[00:16.650 --> 00:18.930] [ROBVINCENT]: I'm just going to let that go to voicemail.
[00:19.610 --> 00:20.770] [ROBVINCENT]: Good evening.
[00:21.210 --> 00:27.270] [ROBVINCENT]: You are listening to radio station WBAI 99.5 FM here in New York.
[00:27.630 --> 00:30.370] [ROBVINCENT]: Time is just about 7pm.
[00:30.970 --> 00:35.990] [ROBVINCENT]: And it is time for another exciting edition of Off The Hook.
[01:23.550 --> 01:26.610] [ROBVINCENT]: A very, very good evening to you indeed.
[01:28.110 --> 01:30.670] [ROBVINCENT]: The program is... Off The Hook.
[01:33.830 --> 01:37.350] [ROBVINCENT]: Rob T. Firefly here with you for a very special edition of this program.
[01:39.610 --> 01:45.750] [ROBVINCENT]: And I am alone in this studio, which is unusual, but I am joined in Skype-land by some very special people.
[01:46.590 --> 01:49.730] [ROBVINCENT]: Out in Skype-land, we have...
[01:50.810 --> 01:53.510] [ROBVINCENT]: Off The Hook's man on the ground, Volt4ire.
[01:53.710 --> 01:54.390] [ROBVINCENT]: Are you with us?
[01:55.170 --> 01:55.950] [_VOLT4IRE_]: Hey, how's it going?
[01:56.770 --> 01:58.130] [ROBVINCENT]: Good to hear from you.
[01:58.230 --> 01:58.930] [ROBVINCENT]: Good to see from you.
[02:00.290 --> 02:09.510] [ROBVINCENT]: And we are also joined by a couple of very special guests from Hackers.Town, the Mastodon server that is a friend of so many to...
[02:10.050 --> 02:11.730] [ROBVINCENT]: A friend of so many in our community.
[02:12.010 --> 02:13.170] [ROBVINCENT]: We have The Gibson.
[02:14.090 --> 02:14.870] [THE_GIBSON]: Hi, everybody.
[02:15.190 --> 02:15.710] [THE_GIBSON]: Good to be here.
[02:16.110 --> 02:17.670] [ROBVINCENT]: And we have Codebabe.
[02:18.750 --> 02:19.230] [_CODEBABE_]: Hi.
[02:19.350 --> 02:19.710] [_CODEBABE_]: Good evening.
[02:20.710 --> 02:21.670] [ROBVINCENT]: Hello, everyone.
[02:21.910 --> 02:26.810] [ROBVINCENT]: And thank you very much for joining us here on this program here that we do here.
[02:26.810 --> 02:29.530] [ROBVINCENT]: And there is so much to talk about.
[02:30.150 --> 02:35.290] [ROBVINCENT]: Our other regulars are scattered to the four winds tonight, which leaves me in charge.
[02:35.290 --> 02:38.010] [ROBVINCENT]: And I'm doing some terrible, terrible things.
[02:38.470 --> 02:42.090] [ROBVINCENT]: And one of them is going to be asking you...
[02:43.930 --> 02:49.030] [ROBVINCENT]: There was a hacker conference recently, one that we talked a little bit about last week.
[02:49.350 --> 02:50.550] [ROBVINCENT]: Emmanuel and Kyle were there.
[02:50.550 --> 02:52.790] [ROBVINCENT]: Some of us were watching from afar.
[02:53.410 --> 02:54.830] [ROBVINCENT]: DEFCON happened out in Las Vegas.
[02:55.210 --> 03:01.630] [ROBVINCENT]: And I understand at least one of you, out in Skype line there today, were there in person.
[03:03.670 --> 03:06.150] [THE_GIBSON]: Yeah, actually, Codebabe and I were both there.
[03:06.450 --> 03:06.850] [THE_GIBSON]: Yeah.
[03:07.650 --> 03:11.870] [THE_GIBSON]: Representing Hackers.Town, Veilid, various projects.
[03:12.350 --> 03:16.470] [THE_GIBSON]: But, yeah, it was a great event this year.
[03:17.170 --> 03:19.610] [THE_GIBSON]: Now, of course, not without some controversy.
[03:19.610 --> 03:20.310] [THE_GIBSON]: It's DEFCON.
[03:20.430 --> 03:22.610] [THE_GIBSON]: There's always some sort of controversy that comes out of it.
[03:22.710 --> 03:24.210] [THE_GIBSON]: But overall, it was really good.
[03:24.550 --> 03:28.530] [THE_GIBSON]: We were also at B-Sides Las Vegas.
[03:28.910 --> 03:30.610] [THE_GIBSON]: And Veilid was represented there.
[03:30.730 --> 03:32.450] [THE_GIBSON]: Veilid Networks, for those unfamiliar.
[03:33.310 --> 03:37.130] [THE_GIBSON]: We were represented there as one of the charity sponsors.
[03:37.390 --> 03:41.490] [THE_GIBSON]: So, got to raise some money for the foundation and keep operations going for the next year.
[03:41.610 --> 03:43.290] [THE_GIBSON]: That all went really well.
[03:44.750 --> 03:46.390] [THE_GIBSON]: Codebabe, you got any thoughts?
[03:46.550 --> 03:48.210] [THE_GIBSON]: Because I know I had a good time.
[03:48.210 --> 03:49.730] [_CODEBABE_]: It was great.
[03:49.930 --> 03:56.690] [_CODEBABE_]: We had all kinds of people going to be with people who were in our Discord already, people who had never heard of us.
[03:56.930 --> 04:00.130] [_CODEBABE_]: And it was great because we got to talk it up.
[04:00.330 --> 04:06.030] [_CODEBABE_]: And pretty much everyone left going, oh, yeah, that's a great idea, which is a good feeling.
[04:06.870 --> 04:08.810] [ROBVINCENT]: Now, you mentioned the foundation.
[04:09.170 --> 04:11.930] [ROBVINCENT]: This is the Veilid Foundation, I take it?
[04:11.930 --> 04:24.290] [THE_GIBSON]: Yeah, so Veilid Foundation is, it exists to promote the adoption of the Veilid application framework, which is a Cult of the Dead Cow project.
[04:24.850 --> 04:40.230] [THE_GIBSON]: It is a application development framework that is privacy first and allows you to build applications for any platform, basically, that will bake in privacy measures there.
[04:42.050 --> 04:42.690] [THE_GIBSON]: Yeah.
[04:44.970 --> 04:46.890] [ROBVINCENT]: Okay, Gibson, you're dropping out a little bit.
[04:47.290 --> 04:47.910] [ROBVINCENT]: Audio wise.
[04:50.290 --> 04:51.870] [THE_GIBSON]: Now, better?
[04:53.110 --> 04:55.350] [ROBVINCENT]: In and out, a little background noise going on.
[04:57.370 --> 04:58.010] [THE_GIBSON]: That's strange.
[05:02.550 --> 05:04.610] [ROBVINCENT]: Volt4ire, I think some of that noise might be coming from your end.
[05:05.610 --> 05:06.050] [ROBVINCENT]: No.
[05:06.250 --> 05:06.790] [ROBVINCENT]: No worries.
[05:07.130 --> 05:07.770] [ROBVINCENT]: There we go.
[05:07.870 --> 05:08.250] [THE_GIBSON]: Is that better?
[05:08.710 --> 05:09.150] [THE_GIBSON]: Okay.
[05:10.410 --> 05:23.190] [THE_GIBSON]: So, basically, it's so you can develop private applications that use, more or less in the modern age, very little leakage of metadata or personal data so that someone can track you, right?
[05:23.190 --> 05:26.550] [THE_GIBSON]: We built this with that premise first.
[05:27.070 --> 05:32.810] [THE_GIBSON]: We were able to drop the Veilid Chat beta at DEFCON this year.
[05:33.050 --> 05:34.550] [THE_GIBSON]: So, that's out there and being tested.
[05:34.710 --> 05:36.590] [THE_GIBSON]: We are currently in bug bashing mode.
[05:36.850 --> 05:50.210] [THE_GIBSON]: So, trying to get that up to a 1.0 release so that we can go let everybody build apps that make, you know, that may be very resilient to data capitalism and surveillance.
[05:51.270 --> 05:52.570] [ROBVINCENT]: And Veilid Chat.
[05:52.570 --> 05:53.770] [ROBVINCENT]: So, for those unfamiliar...
[05:53.770 --> 05:56.050] [ROBVINCENT]: I mean, you've been on this program before talking about Veilid.
[05:56.430 --> 06:00.790] [ROBVINCENT]: You had some other presentations at conferences near and far about it.
[06:00.870 --> 06:06.450] [ROBVINCENT]: But for those unfamiliar, how would you describe Veilid and, in particular, Veilid Chat?
[06:07.910 --> 06:09.290] [THE_GIBSON]: So, Veilid Chat...
[06:09.290 --> 06:12.990] [THE_GIBSON]: We'll just go there because the framework is a little esoteric to people, I think.
[06:13.270 --> 06:15.310] [THE_GIBSON]: You know, if you're a developer, it makes a lot of sense.
[06:15.310 --> 06:20.110] [THE_GIBSON]: If you're a standard user or a non-developer type, you're not going to be playing around with that much.
[06:20.270 --> 06:43.070] [THE_GIBSON]: But the Veilid Chat app is a pretty simple chat app where you can talk to others through this encrypted model that we built, this high encryption and routing guarantee showing that, you know, basically it allows you to not be tracked, is the whole idea behind it.
[06:43.070 --> 06:45.990] [THE_GIBSON]: So, you can talk to anyone you know.
[06:46.290 --> 06:54.350] [THE_GIBSON]: Now, the interesting thing about it is, anytime you get into a privacy project like this, there is a trade-off you hit in the first quarter of the project somewhere.
[06:54.530 --> 06:59.270] [THE_GIBSON]: And it comes down to breaking authentication away from identity, right?
[06:59.410 --> 07:02.230] [THE_GIBSON]: And you have to either do that or not.
[07:03.090 --> 07:10.830] [THE_GIBSON]: We chose that we weren't so much worried about identity so much as being able to authenticate that who I was talking to was your intended recipient.
[07:10.830 --> 07:26.090] [THE_GIBSON]: So, because of that, you have to exchange invites with people that would be in your contact list so that, you know, you either have to be in person and exchange the invite or you transfer that over a known good channel like another texting method, right?
[07:26.270 --> 07:36.730] [THE_GIBSON]: So that at the end of the day, you're kind of old school guaranteeing who you're talking to is who it should be instead of trying to make some complex system that isn't necessarily reliable.
[07:36.730 --> 07:45.430] [THE_GIBSON]: So it sounds a little low-tech on that front, but the case of the matter is that when you get down to basics like that, you have to make decisions in design.
[07:45.550 --> 07:53.710] [THE_GIBSON]: And this was the best way we could do that to enable people to guarantee who they were talking to was who they intended.
[07:54.350 --> 08:11.210] [THE_GIBSON]: Now, once you get past that, though, the routing ring, as I like to call it, the constructed routes that guarantee anonymity over the network and the privacy methodologies kick in, and then you've got a really strong communication model that, you know,
[08:11.890 --> 08:17.370] [THE_GIBSON]: can basically keep anyone from being able to see who or what you're talking about.
[08:17.790 --> 08:25.330] [THE_GIBSON]: Now, the thing that people don't talk about about Vaylin enough, and this gets back to the framework just a little bit, is what it really is.
[08:25.330 --> 08:33.850] [THE_GIBSON]: We've built a thing that shares resources in a fully distributed network, so there's no centralized infrastructure.
[08:34.190 --> 08:46.510] [THE_GIBSON]: And so at the end of the day, you've got this system that you can develop apps in that you don't owe Amazon a bill for at the end of the month for running it, or you don't owe Google Cloud or whoever.
[08:47.050 --> 08:50.270] [THE_GIBSON]: We like to think of it more of as the people's cloud, right?
[08:50.410 --> 08:58.670] [THE_GIBSON]: So you have an option to build on this and not have the incentives of, as Cory Doctorow says, in crapification.
[08:58.910 --> 09:01.130] [THE_GIBSON]: Let me make sure I got that right for broadcast.
[09:01.430 --> 09:16.270] [THE_GIBSON]: But you don't have the incentives that cause that, nor does the network or framework as a whole end up with this perverse incentive to necessarily, you know, make profit.
[09:16.510 --> 09:20.010] [THE_GIBSON]: We can do this with little to no cost to anyone that wants to run on it.
[09:20.710 --> 09:32.650] [_CODEBABE_]: I'm a big fan of the usability for it, too, is when you open it and you look at it, you're like, oh, this looks just like every other chat application I've ever used.
[09:32.790 --> 09:34.690] [_CODEBABE_]: You know, here are my contacts, here are my messages.
[09:36.430 --> 09:38.490] [_CODEBABE_]: And I think it's going to be...
[09:39.530 --> 09:41.570] [_CODEBABE_]: I'm really excited for us to get to 1.0.
[09:42.890 --> 09:45.810] [ROBVINCENT]: Yeah, I've played with it a little bit so far.
[09:46.010 --> 09:49.170] [ROBVINCENT]: And from a user experience standpoint, it does.
[09:49.330 --> 09:53.490] [ROBVINCENT]: It just feels like every other chat app that one has used.
[09:53.770 --> 10:01.830] [ROBVINCENT]: And the usability of it is important because the back end, the privacy and everything, this is the main, I think, reason to have something like this.
[10:01.970 --> 10:04.950] [ROBVINCENT]: But in order for that to take off, it's got to be usable.
[10:04.950 --> 10:12.730] [ROBVINCENT]: And it kind of takes me back as a user to the way things were on the early online space.
[10:13.230 --> 10:20.750] [ROBVINCENT]: You know, thinking way back to, say, like, you were on America Online or something, and you needed somebody else's screen name in order to contact them.
[10:21.270 --> 10:24.770] [ROBVINCENT]: There was no, like, let me just grab somebody from the public and spam them.
[10:24.950 --> 10:31.350] [ROBVINCENT]: There was no, let me be found by anybody who wants to just ping me and bother me or whatever.
[10:31.350 --> 10:35.550] [ROBVINCENT]: However, it's a very person-to-person, human-to-human communication.
[10:35.990 --> 10:42.210] [ROBVINCENT]: And maybe bringing that back into day-to-day chat in the modern sphere is not such a bad thing.
[10:43.230 --> 10:48.690] [THE_GIBSON]: You know, there's a lot more there, too, from that model.
[10:49.970 --> 10:58.170] [THE_GIBSON]: There's, I mean, there's some personal assurance at the end of the day that you're talking to the people that you're intended to talk to, right?
[10:59.230 --> 11:04.750] [THE_GIBSON]: You know, everything is encrypted on the device it's on as well, locally, all the local storage.
[11:06.330 --> 11:15.330] [THE_GIBSON]: There's very little way outside of, you know, physically getting access to the device for anyone to be able to mine data out of this.
[11:16.250 --> 11:17.590] [THE_GIBSON]: And we made choices.
[11:17.750 --> 11:19.930] [THE_GIBSON]: You may notice, you guys have used this for a while.
[11:20.090 --> 11:26.230] [THE_GIBSON]: So, like, one of the things that was interesting to me is you don't get notifications in the app, right?
[11:26.230 --> 11:30.430] [THE_GIBSON]: There's no little red dot that shows them the app tells you someone's message to you.
[11:30.550 --> 11:45.250] [THE_GIBSON]: And at the end of the day, that became a choice because doing that requires you to use either, you know, Apple's provider or Google's provider for those intermediary notifications that you get on every other app.
[11:46.190 --> 11:48.450] [THE_GIBSON]: Or you can spin up your own infrastructure to do it.
[11:48.530 --> 11:58.370] [THE_GIBSON]: But at the end of the day, we're in this situation where you would have centralized infrastructure handling this that would be a vulnerable access point for people to see what kind of messages are going, right?
[11:58.430 --> 11:59.630] [THE_GIBSON]: There'd be metadata that leaked there.
[11:59.770 --> 12:01.730] [THE_GIBSON]: We made a choice not to do that sort of thing.
[12:01.970 --> 12:04.130] [THE_GIBSON]: It is rudimentary in some ways.
[12:04.130 --> 12:11.630] [THE_GIBSON]: But in other ways, these are the things we kind of had to do in the modern infrastructure to make this thing what we thought it should be.
[12:12.030 --> 12:13.150] [THE_GIBSON]: So, yeah.
[12:13.950 --> 12:22.010] [ROBVINCENT]: And as far as what we think it should be, what you think it should be, the people behind it, what are you looking for?
[12:22.070 --> 12:24.530] [ROBVINCENT]: Because obviously this is a non-commercial project.
[12:24.530 --> 12:26.290] [ROBVINCENT]: This isn't going to make anyone rich.
[12:26.290 --> 12:35.530] [ROBVINCENT]: This isn't even pulling in any sort of ad dollars or anything like that, which you might expect from a social medium these days.
[12:35.850 --> 12:43.290] [ROBVINCENT]: So, like, what's the end goal of, like, everything's usable, everything's wonderful?
[12:44.610 --> 12:46.130] [ROBVINCENT]: Where do we see this going?
[12:46.130 --> 13:00.630] [_CODEBABE_]: The end goal for this application is this is the first, like, hands-on product or project for Veilid.
[13:00.810 --> 13:08.670] [_CODEBABE_]: So, a lot of developers have been holding back on getting involved because they're like, can this actually do what we say it does?
[13:09.710 --> 13:15.770] [_CODEBABE_]: And then, so to have such a, like, everybody uses some kind of chat application these days.
[13:16.130 --> 13:33.210] [_CODEBABE_]: So, to have a very relatable demo of the network using a chat app, it's a, I think it's going to be a really good starting point for bringing in developers because they're going to see, you know, the working example.
[13:35.050 --> 13:35.590] [ROBVINCENT]: Volt4ire?
[13:36.610 --> 13:42.730] [_VOLT4IRE_]: Yeah, so I think, you know, the Veilid Chat itself is, like, not commercially focused.
[13:42.730 --> 13:46.010] [_VOLT4IRE_]: I think it's important to note that, like, it's an open-source license.
[13:46.110 --> 13:48.430] [_VOLT4IRE_]: I think it's Mozilla public license 2.0.
[13:48.570 --> 14:00.530] [_VOLT4IRE_]: So, that means you can do, with the Veilid protocol itself, that underlying protocol, you can build, like, cell services on top of that as long as they're, like, freely licensed.
[14:00.550 --> 14:02.410] [_VOLT4IRE_]: So, I think that's important to note.
[14:03.230 --> 14:04.790] [THE_GIBSON]: That's exactly right, Volt4ire.
[14:05.370 --> 14:09.930] [THE_GIBSON]: And that was a choice we made when we were choosing which model to use for this thing, right?
[14:10.710 --> 14:12.370] [THE_GIBSON]: Mozilla won out for that very reason.
[14:13.390 --> 14:16.050] [THE_GIBSON]: We wanted other people to be able to not...
[14:16.050 --> 14:19.590] [THE_GIBSON]: I mean, if they want to commercialize something on Veilid, we're not going to stop that, right?
[14:20.110 --> 14:21.210] [THE_GIBSON]: That's not part of our game.
[14:22.370 --> 14:23.750] [_VOLT4IRE_]: Yeah, I think that's a really good choice.
[14:25.030 --> 14:33.510] [ROBVINCENT]: Yeah, and it makes a lot of sense because, as you said, you've got this protocol, you've got Veilid as a concept, and people want to see, well, what can you do with it?
[14:33.650 --> 14:52.610] [ROBVINCENT]: And not only is it something commonplace, something pervasive, everyone, as you said, uses a chat app, but it also seems like something a bit, I guess, simpler to start with as an example of this thing working and to prove to people that, yes, you can drop a service into this,
[14:52.670 --> 14:54.870] [ROBVINCENT]: you can maybe build other things into it as well.
[14:56.090 --> 14:59.190] [THE_GIBSON]: Yeah, I think it's... you mentioned early web earlier.
[14:59.890 --> 15:04.990] [THE_GIBSON]: One of our internal... and I think I actually said it last year when we were on this same show with you guys.
[15:05.150 --> 15:09.070] [THE_GIBSON]: One of our internal sayings is referring to it as web 1.5, right?
[15:11.230 --> 15:18.530] [THE_GIBSON]: Because we look at this as kind of where the web should have went if we hadn't crashed against the forces of monetization, right?
[15:20.810 --> 15:23.930] [THE_GIBSON]: So if you want to monetize something on Veilid, you're welcome to.
[15:23.930 --> 15:31.990] [THE_GIBSON]: Nobody... nobody's against that, but we also want to take away the requirement to do that so that people can just go build cool stuff if they want to, right?
[15:32.150 --> 15:33.670] [THE_GIBSON]: Just build something that's fun.
[15:33.870 --> 15:38.750] [THE_GIBSON]: It doesn't have to be about making money in order to justify the cost of building the thing.
[15:40.490 --> 15:41.010] [ROBVINCENT]: Absolutely.
[15:41.410 --> 15:45.210] [ROBVINCENT]: And so Veilid Chat is... it's in early days.
[15:45.330 --> 15:48.970] [ROBVINCENT]: It's in... are you calling it beta or alpha or where are we?
[15:49.610 --> 15:50.430] [_CODEBABE_]: Open beta.
[15:50.750 --> 15:51.370] [ROBVINCENT]: Open beta.
[15:52.170 --> 15:55.370] [ROBVINCENT]: And so that's... so that's... the wheels are in motion there.
[15:55.710 --> 15:59.530] [ROBVINCENT]: And you've talked about this now at a couple of events.
[15:59.530 --> 16:01.010] [ROBVINCENT]: What's the reaction been like?
[16:02.430 --> 16:04.010] [THE_GIBSON]: Hope was a great reaction.
[16:04.590 --> 16:05.590] [THE_GIBSON]: I gotta be real.
[16:05.630 --> 16:07.410] [THE_GIBSON]: That's the first time I made it up to Hope in person.
[16:07.830 --> 16:12.250] [THE_GIBSON]: And the energy in that room was great.
[16:12.250 --> 16:16.030] [THE_GIBSON]: But I... I... I love that...
[16:16.430 --> 16:18.710] [THE_GIBSON]: I hope this doesn't come along the wrong way.
[16:18.890 --> 16:19.910] [THE_GIBSON]: Rob, you've heard me say this.
[16:20.330 --> 16:24.830] [THE_GIBSON]: It's very much the philosophical side of our... of our world, it felt like, while we were there.
[16:24.890 --> 16:32.110] [THE_GIBSON]: Because it's like the discussions happening weren't just, ooh, I've got a cool exploit or I've got a cool tech I'm talking about.
[16:32.390 --> 16:35.330] [THE_GIBSON]: It was, yes, but should we use it in this way, right?
[16:35.330 --> 16:42.170] [THE_GIBSON]: It was very much the philosophy of hacking on show there.
[16:42.250 --> 16:44.050] [THE_GIBSON]: Now, there was other highly technical stuff.
[16:44.150 --> 16:45.210] [THE_GIBSON]: I'm not saying it wasn't there.
[16:45.330 --> 16:51.190] [THE_GIBSON]: But it was eye-opening to me that people were open to these new ideas and new things.
[16:51.190 --> 16:56.210] [THE_GIBSON]: And then were able to have real discussions about how these things should be used, right?
[16:56.370 --> 17:00.070] [THE_GIBSON]: And that's... I think that's not typical at a lot of other hacking conventions.
[17:00.330 --> 17:02.410] [THE_GIBSON]: So kudos on that, first of all.
[17:02.410 --> 17:04.870] [THE_GIBSON]: But we had a great reaction.
[17:05.090 --> 17:19.250] [THE_GIBSON]: For those that weren't there, because we were in Queens, we basically re-skinned our entire presentation to be Wu-Tang Clan-based, including song titles that were modified for our presentation titles.
[17:19.570 --> 17:22.870] [THE_GIBSON]: So it was a really good presentation.
[17:22.870 --> 17:23.930] [THE_GIBSON]: I think it went great.
[17:24.430 --> 17:26.510] [THE_GIBSON]: You know, we've talked about it.
[17:27.830 --> 17:37.370] [THE_GIBSON]: DEFCON last year, when we launched the framework, we've had numerous presentations on this at other cons and events.
[17:38.210 --> 17:39.770] [THE_GIBSON]: The reaction's always been good.
[17:40.530 --> 17:45.050] [THE_GIBSON]: Now, you know, part of that's because it's a Cult of the Dead Cow project.
[17:45.050 --> 17:48.570] [THE_GIBSON]: So you show up with that logo, and people kind of get excited.
[17:48.770 --> 17:51.010] [THE_GIBSON]: So that's been an experience as well.
[17:51.150 --> 17:52.730] [THE_GIBSON]: But overall, the tech is solid.
[17:53.310 --> 17:59.390] [THE_GIBSON]: You know, I'm looking forward to us getting past beta, because I think there's a lot of bugs that we've got to still iron out.
[17:59.850 --> 18:02.770] [THE_GIBSON]: But we're able to show that it's working, right?
[18:02.930 --> 18:04.350] [THE_GIBSON]: And that was really the goal here.
[18:04.550 --> 18:07.450] [THE_GIBSON]: So that, and we needed more users to get feedback.
[18:07.770 --> 18:11.830] [THE_GIBSON]: The really cool thing about this, Codebabe's probably tired of me talking about this.
[18:11.930 --> 18:12.790] [THE_GIBSON]: She heard it.
[18:12.910 --> 18:16.170] [THE_GIBSON]: They heard it for like two weeks now straight.
[18:17.530 --> 18:26.450] [THE_GIBSON]: As node density grows, as you get more users, this network becomes more performant and more private, which kind of blows my mind, right?
[18:26.550 --> 18:29.190] [THE_GIBSON]: You usually think about, oh, well, it's going to get slower and worse.
[18:29.390 --> 18:38.330] [THE_GIBSON]: But because you get more nodes, you have more routes, you have more resources available to the network, and you just get more and more powerful as you go.
[18:38.630 --> 18:46.590] [THE_GIBSON]: So it's exciting to me to get this first real push of nodes into the network and see what kind of load we can really handle.
[18:46.950 --> 18:48.850] [THE_GIBSON]: We're starting to get those numbers back.
[18:48.950 --> 18:50.290] [THE_GIBSON]: It's looking really positive.
[18:50.570 --> 18:53.790] [THE_GIBSON]: So fingers crossed, but I think we're going down the right path.
[18:54.610 --> 19:10.010] [ROBVINCENT]: Yeah, that's a sweet spot for it to be, because as with other distributed models, if people are familiar with things like BitTorrent or things like that, where the more people are in the mix, the actual better it is for everyone involved.
[19:10.010 --> 19:16.630] [ROBVINCENT]: And so where do people go if they're interested in checking out Veilid, Veilid chat?
[19:17.590 --> 19:18.490] [_CODEBABE_]: Oh, definitely.
[19:19.050 --> 19:21.370] [_CODEBABE_]: Head to Veilid.com.
[19:21.650 --> 19:24.810] [_CODEBABE_]: That's V-E-L...
[19:24.810 --> 19:26.010] [_CODEBABE_]: V-E-I...
[19:27.410 --> 19:28.850] [_CODEBABE_]: Man, it's been a long day.
[19:28.850 --> 19:29.850] [THE_GIBSON]: We can't even spell it.
[19:31.250 --> 19:33.750] [_CODEBABE_]: It's Veil ID, basically.
[19:34.210 --> 19:35.930] [_CODEBABE_]: So veilid.com.
[19:36.270 --> 19:43.470] [_CODEBABE_]: And we have links to our Discord community, where you can come and help us work on the Veilid project.
[19:43.550 --> 19:49.190] [_CODEBABE_]: And we have links to get the beta for iOS or Android.
[19:49.570 --> 19:55.530] [_CODEBABE_]: And we also have links to our donation pages, if you want to chip in for our project.
[19:56.330 --> 19:56.730] [ROBVINCENT]: That's right.
[19:57.710 --> 19:58.450] [ROBVINCENT]: Sounds good.
[19:58.590 --> 20:03.030] [ROBVINCENT]: And so you most recently went to Vegas and the conferences there.
[20:03.230 --> 20:05.790] [ROBVINCENT]: What was your general experience like there?
[20:05.790 --> 20:12.890] [ROBVINCENT]: Because there is a lot of chatter and discourse about the event as it went off, as it happened this time around.
[20:15.830 --> 20:21.750] [_CODEBABE_]: I thought the reactions were really great at both B-Sides and DEFCON.
[20:22.150 --> 20:25.490] [_CODEBABE_]: I helped run the booth at B-Sides.
[20:25.490 --> 20:38.590] [_CODEBABE_]: And my favorite was when the really prickly, cranky, tedious folks would come up, and they would ask a lot of really detailed questions.
[20:39.410 --> 20:41.390] [_CODEBABE_]: But we had answers for everything.
[20:41.610 --> 20:44.850] [_CODEBABE_]: And they're like, oh, okay, you thought about this.
[20:44.990 --> 20:45.470] [_CODEBABE_]: Okay.
[20:45.470 --> 20:47.930] [_CODEBABE_]: And they left satisfied.
[20:48.090 --> 20:49.090] [_CODEBABE_]: And that was fun to watch.
[20:51.810 --> 20:57.490] [THE_GIBSON]: DEFCON itself, we had a developer meetup there, right?
[20:57.630 --> 20:59.430] [THE_GIBSON]: So it was a big room.
[20:59.710 --> 21:10.310] [THE_GIBSON]: We basically got the War Stories stage room, brought out the old Cult of the Dead cow banners from the BO2K launch.
[21:10.310 --> 21:14.270] [THE_GIBSON]: If you remember the blue ones, they had that kind of holy relics of the scene.
[21:15.050 --> 21:25.750] [THE_GIBSON]: And hung those up and sort of just did a chat and swap meet, actually, where people could just bring the various swag they had on board and trade out with other people.
[21:25.990 --> 21:27.710] [THE_GIBSON]: So that was kind of fun.
[21:29.030 --> 21:31.990] [THE_GIBSON]: Got to meet a lot of people from the Fediverse this time around.
[21:32.230 --> 21:34.770] [THE_GIBSON]: We had a huge presence there this year.
[21:35.370 --> 21:36.550] [THE_GIBSON]: So that was good.
[21:37.570 --> 21:40.110] [THE_GIBSON]: None of us were ever without a friend to hang out with.
[21:40.110 --> 21:40.970] [THE_GIBSON]: I'll put it that way.
[21:41.130 --> 21:42.470] [THE_GIBSON]: That was a good feeling.
[21:44.430 --> 21:53.710] [THE_GIBSON]: Some of the more interesting things that happened at DEFCON, for me at least, was on Thursday, as DEFCON's kicking off...
[21:53.710 --> 21:56.210] [THE_GIBSON]: And am I getting into the news story too early, Rob?
[21:56.290 --> 21:56.870] [THE_GIBSON]: Should I wait?
[21:57.050 --> 21:57.550] [THE_GIBSON]: Do you want to...
[21:57.550 --> 21:57.670] [THE_GIBSON]: Please.
[21:58.110 --> 21:58.590] [THE_GIBSON]: Yeah.
[21:58.890 --> 21:59.550] [THE_GIBSON]: Go for it.
[22:01.710 --> 22:10.170] [THE_GIBSON]: On Wednesday night, I had heard about a political fundraiser for Vice President Harris that was supposed to be held at DEFCON.
[22:11.570 --> 22:15.110] [THE_GIBSON]: And I could find no information about where or when it was going to be.
[22:15.290 --> 22:20.070] [THE_GIBSON]: And so I just started reaching out to contacts to find out when this thing was.
[22:20.150 --> 22:21.150] [THE_GIBSON]: And nobody seemed to know.
[22:21.370 --> 22:27.050] [THE_GIBSON]: I finally got in touch with someone who will remain unnamed for reasons that will be obvious shortly.
[22:29.130 --> 22:40.990] [THE_GIBSON]: that told me, look, we can't promote this in any way because we have contracts that would be a problem if we're seen to be promoting a political candidate, right?
[22:41.230 --> 22:42.310] [THE_GIBSON]: And I totally get it.
[22:43.170 --> 22:45.530] [THE_GIBSON]: You know, we have to do the same thing for Veilid.
[22:46.250 --> 22:51.550] [THE_GIBSON]: And so what I'm about to talk about is not in context of the Veilid Foundation or any other foundation.
[22:51.590 --> 22:53.470] [THE_GIBSON]: This is just my personal thing.
[22:55.270 --> 23:00.450] [THE_GIBSON]: And, you know, so I took the hint and I started promoting this thing when I found out where it was going to be.
[23:01.310 --> 23:03.750] [THE_GIBSON]: And so Hackers for Harris was an event.
[23:03.870 --> 23:07.610] [THE_GIBSON]: We actually had an article covering it in NBC covered it, I think.
[23:08.850 --> 23:13.390] [THE_GIBSON]: And I think we had a couple other major media outlets that talked about it a little bit.
[23:13.390 --> 23:17.470] [THE_GIBSON]: So we got about 150 people together for this thing.
[23:17.730 --> 23:21.590] [THE_GIBSON]: They raised about $150,000 for the Harris campaign while we were there.
[23:22.470 --> 23:34.090] [THE_GIBSON]: We got a little bit of FaceTime with former directors of the Office of National Cyber Defense that put this sort of were helping to get this thing going.
[23:34.530 --> 23:36.550] [THE_GIBSON]: So we came away from that.
[23:36.630 --> 23:41.770] [THE_GIBSON]: The whole front row of this event was Hackers.Town, CDC, and LOFT members, right?
[23:41.770 --> 23:45.330] [THE_GIBSON]: It was like... it was... when I look back at that, it was just amazing.
[23:45.530 --> 23:47.830] [THE_GIBSON]: It was like, oh, okay, here we are.
[23:48.330 --> 23:49.370] [THE_GIBSON]: Real world's gallery there.
[23:50.110 --> 23:50.490] [THE_GIBSON]: Yeah.
[23:50.850 --> 23:53.190] [THE_GIBSON]: So we got some FaceTime with everybody.
[23:53.610 --> 23:56.790] [THE_GIBSON]: There are some stories I will not tell on the air that were really cool.
[23:57.330 --> 24:04.610] [THE_GIBSON]: But what I will say was that there was a little bit of motivation from that to do more than we usually do, right?
[24:05.910 --> 24:10.750] [THE_GIBSON]: And on Sunday, I spoke with another friend of ours.
[24:10.970 --> 24:13.430] [THE_GIBSON]: Rob, you know Tech from the Fediverse, of course.
[24:13.730 --> 24:15.310] [THE_GIBSON]: Volt4ire, you may know as well out there.
[24:16.790 --> 24:18.790] [THE_GIBSON]: A very good friend of the town.
[24:19.210 --> 24:32.930] [THE_GIBSON]: And he had this idea about how to do more than what we've done to ensure the right to vote for people who get disenfranchised, particularly in battleground states.
[24:33.350 --> 24:35.190] [THE_GIBSON]: And we started having a discussion around it.
[24:35.930 --> 24:38.230] [THE_GIBSON]: And I couldn't get the thought out of my brain, right?
[24:38.290 --> 24:42.010] [THE_GIBSON]: For the next several days, it was like, wow, that's actually really simple and a really good idea.
[24:42.010 --> 24:43.310] [THE_GIBSON]: We should see if we can do this.
[24:44.830 --> 24:52.250] [THE_GIBSON]: So we started talking to Codebabe, who is a really good voice of reason whenever we get crazy ideas around there, right?
[24:52.290 --> 24:54.350] [THE_GIBSON]: It's like... it's true.
[24:54.530 --> 24:58.210] [THE_GIBSON]: We like... we'll have a crazy idea at hackers.town and then go to Codebabe.
[24:58.330 --> 24:59.790] [THE_GIBSON]: He's like, please, shoot this down.
[24:59.970 --> 25:00.630] [THE_GIBSON]: Tell us we're nuts.
[25:00.830 --> 25:01.590] [THE_GIBSON]: We should not do this.
[25:02.930 --> 25:06.570] [_CODEBABE_]: Yeah, only this time I was like, oh, yeah, sign me up.
[25:06.650 --> 25:06.990] [_CODEBABE_]: Let's go.
[25:08.170 --> 25:10.010] [THE_GIBSON]: So that's when we knew we had a good one.
[25:11.270 --> 25:17.730] [THE_GIBSON]: So what we came up with was, you know, voter registration data is accessible legally.
[25:17.730 --> 25:21.090] [THE_GIBSON]: It's public information for the most part in every state.
[25:22.050 --> 25:40.110] [THE_GIBSON]: And so we decided to put together a project that would gather voter registration databases and allow people to be able to be notified, to get an alert if they were deregistered for any reason whatsoever and what that reason is.
[25:40.670 --> 25:46.870] [THE_GIBSON]: So we started putting this together, and in less than, what, it's been right, it's not even two weeks yet.
[25:46.870 --> 25:48.290] [THE_GIBSON]: It's been a week and a half.
[25:50.330 --> 25:56.610] [THE_GIBSON]: A new nonprofit is formed, and we have a working proof of concept of this in a private area.
[25:56.610 --> 26:02.610] [THE_GIBSON]: So in the next few weeks, we're maybe a little longer in time for the election, though.
[26:02.770 --> 26:14.850] [THE_GIBSON]: We're hoping to debut this system called Keep the Vote, and it is going to protect, particularly, voter registrations for those disenfranchised areas.
[26:16.530 --> 26:23.770] [THE_GIBSON]: So, yeah, it's kind of the crazy idea that came out of DEFCON this year, and it happened way faster than we thought it would.
[26:24.650 --> 26:25.090] [ROBVINCENT]: Awesome.
[26:25.210 --> 26:29.270] [ROBVINCENT]: Is there anything public-facing folks can look up yet, or...?
[26:29.270 --> 26:30.230] [_CODEBABE_]: No, not yet.
[26:30.690 --> 26:31.530] [ROBVINCENT]: No, no.
[26:31.630 --> 26:34.110] [THE_GIBSON]: We are moving fast to do this.
[26:34.770 --> 26:36.990] [THE_GIBSON]: No, we don't have anything up yet, but it is coming.
[26:37.590 --> 26:39.490] [THE_GIBSON]: All the domains are registered, okay?
[26:39.730 --> 26:41.090] [THE_GIBSON]: It's like, this is going to happen.
[26:41.090 --> 26:43.850] [THE_GIBSON]: It's just, we're a few weeks out before we really want to...
[26:44.550 --> 26:46.630] [THE_GIBSON]: We want to have something to show before we do this.
[26:47.890 --> 26:49.890] [THE_GIBSON]: But we have a...
[26:51.250 --> 26:53.410] [THE_GIBSON]: The plan is amazingly simple.
[26:53.570 --> 26:57.670] [THE_GIBSON]: And to be clear, data gathering, it's all above board and legal.
[26:57.850 --> 26:58.750] [THE_GIBSON]: We're not...
[26:58.750 --> 27:03.310] [THE_GIBSON]: This is not a data mining thing or anything like that.
[27:03.310 --> 27:13.530] [THE_GIBSON]: But we are, you know, we are being very careful to minimize the amount of data we have and to do this in the most efficient and safe way we can for everybody who could be affected by this.
[27:14.230 --> 27:16.390] [THE_GIBSON]: You guys talked about a...
[27:16.390 --> 27:34.130] [THE_GIBSON]: The whole thing that started about this was, I don't know, maybe a few months back on this very show, I think you guys talked about certain well-known billionaires who were taking measures to disenroll voters in certain battleground states.
[27:34.570 --> 27:40.010] [THE_GIBSON]: And that's really kind of where we came up with the idea was like, well, what if we help re-enroll them?
[27:40.110 --> 27:51.750] [THE_GIBSON]: Because at the end of the day, if you put a little bit of defense in front of a system like that, it doesn't even have to be much, it disincentivizes them from doing it because they may not get the results they want, right?
[27:51.750 --> 27:54.110] [THE_GIBSON]: And so that was really the core philosophy here.
[27:55.230 --> 27:59.890] [ROBVINCENT]: Well, this is all very interesting and do keep us posted on the status of this project.
[28:00.170 --> 28:00.750] [ROBVINCENT]: Volt4ire, go ahead.
[28:02.070 --> 28:05.110] [_VOLT4IRE_]: Yeah, I can tell you it's not just battleground states that that disenrollment happens.
[28:05.210 --> 28:06.770] [_VOLT4IRE_]: And I know in New York it actually happened to me.
[28:06.890 --> 28:09.350] [_VOLT4IRE_]: It took me a little over a year to get back on the voter rolls.
[28:09.470 --> 28:10.170] [_VOLT4IRE_]: It's very frustrating.
[28:10.790 --> 28:22.290] [_VOLT4IRE_]: During the 2020 Democratic nominations, there are a ton of people that went to go vote on nomination day and they were disenfranchised, especially in New York City area.
[28:24.050 --> 28:25.750] [ROBVINCENT]: So it happens here as well.
[28:26.290 --> 28:31.010] [ROBVINCENT]: Yeah, I have checked my voting registry and it is intact.
[28:32.390 --> 28:39.170] [ROBVINCENT]: I encourage everyone to be aware of their own status if they've registered to vote in the past.
[28:39.390 --> 28:46.550] [ROBVINCENT]: Just double check, find out how to do that near you and just double check on your own registration and see how things are going.
[28:46.650 --> 28:48.930] [ROBVINCENT]: And if they are where you want them...
[28:49.970 --> 28:51.010] [ROBVINCENT]: Yeah, check that out.
[28:51.510 --> 28:51.790] [ROBVINCENT]: And be clear.
[28:52.290 --> 28:52.730] [THE_GIBSON]: Absolutely.
[28:52.830 --> 28:57.090] [THE_GIBSON]: We plan on moving us to all 50 states by the next election cycle, right?
[28:57.290 --> 29:00.910] [THE_GIBSON]: But we have a limited amount of time to get this thing up and running and be impactful.
[29:01.250 --> 29:07.170] [THE_GIBSON]: So right now we're focusing on the ones that are the most impacted by these sorts of shenanigans.
[29:07.470 --> 29:08.130] [ROBVINCENT]: Sounds good.
[29:09.090 --> 29:13.270] [ROBVINCENT]: You are listening to radio station WBAI 99.5 FM New York.
[29:13.430 --> 29:14.830] [ROBVINCENT]: We are part of the Pacifica Network.
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[29:16.290 --> 29:18.970] [ROBVINCENT]: We are dependent on your support.
[29:19.130 --> 29:24.190] [ROBVINCENT]: So I'm just going to remind you out there, if you're listening to this, you are the reason we do this.
[29:24.290 --> 29:27.050] [ROBVINCENT]: You are also the how we do this.
[29:27.870 --> 29:31.150] [ROBVINCENT]: The support from our listeners is the only thing that keeps us on the air.
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[29:53.730 --> 29:57.310] [ROBVINCENT]: For those of you who have already, thank you so much.
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[30:20.870 --> 30:28.490] [ROBVINCENT]: Throw in at least $25 and you can become a voting member of the station and have a direct say in what happens and how it happens.
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[30:44.750 --> 30:46.070] [ROBVINCENT]: So do what you can.
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[30:51.650 --> 30:56.370] [ROBVINCENT]: And along these lines, there is so much going on here.
[30:56.550 --> 31:04.790] [ROBVINCENT]: We are, in about a half an hour, going to throw over to coverage of the Democratic National Convention and everything that's going on out there.
[31:04.830 --> 31:06.530] [ROBVINCENT]: So stay tuned to WBAI after that.
[31:06.990 --> 31:09.710] [ROBVINCENT]: We won't be doing Off The Hook Overtime this week.
[31:09.830 --> 31:11.770] [ROBVINCENT]: We are bringing it back in the future.
[31:12.030 --> 31:14.270] [ROBVINCENT]: The future is not yet now for that.
[31:14.290 --> 31:16.030] [ROBVINCENT]: So we are just doing our radio hour.
[31:17.690 --> 31:32.070] [ROBVINCENT]: So, on the subject of things that have been going on, you mentioned Cult of the Dead Cow, and they are, of course, a very storied and historically amazing hacker group that have been around since the old days.
[31:32.070 --> 31:37.110] [ROBVINCENT]: There's another hacker group or another publishing group that has been around since the old days called Phrack.
[31:37.550 --> 31:39.450] [ROBVINCENT]: P-H-R-A-C-K.
[31:39.850 --> 31:52.810] [ROBVINCENT]: And one thing that's been in kind of the hacker news this week is that they, who have been publishing an online zine since 1985, since they were text files, has published another issue.
[31:52.810 --> 31:57.070] [ROBVINCENT]: It's been a few years, but they have published an issue recently.
[31:57.370 --> 32:03.290] [ROBVINCENT]: And you folks out in Skype-land, are you Phrack readers or familiar with this?
[32:05.650 --> 32:06.770] [_CODEBABE_]: No, I am not.
[32:06.910 --> 32:08.790] [_CODEBABE_]: But I think I saw Gibbs with the copy.
[32:09.170 --> 32:11.250] [THE_GIBSON]: Yeah, I got a physical copy at DEFCON.
[32:11.590 --> 32:15.990] [THE_GIBSON]: I am way more proud of getting a physical copy of that than I should be.
[32:16.190 --> 32:19.570] [THE_GIBSON]: But, yeah, you can't copy and paste from Dead Trees, it turns out.
[32:19.850 --> 32:22.830] [THE_GIBSON]: But, yeah, they were there.
[32:22.830 --> 32:24.230] [_CODEBABE_]: Yeah, and it's a little messy, though.
[32:24.550 --> 32:24.990] [THE_GIBSON]: Yeah, yeah.
[32:25.550 --> 32:27.270] [THE_GIBSON]: Not with my typing skills, you can't.
[32:28.670 --> 32:32.450] [THE_GIBSON]: But, yeah, they were there, and they had physical copies.
[32:32.950 --> 32:35.130] [THE_GIBSON]: They were hard to track down and find.
[32:35.150 --> 32:39.750] [THE_GIBSON]: I have to be full out in the open here.
[32:39.910 --> 32:41.930] [THE_GIBSON]: I didn't track them down and find them.
[32:42.090 --> 32:49.130] [THE_GIBSON]: A friend of mine, another townie, got a copy a couple of days before me, and I was very jealous of it.
[32:49.130 --> 32:55.490] [THE_GIBSON]: And my lovely, significant other went and tracked down Phrack and got me a copy of the magazine.
[32:55.770 --> 32:58.230] [THE_GIBSON]: So, yeah, I'm very happy about that.
[32:58.370 --> 33:04.650] [THE_GIBSON]: It's, you know, it's so good to see an old standard like this still out there doing it, you know, and it just made me happy.
[33:05.070 --> 33:06.490] [ROBVINCENT]: It really is, and that's love.
[33:06.530 --> 33:08.130] [ROBVINCENT]: Find someone who gets you a copy of Phrack.
[33:09.890 --> 33:12.910] [ROBVINCENT]: But, so what, have you had a look at the content?
[33:13.150 --> 33:13.690] [ROBVINCENT]: How is it?
[33:14.970 --> 33:26.190] [THE_GIBSON]: Yeah, there's a really interesting, it piqued my curiosity, an interesting article out there about the hacker spirit can break any spell, any mysticism.
[33:26.390 --> 33:32.170] [THE_GIBSON]: So it kind of goes into the, you know, I like the kind of crossing over of esotericism in text.
[33:32.370 --> 33:33.990] [THE_GIBSON]: So it kind of went to that.
[33:34.070 --> 33:35.090] [THE_GIBSON]: That was an interesting one.
[33:35.290 --> 33:44.010] [THE_GIBSON]: A lot of really interesting code snippets in there regarding, of all things, virus writing that were pretty interesting.
[33:44.290 --> 33:53.330] [THE_GIBSON]: And in my line of work, professionally, seeing those kind of tactics written down and sort of use, you know, being able to identify them is pretty cool.
[33:53.530 --> 33:54.590] [THE_GIBSON]: So I liked it.
[33:54.690 --> 33:55.350] [THE_GIBSON]: It was great.
[33:55.530 --> 33:59.010] [THE_GIBSON]: It's got a good mix of art and culture and tech in there.
[33:59.190 --> 34:01.550] [THE_GIBSON]: So very well worth the read.
[34:01.730 --> 34:05.170] [THE_GIBSON]: And the online edition, I think, dropped earlier this week.
[34:05.350 --> 34:06.510] [THE_GIBSON]: So well worth checking out.
[34:06.970 --> 34:15.870] [ROBVINCENT]: Yeah, and they are about to celebrate an anniversary next year will be 40 years since that first issue hit the online scene of 1985.
[34:17.930 --> 34:18.810] [ROBVINCENT]: 40 years.
[34:19.010 --> 34:19.070] [ROBVINCENT]: Yeah.
[34:19.810 --> 34:23.990] [ROBVINCENT]: As another section of my body hair goes gray.
[34:26.070 --> 34:26.930] [ROBVINCENT]: This is...
[34:26.930 --> 34:28.830] [THE_GIBSON]: Well, for what it's one of the tankers dot...
[34:28.830 --> 34:29.330] [THE_GIBSON]: Pardon me.
[34:29.870 --> 34:33.110] [THE_GIBSON]: Cult of the Dead Cow's 40th anniversary was at DEFCON this year, too.
[34:33.310 --> 34:36.250] [THE_GIBSON]: So they were pushing that 40 number pretty hard.
[34:36.370 --> 34:37.530] [THE_GIBSON]: And that hurt a little.
[34:39.290 --> 34:45.330] [ROBVINCENT]: But, you know, there has been, you know, turnover and people get involved.
[34:45.570 --> 34:46.550] [ROBVINCENT]: New people show up.
[34:46.710 --> 34:50.430] [ROBVINCENT]: And I think that's kept various hacker projects vital.
[34:51.390 --> 34:54.550] [ROBVINCENT]: CDC, Phrack, this particular program.
[34:54.970 --> 34:58.370] [ROBVINCENT]: And it can only get better going forward.
[34:58.650 --> 35:01.150] [ROBVINCENT]: So, yeah, very interested in that.
[35:02.090 --> 35:04.210] [ROBVINCENT]: A lot of other stuff has been going on in the news.
[35:04.210 --> 35:08.290] [ROBVINCENT]: I want to get a little into a little bit of this.
[35:09.950 --> 35:10.430] [ROBVINCENT]: Google.
[35:11.550 --> 35:12.710] [ROBVINCENT]: We know all...
[35:12.710 --> 35:13.390] [ROBVINCENT]: We all know Google.
[35:13.650 --> 35:15.710] [ROBVINCENT]: You deal with Google whether or not you want to.
[35:17.050 --> 35:24.890] [ROBVINCENT]: An article from Bloomberg is pointing out the fact that Google's AI search has taken a turn, has taken a step.
[35:26.430 --> 35:27.990] [ROBVINCENT]: Generative AI is everywhere.
[35:28.190 --> 35:31.050] [ROBVINCENT]: You can't get away from it no matter how hard you try.
[35:31.570 --> 35:44.110] [ROBVINCENT]: And there are little methods that people who operate websites and things that are on the net can sort of discourage the AI bots from stealing from their particular content.
[35:44.750 --> 35:46.750] [ROBVINCENT]: Things like robots.txt files.
[35:47.490 --> 36:01.850] [ROBVINCENT]: But it is now becoming apparent to a lot of people running their own sites that if Google finds that your particular site is discouraging their AI bots, they will make your listings, your search rankings suffer as a result.
[36:03.590 --> 36:13.590] [ROBVINCENT]: This happening, of course, at a period where Google's monopoly status is very much under inspection by the relevant people.
[36:13.810 --> 36:20.530] [ROBVINCENT]: And so I know folks on here have operated and administrated various things.
[36:21.230 --> 36:27.490] [ROBVINCENT]: What does this feel like, this era of just trying to deal with things like this?
[36:29.970 --> 36:37.430] [_VOLT4IRE_]: Well, as kind of like an old school hacker philosophy, I actually don't have a problem with things, especially with intangible goods.
[36:37.610 --> 36:45.310] [_VOLT4IRE_]: So if they copy it and use it for transformative work, even if they use it for AI models to make new things, even if they're slightly similar to my things.
[36:45.510 --> 36:55.830] [_VOLT4IRE_]: But what I do have a problem with is a lot of these AI companies, I think Google is a lot better in this regard, but a lot of the other AI are particularly bad at scanning websites over and over and over again.
[36:55.830 --> 36:57.870] [_VOLT4IRE_]: they're not respectful of limits.
[36:58.390 --> 37:00.210] [_VOLT4IRE_]: And that is a really big issue.
[37:00.390 --> 37:02.630] [_VOLT4IRE_]: And that, I think, is more concerning to me.
[37:03.290 --> 37:04.810] [_VOLT4IRE_]: It's causing way too much traffic.
[37:06.170 --> 37:08.810] [ROBVINCENT]: Yeah, so from a purely bandwidth respect?
[37:10.290 --> 37:11.170] [ROBVINCENT]: Yeah, precisely.
[37:13.430 --> 37:15.350] [_CODEBABE_]: Yeah, I've heard this from other...
[37:15.350 --> 37:18.690] [_CODEBABE_]: I've heard that from other people, other system administrators.
[37:19.150 --> 37:22.230] [_CODEBABE_]: They've been like, oh, why do I feel...
[37:22.230 --> 37:24.790] [_CODEBABE_]: why does this look like I'm getting a DDoS attack?
[37:25.010 --> 37:29.810] [_CODEBABE_]: And it's just a high-speed scan because they don't throttle their stuff.
[37:31.010 --> 37:31.470] [ROBVINCENT]: Hmm.
[37:32.530 --> 37:33.990] [THE_GIBSON]: I think it's good.
[37:38.810 --> 37:41.890] [THE_GIBSON]: I think Google should become more irrelevant by doing so.
[37:42.750 --> 37:59.930] [THE_GIBSON]: If you're going to have corporate-owned Internet, you know, go ahead, make it worse because what we're doing, the Internet we've all been living on, building in our own way that's not a part of the commercial Internet, we're still going to flourish.
[38:00.470 --> 38:04.370] [THE_GIBSON]: Nobody needs Google to go do the fun stuff, you know?
[38:04.610 --> 38:06.910] [THE_GIBSON]: I mean, it's...
[38:06.910 --> 38:13.970] [THE_GIBSON]: if they continue to go down a route like this, they only damage their own value at the end of the day.
[38:14.350 --> 38:17.950] [THE_GIBSON]: And, you know, I'm sure other people will feel pain from it.
[38:18.030 --> 38:20.410] [THE_GIBSON]: I'm not trying to belittle that.
[38:21.330 --> 38:35.830] [THE_GIBSON]: But, you know, ultimately making heavy-handed decisions like this only hurts them and in the light of last week's ruling that they were guilty of antitrust activities, you know, good.
[38:36.290 --> 38:37.570] [THE_GIBSON]: Just go ahead.
[38:37.830 --> 38:44.090] [THE_GIBSON]: You're just pushing yourself further down the path of some sort of strange insignificance.
[38:44.150 --> 38:46.550] [THE_GIBSON]: I look at these silos and they're always on fire.
[38:46.810 --> 38:49.150] [THE_GIBSON]: There's something always on fire.
[38:49.350 --> 38:57.270] [THE_GIBSON]: It doesn't mean that they're burning down, but they don't have enough fire crews to put out all the fires at this point.
[38:57.830 --> 39:05.510] [THE_GIBSON]: And that goes for Google as well as any other major tech firm that's engaged in the sort of spying they do.
[39:05.810 --> 39:08.250] [THE_GIBSON]: So, you know, okay.
[39:08.750 --> 39:09.230] [THE_GIBSON]: Good.
[39:10.110 --> 39:10.950] [THE_GIBSON]: This is fine.
[39:12.450 --> 39:14.270] [ROBVINCENT]: That's certainly an interesting way to look at it.
[39:14.350 --> 39:16.710] [ROBVINCENT]: And I hadn't really thought of it from that perspective.
[39:16.870 --> 39:17.090] [ROBVINCENT]: Thank you.
[39:18.630 --> 39:27.630] [ROBVINCENT]: you know, and that being a latest, you know, one of the one of the latest examples of large scale as we're calling it on the air in crapification.
[39:28.750 --> 39:33.090] [ROBVINCENT]: There's another one that there was an article in the Times about the SNU.
[39:33.370 --> 39:35.290] [ROBVINCENT]: Now, are you folks familiar with the SNU?
[39:37.010 --> 39:38.170] [ROBVINCENT]: No, it's that.
[39:38.170 --> 39:41.030] [ROBVINCENT]: the SNU is a baby bassinet.
[39:41.410 --> 39:47.730] [ROBVINCENT]: It is a device that you can, you know, park your baby in if you've got one of those.
[39:48.090 --> 39:51.610] [ROBVINCENT]: And it is a sleeping sort of vessel.
[39:51.810 --> 39:54.430] [ROBVINCENT]: But it also has functions.
[39:54.430 --> 39:56.590] [ROBVINCENT]: It plays sounds.
[39:56.590 --> 40:00.050] [ROBVINCENT]: It monitors your baby's activities and things.
[40:00.230 --> 40:06.610] [ROBVINCENT]: And all sorts of technological additions to your standard baby bassinet that might be useful to parents.
[40:07.290 --> 40:10.750] [ROBVINCENT]: But those functions are being paywalled.
[40:11.930 --> 40:16.850] [ROBVINCENT]: Users of the SNU, which comes at a price of about...
[40:16.850 --> 40:18.210] [ROBVINCENT]: Wow, that's a lot.
[40:20.230 --> 40:21.830] [_CODEBABE_]: Yeah, I just pulled this up.
[40:23.330 --> 40:25.630] [_CODEBABE_]: That's what I would call an investment.
[40:25.930 --> 40:26.170] [ROBVINCENT]: Yes.
[40:26.370 --> 40:31.930] [ROBVINCENT]: This is a premium item for people with, I guess, a certain amount of disposable income even after they've had a child.
[40:32.390 --> 40:35.730] [ROBVINCENT]: And the company that makes this does not want people...
[40:35.730 --> 40:47.910] [ROBVINCENT]: Like, you get something for an infant and traditionally it's not unusual for somebody to use something like this while the baby is small and then pass it along to maybe somebody else who has a baby that age who could get use out of it.
[40:48.050 --> 40:51.310] [ROBVINCENT]: You know, hand-me-downs, second-hand things, things like that.
[40:51.310 --> 41:02.690] [ROBVINCENT]: You are not doing that with your SNU because you need to have an app to go with it that is registered and that is now paywalled and will cost parents $20 a month.
[41:03.230 --> 41:07.450] [ROBVINCENT]: So, people are a bit angry at this.
[41:07.690 --> 41:11.690] [ROBVINCENT]: People who have spent large amounts of money on their baby bassinets are angry about this.
[41:13.170 --> 41:16.390] [ROBVINCENT]: And it seems like there is...
[41:18.830 --> 41:19.570] [ROBVINCENT]: Let's see.
[41:19.850 --> 41:30.130] [ROBVINCENT]: According to the article here, Happiest Baby in June, Happiest Baby is the app that goes with this thing, sent an email notifying users of changes coming to the app the following month.
[41:30.250 --> 41:33.470] [ROBVINCENT]: By August, parents who hadn't upgraded had fallen into two camps.
[41:33.670 --> 41:38.510] [ROBVINCENT]: Some had been bumped down to a lower tier of the app, losing many of the features they had come to rely on.
[41:38.690 --> 41:48.910] [ROBVINCENT]: Others, who bought the SNU directly from Happiest Baby, whether new or certified pre-loved, were offered free access to a nine-month premium app subscription for each baby that uses the bassinet.
[41:49.170 --> 41:59.010] [ROBVINCENT]: And the fact that you can buy something and functions of it will just be beyond your reach unless you have a premium membership or you pay some kind of extra ongoing bill for it.
[42:00.730 --> 42:05.530] [ROBVINCENT]: Yeah, that fits right into Corey Doctorow's encrapification, I think.
[42:08.490 --> 42:11.110] [THE_GIBSON]: I'm fine with Google making bad business choices.
[42:11.130 --> 42:11.950] [THE_GIBSON]: That's okay.
[42:12.310 --> 42:15.870] [THE_GIBSON]: When it comes to nap time as a service, that's where I draw the line.
[42:18.130 --> 42:19.650] [ROBVINCENT]: Yeah, Gibbs, you're a parent.
[42:19.830 --> 42:23.270] [ROBVINCENT]: You have dealt with this era of a child's life.
[42:23.370 --> 42:36.390] [ROBVINCENT]: And, you know, what would you say if any of the devices you used to, you know, nurture and raise your offspring wanted subscriptions from you?
[42:36.970 --> 42:39.470] [THE_GIBSON]: I wouldn't use those devices, first of all.
[42:39.590 --> 42:44.210] [THE_GIBSON]: But second of all, I mean, where do we draw the line here?
[42:44.470 --> 42:45.930] [THE_GIBSON]: When do you really own something?
[42:46.350 --> 42:46.650] [THE_GIBSON]: Right?
[42:46.790 --> 42:54.930] [THE_GIBSON]: It's like, okay, I have to pay a subscription to have a bassinet that will rock my child to sleep.
[42:55.710 --> 42:59.770] [THE_GIBSON]: I mean, this is rent-seeking.
[43:00.170 --> 43:02.970] [THE_GIBSON]: This is like, for the goofiest reasons.
[43:04.970 --> 43:13.770] [THE_GIBSON]: I mean, I don't know what to say beyond that outside of like, I mean, how did we get here?
[43:13.770 --> 43:25.290] [THE_GIBSON]: it's like, we've got all this technology, all this amazing stuff, and to use it to and I want to be clear, I am not anti-capitalist.
[43:25.350 --> 43:26.250] [THE_GIBSON]: I am not that guy.
[43:26.370 --> 43:29.590] [THE_GIBSON]: A lot of people that I'm friends with are and that's cool, I respect that.
[43:30.910 --> 43:41.150] [THE_GIBSON]: But this is just, I mean, we have to nickel and dime everything to death just to keep supporting whatever this economy we've built is?
[43:41.690 --> 43:42.510] [THE_GIBSON]: Where are we?
[43:43.470 --> 43:47.210] [THE_GIBSON]: Ultimately, I look at things like this and I'm like, this is how unhealthy our economy is.
[43:47.310 --> 43:50.410] [THE_GIBSON]: We have to charge to rock a baby to sleep, right?
[43:51.550 --> 44:07.770] [THE_GIBSON]: If we're having to eek dollars, pennies, dimes, whatever this is, out of people at that level, we should be asking a lot of different questions about why our economy is in the position where we have to be monetizing rocking a baby to sleep.
[44:08.850 --> 44:17.610] [ROBVINCENT]: And to be clear, too, these are functions that are available in the device and that will just be arbitrarily locked out for you if you don't pay for this thing.
[44:17.730 --> 44:27.910] [ROBVINCENT]: Like we talked about in the past on this program, the cars that wanted to charge you extra to activate the seat heaters that were installed in the seats.
[44:28.110 --> 44:33.290] [ROBVINCENT]: The hardware was there, the switch was there, all the necessary stuff was already there, but to be
[44:40.970 --> 44:41.770] [_CODEBABE_]: owned the product.
[44:43.490 --> 44:45.090] [ROBVINCENT]: Well, this is a question that's a...
[44:45.090 --> 44:47.610] [ROBVINCENT]: It's a service delivery mechanism, not a product.
[44:48.130 --> 45:00.650] [ROBVINCENT]: Yeah, televisions as well, there is a lot going on about how they are basically billboards in your home now that are generating income off of you regardless of what you do or don't subscribe to.
[45:01.070 --> 45:06.850] [ROBVINCENT]: The makers of the TVs are paid to show you ads, to show you things you did not request.
[45:07.530 --> 45:17.290] [ROBVINCENT]: And the days seem to be long gone for most people where you could just turn on a TV and see only what you wanted to, even including the barrage of ads that are on a lot of commercial programming.
[45:21.320 --> 45:29.960] [_CODEBABE_]: I'm at the point that I think my next television is going to be a commercial display, which is what they sell their TV, but without the smart part.
[45:31.900 --> 45:33.660] [_CODEBABE_]: That's going to be my next purchase.
[45:33.820 --> 45:35.880] [_CODEBABE_]: I'm not even going to buy a home television.
[45:37.320 --> 45:48.440] [ROBVINCENT]: And that's not an uncommon attitude, but of course those cost a lot more than a comparable TV of the same size and capability because they're not being...
[45:48.440 --> 45:59.680] [_CODEBABE_]: I think not a lot of people realize the reason why we can have a $200 TV is because it's being subsidized by the data gathering and by the advertising.
[46:02.080 --> 46:02.760] [THE_GIBSON]: 100%.
[46:02.760 --> 46:08.220] [THE_GIBSON]: I mean, these are profit models and everybody doesn't...
[46:08.220 --> 46:09.300] [THE_GIBSON]: Not everybody.
[46:09.560 --> 46:20.240] [THE_GIBSON]: A lot of people, the vast majority of people, don't realize the value of the data they generate, like how it can be leveraged by other people to make money.
[46:21.080 --> 46:24.860] [THE_GIBSON]: You know, and it's...
[46:24.860 --> 46:26.440] [THE_GIBSON]: I find the act abhorrent.
[46:26.540 --> 46:35.480] [THE_GIBSON]: I think signing a EULA that takes away part of who you are to monetize it should be completely illegal.
[46:36.180 --> 46:42.820] [THE_GIBSON]: I mean, that data construct you put on the Internet is a part of you, just like your right hand.
[46:43.220 --> 46:45.000] [THE_GIBSON]: That's my radical belief, right?
[46:45.120 --> 46:45.600] [THE_GIBSON]: There it is.
[46:45.740 --> 46:50.800] [THE_GIBSON]: I don't see any difference between the you you build on the Internet and who you are.
[46:50.940 --> 46:58.340] [THE_GIBSON]: And if that's the case, then we are looking at a horrible human rights violation, and we need to talk about that in better ways than we do today.
[47:00.040 --> 47:00.680] [_VOLT4IRE_]: Yeah, I agree.
[47:00.860 --> 47:08.880] [_VOLT4IRE_]: And I think in most of Europe, those contracts called Contra of Adhesion, where it's like you have to accept it or you can't use the product, they're not accepted.
[47:09.160 --> 47:11.780] [_VOLT4IRE_]: So I think it's a political thing that we can change.
[47:12.380 --> 47:13.020] [_VOLT4IRE_]: I do too.
[47:13.760 --> 47:14.400] [THE_GIBSON]: I do too.
[47:14.620 --> 47:18.240] [THE_GIBSON]: And that's one of the reasons we do things like Veilid, like Veilid Foundation, right?
[47:18.400 --> 47:19.720] [THE_GIBSON]: It's not about succeeding.
[47:20.080 --> 47:21.660] [THE_GIBSON]: I mean, it's nice if we do succeed.
[47:21.780 --> 47:23.260] [THE_GIBSON]: It's nice if we get these things out there.
[47:23.440 --> 47:28.880] [THE_GIBSON]: It's about moving the way the press and the people talk about the problems in front of us, right?
[47:29.280 --> 47:37.760] [THE_GIBSON]: And getting that popular support to change what we understand now that is so encrapified that is hard to say.
[47:38.680 --> 47:46.620] [THE_GIBSON]: But something that is so encrapified, you know, everything about our system alive right now is encroached on by this.
[47:46.800 --> 47:55.180] [THE_GIBSON]: And so, you know, changing the way people think about it, how they talk about these problems, is really the way we make long-term lasting change happen too, right?
[47:55.320 --> 47:56.020] [THE_GIBSON]: In general.
[47:56.280 --> 48:02.160] [THE_GIBSON]: So, you know, to me, we have to keep doing the projects we do, the things we do, and not just us.
[48:02.320 --> 48:17.020] [THE_GIBSON]: I mean, everybody that's working in this space, I think we have to continue down this path in order to change public opinion from, ooh, scary things happen in private parts of the Internet, to, no, I use this because nobody can spy on me here, and I don't like that.
[48:18.200 --> 48:31.820] [ROBVINCENT]: And so, what's the, you know, I guess the best way to try and make this happen is to just keep shouting when things like this happen because we see so many things just creep and creep and get worse and worse.
[48:32.380 --> 48:40.800] [ROBVINCENT]: And, I don't know, it gets disheartening sometimes seeing folks around just not maybe have the problem with it you think they should.
[48:40.800 --> 48:44.500] [ROBVINCENT]: And so, you know, don't let the apathy get to you.
[48:44.920 --> 48:48.980] [ROBVINCENT]: Don't let it, don't, don't let the encrapification get you down.
[48:49.160 --> 48:50.180] [ROBVINCENT]: Keep doing what you're doing.
[48:50.340 --> 48:54.600] [ROBVINCENT]: Keep telling folks what, what it is you want to tell them and keep it going.
[48:54.600 --> 49:03.860] [ROBVINCENT]: And that's what we're going to keep doing on this program, on this station and in the hacker scene in general, I think, because that sort of thing is what we are all about.
[49:04.760 --> 49:11.400] [ROBVINCENT]: As we're, as we're closing up here, Gibson, Code Babe, where, where can folks find more about what, what you're up to?
[49:14.720 --> 49:17.260] [_CODEBABE_]: For Veilid, definitely check out veilid.com.
[49:18.440 --> 49:21.920] [_CODEBABE_]: And if you want to know more about the foundation, we're veilid.org.
[49:23.800 --> 49:24.420] [THE_GIBSON]: That's right.
[49:24.780 --> 49:32.180] [THE_GIBSON]: Of course, hackers.town, CDC communications is a term you can search for more of the Cult of the Dead Cow projects.
[49:33.100 --> 49:43.540] [THE_GIBSON]: You know, we, you know, we'll have more on keep the vote in the coming weeks and I'll be, I'm sure you'll hear me talking about that when I get to that point, Rob Volt4ire.
[49:44.040 --> 49:52.220] [THE_GIBSON]: But yeah, I mean, these projects are things that are going to be very public and we're going to continue pushing this because we think it's the right way to fix things.
[49:53.220 --> 49:53.660] [ROBVINCENT]: Absolutely.
[49:54.120 --> 49:56.880] [ROBVINCENT]: So, we're going to keep doing what we can to fix things.
[49:57.880 --> 50:02.600] [ROBVINCENT]: Send us email, oth@2600.com.
[50:03.700 --> 50:07.240] [ROBVINCENT]: Find us on the Fediverse, Off The Hook, at hackers.town.
[50:08.000 --> 50:09.700] [ROBVINCENT]: And, stay in touch.
[50:10.520 --> 50:15.280] [ROBVINCENT]: Stay tuned to WBAI for the DNC and that associated party.
[50:16.020 --> 50:20.500] [ROBVINCENT]: And just keep what you're doing out, keep doing what you're doing out there and keep them flying.
[50:21.380 --> 50:22.700] [ROBVINCENT]: And have a wonderful week.
[50:22.820 --> 50:24.340] [ROBVINCENT]: For Off The Hook, this has been Rob T. Firefly.
[50:25.280 --> 50:26.400] [ROBVINCENT]: We'll be back next week.
[50:27.140 --> 50:28.020] [ROBVINCENT]: Have a good night.
[50:29.080 --> 50:29.480] [ROBVINCENT]: Have a good night.