Thank you for choosing MCI as your long-distance carrier.
Your easy OnePlus dialing service has been activated.
We appreciate your business.
KPR.
PDD.
If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again.
If you need help, stay on the line, and a hacker will assist you shortly.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
We couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
Bundyly bump, but the best is back from worse.
I hope that's understood.
Bundyly bump!
I'm all right.
I'm all right.
I'm ready.
What are you doing?
I'm all right.
I'm all right.
Go exist.
I'm all right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
In Skypeland, we have Alex.
Yes, you do. Good evening.
And that's it. Small staff tonight.
And, yeah, let's have fun with that.
It's a nice autumnal evening as we barrel towards Decision Day in this country and all kinds of fun ahead.
Anyone have anything, any adventures that they've embarked upon in the past week they wish to share?
No?
Plenty of adventure.
Go ahead, Alex.
Well, I was, I guess over the last week, week and a half, I was in London, which, you know, I did the show there, I guess, two weeks ago, right?
And then after that, I was in Oxford for a day and a half, two days, and then over to Rome for an Ethereum Rome hackathon and spent the weekend there and judged a whole bunch of projects that are – and it's interesting to me because in the Ethereum world, hackers is used synonymously with builders as the term, you know, as programmers, right?
People that are doing innovative things and creating innovative things, those are the hackers that work all weekend on these applications that exist on the blockchain in some way or another.
And then I got to judge some of these projects and give away some money.
So it was very cool, and it was really interesting to see the use of the word hacker not to be synonymous with a criminal but synonymous with a builder, the way it's supposed to be.
And I thought that was very cool.
Yeah.
And it's not isolated to that community either, the maker community and certainly, obviously, the hacker community.
But I think a number of people get that hackers are positive influences.
Sure, you can use hacking skills to do negative things, and that does happen in the criminal world.
But here we are, three hackers on the air, talking about it and reporting on it and basically coming up with ways to make things better and maybe not make stupid mistakes,
which we focus a lot of time on, stupid mistakes that are made in the corporate world that result in all of our privacy being compromised without any permission from us.
So there's that as well.
Kyle and I had a fun adventure.
We were in, what do you call it, MetLife Stadium in Jersey Monday night for Monday Night Football just because we got invited.
And they give out these devices to all the people in the stands.
It's kind of like the mask games in North Korea where they all flash in unison because we could never figure out how to hold all the cards up and get it just right.
We can barely hold the flashing light.
And it was kind of interesting to figure out what was happening here.
I think, Kyle, you had a theory that it's IR.
Well, yeah, the game was just so riveting.
I was sitting there and I just finally started taking it apart and basically like cracked it open.
And it's just a little rectangular board with two RGB LEDs.
And then in the middle of it, there's a couple of small chips, but there's like a IR or some kind of light receiver.
And I think that's how it gets signals to do one or the other color at a different time or in synchronization.
Was it only two colors?
It was a lot of different colors, actually, like whites, reds, greens.
I mean, a selection of what is, of course, possible with the RGB LED.
But just imagining that and how it worked, it piqued my curiosity, like, how is this getting a signal?
What is it doing to run these different patterns and stuff?
Now, I may be wrong about this.
I could swear this was happening where people in the upper deck were one color and people in the lower deck were a different color.
And if that's the case, how is it telling where you are specifically in the stadium?
You know, I might not have seen that properly because it happened rather fast.
But whenever you have tens of thousands of similar devices all on at the same time, there's all kinds of craziness that can ensue.
Yeah, it had to have been orchestrated in some way with different timing throughout the event.
But I think the company is Pixmob.
I saw that logo, and I think they're somewhere in Canada because it said it was made with love in Montreal.
It said that?
Yeah, on the PCB.
But you had to crack it open to get to that point where you could read that.
Okay.
That is why we hack things.
Alex, go ahead.
So you don't have to give these back.
These are single-use devices?
Oh, I hope not.
We broke it in half.
Yeah.
Yeah, they were like handing them out, and I saw the boxes and people just basically grabbing one as you walk in after you check your tickets.
And I stopped Ian and said, hey, did you want to get one of the whatever the heck this is?
I didn't know it existed.
Me either.
Yeah, and it was a fun little toy to play with.
You know, it took our minds off the game, which is always a good thing when you're there.
But it was just a fun little device, and I'd like to see how these things are used in daily life more and more.
Yeah, it had two coin cell batteries, so I'm up to two 3-volt batteries.
And mine's on the kitchen table, so in case the jets come by, they start the thing flashing.
I'm not sure what the range is either, you know, how far away you have to be or how long these things last.
Yes, Alex?
Well, I can probably get a whole bunch of information about these types of devices.
You know, I used to work at the NFL, having been their chief information security officer.
Oh, did you?
Yeah, you should be able to tell us something about this.
You should know.
You probably have, like...
In fact, you should have known about this already.
Yeah, maybe, I guess.
You know, this I think would fall more under the realm of the IT department, but I happen to know a few people over there that may be able to answer some of our questions.
Well, definitely, yeah, the show running end of it.
But it was still fascinating, and we're always looking at the technical side and production side of how that all comes together.
It's fun.
It's pretty interesting.
When you add a game like that, watching what's going on on the field that's not the game, you know, the people with the cameras, the people with clipboards and all kinds of other doodads that they're carrying around with them.
So there are hundreds of people involved doing different things, each one assigned to a different task.
And if you just focus on what someone else is doing, you can learn quite a bit about how such mass events take place.
So, yeah, that was a bit of an adventure.
And we saw the comet, which...
Not there.
We tried, but there's too many lights.
You two can still see the comet.
We almost gave up on it.
We almost gave up on the comet.
You have to wait about a half hour after sunset.
It was a really fantastic magnitude, but just at the horizon where the sun was setting, there was a cluster of clouds, and it took us quite a while.
In fact, we were about to give up.
So don't give up on it.
If you go out, spend the time.
It's not a waste, because you could be surprised.
I think you were just glancing, and it was in your field of vision all of a sudden.
It wasn't what I was expecting.
I was expecting something tiny.
It was much bigger, but it was more diffuse.
It was dimmer, but it was clearly a comet.
But it just appeared higher in the sky than I expected, sort of next to Venus.
You have to have a good view of the western sky.
In fact, if you see the sun go below the horizon and it's a clearer night, then you have a good chance a half hour later of seeing it.
Only until the end of the month, though.
So I'm not sure if there's any chance after that.
I think pretty much the comet's going away for another 80,000 years.
I'm glad I went.
I wasn't convinced.
I wasn't too thrilled with the idea, but it was time well spent.
I'm glad we did.
I think you and I saw a couple of comets back in the 1990s, didn't we?
Yeah, we did.
I remember going way out east somewhere, presumably like the North Fork or something, with a bunch of us, right?
I remember we even had an astronomer, a friend of ours, that was with us, I believe, and we went out to see these comets.
And yeah, those were fun times.
Those were great times.
I think it's always worthwhile to head out to the middle of nowhere and stare up at the sky.
Yeah.
And if you want more times like that, with more comets in the future, you have to support WBAI.
Because, well, no, no, bear with me here.
Because we're talking about it right now, and maybe you're making plans at this moment to go and see the damn comet before it goes away.
And you wouldn't have done that if you weren't listening to WBAI.
So give2wbai.org is our website, give2wbai.org.
There are all kinds of options there on ways you can pledge and show your support.
WBAI has been on the air in New York City since 1960 as a non-commercial radio station.
And we have survived every single day because of listeners like you, and listeners who aren't like you as well.
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Okay.
Now, we have a lot of different things that are going on this week.
And I think the theme kind of is funny headlines.
A lot of really bizarre, weird headlines.
I'm going to read one.
I'd like you guys to tell me what you think this story is about.
You ready?
Illinois State Historical Society Strikes Back Against Star Wars Facebook Hack.
Huh?
I'll read it again if that went too fast.
Illinois State Historical Society Strikes Back Against Star Wars Facebook Hack.
And this comes from WCIA TV.
And that's not a joke either, by the way.
There is a TV station in Illinois called WCIA.
And they're a CBS affiliate.
So, yeah, they have a big eye staring at you.
But that's neither here nor there.
Alex, a theory on this?
Remind me who the subject of the sentence was.
You just want me to read it again?
It's a headline.
You want me to read the headline one more time?
Yeah, the headline.
All right.
I'm sure.
Illinois State Historical Society Strikes Back Against Star Wars Facebook Hack.
Okay.
So, I guess the Historical Society was archiving something from a Facebook page that related
specifically to Star Wars fandom or historical things that was hacked.
It was altered.
The Historical Society's mission was thwarted.
And now they're fighting back in some way or another.
Well, you could not be more wrong.
No, I'm going to read you from the WCIA story, which is going to involve a bit of cuteness.
I'm sorry about that.
The force is not with the Illinois State Historical Society on Facebook.
The Springfield-based not-for-profits Facebook page has been infiltrated by a hacker.
The hacker, or maybe hackers, shortened the name to just Historical Society on September 21st.
Instead of Illinois State Historical Society, they have posted nothing but dozens of Star Wars theme posts since.
And there's your Star Wars connection there.
The page, which used to share Illinois trivia and important historical anniversaries,
now post Star Wars memes, birthday shout-outs to cast members,
and various reviews and opinions on the Disney-owned franchise, including their favorite movie,
which, by the way, is Revenge of the Seath.
Star Wars Rebels was absolutely amazing and quite emotional.
One post on the former Historical Society's Facebook page reads,
the last five episodes were a clear 10 of 10.
Hot take, a lot of people question if Aksuka, I don't want to pronounce it wrong,
but Aksuka is a Jedi, another reads,
but the way I see it, her walking away from the Order at the time that she did,
when the Order had seemingly lost their way,
makes her wiser than anyone who was on the Council at the time, even Yoda.
Yeah, they've lost the page.
It's no longer theirs.
They have since created a new Facebook page
and encourage everyone to follow for their regular content.
Yeah.
While some diehard fans may want to hack page Frozen and Carbonite,
impersonation of a person, celebrity, or businesses violates Meta,
the owner of Facebook, Meta's community standards.
The company has a guide on how to report the profile on their help center.
WCIA reached out to the Illinois State Historical Society,
has not heard back.
And when they do, they will probably hear back from the Star Wars people,
because I'm sure they hacked their phones as well.
But this is, you know, it's Facebook.
This is what happens on Facebook.
You lose, somehow you lose your page,
someone else takes it over,
nobody answers at Facebook,
and everybody just kind of moves on,
and some of us have a good laugh.
Or couldn't care less.
Okay, so we can move on to another story.
This shouldn't be funny,
but it does make me laugh.
Hackers,
and again,
they're blaming hackers
because it involves something being hacked.
So, yeah,
you can call everybody who hacks anything a hacker,
but the official hacker view on something like this,
I don't think,
would be endorsement.
But it is funny.
Hackers made robot vacuums
randomly yell racial slurs in people's homes.
And are you going to be okay there, Alex?
I see you've collapsed on the floor laughing hysterically.
Yeah, I mean, that's just,
that's fair.
I've never had a vacuum cleaner speak to me,
and certainly never had a vacuum cleaner
yell out racial slurs.
But apparently that's the world we're living in now.
Robot vacuums across the country
have been hacked.
This only took a couple of days.
And ABC News reports
it allowed the attackers
to not only control the robo-vacs,
but use their speakers
to hear racial slurs and abusive comments
at anyone nearby.
Because what is an undeveloped mind going to do?
But something like that.
All of the affected robots
were of the same make and model,
which is the Chinese-made
Echovac's D-Bot X2.
So if you have a Chinese-made
Echovac D-Bot X2 in your home,
keep the children away
and maybe put it in the garage or something.
I don't know.
This particular robo-vac
has developed a reputation
for being easy to hack.
Thanks to a critical security flaw,
which I wish I had in front of me.
ABC News, for instance,
was able to get full control
over one of the robots,
including the camera.
But ABC News will not tell us
how they did that.
One victim of this week's hacks
was a Minnesota lawyer
named Daniel Swenson.
He told ABC that he was watching TV
when the robots started making weird noises,
like a broken-up radio signal or something.
Through the app,
Swenson could tell that a stranger
was accessing the live camera feed
and the remote control feature.
He reset the password,
rebooted the vacuum,
and that's when the weirdness really started.
It immediately started moving again
of its own accord,
and the speakers began emitting a human voice.
This voice was yelling racial obscenities
right in front of Swenson's son.
I got the impression it was a kid,
maybe a teenager,
said Swenson.
Maybe they were just jumping
from device to device,
messing with families.
Ultimately, he said,
it could have been much worse,
such as if the vacuum silently spied
on his family for days on end.
Okay, I gotta ask,
why do vacuums need to have cameras?
Why do they need to be able
to be controlled by anybody
on the planet, apparently?
What happened to just pushing
a damn vacuum on the rug
and being done with it?
Yeah, that remains to be seen.
I mean, I have a Roomba robot
vacuum cleaner,
and it does speak to me sometimes,
mostly just when it's stuck
and it needs to be removed
or something like that,
but I don't think it has
any kind of intercom function.
I don't really understand
the point of that.
Maybe it would be for some kind of support
or tech help or something like that,
that you could speak to somebody
through the vacuum itself,
but it seems pretty idiotic
when everybody has a phone anyway.
But this is really bizarre,
but I have to say,
it is really kind of hilarious,
the fact that somebody could do this
and the amount of havoc you could wreak
within people's homes,
taking over vacuums and talking to them,
you could really drive someone nuts.
But why does it even have a speaker?
In what context would a vacuum
need to speak to you?
I guess in this context,
if it wants to hurl facial abuse at you.
The only one I can think of.
It's really bizarre.
So apparently,
the root of the issue
is a security flaw
that allows bad faith actors
to bypass
the required
four-digit security pin
in order to gain control of the vacuum.
You know,
even if you don't bypass it,
four digits is not that much.
And how do you access this thing
from, say,
a different country?
How do you access
somebody's vacuum?
You figure that out
and you just have
a four-digit pin in your way,
you'll probably get control of it.
But they've managed
to bypass the four-digit pin
and just be able
to take over the things.
Apparently,
this started back
in December of last year.
There's a flaw also
in the Bluetooth connector
that allows for complete access
from up to 300 feet away.
But since these attacks
occurred throughout
the entire country,
it's unlikely
that it was a Bluetooth issue.
But that's another issue.
I guess the kids
can take over the vacuum
when the parents
are trying to do something.
I don't know.
Yes, Alex?
Well, maybe.
I just had a theory.
Maybe what they were doing
or how they were able
to broadcast their voices
through the vacuum
was perhaps by
accessing some kind
of administrative console
and then replacing
the pre-recorded voice prompts
that would otherwise
be stored within the vacuum
with their own voices
and then playing them
at some point
instead of error codes
or error messages
or troubleshooting codes
or something like that.
They just recorded
racial abusive
types of epithets
that they then hurled,
I guess,
around the country
at people
through their vacuums.
That would be my guess
as to how they would do it
would be to essentially
upload a pre-recorded message
that would then
overwrite something
that was on the vacuum itself.
That would be smart.
It's like when I borrow
your phone
and replace the Waze prompts
for GPS
with my own voice.
Yes.
Okay.
I get it now.
Yeah, exactly.
Something like that.
Yeah.
I think it's an effect
of sort of the abundance
or the wealth
of cheap,
highly capable
semiconductors.
So the thing is
just needing to do
certain tasks,
but it's often the case
with some of these devices
that it is much more capable.
So it's designed
to do a certain thing
and then because
it has certain features
that allow it
to be controlled remotely,
then someone can
basically reinterpret
what its functionality is
given all the features
that are capable
with the types
of chips
and things
that control it.
It's not as limited
as maybe 10 or 20
or 30 years ago
where it would be
in a mechanical system
or sort of a mechanical robot.
And like the need
for it to visualize
a room
would require a camera.
The need,
like Alex was pointing out,
to give errors
or announce
it's entering a room
to clean
or that it's complete
or that it's going
to its charging station,
that all requires
a speaker.
So its limited use
is really only narrowed
by the firmware
and the original software
that's on it.
but once it's in its
in its environment,
its intended environment,
if that environment
is compromised
and there's a willful,
a willing actor
or attacker
that wants to make use
of all of those features,
it then becomes
a viable target
that could do
these kinds of things
with relative ease.
I mean,
there are general purpose
computers
that are loaded
with software
for sort of
a limited single purpose,
but they're still
fully capable computers
in many cases.
You know,
this whole thing
is going to be
a plot point
in some movie
or TV show
where somebody
is being spied upon
by law enforcement
through their vacuum cleaner
and their vacuum cleaner
is watching them
commit a crime,
following them
around the house
and maybe even telling them
they're under arrest.
This is the world
we choose to live in
right now.
You know,
speaking of,
I mentioned Waze before
and that reminded me,
I had one hell
of a misadventure
with Waze.
In fact,
it involved that Jets game
because I was looking
for directions
to get around
and boy,
did that program
flip out on me.
It just,
it started giving
bad information,
completely bad information.
It would say things like
in 300 meters
and then it wouldn't say
anything after that.
It just said that
and then maybe,
maybe three minutes later
it would finish
the sentence
except by that point,
depending on how fast
I was going,
I was either well past
that point
or I was nowhere
near that point yet.
Either way,
hearing that,
you know,
make a right
on Route 212
or whatever
made absolutely no sense
when it was finally spoken.
This kind of thing
was going on
all night long
and in fact,
it wasn't the only thing
happening with my phone.
I was trying to reach somebody
and I kept calling them.
They kept hanging up
as soon as I called.
That happens quite a bit
with me
but, you know,
in this case,
they didn't really know
who I was
so it didn't make any sense.
Later,
I was trying to talk to Kyle
who was stuck in a car
behind an ambulance
for about a half hour.
He was trying to tell me
what was going on
and he was trying
to call me
and every time
I picked up the phone,
didn't hear anything.
I called him.
He hung up
every time I called him.
At least that's what
it appeared to be.
Turns out there was
something spectacularly wrong
with my phone
which was only fixed
by rebooting it
but there was absolutely
no clue
that there was a problem
other than the fact
that I couldn't
actually establish
a voice connection.
I've never heard
of this before.
You know,
a phone that stops
being a phone
that is completely
useless
and broken
and the only solution
is to reboot.
I don't like rebooting.
I don't like rebooting computers.
I don't like rebooting phones.
I like to keep things going
and if I do have to reboot
at least tell me
there's a problem
that requires a reboot
but this,
you know,
it literally
cuts off the one thing
the phone is designed for
and that's to make phone calls.
So,
I'd like to know
if anyone else
has had something
like that happen.
It was really,
it was really frustrating.
Terribly surprising
amount of fragility
in the basic functionality of it.
Well,
eventually we were
just texting each other.
I wasn't sure
you were getting my text
so we had to make sure
we were both
quote unquote
hearing each other
on SMS
or equivalent
but we still couldn't
get the phone
to actually work
and I didn't know
if it was your phone,
my phone,
the phone network.
There was,
you know,
a little way to figure out
exactly what was happening.
Alex,
did you ever have
anything like that
happen to you?
Other than
not unmuting yourself
and talking to nobody?
He's continuing to talk
and he doesn't realize
that we're not,
we can't hear him.
There you are.
There you are.
Can you hear us now?
I don't know.
It's always something.
Let me tell you.
No,
it's always that.
It's always that.
You don't hit the button.
Hit the button now
and tell us what's going on.
Well,
it's not the button.
It's that I'm using
my iPhone,
speaking of phones
not functioning,
right?
I'm using my iPhone
as a microphone
through Skype here.
So that's the,
that's the tricky thing here
and then just randomly
it'll stop working.
So now I'm going to
actually don't even
have the option anymore.
So I guess you just
answered my question.
Yes,
you have had things
like this happen to you.
Yeah,
every once in a while
I do feel like
it's,
it's necessary
to reboot the phone
but it's mostly
because I,
I feel like I have
a lot of difficulty
sometimes with my iPhone
not connecting
to the right towers
especially if I
come back
or if I'm traveling
a lot internationally
and then I come back
it seems like
I don't have the right
data connections
and then
I need to reboot.
But even though
you don't like to reboot
a manual,
I would say for,
especially for iPhone users
it's a,
it's a pretty
damn good idea
I think to reboot
your phone
maybe once a week
or at least once a month
or something
because a lot of
spyware or malware
that could be implanted
on an iPhone
does not necessarily
have persistence
meaning that
if you reboot it,
if you reboot the phone itself
the malware may have
to re-implant itself
in some way
you may have to be
re-infected
so if there,
if your phone
was compromised
and you reboot it
it may be a way
to remove
that particular
compromise
so I do think
it's a good idea
to reboot your phones.
Well that's a real
ringing endorsement
for iPhones
you have to reboot
them to get the malware out
I've never had malware
on my phone
I never assumed
I had it
I just light some
I burn some sage
and just kind of
blow the evil spirits
out
That's what you need
to do with an Android phone
because presumably
all the malware
there is persistent
you reboot it
and it sticks around
They have a revision
to the OS
every two days
it seems
so I always have
to reboot anyway
but they're commanding
me to do it then
What I really don't like
though is
computer operating systems
that insist
that you keep rebooting
because I keep things
going for long periods
of time
I have systems
that have been up
for months
you know
connected
not connected
still getting updates
and things like that
but you know
lately
especially with
OSes like Windows
they feel they can just
reach in and reboot
when they feel like it
and it doesn't matter
if you lose work
as a result
because maybe
you're asleep
or something
this didn't used to happen
and it's something
that I think people
are getting too used to
and it's not something
I plan on accepting
anytime soon
Yeah I mean
well look
our schedules
don't matter
it's the machines
that matter
these days
right
we have to make sure
that they're happy
that they're tended to
that they're cared for
they have the right
air conditioning
the right temperature
their cores are okay
they have enough space
you know
their memory isn't failing
all this has to be
you know
we can take care
of the machines
Better than you take
care of a baby
I mean
they're more demanding
Yeah
sometimes they are
I mean
having gone through
far more computers
than I have children
I can attest to that
Yeah
Our email address
for Off The Hook
OTH at 2600.com
if you'd like to
share your experiences
ideas
advice
things like that
we'd love to hear from you
Continuing with our
fun headline
saga of the week
this is a good one
Firm hacked
after accidentally
hiring North Korean
cyber criminal
now who can say
this has never
happened to them
we've all
accidentally hired
somebody that we
have no idea
who they are
but a company
has apparently
been hacked
after accidentally
hiring a North
Korean cyber criminal
as a remote
IT worker
the unidentified
why are they
unidentified
I think they
should be publicly
shamed for this
I really do
and certainly
if they've been
hacked
they will be
identified
the unidentified
firm hired the
technician
after he faked
his employment
history and
personal details
aren't those
the things that
you check
when you do
the background
check of the
person you're
hiring
once given
access to the
company's computer
network
the hacker
downloaded
sensitive company
data and sent
a ransom demand
the firm
which is based
in the UK
wait a minute
no
this is a BBC
story
it's written
weirdly
the firm
which is based
in the UK
US or
Australia
did not want
to be named
they're hiding
them further
because apparently
if BBC can say
they don't want
to be named
they've talked
to them
and they've
asked BBC
please don't
name us
so BBC
said okay
what we'll do
is we'll put
in three
countries
and people
can choose
which one
they think
you're from
but that'll
protect you
even more
so we know
they're in the UK
US or Australia
now I really
want to know
who they are
can we call
this hire
jacking
oh I like
that
hire jacking
hire jacking
go on the
site and
trademark that
quickly
before somebody
else
I don't
know
is there
a name
for this
kind of
attack
well now
there is
Kyle just
made one
up
I like
that
you can't
just use
that out
there
we got
new hire
jacked
okay
it has
allowed
cyber responders
from secure
works
to report
the hack
to spread
awareness
and warn
others
the company
has
that is
that's
the latest
in the
string
of cases
of western
remote
workers
being
unmasked
as
North
Koreans
have you
hired
anyone
lately
Alex
you might
have hired
a North
Korean
without
realizing
it
this has
been a
problem
for quite
a while
now
for several
years
and it's
been a
pretty well
known
MO of the
North Koreans
to embed
themselves
mostly in
cryptocurrency
cryptocurrency
or digital
asset
platforms
this has
been
one
of
their
core
strength
areas
in
trying
to
steal
digital
assets
to
essentially
supplement
their treasury
and fund
their nuclear
weapons
programs
so they've
gotten
really good
at this
and they
have
this
plethora
of
usually
China
based
highly
trained
and skilled
programmers
at the
ready
and you
can bring
them into
your
organization
they often
have
resumes
they've
got
references
they've
got
everything
that you
would
want
even if
you were
doing
some
kind
of
background
check
on this
particular
contractor
and so
it's
I think
a really
big
and difficult
problem
to solve
sometimes
I guess
it would
make sense
if you
were trying
to establish
some kind
of process
by which
to catch
these bad
guys
to do
some kind
of
face
time
actually
see the
people
look at
their
backgrounds
look at
their
environments
make sure
they're
in an
actual
room
but this
has been
a really
big problem
and I think
a lot
of companies
right now
at this
very moment
probably have
North Korean
IT workers
or programmers
within their
systems
and have
no idea
about it
whatsoever
it seems
easy enough
to fix
just don't
do that
don't hire
people
without
talking to
them
seeing them
hopefully
in person
but if
you have
to hire
somebody
remotely
at least
do your
due diligence
and look
up
talk to
people
who have
worked
with them
because
this is
kind of
you deserve
what you
get
if you're
not being
careful
well I think
even if you are
careful you can
still get caught
by this particular
scam because
they have call
centers that are
dedicated to
providing these
references
it's pretty
easy to
pull together
some kind
of synthetic
personality
and background
a LinkedIn
profile
you can
put together
a call
center
but that's
not for
a company
you've
heard of
because if
it's a
company
you've
heard of
you can
call that
company
and
things I've
been involved
in
we have
done
checking
and it
involves a
little bit
of detective
work
see if
this phone
number
why does
it have
an area
code
of a
different
country
you check
into that
you find
people
real people
that actually
verify that
they exist
if you
can't talk
to them
directly
and you
check for
history
of various
sorts
well
another
methodology
that the
North Koreans
have been
using very
similar to
this
is actually
to create
real companies
and have
them exist
and they may
even actually
have some
kind of
corporate
history
but they
then approach
other companies
mostly that
work in the
digital asset
sphere
and promote
some kind
of joint
venture
with this
particular
company
they go
through all
the paces
all the
steps
you go
through all
of the
due diligence
and you
sign a
deal
with this
joint
venture
company
that is
actually
comprised
entirely
of North
Korean
threat
actors
that
you've
just
let
into
your
environment
well
you know
I posit
that maybe
it's not
even North
Korean
workers
maybe
it's
AI
no
seriously
AI
could
and they
could do
a hundred
different
jobs
at the
same
time
a good
human
could do
multiple
jobs
too
and not
get
caught
well
AI
makes
this
a lot
easier
especially
you know
when it
comes to
language
difficulties
and language
anomalies
that would
allow somebody
to detect
whether or
not this
was a
North
Korean
threat
actor
or
you know
somebody
legitimately
from
South
Korea
so
it's
definitely
making it
harder
and easier
for the
threat
actors
to evade
detection
there could
be
illegitimate
people
from
South
Korea
too
you know
and good
people
in North
Korea
so don't
forget
that
yeah
I think
this isn't
a reflection
of
widely held
best practices
as far as
hiring for
this particular
position
not in
governmental
organizations
or
you're
like
Fortune
500
or
you know
top
companies
I think
that the
idea of
having a
remote
administration
role
it's
just a
little fishy
I mean
I think
that
you
have
the
those
kinds of
organizations
would weigh
the liability
that the
sorts of
risks
and as
Alex pointed
out
go through
probably
a much
maybe
a much
more
rigorous
recruiting
effort
that
involved
some
kind
of
on-site
interviewing
with
a
counterpart
maybe
in
country
or
wherever
they
are
to
give
it
an
actual
check
as far
as who
this
person
is
because
with that
role
you're
granting
access
to
such
a
wide
open
operational
surface
area
that
it
doesn't
make
sense
I don't
think
this
is
a
real
type
of
occupation
for
serious
enterprises
in my
opinion
maybe
this
is
quite
common
I'm
so
removed
from
all
of
it
anyway
that
I
don't
know
if
I
have
a
valid
take
in
the
first
place
but
that's
that's
my
impression
well
there's
another
case
of
a
North
Korean
IT
worker
who
was
caught
attempting
to
hack
their
employer
in
July
that
worker
was
hired
by
the
cyber
company
no
before
which
apparently
they
didn't
quickly
disabled
access
to their
systems
when it
noticed
strange
behavior
we
posted
the
job
received
resumés
conducted
interviews
performed
background
checks
verified
references
and hired
the
person
the
firm
wrote
in a
blog
post
we
sent
them
their
Mac
work
station
and
the
moment
it
was
received
it
immediately
started
to
load
malware
yeah
well
first
of all
I
assume
he
didn't
send
it
to
North
Korea
I
assume
that
would
have
been
something
you
noticed
so
if
the
moment
it
was
received
at
whatever
address
you
were
given
which
I
guess
would
have
forwarded
it
to
somebody
in
North
Korea
but
if
it
started
doing
this
the
you
mean
there's
a
widespread
existence
of
these
types
of
hires
yeah
I
mean
it
doesn't
have
to
just
be
North
Koreans
you
know
it
could
just
be
people
out
for
you
know
to
okay
okay
yeah
right
right
you're
saying
it's
more
commonplace
than
just
say
for
instance
this
particular
country
who
of
course
is
funding
things
you
know
like
the
mass
games
they
don't
pay
for
themselves
you
know
no
they
don't
they
aren't
just
you
know
paying
for
nuclear
programs
but
it
is
a
good
point
that
there
are
other
entities
out
there
that
are
as
interested
in
tactics
like
these
yeah
well
I
think
that's
absolutely
right
and the
North
Koreans
I
think
really
took
this
particular
type
of
attack
as
a
page
from
the
Chinese
playbook
because
the
Chinese
have
been
pulling
this
joint
venture
thing
for
I
would
say
at
least
a
decade
now
and
in
fact
the
U.S.
trade
representative
had
specifically
called
out
these
fake
Chinese
joint
ventures
as a
national
security
threat
by which
the
Chinese
would
ingratiate
themselves
with
U.S.
companies
developing
innovative
technologies
get access
to that
technology
and then
steal it
and pull
out of
the
JV
so
yeah
it's
a
bigger
problem
than
just
North
Korea
speaking
of
big
problems
this
headline
huge
game
freak
hack
leaks
next
Pokemon
game
that's
got
everybody
up
in
turmoil
here
apparently
it's
a
massive
hack
that's
hit
Pokemon's
parent
company
game
freak
the
data
allegedly
contains
information
about
the
next
Pokemon
game
and
I don't
really
understand
what the
big deal
is
so
people
know
more
about
the
next
Pokemon
game
they're
still
going
to
release
the
game
they're
still
going
to
sell
the
game
and
whatever
these
people
do
with
Pokemon
still
going
to
be
doing
it
now
some
of
the
secrets
are
out
I
would
read
this
except
I
don't
understand
half
the
things
that
they're
talking
about
and
I
also
don't
know
how
important
this
really
is
you
do
see
I
mean
I've
observed
pokey
people
poking
around
the
very
fact
that
you
say
pokey
people
like
that
tells
me
that
you
don't
think
this
is
serious
either
I'm
with
you
on
that
is
this
not
a
serious
face
I
know
the
audience
is
a
handicap
it
it's
a
face
that's
seen
too
much
yeah
that's
true
well
you
know
we
all
see
people
walking
around
like
they're
in
a
trance
doing
Pokemon
things
in
the
street
it
seems
to
emerge
like
in
in
waves
but
yeah
they
they
they're
sort
of
everywhere
and
then
they
go
back
and
then
they
reemerge
yeah
I
did
it
once
I
saw
oh
look
there's
a
Pokemon
on my
phone
I
clicked
something
that
made
a
noise
and
I
was
bored
but
anyway
according
to
Pokemon
leak
account
Centro
leaks
on
Twitter
and
I
don't
even
understand
what
that
is
is
that
somebody
who's
leaking
things
from
Pokemon
or
is
that
Pokemon
themselves
telling
you
about
the
various
leaks
they've
been
afflicted
with
whatever
the leaks
contain
code
names
which
refer
to
upcoming
Pokemon
projects
the leak
data
alleges
that
the next
generation
10
Pokemon
game
is
titled
Pokemon
Gaia
G-A-I-A
Gaia is
an ancient
goddess
representing
the earth
she has
one of the
oldest
theities
in
Greek
mythology
so
the new
Pokemon
game
may have
a
Greek
theme
or
that's
all I'm
going to
read
about
this
because
it's
I don't
think it
really
matters
that
much
no
it's
not
as
serious
as
the
Flappy
Bird
scandal
yeah
Pokemon
is
going
to
be
fine
all
the
Pokemon
people
are
going
to
be
fine
so
let's
just
try
and
move
on
this
is
a
bit
more
serious
42
minutes
in
we've
gone
through
the
comedic
part
of
the
headlines
parents
sue
school
that
gave
bad
grade
to
students
who
used
AI
to
complete
assignment
an
old
and
powerful
force
has
entered
the
debate
over
generative
AI
in
schools
litigious
parents
angry
that
their
child
may
not
be
accepted
into
a
prestigious
university
this
comes
from
Gizmodo
in
what
appears
to be
the
first
case
of
its
kind
at
least
in
Massachusetts
a
couple
has
sued
their
local
school
district
after
it
disciplined
their
son
for
using
generative
AI
tools
on
a
history
project
Dale
and
Jennifer
Harris
alleged
that
the
Hingham
High
School
student
handbook
did not
explicitly
prohibit
the use
of AI
to
complete
assignments
and
that
the
punishment
visited
upon
their
son
for
using
an
AI
tool
he
received
Saturday
detention
and
a
grade
of
65
out
of
100
on
the
assignment
they
contended
that
has harmed
his
chances
of getting
into
Stanford
University
and
other
elite
schools
really
one
project
and
you're
out
just
like
that
you
can't
have
a
bad
day
it's
hard
to
believe
the
defendants
continued
on a
pervasive
destructive
and merciless
path
of
threats
intimidation
and
coercion
to
impact
and
derail
our
son's
future
and
his
exemplary
record
something
about
these
people
that
are
annoying
me
already
I
can't
put
a
finger
on
it
the
Harris
family
alleged
this
in
his
lawsuit
which
was
initially
filed
in
state
superior
court
after being
removed
to a
federal
district
court
Hingham
Public
Schools
however
claims
that
its
student
handbook
prohibited
the use
of
unauthorized
technology
and
unauthorized
use
or a
close
imitation
of the
language
and thoughts
of another
author
and the
representation
of them
as one's
own
work
you know
my high
school
didn't
have
a
handbook
but we
did
know
that
copying
other
people's
words
wasn't
right
you know
you have
conversations
about that
you have
instincts
about that
so I
don't know
if you
need it
specifically
spelled out
in a
handbook
to know
that it's
wrong
that said
Saturday
detention
you know
what
yeah
do
Saturday
what else
are you
going to
do on
Saturday
how does
that affect
anything
in your
future
just
spend
Saturday
in a
classroom
see what
happens
the
district
said
in a
recent
motion
to
dismiss
that
the
discipline
administered
to the
harris's
son
was
relatively
lenient
and that
a ruling
to the
contrary
would invite
dissatisfied
parents
and students
to challenge
day-to-day
discipline
even grading
of students
in state
and federal
courts
and yeah
that's
something
I certainly
see
coming out
of a
positive
outcome
for the
parents
here
wow
a lawsuit
over a
grade
I
always
knew
it
was
possible
I
just
didn't
think
I
would
see
it
in my
lifetime
Alex
you're
a parent
you must
have
some
thoughts
on this
yeah
of course
and I
was a
student
who
was
you know
very
often
subject
to
disciplinary
proceedings
not
surprisingly
but
I
would
have
never
in a
million
years
thought
that
anybody
in
the
district
in
which
I
grew
up
would
sue
over
a
65
I
mean
I
think
very
reasonably
the
teacher
could
have
given
him
a
zero
which
would
have
really
screwed
up
his
average
65
is
not
that
bad
you know
65
I
think
as you
mentioned
Emmanuel
you
can
recover
from
that
now
on the
other
hand
there
was
an
accomplishment
too
by the
way
that's
true
65
was
not
bad
especially
in
math
related
classes
you
hit that
over
50
threshold
and
anything
is
possible
well
look
you've
always
been
a lot
brighter
than
you
look
so
it
doesn't
surprise
me
but
playing
devil's
advocate
with
this
kid
maybe
he
used
it
to
check
an
equation
or
something
or
some
kind
of
raw
material
that
wasn't
part
of
the
full
analysis
but
I
think
if
he
just
did
a
cut
and
paste
job
from
some
kind
of
generative
AI
platform
to do
his
homework
that
totally
avoids
the issue
of having
to do
the thinking
for yourself
it's
frightening
to me
too
that
people
are going
to be
suing
over
this
because
this
is
what
I
think
is
just
going
to
dumb
down
society
in
its
entirety
is
our
inability
to
do
these
simple
mathematical
equations
and
understand
these
principles
and
formulas
or
keep
them
in
our
head
anymore
because
they're
going
to be
doing
exactly
what
this
lazy
kid
with
overly
litigious
parents
did
yeah
I
agree
we're
going
to
see
this
in
every
facet
of
life
I
think
a
generative
AI
text
the
thing
is
we
have
trouble
telling
sometimes
if
something
is
generated
by
a
human
or
by
AI
AI
does
not
AI
can
tell
you
if
something
was
generated
by
AI
and
I
think
that's
really
interesting
that
it
can
kind
of
self
police
unless
of
course
it's
programmed
not
to
yeah
you
know
the
other
thing
that's
weird
to
me
about
this
lawsuit
just
as
an
aside
is
that
somehow
they
got
into
federal
court
right
you
either
have
to
be
citizens
of
a
different
state
or
have
some
kind
of
federal
question
there
so
I
think
these
parents
in
some
Gumby
like
way
of
abusing
the
law
have
alleged
a
constitutional
violation
here
or
some
kind
of
civil
rights
based
discrimination
for
there
is
a
national
survey
conducted
by
the
center
for
democracy
and
technology
they
found
that
schools
are
increasingly
disciplining
students
for
using
AI
and
they
noted
that
historically
marginalized
students
including
students
of
color
English
language
learners
they
tend
to be
punished
disproportionately
for violating
school
rules
if that's
the case
here
okay
you know
my
perspective
on this
changes
a bit
because
if
some
people
are being
treated
differently
than
others
that
certainly
is
not
fair
now
the
Harris
family
alleges
their
son
was
unfairly
targeted
by
the
Hingham
School
District
because
it
applied
discipline
inconsistently
after the
cheating
incident
the
district
didn't
place
their
son
in
the
national
honor
society
they
claim
but
it
had
previously
allowed
a
student
who
used
AI
to
write
an
English
paper
to
join
the
society
so
there's
that
as
well
we'll
see
where
that
case
goes
I
mean
look
relative
to
what
happened
to
me
I
mean
I
got
kicked
out
of
my
public
library
for
dropping
down
to
a
DOS
prompt
in
what was
that
1995
or 1996
or something
so I
mean
I
didn't sue
over that
well
that's
that's
big on
you
but
you
weren't
a
lawyer
then
either
you
were
a
kid
that's
true
yeah
it's
not too
late
you
could
probably
go back
and
sue
them
I'm
sure
I'm
sure
there's
some
tolling
of
the
statute
of
limitations
I
could
come
up
with
they'd
still
be
happy
to
see
you
again
I'm
sure
so
last
week
at
this
time
our
friends
over
at
the
Internet
Archive
were
having
a
bit
of
a
problem
being
hacked
mercilessly
basically
somebody
got into
their
system
and
put a
pop-up
message
saying
that
there was
a
catastrophic
security
breach
which
I'm
not sure
if it
came
from
the
hacker
but
yeah
that
has
gotten
a lot
of
attention
apparently
everyone
who has
a password
there has
had that
password
compromised
our
friend
Jason
Scott
an
archivist
and
software
curator
of
the
Internet
Project
said
the
site
was
experiencing
a
DDoS
attack
posting
on
Mastodone
that
according
to
their
Twitter
they're
doing
it
just
to
do
it
just
because
they
can
no
statement
no
idea
no
demands
an
account
on
Twitter
called
SN
Black
Meta
said
it
was
behind
the
attack
and
implied
that
another
attack
was
planned
for
Thursday
which
in fact
actually
happened
there was
an attack
on
Thursday
you know
the Internet
Society
they're the
last people
that should
have to deal
with this
kind of
crap
Internet
Archive
what'd I
say
Internet
Society
oh
no
sorry
different
people
also
shouldn't
mess
with
them
either
yeah
they're
great
as well
they could
mess
back
just as
the Internet
Archive
let's not
plan
any
rumbles
you can
do
something
you're
not
going
to
establish
I
mean
you're
not
going
to
get
the
kind
of
respect
you
think
you're
going
to
get
out
of
that
in fact
you'll
get
quite
the
opposite
in
most
circles
but
you know
in my
view
seeing
something
like
this
happen
where
Internet
Archive
is
taken
down
and
targeted
for
no
particular
reason
it's
all the
more
reason
to
support
them
and
they
certainly
do
need
support
to
keep
doing
the
admirable
things
they
do
we
all
use
their
services
to
look
at
something
that
happened
in
history
however
many
years
ago
on
the
Internet
so
hopefully
it
turns
into
something
good
where
people
can
keep
their
remarkable
projects
going
in the
future
I sure
hope so
and that's
the case
with so
many
entities
out
there
of
course
WBAI
being
a big
one
as
we
broadcast
at
99.5
FM
to
New
City
and
over
the
Internet
at
WBAI.org
and we
hope that
you
out there
listeners
who are
listening to
this show
either live
or in
the future
sometime
will
open up
your
pocketbooks
or your
wallets
or whatever
and help
support this
amazing
non-commercial
radio station
because
those funds
are the only
funds
that we
can rely
upon
those are
the only
funds
we get
because
we don't
have
commercials
and
we
basically
depend on
our
listeners
and if
our
listeners
aren't
there
we
know
we're
doing
something
wrong
so
the
support
that you
have
given
us
over the
decades
have
half a
century
in fact
have
really
proven
that there
is a
need
for a
radio
station
like this
we've
seen so
many
stations
disappear
we've
seen so
many
stations
turn
into
something
else
and
there
are
people
out
there
who
want
to
do
that
to
WBAI
but
our
listeners
keep
us
strong
and
the
many
programmers
here
on
WBAI
also
are
passionately
involved
in
doing
that
so
go
to
the
website
give
to
WBAI
dot
ORG
give
the
number
to
WBAI
dot
ORG
and
pledge
whatever
you
can
to
keep
WBAI
on
the
air
for
another
60
years
wouldn't
that
be
great
okay
we are
kind of
out of
time
please
write to
us
here at
Off
the
hook
O-T-H
at
2600
dot
com
I want
to
close
with a
thought
that
was
posted
on the
internet
I'm not
exactly
sure
where it
came
from
but
these
are
great
words
to
live
by
and
so
many
people
tell
you to
go
and
do
your
own
research
you
know
as
if
you
can
research
something
as
well
as
the
best
historians
that
you
will
come
to
only
one
logical
conclusion
but
in
actuality
they
want
you
to
come
to
their
conclusion
and
if
you
have
trouble
reaching
them
they'll
help
you
get
there
but
they
want
you
to
reject
facts
reject
truth
and
that
seems
to be
a
thing
these
days
it's
just
make
things
up
if
the
truth
isn't
working
for
you
and
in
a
cult
like
culture
that
can
actually
work
this
quote
is
what
I'd
like
to
leave
people
with
please
stop
saying
you
researched
it
you
didn't
research
anything
and
it's
highly
probable
you
don't
know
how
to
do
so
did
you
compile
a
literature
review
and
write
abstracts
on
each
article
or
better
yet
did
you
collect
a
random
sample
of
sources
and
perform
independent
probability
statistics
on the
reported
results
no
did
you
at
least
take
each
article
one
by
one
and
look
into
the
source
that
would
be
the
author
publisher
and
funder
then
this
source
might
publish
these
particular
results
did
you
follow
the
trail
of
references
and
apply
the
same
source
of
scrutiny
to
them
no
then
you
didn't
research
anything
you
read
or
watched
a
video
most
likely
with
little
or
no
objectivity
you
came
across
something
in
your
algorithm
manipulated
feed
something
that
jived
with
your
implicit
biases
and
served
your
confirmation
bias
and
subconsciously
applied
your
emotional
filters
and
called
it
proof
we
will
see
you
next
week
no
overtime
tonight
good
night
everyone
just
to be
nowhere
last
night
i
dreamed
i
died
in my
sleep
only
to
awake
laying in
a coffin
you
were
my
all
i
posted
at
the
mall
you
took
a fall
i
couldn't
call you
anymore
the
show
must
go
on
the
end
is
never
really
over
may
the
force
be
with
you
don't
you
ever
surrender
love
won't
let
you
down
as long
as it
is
around
trophies
for a
touchdown
always
remember
good
times
hollywood
you
could
eat
you
sensitize
our
thoughts
so
don't
you
give
up
feel
like
it
is
gone
with
the
wind
Satan
is
just
an
actor
who
tries
to
taunt
us
all
into
believing
in
nothing
to
you
you