09:57.180 --> 10:02.280]  [SPEAKER_09]: Any smarts need to be in an attached device that can be replaced or upgraded if outdated.
[10:02.480 --> 10:03.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: Amen to that.
[10:04.120 --> 10:04.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[10:05.180 --> 10:05.580]  [SPEAKER_09]: Absolutely.
[10:09.540 --> 10:10.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: There are more.
[10:10.400 --> 10:10.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: There are more.
[10:12.480 --> 10:13.780]  [SPEAKER_09]: In the end, yeah, I figured it out.
[10:13.860 --> 10:14.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: I didn't have to throw out my TV.
[10:14.800 --> 10:15.980]  [SPEAKER_09]: I used a Roku device.
[10:16.720 --> 10:20.460]  [SPEAKER_09]: But again, how many people out there instantly are able to do that?
[10:20.540 --> 10:21.500]  [SPEAKER_09]: Are able to figure it out?
[10:21.500 --> 10:22.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: They buy a TV.
[10:22.860 --> 10:24.980]  [SPEAKER_09]: The salesman says, yes, you can get Netflix.
[10:25.180 --> 10:25.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: There's a Netflix button.
[10:25.980 --> 10:27.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: And all of a sudden, your TV is outdated.
[10:27.900 --> 10:28.780]  [SPEAKER_09]: You have to get a new TV.
[10:28.860 --> 10:30.280]  [SPEAKER_09]: And a lot of people, I'll bet, do that.
[10:31.580 --> 10:33.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: Any thoughts from out there in Skype-land?
[10:34.020 --> 10:35.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: Gila, I know you had your hand up first.
[10:35.820 --> 10:36.340]  [SPEAKER_12]: I did.
[10:36.480 --> 10:38.720]  [SPEAKER_12]: Well, first, I was curious what a NUC was.
[10:38.860 --> 10:39.920]  [SPEAKER_12]: But Rob walked me through that.
[10:41.280 --> 10:42.980]  [SPEAKER_12]: But no, it made me think about something.
[10:42.980 --> 10:46.140]  [SPEAKER_12]: So there was a TV, bought it in 2015.
[10:46.160 --> 10:50.640]  [SPEAKER_12]: And it has a cute little remote with the buttons on it.
[10:51.900 --> 11:01.940]  [SPEAKER_12]: And this particular that I'm holding in my hand right now has a Netflix button, an Amazon button, a Voodoo button, and an RDO button.
[11:02.340 --> 11:07.120]  [SPEAKER_12]: And I'm curious now what would happen because some of these services don't exist anymore.
[11:07.300 --> 11:08.020]  [SPEAKER_09]: Don't press that button.
[11:08.200 --> 11:10.220]  [SPEAKER_09]: Gila, don't press buttons of services that don't exist.
[11:10.360 --> 11:11.480]  [SPEAKER_09]: That sounds like an old Roku.
[11:11.480 --> 11:13.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: You'll void your warranty.
[11:13.540 --> 11:14.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: The TV might even explode.
[11:14.840 --> 11:15.240]  [SPEAKER_09]: We don't know.
[11:15.820 --> 11:19.640]  [SPEAKER_12]: And then we have the newer, got some extra ones.
[11:19.780 --> 11:22.180]  [SPEAKER_12]: And this one has an HBO Max button.
[11:22.180 --> 11:26.780]  [SPEAKER_12]: And I wonder if you press the HBO Max button, will it tell you, that's not my name anymore?
[11:27.640 --> 11:28.200]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's right.
[11:28.260 --> 11:29.620]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's called just Max now, isn't it?
[11:30.300 --> 11:30.620]  [SPEAKER_12]: Right.
[11:31.680 --> 11:41.200]  [SPEAKER_12]: So, you know, part of me wonders why we have these services on the buttons and you can't just program your own buttons.
[11:41.700 --> 11:46.040]  [SPEAKER_12]: You know, a bunch of services here and here that we don't have, buttons that are just taking up space.
[11:47.280 --> 11:48.540]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, program your own buttons.
[11:48.580 --> 11:49.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: I like that idea.
[11:49.560 --> 11:54.500]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, you should be able to, like, remap them to something that works or a workaround that you've devised.
[11:54.960 --> 11:55.240]  [SPEAKER_09]: Mm-hmm.
[11:55.400 --> 11:55.620]  [SPEAKER_09]: Mm-hmm.
[11:56.240 --> 11:56.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: Alex, go ahead.
[11:58.340 --> 12:02.120]  [SPEAKER_07]: You should look at the buttons and perhaps see them for what they are.
[12:02.260 --> 12:03.880]  [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, they're essentially advertisements.
[12:04.620 --> 12:10.280]  [SPEAKER_07]: They're advertising an online service and they're utilizing space in your house to do so.
[12:10.680 --> 12:13.600]  [SPEAKER_07]: So, I mean, I'm not a big fan of these buttons to begin with.
[12:13.740 --> 12:28.720]  [SPEAKER_07]: I like Gila's idea of programmable buttons or maybe, you know, something as crazy like if I hold in the number one on the keypad, it'll open Netflix and then you can program number two to open Max and number three to open Crossy Road.
[12:28.880 --> 12:33.760]  [SPEAKER_07]: Like, that's not something I think that would be, you know, beyond the realm of technical possibility.
[12:33.960 --> 12:41.040]  [SPEAKER_07]: But my question to you, Emmanuel, is the button itself not working only?
[12:41.460 --> 12:48.980]  [SPEAKER_07]: Or is it the case that you just can't access Netflix by navigating to the app and opening the app some other way?
[12:49.140 --> 12:53.380]  [SPEAKER_09]: No, obviously the button is working because it's generating the message on the screen.
[12:53.800 --> 13:02.800]  [SPEAKER_09]: What they've done is they've simply changed the requirements so that, as some of these people said, your old TV is no longer supported.
[13:03.900 --> 13:09.540]  [SPEAKER_09]: So it just means get a new TV and stop holding on to old technology, which works fine in any way.
[13:10.220 --> 13:14.620]  [SPEAKER_07]: But can you access Netflix by any other method outside the button?
[13:14.700 --> 13:20.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, so what I wound up doing was using a Roku device and simply going to the Netflix app on that.
[13:20.900 --> 13:21.460]  [SPEAKER_09]: It worked just fine.
[13:22.580 --> 13:28.180]  [SPEAKER_09]: There's no reason for that to happen other than the fact that they can do it and a lot of people will be mystified.
[13:28.360 --> 13:28.880]  [SPEAKER_07]: Maybe you should just relabel.
[13:28.880 --> 13:34.400]  [SPEAKER_07]: I think you should just relabel the button with like a label maker and just call it anger.
[13:34.980 --> 13:38.040]  [SPEAKER_07]: And then whenever you get yourself anger, just push that button.
[13:38.180 --> 13:39.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: We do have a label maker here.
[13:40.580 --> 13:43.200]  [SPEAKER_09]: Kyle's the official labeler and maybe we'll do that.
[13:43.460 --> 13:48.880]  [SPEAKER_09]: But again, you know, I like the idea of programmable buttons, you know, where you can make the button do different things.
[13:49.760 --> 13:50.860]  [SPEAKER_09]: We don't have enough of that.
[13:50.940 --> 13:51.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: Go ahead, Rob.
[13:52.520 --> 14:06.260]  [SPEAKER_13]: So the point someone made about just wanting to get a dumb TV is something I find very interesting nowadays because the way the TV business works now, the manufacturers basically get the...
[14:06.260 --> 14:11.920]  [SPEAKER_13]: When you buy a television that is designated a television in the store, you'll find it comes with a bunch of apps preloaded on it.
[14:12.040 --> 14:22.740]  [SPEAKER_13]: And that is because the price of the television is subsidized by companies like Netflix and Amazon Prime and Max and whatever else to put their apps on the device.
[14:22.740 --> 14:26.140]  [SPEAKER_13]: So it's in front of your eyes right when you start up your new television.
[14:27.420 --> 14:35.800]  [SPEAKER_13]: And so those companies pay the TV manufacturer and the TV manufacturer passes, I guess, some of the savings along.
[14:36.320 --> 14:44.140]  [SPEAKER_13]: But also, they want their own sort of rent-seeking behavior and your membership and things like Roku and so on and so on.
[14:44.180 --> 14:46.500]  [SPEAKER_13]: So they want to keep making money off of you in any way they can.
[14:46.720 --> 14:49.540]  [SPEAKER_13]: You can buy a dumb TV, but it's not called that.
[14:49.640 --> 14:50.980]  [SPEAKER_13]: It's known as a commercial display.
[14:50.980 --> 15:05.040]  [SPEAKER_13]: And if you start looking for those, you realize that they cost a lot more, like significant amounts of money more than if you walked into a store to buy a television, even if they're the same size, even if they have the same brightness, sound, whatever,
[15:05.360 --> 15:12.200]  [SPEAKER_13]: the same amount of inputs because they charge you more to not have the pre-advertised garbage put in front of you.
[15:12.540 --> 15:21.680]  [SPEAKER_13]: And that also gives the people who make the pre-advertised garbage, such as the Netflix app, power over how their software works with the device once you've got it up and running.
[15:22.620 --> 15:32.100]  [SPEAKER_08]: I think there's also like a symbiotic return for those service providers because they have a...
[15:32.100 --> 15:41.060]  [SPEAKER_08]: they then capture that subscribership and that actually in turn motivates people to buy more hardware.
[15:41.280 --> 15:48.860]  [SPEAKER_08]: If a TV fails, they're going to want their services back or get back onto those the way they did on the previous bit of hardware.
[15:49.540 --> 16:08.340]  [SPEAKER_08]: So that relationship works back and forth to keep people buying hardware, whether it's just sort of like a mechanical failure in the power supply or in some component or the entire software end of it becomes unwieldy for the manufacturer.
[16:08.540 --> 16:13.900]  [SPEAKER_08]: And their cycles are much less than like even a year when they're introducing new TVs.
[16:13.900 --> 16:31.400]  [SPEAKER_08]: And I also think like the the way we're doing production now is incredibly high resolution with digital cinema and the affordability and the ability to make a lot of programming at that level of picture quality.
[16:31.600 --> 16:38.440]  [SPEAKER_08]: And a lot of people have larger and larger resolution devices to consume that content on.
[16:38.440 --> 17:04.400]  [SPEAKER_08]: and I think that also drives the unwieldy bits of or drives the manufacturer and the service providers away from supporting legacy operating systems that are connected to TVs that are HD, which itself is still a valid and really good-looking format, but the sending of like very,
[17:04.540 --> 17:24.880]  [SPEAKER_08]: very high-resolution new programming to down-convert or otherwise provide versions that are of lower resolution or down-converted for those legacy TVs could become unwieldy and is also beyond like what the manufacturer is doing as far as the OS is concerned,
[17:25.140 --> 17:40.960]  [SPEAKER_08]: the actual service provider has to compensate for doing sort of lower-res copies of each these new programs, which it's it takes a little bit of infrastructure to accommodate and sense that on these different things.
[17:41.100 --> 17:42.880]  [SPEAKER_08]: I don't know if that makes sense to anyone.
[17:43.280 --> 17:43.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: Go ahead, Rob.
[17:44.400 --> 17:53.020]  [SPEAKER_13]: But in the meantime, there was a great post that went around Mastodon a few days ago where somebody posted a photo of an old portable radio and said, this is something my father-in-law had.
[17:53.100 --> 17:53.780]  [SPEAKER_13]: It was never opened.
[17:53.880 --> 17:58.860]  [SPEAKER_13]: It was from 48 years ago, a GE radio in his garage and no pairing, no logins, no setup.
[17:59.020 --> 17:59.820]  [SPEAKER_13]: It just works.
[18:00.280 --> 18:03.060]  [SPEAKER_13]: You can listen to us right now with the radio you bought 50 years ago.
[18:06.700 --> 18:07.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: He should check that.
[18:08.440 --> 18:19.420]  [SPEAKER_09]: But not the case with television because that was the magic of television in days of old where you could turn on a TV set and it would just work.
[18:19.520 --> 18:28.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: But now, since we switched to digital, all those frequencies, all those old TVs no longer work without conversion and the signals aren't nearly as good.
[18:28.880 --> 18:41.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: When I was a kid, I was able to pick up distant signals on hot summer days for some reason and I picked up stations in Kentucky as far away as Kansas at one point from right here in New York and there was a certain magic to that.
[18:41.800 --> 18:46.500]  [SPEAKER_09]: You can still do that on AM radio despite the fact that the car manufacturers are trying to get rid of AM radio.
[18:46.720 --> 18:51.120]  [SPEAKER_09]: You can still do that and experience that magic of hearing a distant place.
[18:51.960 --> 19:00.180]  [SPEAKER_09]: But today, you're just surrounded by just what I call technological blindness where, yeah, something is cool.
[19:00.440 --> 19:07.200]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's a good innovation but you're giving up something else and not thinking about what you're really giving up when you do that.
[19:07.340 --> 19:07.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: Go ahead, Gila.
[19:08.300 --> 19:14.200]  [SPEAKER_12]: The thing that I was thinking about was in terms of the, I'm sorry, display terminal, right?
[19:14.840 --> 19:36.840]  [SPEAKER_12]: To, I was thinking about the difference between being in the Windows and Microsoft ecosystem versus, you know, kind of rolling your own in that way and what it would take now to create your own home ecosystem for a TV that you didn't immediately plug into the wall and download three apps and you're good to go.
[19:37.100 --> 20:00.960]  [SPEAKER_12]: Like, I cannot imagine the kind of labor and setup it would take to have the kind of setup that we have on our home TV now without those automatic handholds and I wonder what we're losing by having those plug-and-play systems ready to go without, it's not even a lack of curiosity that we have anymore but a lack of necessity.
[20:01.320 --> 20:20.480]  [SPEAKER_12]: You know, you can have 800 apps on your TV in a matter of moments without even thinking about it and not having to have an Internet connection on your television necessarily but, as Emmanuel was just saying, because of the global system of over-the-air not being what it used to be,
[20:21.360 --> 20:24.720]  [SPEAKER_12]: you know, what can we do for ourselves anymore?
[20:24.960 --> 20:28.280]  [SPEAKER_12]: Where is that the DIY ethos of television?
[20:28.560 --> 20:29.300]  [SPEAKER_12]: Man, where's it at?
[20:30.460 --> 20:56.440]  [SPEAKER_08]: I think also something I'm thinking about is the analytics side, like what information they're trying to glean from these apps and that maybe newer, faster displays that can run more apps or the newer software have greater abilities for them to get sort of behavioral and other information about how you use different service providers that are on that embedded OS.
[20:57.040 --> 20:58.120]  [SPEAKER_08]: It's all very...
[20:58.560 --> 21:00.540]  [SPEAKER_08]: It's something that's just a moving target.
[21:00.700 --> 21:05.240]  [SPEAKER_08]: It's just constantly new features and new services are being thrown at the consumers.
[21:05.460 --> 21:09.120]  [SPEAKER_09]: I love new features and new services and things like that, but I also love simplicity.
[21:09.500 --> 21:10.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: I want to be able...
[21:10.840 --> 21:17.980]  [SPEAKER_09]: And I really should get an over-the-air antenna for digital TV because there are all kinds of hidden stations that you can find there.
[21:18.360 --> 21:21.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: Unfortunately, you can't get long-distance reception occasionally.
[21:21.500 --> 21:26.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's either you get it or you don't and the signal strength is less than it was in the past.
[21:27.100 --> 21:29.100]  [SPEAKER_09]: But there is still a degree of magic there.
[21:29.200 --> 21:32.540]  [SPEAKER_09]: And I urge people to explore as much as possible.
[21:33.060 --> 21:37.300]  [SPEAKER_09]: And speaking of the magic of radio, that's what we broadcast on right now.
[21:37.380 --> 21:41.480]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's why we want to continue broadcasting over FM radio, not just over the Internet.
[21:41.860 --> 21:45.420]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, the Internet is great and that's how we reach the entire world.
[21:45.880 --> 21:54.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: But radio is the true magic because right now, guarantee at some point, somebody in New York City is driving right now.
[21:55.420 --> 22:00.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, I'm talking to you and you're hearing us and you don't know who we are.
[22:00.980 --> 22:02.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: You've never heard us before.
[22:02.980 --> 22:12.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: You just tuned to 99.5 FM and there are these voices talking on the radio about something that you're mildly interested in or maybe even more interested in.
[22:13.260 --> 22:21.100]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, that's the magic of radio, that you don't know who's out there, that you don't know how many people really are listening, that you don't know what lives you could be affecting.
[22:21.740 --> 22:27.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: That you don't know what station you'll happen upon next if you just keep tuning the FM dial.
[22:27.480 --> 22:31.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: When Kyle and I went to Texas not too long ago, we did that a lot.
[22:31.880 --> 22:35.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: We tuned the dial a lot and heard all kinds of interesting radio stations.
[22:36.320 --> 22:41.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: And I always suggest people do that rather than just listen to their mixtape or whatever.
[22:42.720 --> 22:44.580]  [SPEAKER_09]: Listen to what's local.
[22:44.800 --> 22:49.200]  [SPEAKER_09]: And here in New York City, WBAI, we're real local.
[22:49.360 --> 22:51.120]  [SPEAKER_09]: And we've been local since 19...
[22:51.120 --> 22:53.860]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm saying local, not loco, since 1960.
[22:54.480 --> 22:55.720]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, people laughing.
[22:56.080 --> 23:02.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: So, the reason, the reason we stay on the air is because of listeners like you.
[23:02.840 --> 23:03.440]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[23:03.740 --> 23:09.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: And all you have to do is call 212-209-2950 and pledge support.
[23:10.120 --> 23:12.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: And you can be a part of this amazing family.
[23:12.780 --> 23:16.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: A family that has existed now for over 60 years.
[23:17.240 --> 23:17.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: Wow.
[23:17.980 --> 23:19.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: That is something.
[23:19.860 --> 23:24.780]  [SPEAKER_09]: A family of people coming and going, obviously, but it's magical programming.
[23:24.780 --> 23:29.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: If you listen to what goes on over the airwaves here at WBAI, you will hear such a variety.
[23:29.800 --> 23:32.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: You will hear things that inspire you.
[23:32.280 --> 23:33.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: You will hear things that outrage you.
[23:33.480 --> 23:35.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: You will hear things that you never thought of before.
[23:35.960 --> 23:44.780]  [SPEAKER_09]: Right now, though, we're asking you to give a call to 212-209-2950 and pledge whatever you can to keep this non-commercial radio station going.
[23:45.000 --> 23:45.860]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, non-commercial.
[23:46.020 --> 23:46.820]  [SPEAKER_09]: Maybe we didn't mention that.
[23:47.240 --> 23:57.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: We're a non-commercial radio station, which means we can say things like, boy, Netflix is terrible because they don't sponsor us because we can insult them.
[23:57.980 --> 24:01.720]  [SPEAKER_09]: We can insult anybody really because we're not beholden to anyone but the listeners.
[24:02.340 --> 24:19.460]  [SPEAKER_09]: Now, for a pledge of $150 or more, we'll send you a thank you gift of the Off The Hook Anthology, which consists of every program that we have done since 1988 up until the end of 2023 in MP3 format on a flash drive.
[24:19.600 --> 24:23.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's for everybody who pledges $150 or more.
[24:24.220 --> 24:25.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's called the Off The Hook Anthology.
[24:26.080 --> 24:50.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: The most important thing though, is to keep WBAI broadcasting for another 60 years and hopefully over an FM band that is not messed up by advances in technology that will make it hard or impossible for somebody to just turn on the radio and hear a voice they never heard before or turn on radio and hear a voice they're expecting to hear.
[24:51.060 --> 24:53.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: That is something that I think we all grew up with.
[24:53.820 --> 24:59.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's just that magic of radio whether it's in our houses or whether it's in our cars.
[24:59.520 --> 25:05.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: Increasingly now what I read is that most people listen in their cars and most people in cars do listen to the radio at some point.
[25:06.160 --> 25:10.300]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm not sure how many people still have radios in their houses.
[25:10.940 --> 25:17.220]  [SPEAKER_09]: Do any of you guys have a radio that you turn on occasionally and say, oh, you know what, I'm going to listen to the radio tonight in my den?
[25:17.480 --> 25:18.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: Does that still happen, Gila?
[25:20.080 --> 25:24.340]  [SPEAKER_12]: I have a clock radio with a CD player in it.
[25:24.980 --> 25:26.560]  [SPEAKER_12]: It's an absolute unit.
[25:26.560 --> 25:31.860]  [SPEAKER_12]: I've been schlepping it around for 20 years and it's fascinating.
[25:32.120 --> 25:39.620]  [SPEAKER_12]: There have been times when I've checked us on the air from our bedroom and no, it's amazing.
[25:39.620 --> 25:46.100]  [SPEAKER_12]: I love tuning it and occasionally when I hit the snooze button in the morning I hit the tuning knob instead and then the sound is off which is great.
[25:49.180 --> 25:50.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: radio wakes you up every day.
[25:52.100 --> 25:57.140]  [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, and sometimes when the tuner is off, fuzz wakes me up every day which is not a great start to the morning.
[25:57.380 --> 25:58.280]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, all right.
[25:59.160 --> 25:59.300]  [SPEAKER_09]: Wow.
[26:00.300 --> 26:02.000]  [SPEAKER_09]: I forgot about clock radios.
[26:02.140 --> 26:03.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, that's still a thing.
[26:03.320 --> 26:20.020]  [SPEAKER_09]: So I hope people do use radios in their homes more because some of my fondest memories are listening to first AM radio because I didn't have an FM radio at first and then FM and just exploring, knowing every station in the area, knowing knowing a little bit about the history.
[26:20.320 --> 26:20.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: Go ahead, Alex.
[26:21.500 --> 26:35.680]  [SPEAKER_07]: I remember finding this station when I was out on Long Island and I would listen to the radio on a Walkman that was also a radio, but the cord for the headphones was acting as the antenna.
[26:36.620 --> 26:43.260]  [SPEAKER_07]: So in order to get WBAI, I had to string the headphone cord up like around my bedpost.
[26:43.420 --> 26:49.440]  [SPEAKER_07]: I remember it being quite a production, but I got it in and I could listen to this particular show.
[26:49.600 --> 26:55.600]  [SPEAKER_07]: This is the show that I wanted to find and it felt like some kind of revelation.
[26:55.820 --> 27:08.840]  [SPEAKER_07]: It felt like I was listening in on these wise gurus from the hacking community that were imparting knowledge to little old me over in Suffolk County.
[27:09.340 --> 27:11.000]  [SPEAKER_07]: And it was pretty cool.
[27:11.160 --> 27:12.060]  [SPEAKER_07]: It was really magical.
[27:12.740 --> 27:17.120]  [SPEAKER_07]: And I think that we got to encourage that type of thing again.
[27:17.340 --> 27:23.620]  [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, this is just, I think, part and parcel of exploring and playing around with technology.
[27:23.760 --> 27:27.660]  [SPEAKER_07]: And people forget that radio itself really is quite a dark art.
[27:27.980 --> 27:31.440]  [SPEAKER_07]: This is why the Flipper Zero is banned in Canada.
[27:31.580 --> 27:33.320]  [SPEAKER_07]: It allows you to play with radio frequencies.
[27:33.460 --> 27:39.240]  [SPEAKER_07]: It's also why intelligence agencies continue to use short wave radio to communicate with operatives in the field.
[27:39.440 --> 27:45.120]  [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, radio is something that does not require any kind of acknowledgement of receipt of the information.
[27:45.660 --> 27:53.140]  [SPEAKER_07]: That's really, I think, extraordinarily unique and special in today's era when everything is a log.
[27:53.520 --> 28:00.440]  [SPEAKER_09]: When you consider it, when you listen online, you may feel anonymous, but there is a log of you somewhere.
[28:01.560 --> 28:08.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: Whether the broadcasting entity is keeping track, they can see your IP address.
[28:08.680 --> 28:09.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: They can see where you're coming from.
[28:09.660 --> 28:12.460]  [SPEAKER_09]: They can count how many people are actually listening at any time.
[28:12.640 --> 28:16.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: Can't do that on broadcasts over the radio waves.
[28:16.400 --> 28:26.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: And I think, you know, that might drive some control freaks crazy because they can't, you know, charge people a certain ad rate based on hypothetical numbers.
[28:27.380 --> 28:30.220]  [SPEAKER_09]: But it also adds to that magic we're talking about.
[28:30.380 --> 28:44.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: And that's what we're asking you to help preserve because, yes, WBAI is online, but WBAI is also broadcasting off of a very tall building in Times Square to the tri-state area, and that alone is a miracle.
[28:44.980 --> 28:53.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: Now, for pledges of $25 or more, you get to vote in the WBAI elections and Pacifica elections and all that fun stuff.
[28:53.860 --> 29:04.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: You get to have a voice in decisions that are made, and that is something that I think is extremely important, and that's why we're asking for your support.
[29:05.040 --> 29:22.500]  [SPEAKER_09]: Now, if you're hearing this at a time when you prefer to go to a website, instead of calling 212-209-2950, you can go to the website give2wbai.org, and on there there's everything you need to know about how to pledge and thank you gifts and all that kind of thing.
[29:22.600 --> 29:24.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's all right there for you.
[29:24.760 --> 29:37.480]  [SPEAKER_09]: Again, give2wbai.org, phone number 212-209-2950, and we want to thank our listeners who have really responded well to all of this over the past few weeks.
[29:37.580 --> 29:55.200]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yes, there are a number of crises, there are always crises here of one sort or another, but we do keep the content coming out, and that is what is most important, and it's your support that makes that possible, and so many people have called in or gone to the website and pledged in the name of Off The Hook,
[29:56.180 --> 30:03.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: and that just inspires us, inspires us, to keep going and keep doing the things we do.
[30:03.780 --> 30:08.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: We have some letters you can write to us, go out the email address at the end of the program.
[30:10.260 --> 30:19.480]  [SPEAKER_09]: This is too off the hook, I'm a WBAI sustaining listener, thank you very much, I've been listening to your show for several years, have learned a lot about technology in particular.
[30:20.620 --> 30:29.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: For safety and security, I need to find a VPN provider that is lower cost yet effective at hiding or changing my IP address online, so my activity is encrypted.
[30:30.740 --> 30:36.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: Do you have a recent archive program where you list your VPN recommendations, signed Ms. Robinson?
[30:36.380 --> 30:54.940]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, Ms. Robinson, we're not going to recommend one company over another, and I don't really know anything about pricing, but the concept of a VPN allows you, well, it allowed me to watch Eurovision a couple of weeks ago by pretending I was in Denmark,
[30:55.680 --> 31:00.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: seeing a four-hour competition without a single commercial just like people in Denmark got to do.
[31:01.460 --> 31:12.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: Things like that, that you're not allowed to do in your geographical area for no reason other than the fact that certain powerful people say you're not allowed to do that.
[31:12.320 --> 31:14.620]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's what a VPN can do for you.
[31:14.720 --> 31:22.880]  [SPEAKER_09]: A VPN can also mask your whereabouts if you're doing something sensitive, and that does not make you a criminal.
[31:23.320 --> 31:24.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: That makes you smart.
[31:24.600 --> 31:26.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: That makes you somebody who...
[31:26.780 --> 31:29.120]  [SPEAKER_09]: Oh, wow, I just sounded like Trump for a second, didn't I?
[31:29.280 --> 31:31.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: No, I didn't mean it like that.
[31:32.040 --> 31:38.200]  [SPEAKER_09]: I mean, you know, tech savvy, knowing that you don't have to always come from your home address.
[31:38.200 --> 31:41.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: You can manipulate the technology and come from a different address.
[31:41.960 --> 31:44.940]  [SPEAKER_09]: And there are many reasons why you might want to do that.
[31:45.140 --> 31:49.220]  [SPEAKER_09]: Now, there are all kinds of VPN companies out there.
[31:49.720 --> 31:58.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: Again, I'm not going to list the companies, but if you do a search online, just search for VPN, VPN cheap.
[31:58.780 --> 31:59.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: I don't know who that is.
[31:59.460 --> 31:59.940]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's not me.
[32:00.100 --> 32:02.380]  [SPEAKER_09]: I don't think that's me because I closed the program that made that noise.
[32:03.240 --> 32:04.140]  [SPEAKER_09]: Is there one of you guys?
[32:05.780 --> 32:06.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: Alex, is it you?
[32:06.860 --> 32:07.240]  [SPEAKER_09]: No?
[32:07.600 --> 32:09.540]  [SPEAKER_09]: All right, we're going to track down that noise, whatever it is.
[32:10.440 --> 32:13.140]  [SPEAKER_09]: But yeah, that's my thoughts on VPN.
[32:13.240 --> 32:13.540]  [SPEAKER_09]: Go ahead, Rob.
[32:14.620 --> 32:21.460]  [SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, one thing for anybody who is not familiar, just to really quickly give the Cliff Notes version of an explanation.
[32:21.780 --> 32:30.800]  [SPEAKER_13]: A VPN is a service where instead of connecting directly to the things you look at over the Internet, they will sit in between that connection as an intermediary.
[32:30.980 --> 32:43.480]  [SPEAKER_13]: So everything you do gets bounced through this external server somewhere and the operators of the sites and things that you visit will only see the address of that external server and not your own IP address.
[32:43.700 --> 32:53.740]  [SPEAKER_13]: But one thing that I find very interesting is that the concept of VPNs, especially within the past few years, has become kind of mainstream to the point where there is a lot of help out there.
[32:53.740 --> 33:04.340]  [SPEAKER_13]: If you do some searches to not only find one, choose one, but also set it up, maintain it, and so on, there are ads for VPN companies on the subway now.
[33:04.840 --> 33:13.600]  [SPEAKER_13]: And we're at that level of the general public kind of starting to understand how this is useful, how it can be an important part of your digital life.
[33:13.840 --> 33:22.260]  [SPEAKER_13]: And I've seen on forums and things about things entirely non-technical, but somebody wants to accomplish something and realize, oh, yeah, I just used a VPN.
[33:22.920 --> 33:28.320]  [SPEAKER_13]: It's really out there, and it's really an interesting thing to read about, get into, if you're not into it already.
[33:29.560 --> 33:38.260]  [SPEAKER_07]: Go ahead, One thing I would add to this, too, is you want to consider what the purpose is of the VPN that you intend to use.
[33:38.820 --> 33:55.980]  [SPEAKER_07]: If you simply want to remain anonymous, there are a lot of VPNs out there that don't have logging, that advertise they don't have logging, I will tell you this, I think a lot of them have more logs than they let on, but at least you would want one that would be very privacy conscious.
[33:56.320 --> 34:21.920]  [SPEAKER_07]: On the other hand, if you want to use a VPN to get around censorship, let's say, or access a service from a geographical area that is otherwise geofenced, then you would want to make sure that you're looking for a VPN that would probably have something called a dedicated IP address in the country from which you want to appear that your traffic is originating.
[34:23.080 --> 34:43.920]  [SPEAKER_07]: So, for instance, if I wanted to access, let's say, Netflix in Belgium, you would want to have a Belgian IP address, and a lot of VPN services will offer you a dedicated IP address in other countries where they have servers for relatively cheap, for really just a few dollars a month.
[34:44.420 --> 34:49.820]  [SPEAKER_07]: And that becomes really handy if you want to access things like the BBC while you're not in the UK.
[34:51.080 --> 34:58.100]  [SPEAKER_07]: And it can really, it can also unlock a whole bunch of programs for your existing services.
[34:58.360 --> 35:16.600]  [SPEAKER_07]: So, for instance, if that Netflix button that Emmanuel was complaining about earlier in the program actually had worked, and he was connected to a VPN that made it appear as if his traffic was originating from London, he would get a lot of different selections on Netflix that aren't available in the United States.
[35:17.040 --> 35:35.600]  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, we'd get to watch things like In the Loop and Peep Show, and you know what is also really weird too, is it's weirdly hard to stream the office, the American version of the office, in the United States these days, but it seems like the entirety of it is streaming from the UK.
[35:36.260 --> 35:40.540]  [SPEAKER_07]: So, you get, you know, all these other different tips and tricks that you can do with VPNs as well.
[35:40.800 --> 35:41.940]  [SPEAKER_07]: They're fun things to play with.
[35:42.140 --> 35:45.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, for a lot better than just looking at all episodes of the office.
[35:45.640 --> 35:47.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: There are all kinds of things that you can do.
[35:47.920 --> 35:52.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: And it's on Comedy Central all the time, Alex, so yeah, it's not hard to find.
[35:52.840 --> 35:53.900]  [SPEAKER_07]: Well, I don't watch TV.
[35:54.740 --> 35:58.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: For the folks, geofencing, that's basically what we're talking about.
[35:58.300 --> 36:04.040]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's where you're restricted from doing something simply because you're in a particular place, correct?
[36:05.100 --> 36:17.760]  [SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, if a site only wants people from a certain part of the world to be able to see it, wants people from another part of the world to not be able to see it, you can use a VPN to trick the site into thinking that you're in the part of the world they feel is okay.
[36:18.160 --> 36:20.980]  [SPEAKER_09]: Now, people are going to ask this, so we might as well answer it now.
[36:21.940 --> 36:24.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: What's the difference between what we're talking about and something like Tor?
[36:27.960 --> 36:37.180]  [SPEAKER_13]: Tor is kind of a crapshoot because it is decentralized, more decentralized than a VPN, which is all one service that you're bouncing everything through.
[36:37.840 --> 36:48.280]  [SPEAKER_13]: But Tor also, you can't really control where the other side of the connection comes out because it's random by its nature, and it's re-randomized every time you start it up.
[36:48.540 --> 36:59.600]  [SPEAKER_13]: So you can't really go through Tor and say, I want to be coming from this part of the world or that part of the world in a dependable manner as easily as you can with a VPN.
[37:00.000 --> 37:01.940]  [SPEAKER_13]: Also, Tor is not responsible for such things.
[37:02.360 --> 37:03.180]  [SPEAKER_13]: Alex, you have something.
[37:04.080 --> 37:09.040]  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I think the other distinction is that Tor, known as the onion router, right?
[37:09.240 --> 37:13.540]  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, you think about the image of the onion, it has lots of layers.
[37:13.680 --> 37:14.840]  [SPEAKER_07]: That's what onions are known for.
[37:14.960 --> 37:16.940]  [SPEAKER_07]: We always talk about peeling back the layers of the onions.
[37:17.100 --> 37:20.840]  [SPEAKER_07]: And when you're using the Tor router, your traffic is going to take lots of different stops.
[37:21.020 --> 37:25.340]  [SPEAKER_07]: It's not going to just go through one other network and then pop out somewhere else.
[37:25.340 --> 37:40.460]  [SPEAKER_07]: It's going to go, let's say, to, who knows, you know, Liberia, then into Bangkok, then it'll pop over to Istanbul, then it'll go back into St. Petersburg, then to Belgium, and then come out the other side in New York.
[37:40.620 --> 37:41.720]  [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, who knows, right?
[37:42.040 --> 37:47.420]  [SPEAKER_07]: But it's also, Tor is generally a lot slower than using a VPN for that reason.
[37:48.340 --> 38:08.540]  [SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, and while VPN services might be optimized for things like watching high bandwidth video or, you know, playing data-intensive games or anything else that might take a large chunk of a connection, if you're doing that sort of thing over Tor, it tends to be seen as sort of abusing the network because people are trying to use it for smaller text-based things.
[38:08.680 --> 38:12.760]  [SPEAKER_13]: And so it's not really encouraged to use Tor for that sort of purpose.
[38:13.700 --> 38:28.220]  [SPEAKER_08]: Oh, I just wanted to reiterate, I mean, the thoughts Rob expressed were like spot-on as far as I was concerned, just as far as the acceptability, like the idea of ads for tunneling software in subway tunnels.
[38:28.220 --> 38:29.320]  [SPEAKER_08]: It's pretty funny.
[38:29.960 --> 38:41.840]  [SPEAKER_08]: But the VPN acronym, for those who don't know, is virtual private network is the definition of that term.
[38:42.160 --> 38:52.880]  [SPEAKER_08]: And these service providers are using what is a protocol that you can develop and run your own system outside of all of these as well, which is worth mentioning.
[38:53.080 --> 39:13.180]  [SPEAKER_08]: Perhaps a little bit more work is needed to build that yourself, but it is meant for all kinds of businesses and personal uses as a part of the IP protocol that we use all the time.
[39:13.180 --> 39:28.040]  [SPEAKER_08]: So it's, it's, and it has been established and used for for quite some time, but it it is much more geared towards creating a full network connection versus all of the layers in this.
[39:28.400 --> 39:31.780]  [SPEAKER_08]: What I also know is termed a hidden service.
[39:31.920 --> 39:39.240]  [SPEAKER_08]: So Tor requires special software that's looking for this particular domain, dot onion addressing and the like.
[39:39.240 --> 39:47.040]  [SPEAKER_08]: So there's, there's, uh, distinctions and yeah, a higher, higher bandwidth traffic is a little bit harder.
[39:47.360 --> 39:54.080]  [SPEAKER_08]: Um, and it can be spotty because the network is decentralized and changing is sort of amorphous.
[39:54.340 --> 39:58.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, you can get more information on Tor, uh, by going to Tor project.org.
[39:58.380 --> 39:59.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's T-O-R project.org.
[40:00.440 --> 40:13.540]  [SPEAKER_09]: I should also point out that, uh, both with Tor and a certain VPNs, um, uh, sites like, uh, uh, Google, um, try and block them because they don't approve, they don't approve of us taking control of the technology.
[40:13.820 --> 40:19.240]  [SPEAKER_09]: Uh, in fact, uh, good luck trying to access YouTube using, uh, a Tor browser.
[40:19.440 --> 40:20.440]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's almost impossible sometimes.
[40:20.980 --> 40:29.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: Um, that, that's, that, that's the kind of opposition that we tend to run into when we, when we, uh, try and, and, and change the technology a little bit.
[40:29.760 --> 40:30.100]  [SPEAKER_09]: Go ahead, Kyle.
[40:30.700 --> 40:46.620]  [SPEAKER_08]: Uh, another thing I would mention is getting around geofencing is one, one use, but, um, if your activities, if, uh, whatever it is you're doing online is, um, disallowed, say, in one place, but you're testing some network elsewhere, VPNs are used for this as well,
[40:46.640 --> 40:54.920]  [SPEAKER_08]: um, sort of jurisdictional hopping with, um, whatever work you're doing versus where that work is, is originating from.
[40:55.680 --> 40:57.060]  [SPEAKER_08]: That's all I want to say about that.
[40:57.360 --> 40:58.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: We have another letter.
[40:59.360 --> 40:59.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's right.
[40:59.940 --> 41:00.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: We get multiple letters.
[41:01.140 --> 41:02.800]  [SPEAKER_09]: Uh, look how much time we spent on that one.
[41:02.800 --> 41:07.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: Um, hey, I, uh, don't really know who else to discuss this with, but here goes.
[41:07.880 --> 41:09.720]  [SPEAKER_09]: I can't tell you how many letters begin that way.
[41:10.020 --> 41:17.040]  [SPEAKER_09]: Uh, I have a French cell subscription, and I'm using it roaming in Switzerland because it's so much cheaper than a Swiss plan.
[41:17.540 --> 41:19.240]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's ridiculous, but that's another topic.
[41:19.720 --> 41:21.300]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, Switzerland is extremely expensive.
[41:21.920 --> 41:24.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: Um, so I have this number from my health insurance.
[41:24.960 --> 41:30.140]  [SPEAKER_09]: I can call to speak to a doctor, and I called it with my French line while roaming.
[41:30.540 --> 41:36.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: Every time the call is answered, I get this recording of a random conversation between a few seemingly U.S.
[41:36.820 --> 41:37.500]  [SPEAKER_09]: English speakers.
[41:37.820 --> 41:39.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's always the same conversation.
[41:40.060 --> 41:47.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: That is, when redialing the number, it starts off at the same point, plays the same audio, and it drops the call after a variable amount of time.
[41:47.120 --> 41:52.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: If I call that same number with a Swiss cell line, then I get the right, the right service.
[41:52.840 --> 41:55.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: My health insurance is doctor and not the random conversation.
[41:56.560 --> 41:58.480]  [SPEAKER_09]: Um, I'm completely puzzled by this.
[41:58.700 --> 42:07.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: I don't know anyone who is into freaking or knows anything about telephone systems, but I thought you guys might be able to appreciate the weirdness of it and maybe even figure out what's going on.
[42:07.780 --> 42:09.620]  [SPEAKER_09]: And who are these people on the recording?
[42:09.960 --> 42:10.860]  [SPEAKER_09]: Where was it made?
[42:10.960 --> 42:11.440]  [SPEAKER_09]: How long ago?
[42:11.480 --> 42:12.420]  [SPEAKER_09]: Why am I hearing it?
[42:13.260 --> 42:16.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: I have a video recording of it on speakerphone and the number I'm calling.
[42:16.900 --> 42:18.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's rather large, so I'm not emailing it.
[42:19.120 --> 42:20.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: Um, I'd love to figure this out.
[42:20.660 --> 42:30.500]  [SPEAKER_09]: Let me know if there's something you're curious to talk about more from, uh, well, Pierre, uh, first thing I think you should do is make an audio recording of this, not a video recording.
[42:30.920 --> 42:39.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: There are sites where you can upload your video and turn it into audio if you don't have the software to do that yourself and then send that to us so we can hear it.
[42:39.300 --> 42:43.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: You say it's, um, a random conversation, but then you say it's always the same conversation.
[42:43.700 --> 42:44.540]  [SPEAKER_09]: So I'm a little confused.
[42:44.660 --> 42:47.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: Is it always the same, uh, phrases being said?
[42:48.200 --> 42:49.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: And what are those phrases?
[42:49.580 --> 42:56.040]  [SPEAKER_09]: We can help figure out what this is and why it could be some kind of telephone company recording or, or something weird.
[42:56.040 --> 43:04.020]  [SPEAKER_09]: Or maybe, maybe it's a recording that's supposed to play from the phone company and somebody somehow wrote over it with something else.
[43:04.140 --> 43:04.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: I don't know.
[43:04.620 --> 43:07.860]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's a bizarre scenario, but it's, it's certainly possible.
[43:08.000 --> 43:10.460]  [SPEAKER_09]: This sounds very bizarre, but I'm, I'm curious.
[43:10.460 --> 43:11.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'd like to know more.
[43:11.500 --> 43:12.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: How about you guys?
[43:13.960 --> 43:15.780]  [SPEAKER_13]: I am so curious about this.
[43:15.880 --> 43:25.240]  [SPEAKER_13]: It, it has been a long time and I'm an old phone phreak and it has been a very long time since I'd been able to, uh, be presented with some sort of glitch in routing like this.
[43:25.500 --> 43:32.540]  [SPEAKER_13]: And I've never heard of something like this happening, uh, just routing, uh, a call different ways, depending on where it's coming from.
[43:33.480 --> 43:41.040]  [SPEAKER_09]: But I think we've all, uh, those of us who lived in the nineties and, and, and further back, we all can remember crossed lines, right?
[43:41.060 --> 43:44.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: We pick up the phone and all of a sudden you're talking to somebody you didn't call, right?
[43:44.520 --> 43:46.420]  [SPEAKER_09]: Has anybody not experienced that in our group?
[43:47.160 --> 43:47.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: We all have?
[43:48.960 --> 43:49.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: I can't tell.
[43:50.060 --> 43:50.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, we have.
[43:50.160 --> 43:50.460]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[43:50.780 --> 43:54.460]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, uh, it doesn't happen much anymore, if at all.
[43:54.660 --> 44:01.000]  [SPEAKER_09]: Uh, and, um, I don't know, I, I remember back, uh, I, I grew up in a, what's known as number five crossbar switch.
[44:01.480 --> 44:03.780]  [SPEAKER_09]: Um, there were periods of time.
[44:03.940 --> 44:04.820]  [SPEAKER_09]: I don't know what caused this.
[44:04.880 --> 44:15.180]  [SPEAKER_09]: Maybe a well-informed listener out there can, can, uh, tell us, but sometimes you would pick up the phone and instead of a dial tone, you'd immediately get connected to somebody else.
[44:16.080 --> 44:18.860]  [SPEAKER_09]: Now, when this happened, it happened a lot.
[44:19.080 --> 44:25.120]  [SPEAKER_09]: In other words, it wouldn't happen for weeks and all of a sudden, it would start happening almost every time you picked up the phone.
[44:25.420 --> 44:33.240]  [SPEAKER_09]: It was, it was so, so much fun that my friends and I would, would immediately contact each other saying, it's happening again.
[44:33.400 --> 44:37.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: And when it was happening, we could get away with all kinds of mischief.
[44:38.060 --> 44:44.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: Uh, I was, uh, at the, uh, Stony Brook campus and, um, I would, uh, be, be constantly picking up the phone being connected to people.
[44:45.020 --> 44:48.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: I convinced people there was a curfew going on and that they were not to leave their dormitories.
[44:49.680 --> 44:52.580]  [SPEAKER_09]: And, um, they, they believed me and they spread the word.
[44:53.260 --> 44:54.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: It wasn't hard to do this.
[44:54.980 --> 44:57.500]  [SPEAKER_09]: Uh, but there's all kinds of other, you'd meet all sorts of people.
[44:57.900 --> 45:06.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: Uh, one fun thing that we did was, um, uh, we talked to the person who had just picked up the phone on their end, asking them what they intended to do.
[45:07.300 --> 45:08.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: Why did you just pick up your phone?
[45:08.900 --> 45:12.180]  [SPEAKER_09]: Um, and, um, they said, well, I was going to call this person.
[45:12.320 --> 45:16.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: I said, well, um, we have to, we have to make sure, we have to manually place phone calls now.
[45:17.140 --> 45:18.720]  [SPEAKER_09]: Uh, that's required by laws.
[45:18.920 --> 45:24.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: And tell us the number you're calling and, um, uh, we'll, we'll let them know to expect your call.
[45:24.340 --> 45:25.240]  [SPEAKER_09]: And that's exactly what we did.
[45:25.380 --> 45:30.540]  [SPEAKER_09]: We would call them and say, uh, you're going to get a call from, from this person and they will be just as mystified as everybody else.
[45:30.760 --> 45:35.120]  [SPEAKER_09]: All kinds of fun that you used to be able to have that I don't think people are having anymore.
[45:35.300 --> 45:40.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'd love to hear about other adventures though, other things that people are, are, are having fun with, with phone networks.
[45:42.980 --> 45:43.380]  [SPEAKER_13]: Absolutely.
[45:43.820 --> 46:00.240]  [SPEAKER_13]: And, uh, I'm, I, the more I think about this, the more I'm wondering if it is, um, if not itself an error message at the phone company, at some phone company in between A and B, but, uh, maybe routing to where there should be some kind of error message and isn't anymore because not a lot of those aren't used anymore.
[46:00.800 --> 46:06.200]  [SPEAKER_13]: Some, some just kind of, uh, weirdness along the way like that, or they're just calling someone's weirdly set up answering machine.
[46:06.380 --> 46:08.140]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, I want to hear, I want to hear that recording.
[46:08.240 --> 46:08.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: I really do.
[46:08.840 --> 46:10.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: I definitely want to hear that.
[46:10.260 --> 46:16.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: Hey, uh, we have, uh, only a couple minutes left, but I wanted to, uh, read a crazy story because there's always crazy stories in the news.
[46:17.060 --> 46:29.240]  [SPEAKER_09]: Uh, a photographer has sued a woman who posted an image of her grandmother's apartment that featured wallpaper that apparently he designed.
[46:29.720 --> 46:30.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[46:30.320 --> 46:36.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: Uh, what happened here was that, um, uh, the grandmother, um, moved out of her apartment.
[46:36.880 --> 46:38.140]  [SPEAKER_09]: She was no longer able to live there.
[46:38.340 --> 46:43.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: Uh, she moved in with her granddaughter and so that she could maintain the cost of caring for her grandmother.
[46:44.320 --> 46:48.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: The granddaughter took over the apartment and rented it out as a vacation property.
[46:48.700 --> 46:54.800]  [SPEAKER_09]: Uh, she advertised the apartment on a rental website and it included photos of the property on the listing.
[46:55.160 --> 47:10.440]  [SPEAKER_09]: Eight years later, the granddaughter received a warning letter for copyright infringement from a Canadian company because she had posted an image of a room in her grandmother's apartment that featured, uh, this guy, Bones, photo-based wallpaper.
[47:11.360 --> 47:29.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: Um, yeah, um, Stéphane Bones, his, uh, photo was, uh, spotted listing photos for the apartment, uh, and according to a report by the German news publication, uh, Heise.de, the photographer is now suing the granddaughter in Cologne Regional Court in Cologne,
[47:29.900 --> 47:30.180]  [SPEAKER_09]: Germany.
[47:30.760 --> 47:44.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: In the lawsuit, Bohm alleges that while he may have authorized the printing of his photo on the wallpaper, he did not authorize the reproduction of the photo on the wall in the image posted by the landlady on the vacation property rental website.
[47:44.380 --> 47:44.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: Oh, my God.
[47:45.100 --> 47:46.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: Have we all lost our damn minds?
[47:46.840 --> 47:54.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: So, somebody, somebody shows a picture of a room, and this guy actually has the audacity to sue them for copyright infringement.
[47:54.900 --> 48:01.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: He claims the making available of the photo of the wall is an infringement of copyright law.
[48:02.000 --> 48:12.780]  [SPEAKER_09]: He's also alleging the grandmother infringed his moral rights because she did not find out that he was the photographer behind the wallpaper and did not credit him on the property rental website.
[48:12.940 --> 48:16.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: I, you know what, I credit this guy with being a first...
[48:16.340 --> 48:17.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, I can't say that.
[48:18.060 --> 48:20.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: Alex, you're our resident lawyer here.
[48:21.260 --> 48:24.000]  [SPEAKER_09]: Stand up for your profession.
[48:25.160 --> 48:30.400]  [SPEAKER_07]: This sounds really idiotic on so many ways, and so many levels here.
[48:32.940 --> 48:43.100]  [SPEAKER_07]: Emmanuel, is it the case that the woman who took the photo was actually sued, or that they just received some kind of cease and desist letter?
[48:43.140 --> 48:45.040]  [SPEAKER_07]: It sounds like they just received a threatening letter.
[48:45.200 --> 48:53.720]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, my understanding is she was in Canada, and this is all happening in Germany, but, you know, these days, you know, you send a letter like that to somebody, it can scare them.
[48:54.260 --> 48:54.620]  [SPEAKER_07]: Absolutely.
[48:54.800 --> 49:00.460]  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, well, it absolutely can, and it's an abuse of, I think, the legal process for doing that too.
[49:00.520 --> 49:06.220]  [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, there is this concept of, you know, de minimis non curat lex, right, or the law doesn't care for trifles.
[49:06.640 --> 49:10.560]  [SPEAKER_07]: You're not necessarily going to have damages, I think, from this type of infringement.
[49:10.780 --> 49:22.800]  [SPEAKER_07]: The other thing about this is, it seems like this might have been born out of some overly aggressive or zealous copyright protection third-party service.
[49:23.060 --> 49:33.020]  [SPEAKER_07]: That's what it sounds like to me, that maybe this photographer, who originally owned the copyright to this particular wallpaper, is using some third-party service to identify infringements online.
[49:33.920 --> 49:42.220]  [SPEAKER_09]: We're going to have to continue this conversation over on YouTube, no, Overtime, youtube.com/Channel2600 to continue at eight o'clock over there.
[49:42.620 --> 49:44.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: Gila, did you have a closing thought on this?
[49:44.680 --> 49:46.640]  [SPEAKER_12]: I did, but I'm going to save it for Overtime.
[49:46.980 --> 49:47.240]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[49:48.300 --> 49:50.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's going to just about do it for us here tonight.
[49:50.900 --> 49:52.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: I want to thank everybody for listening.
[49:52.620 --> 49:56.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: You can write to us oth@2600.com.
[49:57.780 --> 50:03.880]  [SPEAKER_09]: And please remember to support WBAI 212-209-2950.
[50:03.880 --> 50:08.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: And give2wbai.org.
[50:09.200 --> 50:12.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: We'll be back here next week and on Overtime.
[50:13.560 --> 50:16.300]  [SPEAKER_09]: YouTube.com/Channel2600.
[50:16.420 --> 50:16.980]  [SPEAKER_09]: We'll see you there.
[50:17.380 --> 50:17.860]  [SPEAKER_09]: Good night.
[54:45.220 --> 54:48.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: And a good hello to everybody over on YouTube.
[54:50.180 --> 54:53.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: As we have our first edition of Overtime in a long time.
[54:54.200 --> 54:56.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: I think the last one we did was sometime in March.
[54:56.840 --> 54:58.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, we've been doing a lot, okay?
[54:58.780 --> 55:01.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: We've been really, really busy traveling and things like that.
[55:02.880 --> 55:03.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: Kyle, did you make it okay?
[55:04.260 --> 55:04.600]  [SPEAKER_04]: Hi.
[55:05.020 --> 55:05.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[55:05.360 --> 55:07.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: You're in the same room as me, so yeah, I imagine you did.
[55:08.880 --> 55:10.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: Rob, Gila, how are you guys doing?
[55:10.680 --> 55:11.020]  [SPEAKER_09]: Did you make it?
[55:12.120 --> 55:14.600]  [SPEAKER_13]: We are well, and we sound good on YouTube.
[55:14.900 --> 55:15.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, sounds good.
[55:16.080 --> 55:17.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: And Alex, I see you as well.
[55:18.940 --> 55:19.880]  [SPEAKER_07]: I am here.
[55:20.100 --> 55:21.180]  [SPEAKER_07]: Only temporarily, though.
[55:21.440 --> 55:26.480]  [SPEAKER_07]: I'll hang out for a few minutes, say hello to some people, and then I get a jump, unfortunately.
[55:26.800 --> 55:27.480]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, I understand.
[55:28.840 --> 55:32.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, you know, we could do like a five-hour show with all the things that...
[55:32.520 --> 55:39.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: I have so many things to talk about, and we wound up talking about a couple of them because we just get into these conversations, which are always fascinating.
[55:40.020 --> 55:48.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: But I did do a little bit more research on the story of the wallpaper guy from Germany.
[55:49.400 --> 56:00.800]  [SPEAKER_09]: Apparently, this guy, Bohm, B-O-H-M-E, previously tried to sue the granddaughter in the courts in Dusseldorf and Stuttgart in Germany, but he was unsuccessful in his legal attempts there.
[56:01.340 --> 56:13.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: The regional court and higher regional court of Dusseldorf ruled that Bohm had implicitly granted a license by selling the wallpaper on the one hand, and that his lawsuits were an abuse of rights on the other.
[56:13.640 --> 56:20.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: Does that happen often, Alex, when you file a lawsuit and then the judge says that your lawsuit is an abuse of rights?
[56:21.140 --> 56:22.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: Because that's got to hurt.
[56:23.320 --> 56:23.480]  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[56:23.840 --> 56:24.060]  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[56:24.280 --> 56:32.760]  [SPEAKER_07]: But it's very much in tune with the principle that I had mentioned before that, you know, this is essentially a trifle, right?
[56:32.860 --> 56:34.560]  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, there really aren't damages here.
[56:34.740 --> 56:36.160]  [SPEAKER_07]: This guy's being an idiot.
[56:37.500 --> 56:38.900]  [SPEAKER_07]: And he got called out for it.
[56:38.900 --> 56:40.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: I hope he doesn't sue you for saying that.
[56:41.220 --> 56:45.120]  [SPEAKER_07]: No, well, if he does, I mean, I guess it would be on the basis of defamation.
[56:46.720 --> 56:49.080]  [SPEAKER_07]: The defense to defamation is the truth.
[56:49.540 --> 56:53.160]  [SPEAKER_07]: So I just have to prove that he's an idiot.
[56:53.580 --> 56:55.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: OK, well, that shouldn't take too long.
[56:55.760 --> 56:58.480]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, I don't I don't mean to get myself into this by saying that.
[57:00.180 --> 57:05.540]  [SPEAKER_09]: Anyway, so you might wonder if if his lawsuit was seen as an abuse of rights.
[57:06.180 --> 57:07.880]  [SPEAKER_09]: How is he still suing?
[57:07.980 --> 57:18.540]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, while other German courts have rejected his argument, what he's doing now is hoping for a victory when his copyright case is heard in Cologne region court on June 27th.
[57:19.180 --> 57:26.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: He previously won a similar copyright case regarding an image with his photo based wallpaper at Cologne regional court last year.
[57:26.920 --> 57:31.780]  [SPEAKER_09]: However, that lawsuit was also against a landlady of a vacation apartment.
[57:33.420 --> 57:48.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: Now, when it comes to copyright, the Cologne regional court says that a strict duty of care applies and that anyone who makes use of other people's photographs by publishing them on their website must ensure that this is done with the permission of the authorized person.
[57:48.400 --> 57:49.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: No, no, I'm sorry.
[57:50.020 --> 57:50.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's crap.
[57:51.160 --> 57:52.940]  [SPEAKER_09]: You're in your own damn house.
[57:52.940 --> 57:55.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: You're taking a picture of your of your wall.
[57:55.780 --> 57:59.380]  [SPEAKER_09]: How much more personal can you possibly get to say that's copyright infringement?
[58:00.220 --> 58:01.320]  [SPEAKER_09]: Alex, help me out here.
[58:01.460 --> 58:02.720]  [SPEAKER_09]: This is insane, right?
[58:02.740 --> 58:04.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: This is not where the legal world is going, is it?
[58:05.320 --> 58:16.620]  [SPEAKER_07]: Well, I'm not an expert in German law, but I would imagine that under German legal principles, they would have very similar types of ideals that we would have with respect to copyright.
[58:16.620 --> 58:16.700]  [SPEAKER_07]: Right.
[58:16.880 --> 58:33.180]  [SPEAKER_07]: And this seems like it might come into the... or rather, the principle of first sale might come into play here, namely that when you buy that particular wallpaper, even though it's comprised of other photos, you have the right to do with that instance of those photos what you will.
[58:33.380 --> 58:34.520]  [SPEAKER_07]: You can deface them.
[58:34.620 --> 58:35.720]  [SPEAKER_07]: You can take pictures of them.
[58:36.000 --> 58:43.840]  [SPEAKER_07]: It's not as if the person would be distributing them or printing them for some kind of commercial purpose.
[58:43.840 --> 58:53.180]  [SPEAKER_07]: That, I think, would squarely violate the copyright rights of the original photographer of that particular work if they were replicating the work.
[58:53.280 --> 58:53.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: Right.
[58:53.440 --> 58:57.820]  [SPEAKER_09]: A commercial purpose involving the work, not a commercial purpose involving renting out the room.
[58:58.380 --> 58:59.960]  [SPEAKER_07]: And solely the work, too.
[59:00.040 --> 59:06.800]  [SPEAKER_07]: I think that's what's really important here is that his work is not isolated by itself in the photographs.
[59:06.800 --> 59:09.600]  [SPEAKER_07]: It's part of their house, as you mentioned, Emmanuel.
[59:09.840 --> 59:12.460]  [SPEAKER_07]: So it's just one of many items in the house.
[59:13.120 --> 59:16.100]  [SPEAKER_07]: Everything that you create can have a copyright to it.
[59:16.220 --> 59:20.260]  [SPEAKER_07]: If you create source code, even though you don't file in the U.S.
[59:20.380 --> 59:28.640]  [SPEAKER_07]: Copyright Office, you automatically have a copyright to that particular source code, so long as it's unique and you created it.
[59:29.040 --> 59:49.880]  [SPEAKER_07]: So this whole idea of running around the world in forum shopping and looking for photographs with your copyrighted items in it, if this is a legal principle that will stand on its own, it will create absolute havoc and destroy our ability to share and distribute images online.
[59:49.880 --> 59:57.420]  [SPEAKER_07]: It's just... it would work to such absurdity that I think this guy... that the case has to be dismissed.
[59:58.020 --> 01:00:00.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: Rob Geely, you both have your hands up, so fight amongst yourselves.
[01:00:01.620 --> 01:00:08.580]  [SPEAKER_12]: Well, this is what I was thinking at the end of our over-the-air show, is are we sure this is really the guy?
[01:00:09.100 --> 01:00:10.420]  [SPEAKER_12]: And I'm not even joking.
[01:00:10.420 --> 01:00:19.180]  [SPEAKER_12]: Do we know that this is actually what's-his-bucket Boehm, and it's not somebody pretending to be him who's just running around looking for his stuff?
[01:00:19.540 --> 01:00:27.600]  [SPEAKER_12]: Or is Boehm's career so sad now that he can't... like he's only making a living off of suing people at the Westboro Baptist Church?
[01:00:28.100 --> 01:00:29.980]  [SPEAKER_09]: Are you attacking him or defending him?
[01:00:30.000 --> 01:00:30.820]  [SPEAKER_09]: I can't figure it out.
[01:00:31.380 --> 01:00:37.760]  [SPEAKER_12]: I'm not 100% sure myself, but yesterday we were talking about... Rob and I were talking about Terry Jacks.
[01:00:38.300 --> 01:00:38.900]  [SPEAKER_12]: You ever Terry Jacks?
[01:00:38.960 --> 01:00:39.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: Terry Jacks, yeah.
[01:00:39.720 --> 01:00:41.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: He did... what was the song he did?
[01:00:42.060 --> 01:00:42.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: Seasons of the Sun.
[01:00:43.040 --> 01:00:43.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: Seasons in the Sun.
[01:00:44.160 --> 01:00:44.520]  [SPEAKER_12]: Right.
[01:00:44.800 --> 01:00:46.400]  [SPEAKER_12]: But you know the thing about Terry Jacks?
[01:00:46.560 --> 01:00:46.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: No.
[01:00:47.640 --> 01:00:48.940]  [SPEAKER_12]: Okay, this is 100% true.
[01:00:49.240 --> 01:00:51.640]  [SPEAKER_12]: Terry Jacks, Seasons of the Sun, what, 1972-ish?
[01:00:51.640 --> 01:00:56.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: We had joy, we had fun, we had Seasons in the Sun, but the hills that we climbed were just something in my mind.
[01:00:57.000 --> 01:00:57.580]  [SPEAKER_12]: Seasons out of time.
[01:00:57.680 --> 01:00:58.320]  [SPEAKER_09]: Whatever, yeah.
[01:00:58.620 --> 01:00:59.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: It was a cool song.
[01:00:59.400 --> 01:01:03.520]  [SPEAKER_12]: And it's an incredibly... it's a pretty song, it's incredibly depressing, but...
[01:01:04.460 --> 01:01:06.840]  [SPEAKER_12]: Terry Jacks, it was a big hit in like, what, 72?
[01:01:07.160 --> 01:01:11.620]  [SPEAKER_12]: And he toured and did all that stuff until about 75, and then he just vanished.
[01:01:12.260 --> 01:01:19.140]  [SPEAKER_12]: And then a few years later, some dude turned up and said, Hey, I'm Terry Jacks.
[01:01:19.240 --> 01:01:24.860]  [SPEAKER_12]: And he started giving concerts and giving interviews and going on tour, claiming he was Terry Jacks.
[01:01:25.000 --> 01:01:27.140]  [SPEAKER_12]: The world believed him because they didn't know any better.
[01:01:27.140 --> 01:01:32.300]  [SPEAKER_12]: And then he got sick of it, turned himself in to the real Terry Jacks.
[01:01:32.620 --> 01:01:33.860]  [SPEAKER_12]: And everybody thought it was over.
[01:01:33.960 --> 01:01:36.500]  [SPEAKER_12]: But then a few years later, he started doing it again.
[01:01:36.880 --> 01:01:43.200]  [SPEAKER_12]: And this time he was like, getting hotel rooms and not paying for them and giving bad concerts and not showing up.
[01:01:43.320 --> 01:01:47.060]  [SPEAKER_12]: And the real Terry Jacks was like, dude, you're destroying my name.
[01:01:47.060 --> 01:01:48.340]  [SPEAKER_12]: He might need you to stop again.
[01:01:48.520 --> 01:01:54.400]  [SPEAKER_12]: So I'm wondering if what's his face, Boehm, is really doing this or like it's a Terry Jacks situation.
[01:01:54.660 --> 01:01:56.320]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, this guy went to court and won.
[01:01:56.600 --> 01:01:58.200]  [SPEAKER_09]: So that takes a lot of balls.
[01:01:58.200 --> 01:02:03.240]  [SPEAKER_09]: If you're going to impersonate somebody and go to court in their name and win and then try it again.
[01:02:03.720 --> 01:02:04.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: I don't know.
[01:02:04.380 --> 01:02:06.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: But I'm fascinated by the Terry Jacks story now.
[01:02:06.800 --> 01:02:10.280]  [SPEAKER_09]: I got to look into that because, boy, how do you get away with that at all?
[01:02:10.280 --> 01:02:15.820]  [SPEAKER_09]: I mean, don't the fans know that that's not the guy that sang the song?
[01:02:16.260 --> 01:02:17.860]  [SPEAKER_12]: I mean, it was the 70s and the 80s.
[01:02:17.940 --> 01:02:19.000]  [SPEAKER_12]: It was about 10 years later.
[01:02:19.200 --> 01:02:21.660]  [SPEAKER_12]: He might have looked different, but it had been about 10 years later.
[01:02:21.800 --> 01:02:23.720]  [SPEAKER_12]: And this was, you know, pre-Internet.
[01:02:23.980 --> 01:02:24.580]  [SPEAKER_12]: So nobody knew.
[01:02:25.220 --> 01:02:25.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: Wow.
[01:02:25.860 --> 01:02:26.100]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[01:02:26.440 --> 01:02:27.460]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, Rob, go ahead.
[01:02:28.340 --> 01:02:32.700]  [SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, I can only speak about this from the perspective of an artist.
[01:02:32.720 --> 01:02:33.400]  [SPEAKER_13]: I am an artist.
[01:02:33.620 --> 01:02:35.040]  [SPEAKER_13]: I have, you know, sold my work.
[01:02:35.160 --> 01:02:36.060]  [SPEAKER_13]: I have given away my work.
[01:02:36.200 --> 01:02:38.680]  [SPEAKER_13]: I have work on walls that are not mine.
[01:02:38.680 --> 01:02:42.640]  [SPEAKER_13]: And sometimes I get a photo of my work on one of those walls.
[01:02:42.780 --> 01:02:44.420]  [SPEAKER_13]: And that makes me so freaking happy.
[01:02:44.740 --> 01:02:52.260]  [SPEAKER_13]: How is this guy angered or believes he is owed more by somebody who purchased a bit of his work?
[01:02:52.580 --> 01:02:58.980]  [SPEAKER_13]: I'm guessing didn't accept any outlandish terms of service before they got this wallpaper and used it.
[01:02:59.440 --> 01:03:01.700]  [SPEAKER_13]: And then wanted to show off their pretty room.
[01:03:01.920 --> 01:03:03.100]  [SPEAKER_09]: But, Rob, it doesn't matter.
[01:03:03.360 --> 01:03:07.220]  [SPEAKER_09]: It doesn't matter if somebody purchased your art legitimately.
[01:03:07.660 --> 01:03:09.280]  [SPEAKER_09]: If they stole your art.
[01:03:09.440 --> 01:03:11.240]  [SPEAKER_09]: If they, you know, did something.
[01:03:11.480 --> 01:03:12.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: They copied it themselves.
[01:03:12.860 --> 01:03:14.460]  [SPEAKER_09]: And they put it on the wall and they took a picture of it.
[01:03:14.960 --> 01:03:15.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's not the crime.
[01:03:16.020 --> 01:03:17.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: The crime is the stealing part of it.
[01:03:17.700 --> 01:03:18.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's what you get them for.
[01:03:19.100 --> 01:03:21.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: But not for taking a picture of something in somebody's house.
[01:03:21.960 --> 01:03:23.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: I don't care if it's a Mona Lisa or whatever.
[01:03:24.520 --> 01:03:27.380]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's your house or, you know, a building outside.
[01:03:27.380 --> 01:03:29.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: There are people who try to say this building is protected.
[01:03:30.080 --> 01:03:30.540]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's a landmark.
[01:03:30.740 --> 01:03:32.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: You can't take a picture of it.
[01:03:32.800 --> 01:03:33.420]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's ridiculous.
[01:03:33.420 --> 01:03:34.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: Of course you can.
[01:03:34.820 --> 01:03:35.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm sorry for interrupting.
[01:03:35.860 --> 01:03:36.100]  [SPEAKER_09]: Go ahead.
[01:03:37.160 --> 01:03:44.080]  [SPEAKER_13]: If you take a picture from my point of view where I'm sitting right now at my computer desk, there are posters on the wall that I didn't design but I bought.
[01:03:44.280 --> 01:03:47.340]  [SPEAKER_13]: There's artwork on the wall from artists I like that I either bought or was given.
[01:03:47.640 --> 01:03:49.860]  [SPEAKER_13]: There are little figurines sculpted.
[01:03:49.960 --> 01:03:50.720]  [SPEAKER_13]: There are action figures.
[01:03:50.880 --> 01:03:51.860]  [SPEAKER_13]: There's desk toys.
[01:03:52.060 --> 01:03:52.560]  [SPEAKER_13]: All this stuff.
[01:03:52.640 --> 01:03:53.120]  [SPEAKER_13]: Comic books.
[01:03:53.220 --> 01:03:53.500]  [SPEAKER_06]: Professional photographs.
[01:03:53.880 --> 01:03:55.340]  [SPEAKER_13]: Stuff that I did not create.
[01:03:55.540 --> 01:03:58.280]  [SPEAKER_13]: But that if I take a picture of my room, that's a picture of my room.
[01:03:58.420 --> 01:04:02.100]  [SPEAKER_13]: That is not hurting the commercial value of any of the junk I happen to be surrounded by.
[01:04:03.360 --> 01:04:04.120]  [SPEAKER_09]: Wow.
[01:04:04.840 --> 01:04:05.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: Kyle, do you have something?
[01:04:07.240 --> 01:04:11.080]  [SPEAKER_08]: I think it's a reach for sure.
[01:04:11.580 --> 01:04:39.800]  [SPEAKER_08]: Like the thing that she's doing commercially is in the realm of a space to rent and the photograph she took is of decor that I think as was mentioned here, all great points by the way, is an assemblage of multiple aspects of the space and the physical property itself.
[01:04:40.420 --> 01:04:48.240]  [SPEAKER_08]: So that's the commercial cell of which this wall covering is a part.
[01:04:48.240 --> 01:04:51.700]  [SPEAKER_08]: And I think that that's pretty, that's a pretty good argument.
[01:04:52.120 --> 01:05:01.720]  [SPEAKER_08]: It's not that she is selling copies of wallpaper that has this man's art.
[01:05:01.720 --> 01:05:02.300]  [SPEAKER_08]: Mm-hmm.
[01:05:02.480 --> 01:05:10.680]  [SPEAKER_08]: So I think that would be a competitive like violation of his, his product.
[01:05:10.680 --> 01:05:23.060]  [SPEAKER_08]: Like you're competing with intellectual property that is simply, that is essentially his work, which anybody would, would view that way.
[01:05:23.060 --> 01:05:25.680]  [SPEAKER_08]: And I think that that's probably like the, the healthiest view.
[01:05:25.820 --> 01:05:38.100]  [SPEAKER_08]: I, I understand the competitiveness being someone that's, uh, uh, involved in the visual arts and, and, um, takes photos myself.
[01:05:38.100 --> 01:05:42.960]  [SPEAKER_08]: You know, the, the, the temptation is there to be so guarded.
[01:05:42.960 --> 01:05:56.920]  [SPEAKER_08]: And there are like Alex said, firms that will broker and otherwise manage the licensing of your art and chase down with well-resourced legal teams and departments.
[01:05:57.400 --> 01:06:01.620]  [SPEAKER_08]: Um, I even applied for, uh, a position one time.
[01:06:01.760 --> 01:06:03.720]  [SPEAKER_08]: I didn't really realize what it was at the time.
[01:06:03.740 --> 01:06:04.200]  [SPEAKER_08]: Oh, wow.
[01:06:04.460 --> 01:06:09.660]  [SPEAKER_08]: But, um, yeah, there's jobs, people's entire tasks.
[01:06:09.800 --> 01:06:16.480]  [SPEAKER_08]: And probably what we've seen more of now, cause that was many years ago is, is the automation of it.
[01:06:16.600 --> 01:06:16.760]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[01:06:16.960 --> 01:06:18.360]  [SPEAKER_08]: Where these letters just appear.
[01:06:18.800 --> 01:06:25.140]  [SPEAKER_08]: So we've covered this on our cover of, um, all things.
[01:06:25.140 --> 01:06:30.420]  [SPEAKER_08]: But there's so many people that are being affected by the, the automated nature of this.
[01:06:30.520 --> 01:06:41.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, you're talking about splotch gate where we got, uh, a letter because, uh, random paint splotches were identified by some computer as part of some piece of art.
[01:06:41.620 --> 01:06:48.780]  [SPEAKER_09]: And even the people running the company that sent that agreed it was ridiculous and, and immediately withdrew it as soon as we started complaining about it.
[01:06:48.920 --> 01:06:53.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: But I should point out that did not happen because of the cover that went out to newsstands.
[01:06:53.080 --> 01:07:01.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: It happened when the cover showed up on our store on, on the Internet and some computer came out and, and yeah, crawled and, and, and, and found it that way.
[01:07:01.940 --> 01:07:07.660]  [SPEAKER_08]: And, and, and just, it became just another job in its, its tasks.
[01:07:07.660 --> 01:07:16.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: And we're, we're, we're buying into that world of, uh, litigiousness, if that's the right word, that, uh, just define our existence.
[01:07:16.580 --> 01:07:20.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: Um, you know, it's, it's absurd to me that somebody has to live in fear.
[01:07:21.040 --> 01:07:31.220]  [SPEAKER_09]: If they're making a documentary and somebody drives by and you hear a snippet of a song that's playing through their stereo as they drive by and they've got to go and, and edit that out.
[01:07:31.220 --> 01:07:32.240]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's insane.
[01:07:32.460 --> 01:07:34.180]  [SPEAKER_09]: What, what exactly are you protecting?
[01:07:34.580 --> 01:07:37.880]  [SPEAKER_09]: You think somebody is going to go out there and say, Hey, here's a song.
[01:07:38.040 --> 01:07:44.180]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm going to grab four seconds of it and wait for another car to come by 10 seconds later in the song.
[01:07:44.440 --> 01:07:48.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: And eventually I'll piece it together and I'll, I'll get this 99 cent song for free.
[01:07:48.700 --> 01:07:50.140]  [SPEAKER_09]: I mean, what, what is the logic?
[01:07:50.140 --> 01:07:51.420]  [SPEAKER_09]: It makes absolutely no sense.
[01:07:51.420 --> 01:07:56.860]  [SPEAKER_09]: But what it does is it cripples creativity, makes us all paranoid looking over our shoulders.
[01:07:57.040 --> 01:07:58.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: Look, we're on YouTube right now.
[01:07:58.840 --> 01:08:02.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: There's a, there's an image of the 2600 van right there.
[01:08:02.200 --> 01:08:08.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: And that, that image of the 2600 van is a van that's made to look like a phone company van of old.
[01:08:08.460 --> 01:08:13.500]  [SPEAKER_09]: Now imagine the phone company was, was still around using that emblem, those colors.
[01:08:13.840 --> 01:08:16.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: They could say, you guys aren't allowed to do that.
[01:08:16.600 --> 01:08:24.500]  [SPEAKER_09]: You guys aren't allowed to probably a have a van that has that, that paint job, but also you can't take a picture of that and display it on the Internet.
[01:08:24.780 --> 01:08:39.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: I mean, I think we'd all be, be seeing red to actually, you know, be confronted with some idiocy like that, but that it's, it's, it's becoming the norm more and more where an image or a sound or even a thought is, is, is copyrighted and protected.
[01:08:39.920 --> 01:08:40.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: Go ahead, Rob.
[01:08:41.140 --> 01:08:48.080]  [SPEAKER_13]: I think, I think a good analogy would be if Ford who made the van in the first place decided to, Actually, it was, it was Dodge.
[01:08:48.340 --> 01:08:48.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: It was a Dodge.
[01:08:49.080 --> 01:08:49.300]  [SPEAKER_13]: Dodge.
[01:08:49.580 --> 01:08:49.660]  [SPEAKER_13]: Okay.
[01:08:49.800 --> 01:08:49.900]  [SPEAKER_13]: Yeah.
[01:08:50.300 --> 01:09:00.540]  [SPEAKER_13]: So, so Dodge who manufactured the van in the first place and owned the design to that van, um, then sued you for publishing a photo of it, even though you bought it, you know, because it's a van and it happened to be, happens to be that shape.
[01:09:00.540 --> 01:09:02.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: And as it happens, Ford did sue us for a different reason.
[01:09:02.900 --> 01:09:08.820]  [SPEAKER_08]: Well, uh, uh, worth, worth also noting, it doesn't get to these levels of absurd, of absurdity.
[01:09:09.060 --> 01:09:14.540]  [SPEAKER_08]: If there's not a legal market for these sort of situations.
[01:09:14.640 --> 01:09:28.320]  [SPEAKER_08]: And I think this story is a symptom of a sort of intellectual property, um, market that may be a bit flawed right now and, and copyright as well.
[01:09:28.320 --> 01:09:45.580]  [SPEAKER_08]: Um, but the gain by pursuing one particular van, like the, the legal cost and even for their, um, their corporation, which is probably, you know, has ample resources, right.
[01:09:45.820 --> 01:09:56.980]  [SPEAKER_08]: To come after that, the, the gain to go after our van or an individual, like just hosting an image of an apartment is it's fraught.
[01:09:56.980 --> 01:10:03.200]  [SPEAKER_08]: So like a corporation, I don't think it's a lot more than the cost of actually pursuing it.
[01:10:03.500 --> 01:10:17.000]  [SPEAKER_08]: Uh, the, the cost to, to do it is, is a lot more than what would be too gained to, uh, collect from that, uh, person that, that you are grieving or you're seeking a legal grievance.
[01:10:17.000 --> 01:10:19.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: If the cost comes down, but I think that's what's happening.
[01:10:19.640 --> 01:10:21.720]  [SPEAKER_09]: The cost is coming down when things are automated.
[01:10:22.000 --> 01:10:22.220]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[01:10:22.400 --> 01:10:22.500]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[01:10:22.640 --> 01:10:22.720]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[01:10:22.820 --> 01:10:22.820]  Yeah.
[01:10:22.920 --> 01:10:37.200]  [SPEAKER_08]: So, and that's there, that may be a part of what is flawed in, in this copyright system, because we're, we're not living in a world where we, we come from, uh, uh, a time when this didn't exist.
[01:10:37.200 --> 01:10:38.460]  [SPEAKER_08]: These things are emerging.
[01:10:38.820 --> 01:10:43.740]  [SPEAKER_08]: And I think our experience with that is like you, you are, we're tempted.
[01:10:43.740 --> 01:10:52.060]  [SPEAKER_08]: And I, I heard that a lot in the conversation, like the exclamation of what world do we live in where, where we would want this?
[01:10:52.060 --> 01:10:59.860]  [SPEAKER_08]: Well, the, the people pursuing these kinds of things see a value in it.
[01:11:00.000 --> 01:11:10.140]  [SPEAKER_08]: If they can cast a wide enough or a large enough net, um, by using the tools and, um, information that is available of this day.
[01:11:10.360 --> 01:11:12.040]  [SPEAKER_08]: So we're, that's kind of what we're up against.
[01:11:12.040 --> 01:11:14.480]  [SPEAKER_08]: So you can't, you have to kind of calibrate your expectations.
[01:11:14.480 --> 01:11:28.960]  [SPEAKER_08]: And I think that's why people that are growing up with this might not really see the implication because it's sort of invisible or we, we kind of accept it and self-censor along the way or, or don't, um, want to react to it.
[01:11:29.020 --> 01:11:32.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: I think what you just said is, is, is meaningful in the way that, uh, we come from a different time.
[01:11:32.980 --> 01:11:37.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: I think we need to preface a lot of conversations with, we're from a different century because we are.
[01:11:37.760 --> 01:11:38.380]  [SPEAKER_09]: Go ahead, Gila.
[01:11:38.380 --> 01:11:39.680]  [SPEAKER_12]: Well, okay.
[01:11:39.760 --> 01:11:43.540]  [SPEAKER_12]: Now I have another theory as to why this is happening.
[01:11:43.940 --> 01:11:53.600]  [SPEAKER_12]: Do we think that wallpaper guy, um, is trying to rent out his own vacation apartment.
[01:11:53.660 --> 01:11:56.800]  [SPEAKER_12]: So he's trying to get other people to take down their listings.
[01:11:57.320 --> 01:12:04.320]  [SPEAKER_12]: He's trying to bully people out of putting up this image to get them out of the marketplace.
[01:12:04.820 --> 01:12:06.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: You're twisting yourself into a pretzel, defending him.
[01:12:07.080 --> 01:12:16.980]  [SPEAKER_09]: I mean, you think it's because, well, he wants, he wants to rent out a bed and breakfast and this is somehow preventing him from doing that because people might be confused and see his image on a different wall.
[01:12:17.160 --> 01:12:18.120]  [SPEAKER_09]: You know what's...
[01:12:18.940 --> 01:12:19.680]  [SPEAKER_12]: No, it's right.
[01:12:19.760 --> 01:12:21.160]  [SPEAKER_12]: He's trying to knock out the competition.
[01:12:21.280 --> 01:12:21.400]  [SPEAKER_12]: Right.
[01:12:21.480 --> 01:12:22.020]  [SPEAKER_12]: I think this guy is horrible.
[01:12:22.020 --> 01:12:23.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, that's the American way.
[01:12:23.680 --> 01:12:24.840]  [SPEAKER_12]: And he's escalating.
[01:12:25.100 --> 01:12:25.380]  [SPEAKER_08]: Okay.
[01:12:25.540 --> 01:12:26.580]  [SPEAKER_08]: Here's the escalation.
[01:12:26.880 --> 01:12:29.040]  [SPEAKER_08]: If I was this person...
[01:12:29.040 --> 01:12:30.060]  [SPEAKER_08]: I want to get a call from him.
[01:12:30.060 --> 01:12:30.860]  [SPEAKER_09]: I want him to call us.
[01:12:30.860 --> 01:12:49.340]  [SPEAKER_08]: I would take the picture that's on the website, use a wallpaper print-on-demand service to make like a pattern with that picture, then recover the walls with her photo of the old room with his photo on it so that it's like a pattern in the new space.
[01:12:49.340 --> 01:13:01.040]  [SPEAKER_08]: Then take a photo of the room with her new wall covering that is a pattern of all the other older pictures that were on the website and then argue that it's her own work that is now the wall cover.
[01:13:01.120 --> 01:13:03.300]  [SPEAKER_09]: I want to see a photo of people urinating on it.
[01:13:03.360 --> 01:13:04.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: I really do.
[01:13:04.360 --> 01:13:05.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's what I think about this.
[01:13:05.800 --> 01:13:07.800]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's that upsetting.
[01:13:07.800 --> 01:13:11.220]  [SPEAKER_09]: But the funny thing is, I read this story from...
[01:13:11.820 --> 01:13:12.800]  [SPEAKER_09]: Where did I get this from?
[01:13:13.620 --> 01:13:14.420]  [SPEAKER_09]: Petapixel.com.
[01:13:14.840 --> 01:13:16.180]  [SPEAKER_09]: And you see the story there, Kyle?
[01:13:16.380 --> 01:13:19.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: You guys see the story of a chair against the wallpaper?
[01:13:20.300 --> 01:13:21.540]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's not even the wallpaper.
[01:13:21.540 --> 01:13:24.860]  [SPEAKER_09]: For some reason, they didn't put the image in the front of the story.
[01:13:25.120 --> 01:13:25.260]  [SPEAKER_08]: Right.
[01:13:25.260 --> 01:13:26.300]  [SPEAKER_08]: That doesn't look like a photo.
[01:13:26.420 --> 01:13:27.300]  [SPEAKER_08]: That's a stock image.
[01:13:27.340 --> 01:13:27.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's a stock image.
[01:13:28.060 --> 01:13:33.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: For some reason, they didn't dare put the actual wallpaper in the story until you go a couple of pages in.
[01:13:33.900 --> 01:13:37.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: And then it just looks like a bunch of stones on top of each other.
[01:13:38.020 --> 01:13:39.280]  [SPEAKER_08]: It's like stacked rocks.
[01:13:41.080 --> 01:13:41.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: And what?
[01:13:41.740 --> 01:13:43.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: He took a picture of stacked rocks?
[01:13:43.260 --> 01:13:44.880]  [SPEAKER_09]: How about the person who stacked the rocks?
[01:13:45.020 --> 01:13:46.180]  [SPEAKER_09]: Don't they have some say in this?
[01:13:46.700 --> 01:13:47.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: Because somebody did that.
[01:13:49.740 --> 01:13:51.200]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, that doesn't look natural.
[01:13:51.340 --> 01:13:53.160]  [SPEAKER_08]: That looks like a very large wall.
[01:13:53.980 --> 01:13:55.360]  [SPEAKER_08]: And it's just a texture.
[01:13:56.240 --> 01:13:56.640]  [SPEAKER_08]: Wow.
[01:13:56.940 --> 01:13:58.620]  [SPEAKER_09]: Oh my God, Alice, you look like Mr. Robot.
[01:14:00.220 --> 01:14:03.300]  [SPEAKER_09]: He suddenly appeared in a hoodie and wasn't expecting that.
[01:14:03.300 --> 01:14:04.640]  [SPEAKER_07]: Do we even know that's Alex?
[01:14:05.180 --> 01:14:07.000]  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, it's a little cold here.
[01:14:07.500 --> 01:14:09.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: Are you in Pennsylvania?
[01:14:09.680 --> 01:14:10.980]  [SPEAKER_07]: I'm in Pennsylvania tomorrow.
[01:14:11.120 --> 01:14:16.740]  [SPEAKER_07]: There was massive thunderstorms and lightning and the temperature has dropped considerably.
[01:14:17.100 --> 01:14:19.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: You know, we got hit by lightning last week.
[01:14:20.800 --> 01:14:24.200]  [SPEAKER_09]: And it's funny because the cable TV went out.
[01:14:24.600 --> 01:14:28.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: And the cable company said, no, you don't have an outage.
[01:14:28.880 --> 01:14:31.500]  [SPEAKER_09]: Even though everybody in the neighborhood was out, they refused to believe it.
[01:14:31.500 --> 01:14:42.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: And I had to sit through 10 minutes of talking to an automated response system that would say, what is the problem?
[01:14:42.340 --> 01:14:43.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: You can only answer a certain way.
[01:14:43.860 --> 01:14:45.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: And I said, cable is out.
[01:14:45.460 --> 01:14:48.140]  [SPEAKER_09]: We suggest that you reboot your cable system.
[01:14:48.260 --> 01:14:49.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: Do that by unplugging it.
[01:14:49.640 --> 01:14:50.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: There's no way...
[01:14:50.400 --> 01:14:51.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: I can't say representative.
[01:14:51.560 --> 01:14:54.100]  [SPEAKER_09]: A screaming representative at the top of my lungs wasn't doing anything.
[01:14:54.280 --> 01:14:55.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: They said, unplug it now.
[01:14:55.900 --> 01:14:58.200]  [SPEAKER_09]: I will wait six minutes while it boots back up.
[01:14:58.200 --> 01:15:00.120]  [SPEAKER_09]: And I'm like, I did that already, you moron.
[01:15:00.280 --> 01:15:03.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: Now I have to wait, you know, six minutes before I can even get to a human.
[01:15:03.960 --> 01:15:06.880]  [SPEAKER_09]: And by the way, the human didn't believe me either.
[01:15:07.060 --> 01:15:10.440]  [SPEAKER_09]: I had to convince them that there actually was an outage.
[01:15:10.540 --> 01:15:13.860]  [SPEAKER_09]: And two hours later on the outage map, I was so happy.
[01:15:13.940 --> 01:15:15.140]  [SPEAKER_09]: I saw a little dot show up.
[01:15:15.420 --> 01:15:16.940]  [SPEAKER_09]: That was the outage I reported.
[01:15:17.740 --> 01:15:20.300]  [SPEAKER_09]: And sure enough, they figured it out and eventually fixed it.
[01:15:20.380 --> 01:15:24.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: But boy, what they put you through these days is just unreal.
[01:15:24.300 --> 01:15:27.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: What happened to the days where you could call somebody and say, Hey, it's a problem.
[01:15:27.580 --> 01:15:28.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: You might want to look into it.
[01:15:29.680 --> 01:15:30.740]  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, those are gone.
[01:15:31.100 --> 01:15:32.540]  [SPEAKER_07]: Those days are gone.
[01:15:32.820 --> 01:15:43.720]  [SPEAKER_07]: But while we're on the subject of personal appearances, I wonder if that lightning strike had anything to do with the lack of facial hair of both you and Kyle these days.
[01:15:43.720 --> 01:15:46.740]  [SPEAKER_07]: I just noticed you guys are looking pretty clean shaven.
[01:15:47.160 --> 01:15:49.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, you don't know what we look like normally.
[01:15:49.740 --> 01:16:00.940]  [SPEAKER_09]: Because what you see usually, and people don't see this, you see, you know, how when you pull off a job and you replace the tape in the surveillance cameras with old footage so that people are fooled?
[01:16:01.100 --> 01:16:01.660]  [SPEAKER_07]: It's a filter.
[01:16:01.920 --> 01:16:02.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, that's what you've been seeing.
[01:16:02.980 --> 01:16:03.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: This is a filter.
[01:16:03.700 --> 01:16:04.180]  [SPEAKER_09]: Is that right?
[01:16:04.260 --> 01:16:04.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: It is.
[01:16:04.720 --> 01:16:04.860]  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[01:16:05.000 --> 01:16:05.180]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[01:16:05.380 --> 01:16:05.800]  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[01:16:06.280 --> 01:16:07.020]  [SPEAKER_07]: It's amazing.
[01:16:07.180 --> 01:16:11.240]  [SPEAKER_07]: I felt like I'm looking back in time here or something.
[01:16:11.240 --> 01:16:12.060]  [SPEAKER_07]: I was wondering why.
[01:16:12.380 --> 01:16:16.520]  [SPEAKER_07]: I just felt a certain amount of disquietude during this whole show.
[01:16:16.700 --> 01:16:18.320]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, we're not going to discuss your face.
[01:16:19.080 --> 01:16:19.440]  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[01:16:19.900 --> 01:16:20.260]  [SPEAKER_07]: Because...
[01:16:20.260 --> 01:16:20.300]  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[01:16:20.340 --> 01:16:21.740]  [SPEAKER_07]: Well, I've got a face for radio.
[01:16:22.660 --> 01:16:23.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, you said it, not me.
[01:16:24.480 --> 01:16:24.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[01:16:25.000 --> 01:16:26.620]  [SPEAKER_09]: But we have a phone for radio.
[01:16:26.820 --> 01:16:29.200]  [SPEAKER_09]: Let's give out the phone number because we haven't heard from our listeners in forever.
[01:16:29.960 --> 01:16:32.000]  [SPEAKER_09]: 8-0-2-3-2-1-4-2-2-5.
[01:16:32.160 --> 01:16:33.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: Hey, I remember the phone number after all this time.
[01:16:34.020 --> 01:16:35.380]  [SPEAKER_09]: 8-0-2-3-2-1-HACK.
[01:16:35.820 --> 01:16:40.860]  [SPEAKER_09]: If anybody is out there and wants to call us and say hi or have a question or a comment.
[01:16:41.200 --> 01:16:42.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: And Gila, you have a question or a comment.
[01:16:42.800 --> 01:16:43.020]  [SPEAKER_09]: Go ahead.
[01:16:43.260 --> 01:16:44.660]  [SPEAKER_12]: I do, but it's not mine.
[01:16:44.660 --> 01:16:54.860]  [SPEAKER_12]: So, first of all, we're like 20 minutes in and I have not said hello and welcome back to the 39 people who are with us on YouTube right now.
[01:16:56.900 --> 01:16:58.300]  [SPEAKER_12]: Super glad to have you all here.
[01:16:58.420 --> 01:16:59.220]  [SPEAKER_12]: We have a comment.
[01:17:02.060 --> 01:17:05.160]  [SPEAKER_12]: Raycoon says, why does Emmanuel still have cable TV?
[01:17:05.320 --> 01:17:06.120]  [SPEAKER_12]: There are so many alternatives to cable.
[01:17:06.120 --> 01:17:06.500]  [SPEAKER_12]: Oh my God.
[01:17:06.500 --> 01:17:07.280]  [SPEAKER_12]: Here we go again.
[01:17:07.400 --> 01:17:08.080]  [SPEAKER_12]: Here we go again.
[01:17:08.520 --> 01:17:12.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: The whole grandpa thing is, do you still have cable TV?
[01:17:13.040 --> 01:17:13.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, you know what?
[01:17:13.920 --> 01:17:15.320]  [SPEAKER_09]: I still have all kinds of things.
[01:17:15.460 --> 01:17:17.380]  [SPEAKER_09]: I have a non-electric razor, too.
[01:17:17.420 --> 01:17:18.140]  [SPEAKER_09]: We have token ring.
[01:17:19.460 --> 01:17:19.800]  [SPEAKER_09]: Boy.
[01:17:21.160 --> 01:17:25.860]  [SPEAKER_09]: Judging for what kind of technology, I should have whatever I want to be able to have.
[01:17:26.040 --> 01:17:29.720]  [SPEAKER_09]: And if I'm paying for it, you know, it should work.
[01:17:29.920 --> 01:17:31.720]  [SPEAKER_09]: And if I'm not paying for it, it should work, too.
[01:17:31.820 --> 01:17:34.820]  [SPEAKER_09]: Because, you know, people never used to pay for TV.
[01:17:34.920 --> 01:17:36.040]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm from a different century.
[01:17:36.040 --> 01:17:36.880]  [SPEAKER_09]: I know these things.
[01:17:37.440 --> 01:17:39.740]  [SPEAKER_12]: I'm going to push the RDO button just to see what happens.
[01:17:40.560 --> 01:17:41.280]  [SPEAKER_09]: The what button?
[01:17:41.380 --> 01:17:41.940]  [SPEAKER_12]: I'm doing it.
[01:17:41.940 --> 01:17:43.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: Oh, okay.
[01:17:43.660 --> 01:17:44.020]  [SPEAKER_09]: You know what?
[01:17:44.560 --> 01:17:46.160]  [SPEAKER_12]: I don't even...
[01:17:47.600 --> 01:17:50.700]  [SPEAKER_12]: I don't even know if this existed when...
[01:17:50.700 --> 01:17:51.820]  [SPEAKER_12]: Check-in connection.
[01:17:53.760 --> 01:17:55.080]  [SPEAKER_08]: It's going to be a dialogue.
[01:17:55.520 --> 01:17:56.000]  [SPEAKER_09]: What happened?
[01:17:56.740 --> 01:17:57.280]  [SPEAKER_12]: Okay.
[01:17:58.120 --> 01:17:58.660]  [SPEAKER_12]: Unfortunately...
[01:17:58.660 --> 01:17:59.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: Is she okay?
[01:17:59.540 --> 01:18:00.080]  [SPEAKER_13]: Okay.
[01:18:00.280 --> 01:18:02.960]  [SPEAKER_13]: So, this pulled up a...
[01:18:02.960 --> 01:18:06.880]  [SPEAKER_13]: I guess an app store entry for the app, which is not on the TV.
[01:18:07.480 --> 01:18:08.960]  [SPEAKER_13]: And with an apology.
[01:18:08.960 --> 01:18:11.680]  [SPEAKER_12]: That says, unfortunately...
[01:18:11.680 --> 01:18:14.080]  [SPEAKER_12]: I can't look and talk at the same time.
[01:18:14.560 --> 01:18:19.820]  [SPEAKER_12]: It says, unfortunately, RDO has shut down and is no longer available on your Roku device.
[01:18:20.000 --> 01:18:24.380]  [SPEAKER_12]: We're sad to see them go, but we have more than 100 other streaming music services for you.
[01:18:24.600 --> 01:18:28.100]  [SPEAKER_12]: Just go to streaming channels on your home screen and select the music category.
[01:18:28.420 --> 01:18:31.200]  [SPEAKER_09]: But that's the whole reason you got Roku in the first place.
[01:18:31.960 --> 01:18:33.220]  [SPEAKER_09]: Everything is ruined now.
[01:18:33.660 --> 01:18:37.960]  [SPEAKER_13]: And that's also the only thing one of the biggest buttons on this remote now does.
[01:18:38.680 --> 01:18:39.780]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, what about the button?
[01:18:40.340 --> 01:18:42.420]  [SPEAKER_09]: Now it's just wasted real estate on your remote.
[01:18:42.580 --> 01:18:51.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: You know, what Alex was saying before about this being an advertisement in your house, we should start billing them for advertising in our homes when we had no say in that.
[01:18:52.440 --> 01:18:53.120]  [SPEAKER_13]: I agree.
[01:18:53.380 --> 01:18:53.540]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[01:18:53.780 --> 01:18:55.480]  [SPEAKER_09]: You want to be litigious, we can do that too.
[01:18:56.120 --> 01:18:57.380]  [SPEAKER_09]: Do we have a phone call?
[01:18:57.380 --> 01:19:01.140]  [SPEAKER_13]: They're certainly billing the advertisers for the opportunity to advertise to us.
[01:19:01.820 --> 01:19:02.220]  [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah.
[01:19:02.280 --> 01:19:03.100]  [SPEAKER_12]: We can litige.
[01:19:03.300 --> 01:19:04.940]  [SPEAKER_12]: We can litige with the best of them.
[01:19:05.500 --> 01:19:06.820]  [SPEAKER_09]: Kyle, do we have a call?
[01:19:07.220 --> 01:19:08.280]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yo, no, say.
[01:19:08.580 --> 01:19:08.860]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[01:19:08.920 --> 01:19:09.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: I don't know what that means.
[01:19:09.720 --> 01:19:10.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: Is that yes or no?
[01:19:10.640 --> 01:19:10.880]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yes, we have a call.
[01:19:10.920 --> 01:19:12.880]  [SPEAKER_09]: You literally said yes and no at the same time.
[01:19:13.420 --> 01:19:14.000]  [SPEAKER_09]: Good evening.
[01:19:14.160 --> 01:19:15.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: You're on Off The Hook Overtime.
[01:19:15.860 --> 01:19:16.100]  [SPEAKER_09]: Go ahead.
[01:19:17.140 --> 01:19:17.460]  [SPEAKER_02]: Hola.
[01:19:17.960 --> 01:19:18.940]  [SPEAKER_02]: It's Johnny Fusion.
[01:19:19.260 --> 01:19:19.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: Hey, how you doing?
[01:19:20.040 --> 01:19:22.020]  [SPEAKER_09]: Johnny Fusion from West Coast, right?
[01:19:22.800 --> 01:19:23.640]  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Bay Area.
[01:19:23.860 --> 01:19:24.380]  [SPEAKER_09]: Bay Area.
[01:19:24.780 --> 01:19:25.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: Cool.
[01:19:25.760 --> 01:19:26.860]  [SPEAKER_09]: What's on your mind?
[01:19:27.740 --> 01:19:28.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: Hola.
[01:19:28.140 --> 01:19:29.100]  [SPEAKER_02]: So, I was...
[01:19:29.100 --> 01:19:30.940]  [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, how's it going, everyone?
[01:19:31.060 --> 01:19:31.560]  [SPEAKER_02]: Long time.
[01:19:33.340 --> 01:19:46.460]  [SPEAKER_02]: So, I was thinking about the insidious use of copyright, and you mentioned the example of filming a documentary and a car goes by with, you know, playing music.
[01:19:47.640 --> 01:20:02.660]  [SPEAKER_02]: Something that was starting to happen in L.A., that the LAPD was doing, was they would, when they were having interactions with the public, they would get on their phones and start playing Disney music.
[01:20:02.940 --> 01:20:12.240]  [SPEAKER_02]: Because when people were videoing them, they figured Disney's the most litigious company out there when it comes to copyright.
[01:20:13.520 --> 01:20:15.280]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, I heard that story.
[01:20:15.400 --> 01:20:16.000]  [SPEAKER_09]: I heard that story.
[01:20:16.120 --> 01:20:19.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: It was really both infuriating and clever at the same time.
[01:20:20.500 --> 01:20:21.060]  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[01:20:21.980 --> 01:20:23.400]  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, yeah.
[01:20:23.740 --> 01:20:46.300]  [SPEAKER_02]: But that's what I thought of was one of the most insidious uses of using these copyright bots against the people, you know, because it's the First Amendment right to film in public, and especially people that are public employees, like the police, and to keep them accountable.
[01:20:47.240 --> 01:20:51.420]  [SPEAKER_02]: And it was a way of trying to skip accountability.
[01:20:54.360 --> 01:20:55.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: Mm-hmm.
[01:20:55.480 --> 01:20:55.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[01:20:56.420 --> 01:20:57.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's...
[01:20:57.060 --> 01:20:58.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: How did that turn out, do you know?
[01:21:00.200 --> 01:21:02.220]  [SPEAKER_02]: I think it was like a fad.
[01:21:02.220 --> 01:21:13.080]  [SPEAKER_02]: And Disney, like, because, like, these videos would be posted to YouTube, but Disney had just started giving them a pass on the copyright.
[01:21:13.540 --> 01:21:14.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: Wow.
[01:21:14.260 --> 01:21:14.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[01:21:15.060 --> 01:21:15.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's something.
[01:21:17.900 --> 01:21:21.720]  [SPEAKER_02]: Or it was ruled fair use or something like that, you know.
[01:21:21.920 --> 01:21:23.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: It shouldn't have to get to that stage, though.
[01:21:23.800 --> 01:21:34.620]  [SPEAKER_09]: It shouldn't have to, you know, go into the courts or be dependent on a huge corporation or grant permission, you know, it's just, if you're recording something in normal life, you should be able to do that, like you always have been.
[01:21:35.840 --> 01:21:43.340]  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, the famous case was, like, it was like a little girl's birthday party and a Prince song comes on.
[01:21:43.780 --> 01:21:53.140]  [SPEAKER_02]: And Prince had them take down the video, because Prince doesn't want any of his music on YouTube, or he did when he was alive.
[01:21:53.140 --> 01:21:56.920]  [SPEAKER_02]: It's on YouTube now, because the state says, yeah, sure, why not?
[01:21:57.320 --> 01:22:01.440]  [SPEAKER_02]: But when Prince was alive, he didn't want any of his music on YouTube.
[01:22:03.240 --> 01:22:03.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[01:22:03.800 --> 01:22:10.500]  [SPEAKER_09]: I mean, you know, there are limitations to the control you can have over certain things.
[01:22:10.640 --> 01:22:14.420]  [SPEAKER_09]: And I certainly think that somebody could say, I don't want my music to appear on Amazon.
[01:22:14.800 --> 01:22:17.480]  [SPEAKER_09]: I don't want my music to appear, excuse me, on YouTube.
[01:22:17.840 --> 01:22:19.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: And, you know, they can take that down.
[01:22:19.900 --> 01:22:26.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: But if something is playing in the background, that's not a duplication of your work.
[01:22:26.780 --> 01:22:30.180]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's just something in the background, like, you know, a sunset or something.
[01:22:30.580 --> 01:22:33.720]  [SPEAKER_09]: And if you're alive on this planet, that could happen to you.
[01:22:34.220 --> 01:22:40.620]  [SPEAKER_09]: You can't get the permission of everybody in a crowd scene to have their faces displayed.
[01:22:41.080 --> 01:22:46.800]  [SPEAKER_09]: I know there are people who think you have to, and they go and they blur out faces of all the people they couldn't get clearance from.
[01:22:46.800 --> 01:22:57.200]  [SPEAKER_09]: But for God's sake, you know, that famous photo of, I think it was Coney Island in the 1940s and 1950s, where the beach is just crowded with all these people.
[01:22:57.440 --> 01:23:02.000]  [SPEAKER_09]: Can you imagine if they had to go around every single person and ask for permission, you would not have that photo?
[01:23:02.140 --> 01:23:03.620]  [SPEAKER_09]: And it's magic.
[01:23:04.260 --> 01:23:05.220]  [SPEAKER_08]: Well, yeah.
[01:23:05.760 --> 01:23:10.700]  [SPEAKER_08]: The part of that that you have to realize is it's public spaces.
[01:23:10.700 --> 01:23:13.220]  [SPEAKER_08]: That is totally legal.
[01:23:13.460 --> 01:23:29.480]  [SPEAKER_08]: And if you're in public, you do not have the ability to protect yourself in the way that you would on private property or under the policies of your own residence and the expectations there.
[01:23:29.480 --> 01:23:39.980]  [SPEAKER_08]: Um, so I think like Coney Island is a public space as, as public as any, I don't think it's like private property to go on the boardwalk.
[01:23:40.080 --> 01:23:58.420]  [SPEAKER_08]: So if you're photographing there, even if, if it's commercial, I think you don't necessarily need people's permission, especially like you're talking about for a crowd scene, you can, you may have like policies, especially for a, a feature length film or a production of that scale.
[01:23:58.660 --> 01:24:24.480]  [SPEAKER_08]: But if you're doing, uh, uh, something independently, uh, that would be like, that would be something I think that, um, you, you may not have to adhere to the same policies that they have in place where, um, like a, a large film that's doing location shooting would have to post things at the very least so that public entering an area where filming is in progress has at least the,
[01:24:24.520 --> 01:24:27.060]  [SPEAKER_08]: um, awareness that they could be captured on film.
[01:24:27.200 --> 01:24:30.800]  [SPEAKER_08]: And, and the expectation is that they relinquish their rights in that moment.
[01:24:31.380 --> 01:24:36.380]  [SPEAKER_09]: Um, but I think like you say, if it's in public, you, you just by default don't have those rights.
[01:24:36.640 --> 01:24:37.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[01:24:37.200 --> 01:24:47.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: Let's say though, that I'm walking down Coney Island and, but this time I'm, I'm recording and somebody is playing a Prince song and Prince is still alive and he doesn't want his music anywhere.
[01:24:47.440 --> 01:24:49.440]  [SPEAKER_09]: I don't think he has a say at that point.
[01:24:49.460 --> 01:24:55.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: I really don't because it's being played in public and, uh, you know, I'm not there recording his music.
[01:24:55.200 --> 01:24:59.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm there recording the beach and all the people around and his music just happens to be in the background.
[01:24:59.520 --> 01:25:05.180]  [SPEAKER_09]: And I don't think you can control what people record or share when it's in a public space.
[01:25:05.360 --> 01:25:06.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: I just don't think that's right.
[01:25:07.020 --> 01:25:09.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: Just like, you know, I don't think you have to blur out license plates.
[01:25:09.920 --> 01:25:12.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: I know, uh, uh, Google street view does that.
[01:25:12.240 --> 01:25:13.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: I don't think that's necessary.
[01:25:13.220 --> 01:25:14.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: I think if it's there, it's there.
[01:25:14.580 --> 01:25:20.000]  [SPEAKER_09]: If you see people there, there as well, I know there's reasons to not want to have people there, and that's fine.
[01:25:20.140 --> 01:25:22.980]  [SPEAKER_09]: But legally, I don't think it's something that should be required.
[01:25:23.620 --> 01:25:25.120]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I think you're right.
[01:25:25.720 --> 01:25:35.960]  [SPEAKER_08]: Maybe I'm even granting too much when I'm talking about different scales of production, because the means to do a lot of this is so pervasive.
[01:25:35.960 --> 01:25:41.020]  [SPEAKER_08]: Any telephone can begin recording video, and I don't know.
[01:25:41.400 --> 01:25:54.980]  [SPEAKER_08]: The more I'm thinking about the scenario you're talking about, it is a new work, and there should be protection for what natural sound there is.
[01:25:56.240 --> 01:26:09.960]  [SPEAKER_08]: YouTube may have their own policy or their own strictures, because they feel it's a liability to their model, because they're distributing so much content with an ad model.
[01:26:11.380 --> 01:26:26.100]  [SPEAKER_08]: But someone producing something on their own, or even a small production, or student, or documentary, or just a private individual, they're bumping up against that on the distribution side.
[01:26:26.220 --> 01:26:33.280]  [SPEAKER_08]: But to produce it, I think you do have any right, and especially in public spaces, to create what is new content.
[01:26:33.280 --> 01:26:46.500]  [SPEAKER_08]: And it isn't that original Prince recording, it is an entire scene, visually, in time, with that as one element of the natural sound.
[01:26:46.500 --> 01:27:12.300]  [SPEAKER_08]: So yeah, I mean, it's... these claims, like, to have the idea that the estate, or that an artist would go after an independent, or even a feature-length production, it does change when you get into, like, box office sales and all of that, because they have to clear things and do all this sort of due diligence at that level.
[01:27:12.300 --> 01:27:28.940]  [SPEAKER_08]: But to distribute... and so these issues with, like, YouTube and online services, they're small examples of what those productions go through.
[01:27:29.440 --> 01:27:39.240]  [SPEAKER_08]: It's just, it's mostly done in the cheapest way possible, with, like, threatening automation, or just bans on your accounts, on whatever platform it is.
[01:27:39.340 --> 01:27:40.320]  [SPEAKER_09]: I find it interesting...
[01:27:40.320 --> 01:27:41.660]  [SPEAKER_08]: But natural sound should be natural.
[01:27:41.660 --> 01:27:50.380]  [SPEAKER_09]: But on YouTube, you can find pretty much any song you're looking for that's posted, either by record companies, or just somebody, where it doesn't get taken down, and it's just there.
[01:27:50.760 --> 01:27:56.180]  [SPEAKER_09]: And that's fine, you know, it's... it proves that it's not that big a deal to have the music out there.
[01:27:56.460 --> 01:27:59.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: Johnny, I'd let you have one more point, then we're going to move on to another phone call.
[01:27:59.140 --> 01:27:59.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: Go ahead.
[01:28:00.800 --> 01:28:02.620]  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, oh, there is something, though.
[01:28:02.620 --> 01:28:16.160]  [SPEAKER_02]: So, in Europe, in the EU, under GDPR, your photograph, your face, is considered identifiable information and is protected under the GDPR.
[01:28:16.160 --> 01:28:25.140]  [SPEAKER_02]: So, it's a little bit stricter in Europe for people to publish people's faces.
[01:28:26.380 --> 01:28:30.980]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I mean, I'm curious what you would define publish.
[01:28:30.980 --> 01:28:39.200]  [SPEAKER_08]: And, I mean, to publish isn't necessarily to identify them or reveal more about them.
[01:28:40.620 --> 01:28:53.940]  [SPEAKER_08]: However, the mere act of publishing could widely distribute a... something that could make it portable enough for others to use things to identify that individual.
[01:28:54.260 --> 01:29:00.840]  [SPEAKER_08]: So, therein is a liability in you distributing more of someone's face like that.
[01:29:00.840 --> 01:29:03.220]  [SPEAKER_08]: So, we don't have that here.
[01:29:03.400 --> 01:29:10.880]  [SPEAKER_08]: And, you know, you do not... you do not have, like, your face and, as I've said in the past, voice.
[01:29:11.200 --> 01:29:14.760]  [SPEAKER_08]: There's zero expectation of that being protected.
[01:29:14.760 --> 01:29:21.160]  [SPEAKER_08]: And I think this is an example of why we need more... why we need to hash out some kind of privacy...
[01:29:22.240 --> 01:29:40.180]  [SPEAKER_08]: I don't know, framework or policy goal to think about greater protections in that way while not poisoning the creative marketplace of ideas and new content that's emerging.
[01:29:41.280 --> 01:29:41.760]  John?
[01:29:42.260 --> 01:29:44.220]  [SPEAKER_09]: John, it was good hearing from you.
[01:29:44.220 --> 01:29:45.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: You've given us a lot to think about.
[01:29:45.820 --> 01:29:49.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: I hope you keep writing articles and hear from you again soon.
[01:29:51.260 --> 01:29:52.420]  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I'll get to work.
[01:29:52.680 --> 01:29:53.120]  [SPEAKER_09]: All right.
[01:29:53.860 --> 01:29:54.480]  [SPEAKER_09]: Take care.
[01:29:55.340 --> 01:29:56.300]  [SPEAKER_09]: And our phone number.
[01:29:57.760 --> 01:29:59.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: 802-321-4225.
[01:29:59.920 --> 01:30:02.480]  [SPEAKER_09]: For those people who... that rang fast.
[01:30:02.840 --> 01:30:05.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: Boy, didn't think it was possible to ring.
[01:30:05.140 --> 01:30:06.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: You just hung up the phone a second ago.
[01:30:07.500 --> 01:30:11.100]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, well, I guess the line is going to be engaged for a moment or two.
[01:30:11.680 --> 01:30:12.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: Are you ready?
[01:30:12.980 --> 01:30:13.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: And good evening.
[01:30:13.940 --> 01:30:14.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: You're on off the cover time.
[01:30:14.840 --> 01:30:15.040]  [SPEAKER_09]: Go ahead.
[01:30:16.180 --> 01:30:16.820]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yes, I am.
[01:30:16.980 --> 01:30:18.140]  [SPEAKER_09]: I am calling from Portugal.
[01:30:18.980 --> 01:30:19.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: You're in Portugal.
[01:30:19.920 --> 01:30:23.940]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, before we get to that, I just want to point out that you weren't number one this time.
[01:30:23.940 --> 01:30:24.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: You're number two.
[01:30:24.840 --> 01:30:25.780]  [SPEAKER_09]: You were the second caller.
[01:30:26.340 --> 01:30:27.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: And you're losing your touch.
[01:30:29.800 --> 01:30:32.120]  [SPEAKER_17]: Well, I haven't slept in like almost two days.
[01:30:32.340 --> 01:30:33.120]  [SPEAKER_17]: Oh, that must be why.
[01:30:34.860 --> 01:30:40.400]  [SPEAKER_17]: Well, because I wanted to take an Airbus 380, which I've never taken.
[01:30:40.640 --> 01:30:44.160]  [SPEAKER_17]: I think it's like the biggest plane, like bigger than the 747.
[01:30:44.400 --> 01:30:45.320]  [SPEAKER_17]: I always wanted to take it.
[01:30:45.460 --> 01:30:49.220]  [SPEAKER_17]: So I had to go to Germany, like Munich, Germany, New York City.
[01:30:49.220 --> 01:30:50.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, their doors don't pop out.
[01:30:50.840 --> 01:30:52.480]  [SPEAKER_09]: But I think one of them caught fire the other day.
[01:30:53.320 --> 01:30:53.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: Airbus 380?
[01:30:54.200 --> 01:30:54.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm pretty sure.
[01:30:54.860 --> 01:30:55.500]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, I think so.
[01:30:55.640 --> 01:30:57.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: But regardless, I'm sure yours was fine.
[01:30:58.840 --> 01:30:59.140]  [SPEAKER_09]: But...
[01:30:59.140 --> 01:30:59.860]  [SPEAKER_09]: Oh, yeah, it was.
[01:30:59.980 --> 01:31:00.820]  [SPEAKER_09]: So you're in Portugal.
[01:31:01.080 --> 01:31:02.320]  [SPEAKER_09]: And you haven't slept for two nights.
[01:31:02.420 --> 01:31:04.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: You know, they have a lot of fun in that country.
[01:31:04.800 --> 01:31:05.940]  [SPEAKER_09]: The partying never stops.
[01:31:05.940 --> 01:31:08.820]  [SPEAKER_09]: So don't expect to get any sleep for the next week or so.
[01:31:09.520 --> 01:31:11.680]  [SPEAKER_17]: Well, I'm only going to be here for a couple of days.
[01:31:11.700 --> 01:31:15.160]  [SPEAKER_17]: And then I'm going to Italy, Ireland, and then London.
[01:31:16.580 --> 01:31:19.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, well, one of those is a city, and none of them are connected.
[01:31:19.160 --> 01:31:21.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, except Ireland and, well, London.
[01:31:22.440 --> 01:31:23.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: Howie, are you taking trains?
[01:31:23.920 --> 01:31:24.980]  [SPEAKER_09]: Are you flying all the way?
[01:31:25.200 --> 01:31:28.580]  [SPEAKER_17]: No, I'm flying to Italy, and then I'm going to...
[01:31:28.580 --> 01:31:30.100]  [SPEAKER_17]: No, I'm going, yeah, flying.
[01:31:30.300 --> 01:31:37.420]  [SPEAKER_17]: And then I'm going to go from a new flight up to Ireland, and then take a ferry to London, I mean, to England, and then take a train to London.
[01:31:38.320 --> 01:31:39.940]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, well, at least you take a train at some point.
[01:31:40.720 --> 01:31:45.440]  [SPEAKER_09]: And I imagine you might be going through Wales when you cross over on the ferry, right?
[01:31:46.600 --> 01:31:47.320]  [SPEAKER_17]: I guess.
[01:31:47.620 --> 01:31:51.240]  [SPEAKER_17]: I mean, I haven't planned it out yet, but I...
[01:31:51.240 --> 01:31:54.580]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, when you look at the map, make sure to see if you're in Wales.
[01:31:54.600 --> 01:31:57.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: And if you do wind up in Wales, spend some time there.
[01:31:58.600 --> 01:31:59.920]  [SPEAKER_17]: Yeah, I do plan on something.
[01:32:00.920 --> 01:32:01.280]  [SPEAKER_17]: Okay.
[01:32:02.740 --> 01:32:07.560]  [SPEAKER_17]: So, my question to you is, I've registered for Hope, so I'm going to be at the Hope Conference in July.
[01:32:09.780 --> 01:32:10.140]  [SPEAKER_17]: Cool.
[01:32:11.340 --> 01:32:11.700]  [SPEAKER_17]: Yeah.
[01:32:12.120 --> 01:32:14.700]  [SPEAKER_17]: My question to you is, you know Telnet, right?
[01:32:14.900 --> 01:32:16.020]  [SPEAKER_17]: Like, if I was...
[01:32:16.020 --> 01:32:17.300]  [SPEAKER_17]: Is this the way Telnet works?
[01:32:17.500 --> 01:32:27.900]  [SPEAKER_17]: If I was at, let's say, Harvard, and you were at Stony Brook, and let's say you came to visit me at Harvard, and you wanted to log on to your Stony Brook account, would you use Telnet to log in?
[01:32:28.000 --> 01:32:29.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, yes, that is true.
[01:32:29.160 --> 01:32:33.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: So, if it was 1990, I don't think anybody uses Telnet anymore.
[01:32:34.040 --> 01:32:34.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: Everyone uses...
[01:32:34.680 --> 01:32:35.860]  [SPEAKER_17]: No, no, they don't use it anymore, no.
[01:32:36.240 --> 01:32:36.800]  [SPEAKER_17]: Because...
[01:32:36.800 --> 01:32:38.300]  [SPEAKER_17]: But that's the way it used to work.
[01:32:38.940 --> 01:32:39.500]  [SPEAKER_17]: If...
[01:32:39.500 --> 01:32:40.260]  [SPEAKER_17]: If...
[01:32:40.260 --> 01:32:41.820]  [SPEAKER_17]: The mainframe in...
[01:32:41.820 --> 01:32:43.160]  [SPEAKER_17]: The mainframe in...
[01:32:43.160 --> 01:32:45.400]  [SPEAKER_17]: The mainframe in...
[01:32:45.400 --> 01:32:46.180]  [SPEAKER_17]: Let's say...
[01:32:46.180 --> 01:32:47.900]  [SPEAKER_17]: Stony Brook uses the D...
[01:32:47.900 --> 01:32:49.980]  [SPEAKER_09]: The old UNIVAC, yeah, I know, I know.
[01:32:51.700 --> 01:33:01.980]  [SPEAKER_17]: No, not the old UNIVAC, but let's say it's 1988 or 90 or 91, and Stony Brook used a DEC mainframe, and Princeton used IBM...
[01:33:01.980 --> 01:33:03.160]  [SPEAKER_17]: I don't think they had a DEC mainframe.
[01:33:03.440 --> 01:33:06.300]  [SPEAKER_09]: They might have had a VAX, but I know they had a UNIVAC.
[01:33:08.160 --> 01:33:10.140]  [SPEAKER_09]: And, Gila, do you have some information on this?
[01:33:10.800 --> 01:33:15.180]  [SPEAKER_12]: No, I have a different question from a listener, but I said I would ask it when Rebels...
[01:33:15.180 --> 01:33:16.540]  [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, let's let Rebels get through...
[01:33:16.540 --> 01:33:17.080]  [SPEAKER_12]: Now's my moment.
[01:33:17.160 --> 01:33:18.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, let's talk...
[01:33:18.600 --> 01:33:20.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: Let's Rebels get through his, otherwise...
[01:33:20.640 --> 01:33:21.580]  [SPEAKER_09]: You know, he hasn't slept in two days.
[01:33:22.160 --> 01:33:22.960]  [SPEAKER_17]: Oh, yes.
[01:33:23.220 --> 01:33:23.460]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[01:33:24.680 --> 01:33:26.160]  [SPEAKER_17]: Okay, so if...
[01:33:26.160 --> 01:33:28.900]  [SPEAKER_17]: Like, let's say you had two different terminal systems.
[01:33:29.300 --> 01:33:31.260]  [SPEAKER_17]: You could log on to your system.
[01:33:31.480 --> 01:33:38.460]  [SPEAKER_17]: Like, if you were in Princeton, you could log on to the system at Stony Brook, right?
[01:33:38.640 --> 01:33:39.580]  [SPEAKER_17]: Well, that was the idea.
[01:33:40.100 --> 01:33:41.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: The idea was to be able to connect.
[01:33:41.800 --> 01:33:46.000]  [SPEAKER_09]: And, you know, what was cool, and what you can't do anymore, you used to be able to run a talk window.
[01:33:46.200 --> 01:33:52.620]  [SPEAKER_09]: And the way that worked is you would type talk, followed by the account at the school address.
[01:33:53.120 --> 01:33:56.380]  [SPEAKER_09]: So, you know, it would be sunysb.edu or something.
[01:33:57.180 --> 01:34:01.180]  [SPEAKER_09]: And even predated actual Internet addresses like that.
[01:34:02.000 --> 01:34:04.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: But what would happen was your screen would split in half.
[01:34:04.920 --> 01:34:07.540]  [SPEAKER_09]: You'd be on the top, and the person you're talking to would be on the bottom.
[01:34:07.720 --> 01:34:11.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: And you could both type at the same time and have a little conversation there in the window.
[01:34:11.920 --> 01:34:18.880]  [SPEAKER_09]: So, that command still exists on many UNIX systems, but it's been disabled pretty much everywhere because of security reasons.
[01:34:18.940 --> 01:34:27.940]  [SPEAKER_09]: But I think it was one of the coolest things about being on the early days of the Internet because you could talk to people all around the world, and there weren't other ways of doing that at the time.
[01:34:29.300 --> 01:34:31.620]  [SPEAKER_17]: Now, can systems disable Telnet?
[01:34:31.620 --> 01:34:35.500]  [SPEAKER_17]: Like, if Stony Brook didn't want anybody to Telnet to them, they could disable it.
[01:34:35.500 --> 01:34:37.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm pretty sure it's disabled everywhere.
[01:34:37.560 --> 01:34:39.800]  [SPEAKER_09]: I don't know of anything I can Telnet to.
[01:34:40.000 --> 01:34:41.440]  [SPEAKER_17]: No, no, I'm saying back then.
[01:34:41.560 --> 01:34:42.520]  [SPEAKER_17]: I'm saying, I'll talk about the 19th.
[01:34:42.520 --> 01:34:43.520]  [SPEAKER_17]: Oh, back then, maybe.
[01:34:44.220 --> 01:34:45.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: Alex, you have something.
[01:34:45.420 --> 01:34:45.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: Go ahead.
[01:34:46.580 --> 01:34:48.520]  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, you could always disable Telnet.
[01:34:48.680 --> 01:34:52.340]  [SPEAKER_07]: It operated on port 23 as opposed...
[01:34:52.340 --> 01:34:57.320]  [SPEAKER_07]: And then Telnet mostly became really deprecated when SSH took off.
[01:34:57.320 --> 01:35:00.380]  [SPEAKER_07]: The problem with Telnet was that everything happened in clear text, right?
[01:35:00.460 --> 01:35:02.280]  [SPEAKER_07]: So you could sniff out...
[01:35:02.280 --> 01:35:11.640]  [SPEAKER_07]: If you were packet-sniffing on a network, you could sniff out people's passwords as they entered them on the remote system to which they were Telnetting.
[01:35:11.760 --> 01:35:17.780]  [SPEAKER_07]: But there are still some places to which you can Telnet a manual, which are kind of cool.
[01:35:17.920 --> 01:35:26.320]  [SPEAKER_07]: And in fact, I think Telnet is mostly used these days, as I understand it, to operate Telnet-based BBSs.
[01:35:26.320 --> 01:35:28.040]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, yeah, that's true.
[01:35:28.220 --> 01:35:28.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's true.
[01:35:28.840 --> 01:35:32.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: So they do still use that particular service occasionally.
[01:35:33.240 --> 01:35:37.720]  [SPEAKER_09]: And, you know, Kyle just pointed this out to me, and it's important to point out, Telnet is not Telnet.
[01:35:38.880 --> 01:35:46.980]  [SPEAKER_09]: Telnet is a service that was run by GTE at one point, and it was a packet-based switch network back in the 80s.
[01:35:47.700 --> 01:35:51.240]  [SPEAKER_09]: So, yeah, a lot of people got confused by that, but Telnet, Telnet, two different things.
[01:35:51.240 --> 01:35:57.720]  [SPEAKER_09]: But, yeah, Telnet is still a command that works if you want to connect to something.
[01:35:58.660 --> 01:36:17.000]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, it used to be a way to get to management stuff on different hardware to check or otherwise set something up, like on a switch or something, or various things will use that.
[01:36:19.440 --> 01:36:24.940]  [SPEAKER_08]: And you can still launch it in some operating systems, I'm sure.
[01:36:25.100 --> 01:36:28.300]  [SPEAKER_09]: You know what I like about Telnet that I don't like about SSH?
[01:36:28.460 --> 01:36:30.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: SSH pretty much is the replacement for Telnet.
[01:36:30.580 --> 01:36:30.800]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[01:36:30.800 --> 01:36:33.420]  [SPEAKER_09]: You could type Telnet, hit return, and get a Telnet prompt.
[01:36:33.740 --> 01:36:38.200]  [SPEAKER_09]: And then you would type O for open, followed by a space and the address.
[01:36:38.900 --> 01:36:47.020]  [SPEAKER_09]: And if somebody also logged into your system who types the W command to see who else is on the system, it shows what you're running.
[01:36:47.320 --> 01:36:52.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: When you did that, it would show that you were running Telnet, as opposed to if you did it all on the command line.
[01:36:53.060 --> 01:36:56.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: You could type Telnet space, followed by the address you were going to.
[01:36:57.120 --> 01:37:03.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: And then if that person ran W to see who was on the system, they would see you running Telnet and also see what you're connecting to.
[01:37:04.500 --> 01:37:10.620]  [SPEAKER_09]: SSH, its replacement, that uses encryption, you can't hit SSH and hit return and get an SSH prompt.
[01:37:10.740 --> 01:37:11.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: You have to type the whole thing.
[01:37:12.000 --> 01:37:16.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: So therefore, you're giving away that information to anybody who types W to see who's on the system.
[01:37:16.920 --> 01:37:22.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: And I don't know why they never had just an SSH prompt, because that would have been another layer of security.
[01:37:23.080 --> 01:37:24.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm sure there's something I'm missing.
[01:37:24.680 --> 01:37:28.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: But Gila, is this concerning Rebel?
[01:37:29.280 --> 01:37:30.440]  [SPEAKER_12]: It's a question for Rebel.
[01:37:30.680 --> 01:37:31.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: Question for Rebel.
[01:37:31.700 --> 01:37:33.220]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, Rebel, get ready for a question.
[01:37:33.920 --> 01:37:34.400]  [SPEAKER_12]: All right.
[01:37:37.160 --> 01:37:39.920]  [SPEAKER_12]: Hey, Traveller, what European country do you like the most?
[01:37:41.960 --> 01:37:42.320]  [SPEAKER_12]: Amsterdam.
[01:37:43.120 --> 01:37:43.820]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's not a country.
[01:37:43.820 --> 01:37:45.140]  [SPEAKER_09]: For God's sake, you went there.
[01:37:45.280 --> 01:37:46.860]  [SPEAKER_09]: You got to know it's not a country.
[01:37:46.980 --> 01:37:47.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's a city.
[01:37:48.200 --> 01:37:49.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: Man, don't piss me off like this.
[01:37:49.840 --> 01:37:50.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: Come on.
[01:37:50.960 --> 01:37:51.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: You know better.
[01:37:56.520 --> 01:37:58.340]  [SPEAKER_06]: I can't get through to people.
[01:37:58.520 --> 01:37:59.580]  [SPEAKER_09]: I can't get through to people at all.
[01:37:59.740 --> 01:38:00.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: Go ahead, Rebel.
[01:38:00.420 --> 01:38:01.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: Just talk about Telnet.
[01:38:01.520 --> 01:38:08.560]  [SPEAKER_17]: Remember in the 80s, when you go to an airline terminal and you give them your credit card and they swipe your credit card?
[01:38:09.420 --> 01:38:11.680]  [SPEAKER_17]: You know, the computer journals that were hooked up to them.
[01:38:11.820 --> 01:38:13.780]  [SPEAKER_17]: How did they verify the credit cards?
[01:38:13.940 --> 01:38:17.500]  [SPEAKER_17]: Did they use a Telnet type of a system where they...
[01:38:18.460 --> 01:38:23.260]  [SPEAKER_17]: Not Telnet, but a similar type of system where they log into the credit cards?
[01:38:23.860 --> 01:38:34.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, I mean, there used to be all sorts of ways of verifying credit card numbers and also just assuming the credit card was correct.
[01:38:34.700 --> 01:38:35.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: There's an algorithm.
[01:38:36.000 --> 01:38:48.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: Or basically, I think the way the system works is you add up all the numbers and they have to add up to a certain number that's a checksum, I believe, of the last digit.
[01:38:48.600 --> 01:38:49.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: I don't know.
[01:38:49.200 --> 01:38:53.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: This is so long ago that I remember this particular formula.
[01:38:54.000 --> 01:38:56.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: And we printed it back in old issues of 2600.
[01:38:58.120 --> 01:39:06.440]  [SPEAKER_09]: There was some kind of calculation you could do or a computer could do to say if this is a valid format for a credit card.
[01:39:06.560 --> 01:39:12.380]  [SPEAKER_09]: Like, you know, we know that Visa begins with four, MasterCard begins with five, but this went beyond that.
[01:39:12.460 --> 01:39:19.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: This took the whole number and if it added up to a certain amount or was divisible by a certain amount, then it was...
[01:39:19.840 --> 01:39:23.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: at least it passed that test, but there was no guarantee it wasn't being used fraudulently.
[01:39:23.960 --> 01:39:28.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: Then there were also these books that came out every month.
[01:39:28.960 --> 01:39:34.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: And these books were filled with credit card numbers that I think were fraudulent.
[01:39:34.560 --> 01:39:41.120]  [SPEAKER_09]: So when you made a purchase, oftentimes the merchant would consult that book and see if the number was on there.
[01:39:41.240 --> 01:39:50.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's a very crude system, but back then credit card fraud was nowhere near what it is now, so they didn't really have to have it updated to the moment, but that was the best they could do.
[01:39:51.040 --> 01:39:59.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: Another way of verifying, and this was probably the most fun, a merchant would make a phone call to a credit card company.
[01:40:00.160 --> 01:40:04.940]  [SPEAKER_09]: And if you ever overheard the phone call, it was really amazing.
[01:40:05.460 --> 01:40:06.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: It was pretty comical.
[01:40:07.120 --> 01:40:15.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: They would start, the person would pick up on the other end, they wouldn't say hello or anything, they would just read off their merchant number to verify that they had the right to call in the first place.
[01:40:16.740 --> 01:40:27.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: The person on the other end would say okay, then they would read the credit card number and then the merchant, the person on the other end of the phone, if the credit card number was valid, would give them a confirmation code.
[01:40:27.880 --> 01:40:31.860]  [SPEAKER_09]: So the whole conversation was basically two people exchanging numbers back and forth.
[01:40:32.060 --> 01:40:35.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: And that was how a lot of credit card verification worked back then.
[01:40:36.500 --> 01:40:55.260]  [SPEAKER_17]: Okay, now, this is the way the computer terminals in the airports worked back in the early 90s, late 80s, early 90s, where instead of them calling, the computer's not making a phone call, but it's basically calling the visa company or American Are you talking about for the airline?
[01:40:55.440 --> 01:40:55.960]  [SPEAKER_17]: Automated.
[01:40:56.480 --> 01:40:56.840]  [SPEAKER_17]: Yeah.
[01:40:58.180 --> 01:41:00.520]  [SPEAKER_08]: You're talking about what the airline would have done?
[01:41:01.380 --> 01:41:02.060]  [SPEAKER_17]: Yeah.
[01:41:02.540 --> 01:41:17.020]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, they probably began, well, because of their the amount, the volume of authorizations that they would have to be doing, they probably linked in their business systems totally.
[01:41:17.540 --> 01:41:30.340]  [SPEAKER_08]: That was probably some of some of the earliest sort of retail models that required just a higher level of integration with the merchant service provider.
[01:41:30.680 --> 01:41:31.140]  [SPEAKER_09]: Most definitely.
[01:41:31.520 --> 01:41:32.440]  [SPEAKER_09]: Gila, did you have something else?
[01:41:34.000 --> 01:41:41.480]  [SPEAKER_12]: I didn't say that CKermit is the same thing that he's talking about with Telnet, but it also has SSH baked in.
[01:41:41.620 --> 01:41:44.980]  [SPEAKER_12]: And I do still have a question for you guys, which we'll get to when Rebel's off the phone.
[01:41:45.260 --> 01:41:48.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, Rebel, one more question or a point from you, and then we're going to move on.
[01:41:49.680 --> 01:41:51.160]  [SPEAKER_17]: Do you remember police call?
[01:41:51.320 --> 01:41:59.440]  [SPEAKER_17]: Like back in the 80s, before the bell system break up, you would pick up the phone and dial the local operator and make a local call.
[01:41:59.560 --> 01:42:04.980]  [SPEAKER_17]: You'd tell a police call and you'd give her any four digits and say that was a badge number and they'd put calls through.
[01:42:05.620 --> 01:42:06.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'd never heard of that.
[01:42:06.900 --> 01:42:19.820]  [SPEAKER_09]: I know you always would talk about privilege calls that would make the operator do the work that most people would do on their own for you and they would just dial numbers at your command.
[01:42:20.180 --> 01:42:22.280]  [SPEAKER_09]: I never heard of a police call like that.
[01:42:22.340 --> 01:42:23.980]  [SPEAKER_09]: What was the intent of that?
[01:42:25.180 --> 01:42:29.700]  [SPEAKER_17]: How did the TSPF system verify the calling cards when people entered them back then?
[01:42:30.280 --> 01:42:31.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's like I'm not talking at all.
[01:42:32.240 --> 01:42:33.020]  [SPEAKER_09]: I don't know.
[01:42:34.500 --> 01:42:35.300]  [SPEAKER_09]: I don't know.
[01:42:36.880 --> 01:42:38.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: Rebel, it's been a joy as always.
[01:42:39.200 --> 01:42:50.480]  [SPEAKER_09]: Always good to hear your voice and maybe you don't hear mine but thanks for calling and enjoy Portugal and the rest of Europe, countries and cities that you wind up in and hopefully be able to tell the difference.
[01:42:50.620 --> 01:42:51.000]  [SPEAKER_09]: That would be nice.
[01:42:51.940 --> 01:42:53.380]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, is our phone line clear?
[01:42:55.260 --> 01:42:59.100]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, 802-321-4225, 802-321-HACK.
[01:42:59.400 --> 01:43:00.480]  [SPEAKER_09]: Gila, go ahead with your question.
[01:43:01.100 --> 01:43:05.360]  [SPEAKER_12]: Okay, the question is, how was the van acquired?
[01:43:05.840 --> 01:43:08.240]  [SPEAKER_12]: And was it bought from the phone company?
[01:43:08.480 --> 01:43:09.920]  [SPEAKER_12]: Is the van still somewhere?
[01:43:09.920 --> 01:43:14.400]  [SPEAKER_12]: And my question, not from the listener, is do we call it the dodgy van because of who made it?
[01:43:15.040 --> 01:43:16.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, I'm just going to ignore that last one.
[01:43:17.740 --> 01:43:31.280]  [SPEAKER_09]: But I will say that the van was obtained legitimately at a phone company auction where basically all these old phone company trucks and cars were being auctioned.
[01:43:31.580 --> 01:43:36.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: I think it was, I want to say Westbury, Long Island, Nassau County.
[01:43:38.700 --> 01:43:43.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: Basically, we went there the day before to look at all the vans that were out there.
[01:43:43.880 --> 01:43:47.460]  [SPEAKER_09]: Every single one of them had all the paint scraped off, so it didn't look like much.
[01:43:48.820 --> 01:43:57.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: And we got to climb inside and see what certain vans had and what certain vans didn't have.
[01:43:57.620 --> 01:43:59.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: Some were in good condition, some were in bad condition.
[01:44:00.140 --> 01:44:04.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: This particular van was the one we chose for a couple of reasons.
[01:44:04.460 --> 01:44:06.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: First, it didn't have very many miles on it.
[01:44:06.260 --> 01:44:12.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: I think it was around 80,000, which really wasn't that much for a phone company van that had been used for a number of years.
[01:44:13.600 --> 01:44:16.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: This was, by the way, in 1993 that we did this.
[01:44:18.020 --> 01:44:21.280]  [SPEAKER_09]: And we saw a number of vans that were similar.
[01:44:22.200 --> 01:44:27.020]  [SPEAKER_09]: In particular, there was a van right next to this one that was extremely similar.
[01:44:27.640 --> 01:44:33.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: The only difference was, the one that we took an interest in was manual transmission, and the other one was automatic.
[01:44:59.340 --> 01:45:05.380]  [SPEAKER_08]: noted various places where there is some metal work that needs to be done long term.
[01:45:05.620 --> 01:45:06.340]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, they all had that.
[01:45:06.640 --> 01:45:15.100]  [SPEAKER_08]: But it's stored safely and will be in action, I think, this summer.
[01:45:15.360 --> 01:45:17.180]  [SPEAKER_09]: Oh, yeah, you'll see it at Hope, for sure.
[01:45:17.220 --> 01:45:17.500]  [SPEAKER_09]: Of course.
[01:45:17.820 --> 01:45:19.180]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's at the last Hope, it'll be at this Hope.
[01:45:19.720 --> 01:45:21.460]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, the shifting is great, though.
[01:45:22.460 --> 01:45:24.200]  [SPEAKER_08]: We've dialed that in, we had some help.
[01:45:24.200 --> 01:45:33.820]  [SPEAKER_09]: But let me get back to the auction, because the reason we chose manual was because, you know, knowing how to drive manual, first of all, is a great thing, and that's something else.
[01:45:33.980 --> 01:45:40.140]  [SPEAKER_09]: You know, the people disdain manual because they want the car to do everything for them.
[01:45:40.720 --> 01:45:48.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: And I say learn how to drive manual because you have so much more control over the vehicle, and you'll be able to feel problems a lot easier.
[01:45:48.220 --> 01:45:56.100]  [SPEAKER_09]: You know, it's another example of how old technology is being rejected in favor of the technology that does it all for you.
[01:45:56.840 --> 01:46:18.900]  [SPEAKER_08]: Also, the cost of ownership, like, an automatic transmission has its own implications as far as maintenance, the kinds of fluids you need to deal with, and it requires a different level of mechanical know-how and cost, right, to buy a brand new or replacement of that.
[01:46:19.140 --> 01:46:29.860]  [SPEAKER_08]: You know, the convenience, I think, over time would have perhaps, you know, showed its, its, the difference.
[01:46:30.300 --> 01:46:42.940]  [SPEAKER_08]: Whereas, you know, getting a manual transmission rebuilt or serviced or just the sort of simplicity of it, I think, makes it unique.
[01:46:42.960 --> 01:46:44.320]  [SPEAKER_08]: And it is cool.
[01:46:44.480 --> 01:46:45.580]  [SPEAKER_09]: We had to get a new clutch at one point.
[01:46:45.640 --> 01:46:46.200]  [SPEAKER_09]: I do know that.
[01:46:46.360 --> 01:46:47.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: So that was pricey.
[01:46:47.780 --> 01:46:48.420]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, yeah.
[01:46:48.600 --> 01:46:52.900]  [SPEAKER_08]: But the familiarity with it, you don't need to be a specialist in automatic transmissions is what I'm saying.
[01:46:53.100 --> 01:46:56.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: And it's funny because after getting the new clutch, they moved reverse.
[01:46:56.500 --> 01:47:00.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: Reverse used to be, you shift to the right and down, that was reverse.
[01:47:00.220 --> 01:47:01.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: Now you shift to the left and up.
[01:47:01.940 --> 01:47:05.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: And the funny thing is, when I got the van back from the mechanic, they didn't tell me that.
[01:47:06.640 --> 01:47:09.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: the first time I'm trying to go into reverse, I'm like, where did it go?
[01:47:10.060 --> 01:47:11.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: I can't get into reverse no matter what.
[01:47:12.020 --> 01:47:13.620]  [SPEAKER_09]: And I had to call them to find out what they did.
[01:47:14.100 --> 01:47:15.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: So then that's when I learned.
[01:47:15.460 --> 01:47:26.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: But getting back to the auction, yeah, so the van next to us that was pretty similar but automatic, that went for thousands of dollars and people really got into a bidding war about that.
[01:47:27.440 --> 01:47:30.280]  [SPEAKER_09]: Our van, the next one, nobody else wanted it.
[01:47:30.380 --> 01:47:32.420]  [SPEAKER_09]: And we got it for about 900 bucks.
[01:47:32.880 --> 01:47:34.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: It was a steal.
[01:47:35.420 --> 01:47:37.500]  [SPEAKER_09]: and something I have never regretted.
[01:47:37.600 --> 01:47:39.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: That van is a real trooper.
[01:47:39.440 --> 01:47:42.720]  [SPEAKER_09]: Engine is in great shape and it's seen a lot.
[01:47:42.900 --> 01:47:45.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's seen a lot and made a lot of people happy.
[01:47:45.200 --> 01:47:52.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: And then, of course, the next part of this was getting it painted back into the colors that were scraped off and getting the vinyl put on just the right way.
[01:47:52.620 --> 01:47:59.620]  [SPEAKER_09]: Funny thing is, you know, we had the colors, the stripes, that were identical to New York telephone trucks.
[01:48:00.140 --> 01:48:03.280]  [SPEAKER_09]: And they'd wave at us when we passed by, you know, thinking we were one of them.
[01:48:03.280 --> 01:48:09.020]  [SPEAKER_09]: And it was just, you know, everyone thought, hey, that's the phone company because from the front, there were no logos, just the stripes.
[01:48:09.200 --> 01:48:10.440]  [SPEAKER_09]: So it definitely looked like that.
[01:48:12.340 --> 01:48:19.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: And then after a couple of years, New York telephone ceased to exist and just got drawn into NYNEX.
[01:48:20.120 --> 01:48:21.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: And they had different stripes.
[01:48:21.740 --> 01:48:23.020]  [SPEAKER_09]: They didn't have the same stripes.
[01:48:24.780 --> 01:48:28.380]  [SPEAKER_09]: So all of a sudden, we had the only van with those stripes.
[01:48:28.380 --> 01:48:31.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: It was pretty awesome that that was the case.
[01:48:31.600 --> 01:48:33.000]  [SPEAKER_09]: And somehow we won this battle.
[01:48:33.000 --> 01:48:37.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: Although, to this day, phone company guys still wave at the van.
[01:48:37.800 --> 01:48:44.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: I don't know if they've been working that long and they recognize it was just something that's ingrained in our DNA, but it still has that feel to it.
[01:48:45.840 --> 01:48:48.460]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, and it's recognizable, right?
[01:48:48.480 --> 01:48:50.360]  [SPEAKER_08]: It's that familiarity.
[01:48:51.160 --> 01:49:02.880]  [SPEAKER_08]: And it probably, yeah, it probably needs a wash, but other than that, it's, yeah, we'll get it nice and shiny and polish it, you know, show off a little.
[01:49:03.120 --> 01:49:10.600]  [SPEAKER_08]: It's, it's, um, such a, a useful vehicle and still proves its use.
[01:49:10.760 --> 01:49:13.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, we've moved many people's homes in that van.
[01:49:14.260 --> 01:49:16.160]  [SPEAKER_08]: Equipment, phone booths.
[01:49:16.300 --> 01:49:16.620]  [SPEAKER_09]: Uh-huh.
[01:49:17.380 --> 01:49:19.180]  [SPEAKER_09]: We had Club-Mate Day with the van.
[01:49:19.540 --> 01:49:19.940]  [SPEAKER_08]: Soda.
[01:49:20.180 --> 01:49:20.380]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[01:49:20.720 --> 01:49:21.120]  [SPEAKER_08]: Magazines.
[01:49:21.680 --> 01:49:23.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: We drove it to Dayton, at least one.
[01:49:23.480 --> 01:49:24.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: No, we drove it a few times to Dayton.
[01:49:24.980 --> 01:49:25.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's been to Dayton.
[01:49:25.740 --> 01:49:27.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: Ohio for the Hamvention, my God.
[01:49:27.340 --> 01:49:31.600]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, it's, it's a very interesting, uh, model, the inline engine.
[01:49:31.900 --> 01:49:32.600]  [SPEAKER_08]: It's not a V.
[01:49:33.620 --> 01:49:35.840]  [SPEAKER_08]: Um, it's, it's got some unique quirks.
[01:49:36.040 --> 01:49:39.220]  [SPEAKER_08]: There's probably some interior stuff that needs some rehab.
[01:49:39.500 --> 01:49:41.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: And we have a ladder that, that goes on it.
[01:49:41.380 --> 01:49:42.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: We don't usually put the ladder on it.
[01:49:43.640 --> 01:49:45.900]  [SPEAKER_09]: but, yes, we usually put megaphones on it instead.
[01:49:46.120 --> 01:49:51.140]  [SPEAKER_08]: And we have, um, we have an amber light that we're going to debut, I believe, at some point.
[01:49:51.920 --> 01:49:54.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: I hope that answers all the questions about the van.
[01:49:54.240 --> 01:49:55.280]  [SPEAKER_09]: Do we have another phone call?
[01:49:56.040 --> 01:49:57.100]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yes, someone's on the line.
[01:49:57.160 --> 01:49:57.640]  [SPEAKER_08]: They've been waiting.
[01:49:57.780 --> 01:49:57.940]  [SPEAKER_09]: Call.
[01:49:58.720 --> 01:49:59.760]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yes, someone's on the line.
[01:49:59.860 --> 01:50:00.260]  [SPEAKER_08]: They've been waiting.
[01:50:00.540 --> 01:50:01.440]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm sorry about that.
[01:50:01.500 --> 01:50:01.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: Good evening.
[01:50:01.840 --> 01:50:02.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: You're on Off The Hook Overtime.
[01:50:02.820 --> 01:50:03.020]  [SPEAKER_09]: Go ahead.
[01:50:04.160 --> 01:50:08.500]  [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, I have some comments and about things you said on the air.
[01:50:10.160 --> 01:50:18.500]  [SPEAKER_05]: I would like to get a television for privacy and security reasons that I use not connected to the Internet.
[01:50:18.880 --> 01:50:19.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay, fair enough.
[01:50:20.780 --> 01:50:26.640]  [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, so that means that none of these things would apply as long as it cooperates with that.
[01:50:27.140 --> 01:50:37.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, I mean, you can get an over-the-air television set that will just receive the digital signals as they are now using the right kind of antenna and all that.
[01:50:38.760 --> 01:50:45.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: Rob, you were mentioning how expensive the actual non-smart monitors are these days.
[01:50:45.860 --> 01:50:47.020]  [SPEAKER_09]: Do you have any recommendations here?
[01:50:48.300 --> 01:50:59.500]  [SPEAKER_13]: No particular recommendations, but the commercial displays that you would get, and you would get that if you had a business and you wanted TV screens, but you didn't want all the smart TV nonsense on them.
[01:50:59.700 --> 01:51:05.140]  [SPEAKER_13]: And if you go into a restaurant and their menu is on a screen or whatever, that's the sort of thing I'm talking about.
[01:51:05.460 --> 01:51:16.960]  [SPEAKER_13]: But there is also the option, which may be a hassle to do, but that is to get just any TV off the shelf, take it home, start it up, and just never put it on the Internet.
[01:51:17.220 --> 01:51:18.640]  [SPEAKER_13]: We still have that ability.
[01:51:19.200 --> 01:51:20.960]  [SPEAKER_13]: And the TV will complain.
[01:51:21.200 --> 01:51:24.240]  [SPEAKER_13]: You'll switch it on and it'll go, hey, what's your Wi-Fi password?
[01:51:24.240 --> 01:51:30.320]  [SPEAKER_13]: And if you just don't enter it, it'll probably keep asking you, and you may have to say no every time.
[01:51:30.520 --> 01:51:42.060]  [SPEAKER_13]: But you do have the ability to just never put it on the damn net in the first place, and therefore it can't transmit anything to you, but it also can't transmit anything from you.
[01:51:42.280 --> 01:51:53.120]  [SPEAKER_13]: And you could just hook a TV up to some sort of other device that will be showing you whatever digital stuff you want to watch, or you could receive over-the-air digital signals if you have the right antenna.
[01:51:54.200 --> 01:51:56.740]  [SPEAKER_05]: How often will it ask for my Wi-Fi password?
[01:51:58.200 --> 01:51:59.580]  [SPEAKER_13]: Depends on the brand, I bet.
[01:52:02.200 --> 01:52:04.360]  [SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, I think that's about it.
[01:52:05.120 --> 01:52:13.500]  [SPEAKER_13]: Depending on the brand, it could be often, it could be just once, it could be anywhere in between, and there is unfortunately no way to know.
[01:52:14.560 --> 01:52:15.100]  [SPEAKER_05]: Go ahead.
[01:52:15.220 --> 01:52:18.040]  [SPEAKER_05]: I want to find out before I buy it whether it will be a bad game.
[01:52:18.180 --> 01:52:23.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, that's, you know what, for that, that's something the Internet can help you with.
[01:52:23.480 --> 01:52:33.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: If you ask around and make that clear and ignore the people that say, why do you want to do this, and this is stupid, just say, this is what I want, can anyone help me?
[01:52:33.860 --> 01:52:41.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm sure on Reddit or something, you'll find someone who's done the same thing and can recommend something, because there are lots of people people that want what want what you want.
[01:52:41.220 --> 01:52:41.580]  [SPEAKER_09]: Go ahead, Rob.
[01:52:42.620 --> 01:52:57.500]  [SPEAKER_13]: Another option you might have would be if you're going to go into a store rather than ordering online, if you're going to just walk into a shop where they have TVs on display and ask the person there to show you, like, can you tell me what would happen if we start this one up but don't put it online?
[01:52:57.760 --> 01:53:02.760]  [SPEAKER_13]: They might be willing to take one of their TVs and take it offline and show you what happens.
[01:53:03.860 --> 01:53:06.360]  [SPEAKER_09]: You know what actually might be kind of interesting on this?
[01:53:06.500 --> 01:53:07.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: What do prisons do?
[01:53:07.400 --> 01:53:14.500]  [SPEAKER_09]: Because prisons sure don't want Wi-Fi connecting to their TV sets and you know they have TV sets.
[01:53:14.680 --> 01:53:19.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: I guess maybe they have those expensive ones or something like that but that might be a place to look.
[01:53:20.140 --> 01:53:22.900]  [SPEAKER_08]: I was also going to suggest using projector.
[01:53:23.380 --> 01:53:37.680]  [SPEAKER_08]: I don't know if people still use projectors at all or if that's not satisfactory as far as viewing quality but if you're just trying to get information from a source that's a possible way to go as well.
[01:53:37.840 --> 01:53:43.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: I still have my grandmother's old TV set from the 1980s or early 1980s and it still works.
[01:53:43.900 --> 01:53:45.720]  [SPEAKER_09]: It never has broken once.
[01:53:46.320 --> 01:53:58.880]  [SPEAKER_09]: Of course I haven't used it in the last couple of decades but I imagine there's a conversion that you can apply that will allow it to receive TV signals.
[01:53:59.060 --> 01:54:00.280]  [SPEAKER_09]: Am I incorrect on that?
[01:54:00.340 --> 01:54:00.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: I haven't tried.
[01:54:06.540 --> 01:54:07.500]  [SPEAKER_09]: There's in the box.
[01:54:07.660 --> 01:54:17.140]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, so I mean technically oh wow it's in this room Kyle I didn't realize Kyle has just turned on the TV set which apparently has been sitting here the whole time and I did not know that.
[01:54:17.280 --> 01:54:17.400]  [SPEAKER_09]: Wow.
[01:54:17.720 --> 01:54:18.520]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, it's here.
[01:54:18.740 --> 01:54:19.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: Why is it here?
[01:54:20.200 --> 01:54:22.060]  [SPEAKER_08]: It's plugged into a Sony VCR.
[01:54:22.320 --> 01:54:23.460]  [SPEAKER_08]: I don't have a lot of storage.
[01:54:23.560 --> 01:54:24.460]  [SPEAKER_08]: I got to build some shelves.
[01:54:24.680 --> 01:54:24.840]  [SPEAKER_08]: Okay.
[01:54:25.000 --> 01:54:26.120]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, that's right.
[01:54:26.220 --> 01:54:27.320]  [SPEAKER_09]: You can plug a VCR into it.
[01:54:27.380 --> 01:54:28.040]  [SPEAKER_09]: That'll still work.
[01:54:28.040 --> 01:54:41.540]  [SPEAKER_08]: And you can get converters as was mentioned I believe that will take sort of widescreen like 16 by 9 aspect ratio stuff and will squeeze it.
[01:54:41.860 --> 01:54:44.620]  [SPEAKER_08]: There's lots of different products available to do that.
[01:54:44.820 --> 01:54:45.940]  [SPEAKER_08]: We've done that.
[01:54:46.100 --> 01:54:53.800]  [SPEAKER_08]: We've also hooked up like the DV camera which was the original Freedom downtime camera.
[01:54:53.980 --> 01:54:54.460]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's right.
[01:54:54.580 --> 01:55:02.460]  [SPEAKER_08]: And we've projected that through the VCR and out of this TV and through other monitors like smaller monitors.
[01:55:02.460 --> 01:55:04.100]  [SPEAKER_09]: This is why you don't throw out old hardware.
[01:55:04.260 --> 01:55:05.120]  [SPEAKER_09]: You can always have fun with it.
[01:55:05.220 --> 01:55:06.760]  [SPEAKER_08]: You can play with this stuff and
[01:55:09.860 --> 01:55:18.340]  [SPEAKER_08]: retrofit it with some of the tools and devices that we have now and repurpose it in fun ways.
[01:55:18.520 --> 01:55:19.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: Did we help with your question?
[01:55:22.120 --> 01:55:24.860]  [SPEAKER_05]: I think you helped with some of the things you said.
[01:55:24.980 --> 01:55:33.960]  [SPEAKER_05]: By the way, about Freedom downtime on WBAI website, when you click off the hook on the schedule, it says that you recently directed Freedom Downtime.
[01:55:34.500 --> 01:55:36.580]  [SPEAKER_09]: I guess that's an old description.
[01:55:37.040 --> 01:55:39.760]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's the only thing I can think of because that was a while ago.
[01:55:40.000 --> 01:55:44.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: That was at least 20, no, more than that, 25 years ago.
[01:55:45.020 --> 01:55:45.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: Wow.
[01:55:45.380 --> 01:55:53.100]  [SPEAKER_05]: About VPNs, which you also talked about, there's a warning on EFS.org.
[01:55:53.400 --> 01:56:00.580]  [SPEAKER_05]: There's an article about a vulnerability of VPNs if you use them in unfamiliar networks.
[01:56:02.720 --> 01:56:08.000]  [SPEAKER_09]: Does anyone want to talk about the possible security risk to the user of VPNs?
[01:56:09.220 --> 01:56:09.800]  [SPEAKER_09]: No?
[01:56:10.060 --> 01:56:21.440]  [SPEAKER_08]: I will say it's one tool that you can use amidst and it can be a part of a combination of things that you use.
[01:56:21.910 --> 01:56:38.160]  [SPEAKER_08]: But, yeah, buyer beware for some of these services and be on your toes and of course don't set unrealistic expectations of something that is sold to you, especially if it's free.
[01:56:39.440 --> 01:56:52.400]  [SPEAKER_08]: And, yeah, the ways and the kinds of networks that you use this on and for what purposes could leave some gaps in what your expectations might be.
[01:56:52.520 --> 01:56:59.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: Again, go online, see what's recommended, see what has a good track record so it's been around for a while and make a decision based on that.
[01:57:00.560 --> 01:57:01.300]  [SPEAKER_09]: We're going to move on.
[01:57:01.400 --> 01:57:01.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: Thanks.
[01:57:01.600 --> 01:57:09.440]  [SPEAKER_05]: VPNs are vulnerable to something called tunnel vision and an attack that you can do in the article.
[01:57:11.760 --> 01:57:26.240]  [SPEAKER_05]: And you used to be able to just if you wanted to be as if you were in a different geographical location, you just used to be able to just find a proxy server somewhere that you could connect to or through.
[01:57:26.660 --> 01:57:26.780]  [SPEAKER_09]: Right.
[01:57:28.000 --> 01:57:29.140]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, that's gotten harder.
[01:57:29.600 --> 01:57:30.420]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's for sure.
[01:57:31.420 --> 01:57:31.760]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[01:57:31.820 --> 01:57:32.140]  [SPEAKER_08]: All right.
[01:57:32.440 --> 01:57:32.640]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[01:57:32.960 --> 01:57:40.220]  [SPEAKER_08]: And like I said, it's not foolproofs and there are attacks and it is because it is used for so many different purposes.
[01:57:40.220 --> 01:57:47.880]  [SPEAKER_08]: It is something that is desirable for gleaning information about how it's used or what kind of information is traversing it.
[01:57:48.180 --> 01:57:49.300]  [SPEAKER_09]: Thanks for the call.
[01:57:49.400 --> 01:57:49.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: We're going to move on.
[01:57:50.160 --> 01:57:50.620]  [SPEAKER_09]: Take care.
[01:57:51.820 --> 01:57:56.880]  [SPEAKER_09]: And we're going to take one more phone call because we're tired and we've been at this for a while.
[01:57:57.420 --> 01:58:06.060]  [SPEAKER_09]: 802-321-4225, 802-321-HACK be that last phone call and we will conclude after that.
[01:58:07.140 --> 01:58:08.780]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, Hope Conference coming up.
[01:58:08.840 --> 01:58:18.940]  [SPEAKER_09]: We have received all of the speaker entries and wow, we have some great speaker entries and we're looking forward to publishing the rest of the schedule.
[01:58:19.060 --> 01:58:22.480]  [SPEAKER_09]: A good part of the talks are already announced.
[01:58:23.260 --> 01:58:25.820]  [SPEAKER_09]: I think we're about halfway through at this point.
[01:58:25.960 --> 01:58:28.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: So there'll be a lot more showing up there.
[01:58:28.800 --> 01:58:29.800]  [SPEAKER_09]: We have Cory Doctorow coming.
[01:58:30.000 --> 01:58:35.280]  [SPEAKER_09]: We have all kinds of amazing people speaking and that's not all.
[01:58:35.460 --> 01:58:43.520]  [SPEAKER_09]: We're having workshops, we're having villages, we're having all kinds of fun at St. John's University, July 12th through 14th.
[01:58:43.640 --> 01:58:46.740]  [SPEAKER_09]: All the information is on hope.net.
[01:58:47.460 --> 01:58:49.680]  [SPEAKER_09]: And I think we have another phone call coming in.
[01:58:49.680 --> 01:58:51.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: This will be the last phone call of the night.
[01:58:51.980 --> 01:58:52.260]  [SPEAKER_09]: Good evening.
[01:58:52.460 --> 01:58:53.820]  [SPEAKER_09]: You're on Off The Hook Overtime.
[01:58:57.360 --> 01:58:58.220]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yes, go ahead.
[01:58:58.340 --> 01:58:58.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: You're on.
[01:58:58.840 --> 01:59:00.220]  [SPEAKER_09]: Please turn down your device.
[01:59:01.220 --> 01:59:03.760]  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I just wanted to ask a quick general question.
[01:59:04.120 --> 01:59:08.280]  [SPEAKER_03]: Where do I get information on the upcoming Hope Conference?
[01:59:08.420 --> 01:59:09.440]  [SPEAKER_03]: Is there a website or something?
[01:59:09.840 --> 01:59:11.220]  [SPEAKER_09]: It's funny because I just said that.
[01:59:11.420 --> 01:59:12.640]  [SPEAKER_09]: I guess you were calling at the time.
[01:59:12.920 --> 01:59:16.040]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yes, the website is hope.net, H-O-P-E dot N-E-T.
[01:59:16.560 --> 01:59:18.080]  [SPEAKER_09]: And that should tell you everything you need to know.
[01:59:19.360 --> 01:59:19.640]  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[01:59:19.920 --> 01:59:20.140]  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[01:59:20.480 --> 01:59:20.760]  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[01:59:20.900 --> 01:59:21.640]  [SPEAKER_04]: That's all I need to know.
[01:59:21.740 --> 01:59:21.980]  [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[01:59:22.200 --> 01:59:22.420]  [SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[01:59:22.880 --> 01:59:24.120]  [SPEAKER_09]: Well, that was an easy phone call.
[01:59:24.140 --> 01:59:26.440]  [SPEAKER_09]: And that means we're going to get out of here a little bit earlier.
[01:59:26.720 --> 01:59:28.860]  [SPEAKER_09]: Thank you, everybody, for calling in, for listening.
[01:59:28.920 --> 01:59:31.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: Of course, you can write to us, oth@2600.com.
[01:59:33.560 --> 01:59:34.300]  [SPEAKER_09]: Plan ahead.
[01:59:34.540 --> 01:59:36.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: 2600 meetings are not this Friday, but the one afterwards.
[01:59:36.940 --> 01:59:37.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: Right, Rob?
[01:59:38.940 --> 01:59:39.420]  [SPEAKER_13]: Absolutely.
[01:59:39.820 --> 01:59:44.380]  [SPEAKER_13]: And also, keep showing your support for WBAI at give2wbai.org.
[01:59:44.680 --> 01:59:50.700]  [SPEAKER_09]: Yes, and pledge for that Off The Hook thing, the collection.
[01:59:50.940 --> 01:59:53.540]  [SPEAKER_09]: Every show we've ever done on a flash drive is pretty interesting.
[01:59:54.940 --> 01:59:55.420]  [SPEAKER_08]: Anthology.
[01:59:55.680 --> 01:59:55.980]  [SPEAKER_09]: Anthology.
[01:59:56.100 --> 01:59:57.000]  [SPEAKER_09]: That's the word I was searching for.
[01:59:57.480 --> 01:59:58.680]  [SPEAKER_08]: Thanks for listening, everyone.
[01:59:59.020 --> 01:59:59.560]  [SPEAKER_09]: Good night.