BELL RINGS
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The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a cough.
We couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
The bomb for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
One little bit more!
The bomb for the best, expect the worst.
The bomb for the best, expect the worst.
The bomb for the best.
And the bomb for the best.
Thank you.
Hi, I'm over here.
And out in Signal Land, we have Rob T. Firefly.
Hi, I'm over here.
We have Gila in a different location.
I am over here.
And we have Alex someplace else.
That's right.
You do indeed.
Okay.
Well, welcome, everybody.
It's another action-packed edition of Off the Hook here on the Mighty BAI.
As we talk about technology, privacy, hackers, all kinds of other fun things.
And don't forget, 8 o'clock, we have overtime on YouTube.
That's where you can call us and where we can use the words we can't use on the radio.
Do we all have our real IDs?
Because today's the deadline, you know.
So I want to make sure we're all prepared.
No, just fake ID.
Okay.
Well, we know about the fake ID, Kyle.
But do you have anything that could pass as real ID?
I have not participated.
No, not me personally.
Me either.
I don't have a specific real ID document.
Well, I have my reasons.
I think you have reasons, too.
I have something.
I have something.
They can't keep me off an airplane, but...
How about our friends?
Yeah, how about you guys?
I do have a real ID.
It is my passport, which counts as a real ID.
That's right.
Well, that's what I was going to say, too.
I have a passport and a passport card.
Oh, well, that wasn't the question.
No, it wasn't the question.
We're talking state ID.
Well, no, I said real ID.
And a passport qualifies as real ID, even though you don't get the star.
You don't get the little star that tells you you have real ID.
And for you folks out there who don't know what real ID is, we're going to get into that.
Don't worry about that.
Okay, don't let people think that I'm not keeping it real just because everybody else is keeping it real.
Yeah, you're as real as it gets.
Now, Gila, how about you, if you don't mind answering these?
I do have real ID, but also, I mean, I'm looking at my passport card right now, and there are stars all over the darn thing.
Well, yeah, that's true.
Those are the USA stars.
Almost too many.
Yeah, but, you know, the star in the upper right-hand corner of the card, that's what real ID is signified by.
Alex, how about you?
I'm sure you have some wiseacre response to this.
No, not really.
I've just got a passport as well.
I don't have a real ID.
In fact, my wife and I were just talking about this the other day.
She just got her real ID in the mail.
I'm kind of confused about the whole need for this and the transition over to it and why it isn't just something that happens as a matter of course for everybody.
Why do we have to affirmatively do something to acquire this?
Alex, I have an answer for you.
Okay, 9-11.
Go ahead.
9-11, that's the answer, right?
Okay.
Yes, 9-11.
Are you debating 9-11?
Yes.
We have to have real ID because terrorists will not breach that system.
But that's where it came from.
This is about 20 years old.
And, yeah, we'll get into if it's a good idea or a bad idea.
Gaila, go ahead.
Well, this is my question because I remember a couple years ago, the last time my license was up for renewal, I opted in to get a real ID because they were very clear that some states automatically, like, their driver's license counted as real ID.
But New York State was not among them.
And since this is one of the vestiges of 9-11, I am moderately confused that New York State did not automatically make it a thing that immediately worked.
Because New York State gives options that other states do not give.
And one of the options is not to buy into this real ID nonsense.
The other option is to allow undocumented immigrants the ability to drive legally, which other states don't do.
Because, hey, if you have to have a birth certificate, I believe, you have to be able to prove you were born in this country in order to get a real ID driver's license.
So that kind of creates a bad situation for a lot of people who we depend upon in this country as if they don't have enough to worry about.
Now they won't be able to board airplanes.
They won't be able to enter federal buildings, which, you know, if they have hearings about their immigration status, I'm not quite sure how that works.
One way around all of this, which pretty much everybody can obtain, regardless of your immigration status, a passport from any country will serve as real ID.
I don't think a lot of people know that.
I don't think people realize it's not being reported.
Yes, a passport from this country, but also a passport from any country that is good for international travel will work for domestic travel in this country.
So it's also, I think, a lot less intrusive to get a passport than it is to get real ID.
And the reason I say that people have been bartering appointments at the DMV to go down there and show all their paperwork to prove that they were born in this country.
Which, you know, a lot of people don't have ready access to.
So already that's causing problems for people who were born here.
But you don't have to do that with a passport.
In fact, you can renew your passport online now.
I don't know if you can get a new passport online, but it's gotten a lot easier.
And it just seems less intrusive than this whole real ID nonsense.
It's interesting because when I renewed my ID card, my state ID card, which is not a driver's license because I don't drive, if I wanted to upgrade to the real ID, I would have had to pay more money and go to, you know, DMV and show them some more documentation of my existence.
Whereas to just do the easy thing and click renew online and get it automatically sent to me, it's, you know, that was just a lot easier.
And that's what I did because I have my passport.
That's all the real, real ID I need.
So I got a card that looks like everyone else's state ID.
But instead of that star on top, it says in big, bold letters, not for federal purposes.
Now, you say it looks like everyone else's real ID or everyone else's driver's license?
It looks like everyone's New York state driver's license or ID card that they might have.
Okay.
And yeah, except instead of the star, it shows me that I'm too slovenly to be considered, you know, really real until I show you something else.
Uh-huh.
I don't know why you guys are showing me your licenses on the camera.
That's not a good idea.
But as far as I understand it, you can get a non-driver's license that's a real ID.
Is that correct?
You can, but that would have cost me some extra money and time, and I felt like being lazy.
So the cost is one thing, and that's also something that could be an impediment to many people, the extra cost of getting this more intrusive ID.
Again, I don't know what problem it solves exactly, because whatever solution the authorities believe they have obtained, I guarantee you we can come up with ways around it.
But here's the thing.
Apart from having to, you know, to take time away and wait in line at the DMV, and like I said, people are actually paying for appointments that other people have gotten.
That's how hard it is to get appointments for these real ID cards to be made.
It's not worth the hassle.
But the real problem is that it's a threat to privacy like you would not believe.
Now, it does this in two ways.
And I'm reading from a report from the NYCLU back in 2007.
All right?
And if they were concerned about this way back then in those ancient days, you better believe they'd be concerned about it today.
Yeah, just a footnote.
The act for this was passed in 2005.
That's true.
That's true.
But people were opposed to it in 2007.
And it took this long to implement.
It took this long.
And they kept postponing it.
And apparently now, also, the fact that it now is in force, you still can fly without real ID.
They will let you fly.
They just will search you and ask you more questions.
And that's for a limited time.
Just to be nice, I guess.
Because people are suffering enough, you know, at Newark and all that.
So I think I'm going to put people through more.
Anyway, so yeah, it's a real threat to privacy.
Two ways.
First, and this is obvious, it consolidates personal information of Americans into a network of interlinking databases accessible to the federal government and bureaucrats throughout the 50 states and U.S. territories.
You didn't have that with the old-fashioned driver's license systems.
They were all independent systems run by the states.
But now that it's federal, it's all linked together.
And, you know, a number of weeks ago, we discussed whether or not it was required for you to list your existing address on your driver's license.
I maintain that it's not, although in very tiny print, which is hard to read even with a microscope, they say that you have to keep it updated.
You have to.
You have to have a current address there, which means that the real ID has your current address, has everyone's current address, and it's now part of a federal database.
National ID card.
The thing we've been fighting since the 1980s.
Probably people have been fighting it before then.
And here it is.
And we just accepted it.
So this national mega database would invite government snooping and be a goldmine for identity thieves.
Okay, the second part, it mandates that all driver's licenses and ID cards have an unencrypted machine-readable zone that would contain personal information on Americans that could be easily skimmed by anybody with a barcode reader.
Now, I don't know about this.
I don't have a real ID.
But if any of you out there have a real ID and can look at it now, I don't know what this unencrypted machine-readable zone is, or if that's something that they got rid of.
It sounds like a fantastically bad idea.
Gila?
I do have a real ID.
I don't have a barcode reader that I'm aware of.
But is there a barcode on your card?
There is indeed a barcode on my card.
On the back.
Look at that.
On the back.
So, that was Rob's not-fake-but-not-real-ID ID.
And, yeah, I mean, I have two little barcodes, but I don't know.
Should I try the reader on my phone?
Well, your real ID license has a barcode that my non-real ID does not.
I've got the sort of two-dimensional barcode that all state IDs have, but under that is a plain single, you know, one-dimensional barcode, which I think must be what they're talking about.
Right.
But do you not have another barcode in the lower corner?
I have one in the lower corner, but what do you have underneath the heavy stripe on top?
Right.
I have a barcode under there.
Right.
And I don't know.
And I don't.
Usually, you're in the same room, and here you are comparing driver's licenses.
I know. This is deeply confusing.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, you can see how confusing it is to us.
Okay.
But what I'm interested in, that barcode, can that be read by anybody with a barcode reader, and what information is on there?
That would be very, very interesting.
I don't understand the purpose of that.
Yeah.
Weird.
Okay.
But that's just one issue that the New York Civil Liberties Union brought up back in 2007, along with a number of other groups.
A real ID, they had this really cute point-by-point thing where they used the word real.
A real ID will become a real necessity for everyday life.
The use of a real ID driver's license will not be limited to boarding an airplane or entering federal buildings, as they're saying today.
The Bush administration, yeah, I said this was old, the Bush administration has already stated that real IDs will become necessary for everyday transactions, such as receiving government benefits, voting, or applying for a job.
The private sector will also begin mandating a real ID card for everyday purposes.
Despite what the DHS claims, real ID is a real national ID card.
Kyle.
Yeah, I think there may be some truth to that, because it sort of establishes a basis for, especially with voting, for what you would use practically to verify each voter is a citizen or is eligible, so to speak.
I think a parallel to everyday life randos reading your barcodes would be like having your ID checked in a bar, where their door person or security scans your ID in some kind of commercial system.
I don't know if it actually reads it and gives a whole lot of information, but either says go or no go to someone entering a bar if they're of age and so forth.
This is similar in that it establishes a criteria that everyone gets on a state level, but can be verified for things like federal elections.
So that, I mean, if you're upset about voting and you want to create strictures around it, even if it's hyperbole around non-eligible voters and undocumented or whatever you're casting that villain as, you would need a solution.
And this type of thing would, I think, be the technical first step to say, well, because we're worried about this boogeyman, this is the thing we're going to use.
And so to have it established in this way would set the stage for those kinds of requirements, don't you think?
Yeah, absolutely.
As a poll tax, too.
You know, if you're requiring people to have this kind of real ID that, you guys know how much it costs?
Do you have the amount anywhere?
Maybe somebody could look that up.
Does it vary?
I don't know if it probably varies by state, but it's not insignificant to a lot of people.
But to require people to have to have that kind of ID in order to vote will make a lot of people not vote.
And that's just a fact, because, you know, unless you need this for everyday interactions, such as driving a car or flying on airplanes or things like that, if that's something you don't do every day, you're probably just not going to get it.
Rob?
One point I've seen being questioned, and I don't know if this has been tested yet in any real cases, but since the New York State ID without real ID is now no longer a federally recognized ID,
there has been question as to whether if you're out of state, if this still counts as your ID, or if you're pulled aside by, like, a federal authority, like, say, ICE agents do their papers, please, thing, and decide to question whether or not you're entitled to be in this country,
can they look at your non-real ID ID and decide, oh, this isn't proof of who you are?
Right. It's a leap in where the bar sits. So they'll say that is the criteria for all state IDs. They must be these type of state IDs. And I think that's a leap, too, with the voting. It's like where once it was that you'd need to be a registered voter.
Now it'd be a registered voter with this particular expensive thing that fits this need. And I also would add that what do you want to bet that were this implemented in that way with voting, that we'd still get complaints about voting not being quite right?
Like, no sooner do they unfurl this and wield it upon every voter in this country, you'll have immediate... I don't think it's actually going to be the fix.
They'll still be this, like, favorite thing to complain about with elections.
I just don't think even if they... their way is... they get it as far as how to handle voters. I just feel like there'll still be this upset about voting, like, regardless of whatever is done.
I think someone else.
Yes, Alex, go ahead.
Thank you.
Thank you, Alex.
Even more so because... and correct me, guys, if I'm missing something here, but I think really fundamentally, you have to ask the problem about Real ID is that, is it addressing at all the problem that it is seeking to solve?
And what's the problem? If we go back to 9-11, presumably we're talking about false identification documents or real identification documents getting into the hands of terrorists and bad guys.
Or, you know, so what if we know who they are?
Or, you know, so what if we know who they are? It doesn't change what they did. We do know who they are, who they were.
So I don't really get it.
I feel that is an outstanding point.
When we were just talking about this being a grace period where TSA or whatever, they would still let you fly probably at the request of the airlines so that they don't have a huge drop in travel.
But what really can they do with extended searches or whatever they do just because you don't fit that criteria?
It's all theater because imagine someone who is motivated and going to try something, you know, cause some disruption on an airplane or freaks out.
But they could just as easily have paid the money and had a real ID and got a ticket and got on the plane, got through security, gone through ionizing radiation, whatever.
They're still motivated.
So what really are they going to be able to do by patting you down a little extra, like giving your kneecap a little extra whack?
Like, come on.
We'll know who they are a little quicker.
I think that's really it.
Kayla?
Well, I think going back to Alex's question, you know, is this solving what it was meant to solve?
There's a phrase I use a lot, which is you've got to scratch in search of an itch.
I don't know what the real purpose is here.
And yes, I am the only one of the five of us who opted into one.
That's fine.
But also, if we're talking about a grace period, this cam has been kicked down the road consistently for 20 years.
And that's part of the other reason that I opted in because four years ago now when I had to renew my driver's license before my birthday,
they said, if you don't have real ID, you won't be able to ever get on an airplane ever again.
And I believed them.
Wow.
Four years ago.
It worked.
It worked on one of us.
So it's probably going to work on it.
I'm not immune to propaganda.
It's probably going to work on one of you, BII listeners, so be careful.
I should point out something, though.
I was wrong about something I just said.
There is no additional fee for the real ID.
It costs the same as a regular license.
In New York State.
In New York State.
Okay, I didn't check all 50 states.
But there is something else in New York State called an enhanced ID.
That's what threw me.
And an enhanced ID is basically a license, except it also somehow gives you the ability to cross land borders into Canada and Mexico,
which is exactly what a passport card does.
And the passport card serves as a real ID.
So you could save a lot of money.
Actually, you know what?
I'm not sure how much a passport card costs.
It's probably about the same.
And let me guess.
A real ID doesn't let you cross land borders?
A real ID does not let you cross land borders.
Okay.
Yeah, I just want to make sure the kicker was there.
Yeah, no, you have to have an enhanced ID to cross land borders or a passport card or passport to cross land borders.
But don't try using a passport card on an airplane that's going to Canada or to Mexico.
You can use it in the United States.
But you can't use it to get to those borders, even though you can cross the land borders to get there.
You can't do it on an airplane.
I don't understand any of this.
I don't know what the logic is, but I do know what the rules are.
Anyway, let me finish what NYCLU said a bunch of years ago.
The Real ID Act will be a real bureaucratic nightmare.
New Yorkers will pay for real ID through higher fees and bureaucratic hassles.
In addition to slower service, longer lines, increased technical glitches, and repeat visits to the DMV, many New Yorkers will be unable to provide the documents required to obtain a real ID.
This will leave many New Yorkers, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable in our society, unable to obtain critical government services or fully participate in American civic life.
The Real ID Act makes DMVs real immigration enforcement agencies.
Yeah, it turns them into that, I guess.
DMV agents will have to make complicated judgments about a person's lawful status in the United States.
Weirdly, it says untied states.
It really says that on their page.
I think that's a mistake.
This is an inappropriate and dangerous function for state government.
Regulating immigration is a federal responsibility.
Moreover, restricting immigrants' access to driver's licenses is a bad public safety policy,
as it sends immigrants further into the shadows and keeps them distance from public safety and law enforcement officials.
I think maybe this was written before New York made the decision to keep the regular licenses.
And maybe this is one of the reasons why they did that.
I know not every state is doing this.
Most states, I believe, are saying real ID or no ID.
So this kind of demonstrates the importance of allowing people to have access to driver's licenses,
even if they are undocumented, because they are working in the country.
They are driving automobiles.
They're paying for insurance.
They're paying taxes.
So to deny them this and make them unlicensed drivers on top of everything else just adds danger
and just makes things a whole lot less pleasant and does nothing, does nothing to address immigration.
And finally, it won't stop terrorists.
Identity-based security is not an effective way to stop terrorism.
Driver's licenses do not reveal evil intent.
And real ID will force many who may have valuable intelligence information further into the shadows.
So that's where we stand today.
That was fun.
Alex, go ahead.
Yeah, it is an interesting discussion, I think.
Now, if you're right, though, about New York having the two different classes of driver's licenses,
the one that has the not federally recognized label that I just realized, but Rob said it, my license also has.
I never saw that before.
Or the real ID with the stars in the top right-hand corner.
If that's the case, that undocumented persons then are going to have these licenses that are stamped not federally recognized,
I think Rob was absolutely right and really prescient to bring up the fact that just the possession of that form of license
could be enough could be enough to raise the suspicion of some kind of law enforcement official or immigration official that you might be undocumented.
It could cause you perhaps to be detained.
That's a really scary situation for me to see here when there's that distinction that's going to be based on this official document with nothing else.
That's really terrifying.
The other thing that should be terrifying is knowing that this database is able to be accessed by federal authorities.
And think of what federal authorities have been doing in the last few weeks and months as far as rounding up people and tracking down people.
Yeah, it may be the undocumented now.
Who will it be in the future?
Do you really think they'll stop there?
And now we've just given them a tool where they can find us a lot easier if you get on an airplane or go into a federal building or God knows what else using that real ID card.
They will be able to track you down almost instantly.
Yes, Alex.
Well, in thinking about this from the standpoint of a database, let's think about this also somewhat historically and most particularly in the context of whether the U.S. federal government has done a great job in the past of safeguarding databases full of private information.
I think we know the answer to that is no.
And I'm thinking specifically of a massive repository of quite possibly the most sensitive personal identifying information for persons in the U.S. government that was housed by OPM.
And if you don't know what OPM is, it's the Office of Personnel Management.
It's like the gigantic HR department of the federal government.
And years ago, I can't remember exactly what year it was, but it had to be about 10, 12 years already now.
But years ago, OPM was breached by the Chinese government.
And it was known to be a threat actor, I think, by the name of Deep Panda, by the way, I believe, did this.
And it started in the DNS as well with a domain, opm-security.org.
And they were able to phish credentials of OPM employees and then gain some kind of persistent access to the OPM databases of SF-86 information.
And the SF-86 is the National Security Questionnaire form that you need to fill out whenever you are applying for a security clearance,
from the secret level all the way up to the TSSCI level, which is top secret with access to sensitive compartments and information.
And that entire database of information about anybody who ever applied for or had a security clearance has fallen into the hand.
You just self-muted, Alex, somehow.
Sorry about that.
Yeah.
So this entire database has fallen into the hands of a foreign adversary.
They failed to protect that database.
And think about this database, which is going to be much, much larger, that would have a huge repository of documents relating to basically just about every citizen in the country who is of age to drive,
or would have access to state-related databases involving the same data.
And think about, do we trust the centralization of that information?
That's a terrible, terrible idea.
We're going to regret this.
Yeah, I think what Alex is saying is incredibly prescient, because the whole thing is a farce.
Like, it is, time after time, the more they collect and organize data, at some point, whether it's private or government,
it just, it gets out there, and it is becoming, it's a total farce.
Like, it's just a joke.
They take themselves incredibly seriously when they implement these things and want to, you know, scare or make us feel, like, obligated or feel it's required or take away agency, our ability to do things by implementing these rules.
But we're left completely in the lurch when our names, when our information is a liability to us from their mishandling.
There's no redress.
There's no compensation.
There's no protection after the thought.
And I don't, I honestly can't think of other nation states that handle this stuff as badly.
Are there European countries that have equivalent issues handling data of their citizens?
I mean, maybe we don't hear about foreign reports of the equal and related types of breaches, and I'm just misinformed.
But it just seems to me that we're an incredibly huge target, and we take the lowest common bidder, and we accept the weakest practices, or we're just like, oops, you're screwed.
And we just leave our citizenry, as I said, in the lurch.
Like, we're just totally compromised time and time again.
I just, I don't understand, is, when is this going to be taken seriously?
And I think what Alex is saying is it's not.
It's never taken seriously.
It's taken seriously when it's wielded on us, when we have to get all the paperwork, when we want to go and vote, when we want to do anything.
As I said, agency.
Our agency's restricted, and then when they mess up, I want to use other words, but when they mess up, we just, we have to pick up the pieces, the pieces of our lives.
We have to get, we get credit reporting, maybe, from some terrible credit monitoring company that is, you know, it's a token.
It's all a token, a gesture.
It's theater.
It's such, so disappointing for a place that is such an enormous target on an intelligence level, on a global and international scale.
Why do we have the worst practices around this?
And you can use those other words, by the way, Kyle, at 8 o'clock on Overtime, over on YouTube, channel 2600.
If you're in a European country that has worse security or has data breaches involving its citizens, and you'd like to share that with us, OTH at 2600.com is the email address for Off the Hook, the radio show you are currently listening to.
Rob, did you have something else before we move on?
I did not.
Okay.
If we're going to be the biggest swinging, no, I'm just kidding.
All right.
We have a bunch of people have written to us, and we have selected a couple of letters here.
Hi, folks.
Long-time listener.
First-time emailer.
Lifetime 2600 subscriber.
I just finished listening to the April 30th episode, which, that's last week, by the way, which talked, among other things, about Google's decision to end of life the cloud support.
Yeah, that's a verb, by the way, end of life, to end of life the cloud support for the first and second generation Nest thermostats.
As a guy who's worked at several companies which have made devices with cloud support, I can offer some possible defenses for Google's behavior.
Note, I, and this is all caps, I am not a Google apologist.
I feel about them exactly the way, the same way that you guys portrayed on the episode.
But this merely comes from a place of empathy for the technical challenges involved in supporting legacy products.
Now, when Nest built their early devices, it's reasonable to assume that they operated under some hardware constraints.
They wanted to keep the cost of goods in the build low to increase margins.
They wanted the device to be low power so it could run on vampiric current on the HVAC wiring.
Cool word, vampiric, isn't it?
It does run that way.
They wanted to keep it small to fit a standard thermostat form factor.
I haven't cracked open my own second generation Nest, but I can imagine that it does not have an overabundance of RAM or ROM in its limited chipset.
The Internet of 2025 is definitely different than the Internet of 2011.
As you guys are certainly well aware, protocol vulnerabilities are a very real thing.
The software components, both closed and open source, that went into the Nest thermostats have unquestionably been upgraded, patched, audited, etc.
As vulnerabilities are found and libraries are upgraded, they seldom take up fewer resources.
The basic TLS protocol used by devices has seen a tremendous number of much-needed improvements from the 1.2 version in Vogue in 2011 to 1.3 now.
Really?
Only one version.
My suspicion is that if the old thermostats' compute performance was able to run the modern software stack that the new thermostats use to account for the trappings of modern security,
that the software developers would happily push down new firmware to the old units to keep them afloat.
But the hardware decisions that Nest made in 2011 may simply have not left Google enough headroom to make that happen.
In this case, Google would have to decide to willingly allow older devices to communicate insecurely to their cloud and, of course, sell fewer thermostats to boot.
I recognize that Kyle said on the air that Google made no mention of security or privacy in their end-of-life notice,
but that is typical of vendors with security issues that have no imminent patch on the horizon.
They don't want to advertise to the world at large that there are known security vulnerabilities on devices for which there is no recourse.
All I'm trying to say with this email is that there may be another side to the story.
Personally, there's no way in hell I'm replacing my first-generation Nest with another Google product.
I'm in research mode now for its successor, hopefully something with open APIs and some amount of future-proofing built into it.
But I like to believe that there are still some well-intentioned people at Google at a human level.
Keep up the awesome work and everything you guys and gals do.
Signed, Pat.
Pat, thank you so much for that well-informed letter.
And yes, you make some excellent points.
And the scenario you described is probably the scenario that it is.
But my gripe remains that I'm stuck with a device that becomes functionally worthless.
I mean, yeah, it's a thermostat, but I had a thermostat before.
You know, I paid extra to get a thermostat I could program.
And now, because of security upgrades and various other changes on behalf of the manufacturer, it becomes worthless.
I just think, you know, they can fix this by simply replacing at no cost to consumers anyone who still has the old model, giving them that option at least.
Instead of saying, oh, you can pay half the amount, but we're going to charge four times whatever it costs the first time, that doesn't leave a good taste in people's mouths.
So I just think that if you're going to go that route, think of the people who have been there from the beginning and maybe take care of them a little bit.
Alex.
I have to say, I'm so incredibly impressed with how well Pat had described the situation where the hardware of yesterday is just incompatible and cannot run the software of today from a technical standpoint.
That was very kind of simple declaration of what possibly happened.
And Emmanuel, you yourself said, you know, that's quite possibly the case.
But my main problem is, if Pat could describe that so well, why didn't Google say the same thing?
Why do they have to continually blow smoke up our, you know?
Eight o'clock.
I'm not even going to risk it.
Yeah, 8 p.m. out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Why can't they say it like Pat said it?
I think Pat said it so damn well.
I think one reason Google didn't say it like Pat said it was because Google, it is in Google's interest to have people used to having to just deal with whenever Google says something is going to work a certain way or not work anymore now to just go with it.
So whether it's a hardware requirement or just something that they'd rather not deal with anymore, as they have done with so many products they've started or acquired or anything, you know, Google likes it when people just, you know, nod their heads and smile whenever they decide to make some drastic change, even if it leaves people out financially.
Kyle, go ahead.
I think drainpipe was the word Alex was looking for.
I think I'm on board with this explanation and I am really, I'm thankful for the articulation and I think it is something that they could have at least implied a little bit more or I don't know how Google could have said it better or said it more like that from a technical point of view, but I have a couple questions about it.
I mean, it's what I imagined and we all sort of imagined was going on if it was truly a technical hurdle and it is well put there.
I'm still a little confused that it does work now.
It works the way it was intended.
So whatever infrastructure is suffering, it's not really noticeable.
I mean, it hasn't faltered in any way.
And the other thing that I kind of, I mean, granted, okay, so that's imminent when they announce some end of life that's going to be like Skype or something like this, just going away.
So maybe that's still going to be disabled and then it will be truly obvious.
Okay, this was technically something they in good conscience couldn't support because their cloud or other infrastructure would then be vulnerable or it would create an opportunity for maliciousness.
Uh, but as yet it's functioning.
So to tell people you have to get rid of this, um, it doesn't totally, it isn't as clear as what we're saying.
Like it could have been laid out that way that ultimately at some point this will be too much of a concern and consumers themselves in their interest would want a better product.
The other thing I'm thinking is as big as, I don't know how a lot of these protocol upgrades work and I don't know about library sizes and all of that.
That's not really my expertise, but I got to think there are a lot of alternatives out there.
Google's a pretty, I'd say, um, they, there's a lot of ingenuity floating around there.
At least there was.
And to my mind, it seems they could, if they wanted a legacy product to work in a, maybe not as ideal modern way, they could find workarounds and create a mode or a, a way that it worked somewhat well in, in some kind of isolation or in a, a part of their system that was protected in ways that aren't a part of the newer designs.
I, I'm not, I'm just throwing that out there that if the will was there, I'm sure there are alternative protocols.
There are ways they could upgrade that would allow, um, sort of, uh, low, low, um, uh, processing power to, to work in a, in a maybe hobbled and a minimal sense, but in the modern era that said, it's, it's a great, um, a great explanation.
If Google can't figure it out, I'm sure there are people out there who are willing to try to figure it out, but you know, we run servers for, for decades, longer, you know. 
I've never known a Linux box that says you have to get new hardware now.
It's no longer works.
You know, part of the process is to upgrade.
And if you can't upgrade, then, then you figure something else out.
You get, you, you, you develop a patch or, or something like that, but you know, you don't just give up.
You don't just throw in the towel and you don't expect your consumers to just go along for the ride because guaranteed, if you buy the latest gizmo that they're peddling to replace this one, you're going to be facing the same thing in, in, in a few years where you're buying something else from them to replace that.
And the technology itself will continue working.
Uh, you have to simply, uh, support it in, in, in various ways.
It requires skill and a desire to do that.
Uh, you know, kind of related to this, uh, I don't know if you guys remember back in, uh, 2016, there was this, um, um, actually it wasn't 2016.
It was, I think, uh, later than that, maybe, uh, 2019, but there's a show called black mirror.
They put out this, um, this interactive film called Bandersnatch.
Uh, it was the peak of Netflix interactive experiment.
You could choose your own adventure format, uh, following a young game developers.
He attempted to make his, uh, magnum opus.
Uh, the viewer was charged with exploring all the options to find the best ending while the lead character is driven mad by the sheer number of possibilities.
Uh, unfortunately, um, Netflix has decided to, um,
uh, to, to just cut the cord here.
Yeah.
Um, while other interactive shows can be remade into linear experiences,
Bandersnatch's entire plot relies on the interactivity.
Um, the special never got a home release.
Uh, and now Netflix is redesigning its interface.
Uh, don't get me started on that because I just know it's gonna, it's gonna upset me no end.
Uh, because it, it won't be something that is intuitive.
It'll be something that'll have autoplay that'll use its AI, use the algorithm to, um, decide what it is you want to see when it's not what you want to see at all and make things impossible to find.
And you'll need a new TV.
Probably.
But this upsets me because now you have a work of art, all right?
You have something that I thought was one of the best productions ever in the whole Black Mirror series.
Uh, it was interactive.
You could, you could see all different scenarios and have different endings using your imagination.
And now, because they have, quote unquote, upgraded their interface, it, it cannot handle it.
It cannot handle something that is, uh, interactive.
And that's just, that's just nuts that, um, that's the situation that we are facing right now.
Now, according to, um, um, to the story from Slash Film, uh, Netflix was ideally situated to present interactive movies and the technology worked most of the time.
But sadly, all of those movies will soon be deleted from the platform.
Uh, according to AV Club, uh, according to AV Club Report, Netflix is undergoing a massive redesign and the new user interface tech will make interactive movies impossible to navigate.
It's impossible to navigate.
They can't figure out their own system.
So, um, the story in, um, inverse.com has a pretty good, um, um, conclusion here.
Um, this is a future where popular media can be deleted on a corporate whim.
And it feels like something that Black Mirror would try to warn us about.
Well, here it is, real life.
Upgrades make do with less.
Any, any thoughts, folks?
And if you haven't seen it, you have a few days to see it before they delete this and introduce their, their new interface, which I know we'll all be complaining about.
Rob?
This is something that, uh, the video game scene is very familiar with because older games don't work on newer equipment.
Uh, older equipment decays and dies.
And you're ended up, you end up not having access to these experiences anymore unless you can find a way to emulate the original machines.
And it's fascinating that, uh, this is going on with Black Mirror's Bandersnatch because I remember when this came out, there was actually talk out there.
Like, the piracy scene out there was trying to figure out how to pirate it.
Um, and I don't know if they ever figured it out, but, uh, if they did, that'll be the only way to experience this thing anymore.
You know, it's, it's becoming, um, uh, the, the pirate scene is making it possible to see things that are forbidden in this country.
You know, whether it's an Academy Award winning film, that's, you know, stepping on the wrong side of politics or whether it's, um, something that, uh, a streaming service can't figure out how to support with their new interface.
Um, there is no other way.
There is no other way.
I think as hackers, we should help figure out how to preserve this film because once it's, uh, once it's turned off next week, where will you see it?
How will you interact with it?
This is something that I'm sure somebody is, is, is able to figure out, but it's, um, it's just scary that, you know, something that is, um, is advertised as new cutting edge.
Which becomes old and outdated and incompatible with what's new in the future.
And this is how you lose your culture.
This is how, you know, artwork gets, um, uh, deleted and history gets erased.
You know, we have to preserve these things.
And so much of what we do involves preserving.
And I guess maybe this is what piracy can do and, and, and help with if they can figure it out.
Maybe, uh, maybe some of our listeners have answers for this.
OTH at 2600.com.
Any, any thoughts?
Um, like if you go on the internet archive and look up, uh, tons of old computer games from like the 1980s, um, they will start up with some little, uh, intro from like uploaded to such and such piracy BBS by, uh, so on and so on.
And, and that's, uh, that's because the cracked pirated versions are all that's left after these companies and even the people who created them are long gone.
So true.
Yeah.
This digital, uh, content we have to remember is incredibly delicate as much as it seems like it's there forever or it's, um, uh, has staying power.
And, um, I'm recalling, well, first I want to say that I think this will have producers and people that create this stuff think twice about where they, I mean, it may be enticing, maybe tempting to, uh, to do a deal with, with a distribution on a platform like this.
But if it's going to be handled this way, why would you want your material there?
It doesn't, if that's how much care is it's given, uh, you're really not getting the distribution that you think you are.
The people who made the film must have a copy of it.
So, you know what, I'm going to make some phone calls.
Alex, you have, uh, go ahead.
I just wanted to mention, um, our conversation with Jason Scott a while ago, and he was talking about static recompilation as a evolution of emulation.
So there's a lot of people doing cool stuff with this.
Alex, you have less than one minute.
Go ahead.
Sure.
Yeah, I just want to make a very quick comment.
I think that this concept that Rob has brought up, which is pirates as preservationists, maybe the original digital preservationists and archivists, is really something I think that needs to be unpacked.
I think it would be, um, a great article for somebody to write, perhaps.
Maybe somebody could give a talk at a conference or something like that.
But I, I think there's a there there.
I mean, it makes you wonder about the wisdom of copyright, the intent of copyright, and the intention of the rights holders originally, right?
Because once the copyright runs out, you don't see these things just being put out there for public consumption anymore.
This software, this data is only there and only exists in the public domain because of these pirates.
It's a really fascinating topic.
And on the topic of things disappearing, of course, this was the week that Skype disappeared from our lives.
Kyle and I did an experiment where we connected a couple of computers together and stayed up until sometime yesterday.
And then it just disconnected and tried to get us to log on to Teams.
And we recorded, but it gave us no links to download the recording.
Yeah, it worked about as well as it ever did.
It had like 13 hours of recordings and like two sections of that.
You know, I never really used it, but I'll miss it.
It was as part of our culture and killed off by Microsoft.
And we're going to go out with a piece by Maniacs of Noise called Skype People.
One word.
Join us, please, on Off the Hook Overtime over on YouTube.
Go to channel 2600 or the link that's on the front page of 2600.com.
And we will see you back here again on WBAI next Wednesday at 7.
Good night.
Oh, yeah.
This is my Commodore 64, by the way.
Thank you.
And welcome everybody over here on YouTube for Off the Hook Overtime.
Emmanuel here, Kyle over there.
Hi there.
And over in Signal Land, no longer Skype Land.
Rob, Gila, and Alex, you all make it okay?
Hello, hello, hello.
I'm here.
Yep, I'm here.
And are we in fact on YouTube this week?
We are. We're sounding good.
Now, those of you who tuned in a couple of weeks ago, or actually last week, might remember our friend, The Hum, which we've pretty much gotten rid of.
It seems to be something telco-related, and that can take a while sometimes.
But we've done some, oh, Kyle's done some wiring.
Yeah, I was telling Rob earlier before the show, I just ran a cable to a different outlet.
But I will find a different pair at the outlet we'd have been using, but this actually worked.
I just made a nice long cable and ran it to a different part of the building.
It's a little bit of a hum.
It's a gentle hum.
Yeah, gentle hum. Not like last week.
But it's got our glorious dial tone.
Oh, let's try.
Yeah, see, you can't really tell.
It'll turn up that loud.
No, it won't turn up that loud.
Yeah, just like that.
I mean, it's enough to hear Rebels, so we're good.
Well, some people might say that's not a plus, but okay, fine.
It being 8.02 now, people can use that after-hours language if they wish to make any points that they could make on the radio.
And any other stories or things they'd like to share, please feel free.
I would like to note that some folks in the chat were reporting trouble with the WBAI stream of the episode, just some dropouts and things like that.
You know, we noticed the same thing on our Alexa device.
We were monitoring.
Can't say her name too loud.
A smart home assistant.
Yeah.
You know, I was actually, during the break, I was shouting, saying, why is this so screwed up?
And the Alexa device was, like, playing, why is this so screwed up?
It's like, I found a song with that title.
Yeah, I was like, I will play this song.
I didn't want that.
I could not find the song.
You guys who have these things, and I know there are people out there who do, do you ever find that they wake up at weird times, like, when you don't say their name and they just inject themselves into the conversation?
Or, worse, you have the TV on and it decides to answer somebody on the TV.
It's getting more and more intrusive.
I'm just kind of curious how far it's going to go, and who's going to go crazy first?
It's me.
Yeah, it's me.
It's all of us.
I've noticed there are ads on TV.
Like, if you watch Saturday Night Live, you'll see a commercial break or a commercial bumper that says, for more music by whoever's the musical guest that week, it'll say, ask Siri to say, hey, Siri, play music by such and such.
And it's interesting that I'm wondering, because I don't use Siri, but I'm wondering if people who do find that this sets off their devices and asks it to play that thing for them.
Well, from what we've been hearing, there are some issues with the streaming on WBAI.
So, you can hear our show.
It's going to be uploaded pretty – actually, I think it's uploaded already – at 2600.com slash OffTheHook.
So, that's where you can get the uninterrupted recording of the program as soon as Jintz gets around to processing it.
It's usually up within the first 20 minutes or so of this show.
And then this show is up later.
So, you know, everything gets saved at some point.
Okay.
We are going to take some phone calls.
80-23-214-225.
And I understand somebody actually already called before I even gave out the phone number.
Yes.
So, good evening.
You are on Off The Hook Overtime.
Go ahead.
Hello.
Can you hear me?
Yeah, you're a little far away.
If you can talk a little louder, that might be nice.
Is this better?
Not really.
Well, I could call back on a different phone.
The name is Howard.
Want to talk about the real ID?
Okay.
And they also have to be called the enhanced ID.
And that could also be used.
Right.
Now, we talked about that.
But did you say you could call back on a different line?
Yeah, if you want me to.
It's just too bad.
Yeah.
Let's try a different line.
See what happens.
I'll call back in about two.
I'll call back in about one minute.
All right.
Well, hopefully that's enough time for you to beat Rebel.
What do you think, Kyle?
That's kind of a...
That's back to what it was.
I thought it was going to be better.
I'm sorry I boasted that we might have had a solution, but I...
Well, there was a hum.
We knew there was a hum.
It just...
I think that phone line was very low.
Keep it below Unity.
Definitely don't want to, like...
The dial tone sounded good.
Turn it past...
The dial tone sounded fine.
Not on the board.
Yeah, the dial tone was fine.
Yeah.
If you have a good connection, you should be able to mask the hum, is my point.
Until they fix whatever's going on with our phone lines.
Don't make excuses for our phone lines.
Well, I don't...
This just happened out of nowhere.
Just go ahead.
Just blame all the callers.
It rains a little bit.
And all of a sudden, everything goes wacky.
We will spend some time, but it takes...
It takes some time to troubleshoot, and we did the best we could in a pinch.
Hopefully, our next caller...
Oh, we have another call?
No, not yet.
Oh, okay.
I thought we did.
I forgot to hang up.
Oh, you didn't hang up.
Oh, okay.
Now we have a call.
I fear this won't be better.
Try to keep it a little bit lower, because I can't believe that's...
Well, I couldn't hear the guy.
I had to turn it up.
All right.
We have a phone call?
Yeah.
And good evening.
You're on Off the Hook Overtime.
Yes, Emmanuel.
See, I can hear Rebel.
I hear the hum, too.
But it's good to have a choice, you know?
I can listen to one over the other.
I'm sorry.
It doesn't seem like it's as much of an improvement as I thought.
Rebel, I won't ask you this very often, but could you please speak louder?
Okay.
Can you hear me clearly?
I'm on my cell phone.
Okay, talking slowly isn't what I asked you, and that doesn't solve anything, but talking
more loudly will mask the hum and make you audible and perhaps listenable.
Okay, well, I'll talk loud.
Now, I just want to mention that the enhanced ID is like the real ID.
If you have an enhanced ID, which I got before, like a few years ago, actually, you can do the
same things like board airplanes domestically and things like going to federal buildings
and things like that.
It's like the real ID.
So if you have an enhanced ID, you're good.
You know, you don't have to get a real ID.
It's like the real ID.
I don't know what the differences between the two are.
Okay, well, we explained this on the air, but enhanced ID basically allows you to cross
borders into Canada and Mexico by land, kind of like a passport card.
In fact, exactly like a passport card.
It costs, I think, an extra $30.
And it's also a real ID.
So that's the only one that costs extra.
Real ID costs the same as a regular driver's license, but a regular driver's license won't
allow you to get on airplanes in the United States and won't allow you to cross any borders.
And a passport card or a passport will allow you to cross land borders, Mexico and Canada,
and maybe some Caribbean countries too.
But not by plane, not by plane, just by land.
A passport will go by land and by plane.
Yes, a passport, an actual passport will allow you to go anywhere, pretty much.
Okay.
I'm listening to these things on YouTube called the Computer Chronicles.
It was a show on, I don't know what channel, but it was in the 80s.
Yeah.
They were talking about Unix, Computer Chronicles, and they said something about port.
I don't understand what it means, but they were talking about Unix, and I'm going to
play you an expert from them.
So I don't know if you'll be able to hear it.
An expert or an excerpt?
Or an expert in an excerpt?
Okay.
Whatever.
Well, this will be a challenge to hear, but let's try it.
Okay.
It's going to talk about ports.
I just want to know what it means.
Okay.
Hold on, and I'll turn, okay, let's see if I can hear this.
The typical Unix network runs on minicomputers.
These are initiated tasks are distributed among computers to port collectors.
Okay.
Did you hear that?
Not really.
It was pretty far away.
You want to just tell us what they said?
All right.
They said the following.
The typical Unix network runs on minicomputers.
The typical Unix network runs on minicomputers.
Right.
And back then, that was probably true.
That was probably true.
Like a, you know, a DEC-10 or something, a PDP-10.
Right.
PDP-11 and all the things like that.
Yeah.
It could run on those.
User-initiated tasks are distributed amongst computers, report selectors.
What does that mean?
Okay.
Well, I'm not going to dissect every sentence of this.
You know, there are, it's old technology.
I mean, the hardware, you know, the minicomputers were running Unix systems using all kinds of
ports and I'm not sure what it is you're looking for.
It runs pretty much the way computers run today.
But are they talking about physical ports or like ports like when you go on Telnet and
you're doing, going to a specific port or when you go, what do you mean when you make
a mistake going to a webpage and it says you don't have access to port 30 or whatever?
Yeah.
I mean, there's your HTTP port.
There's your mail port.
Everything is, you know, run through a series of ports, port scanning, all that.
You know, there's thousands of them.
And, you know, it's no different than it is today except the hardware was different.
But it's very, very similar to the way a system today would work.
You know, a Linux system or a BSD system.
Are we talking about TCP IP?
Well, yeah.
I mean, Rebel wants to know what ports on an old Unix system from the 1980s are all about.
And it's kind of hard for me to just wrap that up.
Oh, an OS.
Yeah.
Feel free.
Anybody else wants to jump in on this?
I do recommend if you're watching this on Computer Chronicles.
Computer Chronicles was a very good show.
I remember it very fondly.
It was produced by PBS from the 80s.
It actually ran until 2002.
And they were very good at explaining the terms because it was an educational show.
And the function of it was to explain these things they were talking about to the viewers.
So I would say if you're listening to an excerpt and you're interested in learning more about what they're talking about, watch the rest of the episode.
Well, you know, yeah, that makes sense.
Rebel, you know, you did watch the episode, but yet you're calling us to ask us what the episode means.
And so we're literally, we're bouncing you back to your source material for an explanation of your source material because Computer Chronicles was that good.
Right.
Okay.
I mean, maybe, I mean, this is where Hope Conference is for.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Go to the Hope Conference and just ask all kinds of people.
I'm sure they'll line up to give you answers.
And, you know, networks, like, where I was, like, Digital Computer Equipment Corporation communities back in the 80s, there'd be 10 computers and 10 terminals in one area, like one building, and another 10 in another building.
And, but they were all connected to this main thing.
How did, like, I remember they had different numbers.
I guess, which were the ports or the, the, the Ethernet.
I don't know how an Ethernet system works.
I'm sorry.
While you're talking, we're trying to troubleshoot the problem.
So, um, uh, anybody else can talk to Repel while we're trying to figure out how to get rid of the hum.
I would imagine that.
By the way, I don't hear the hum, but like, like last week.
Yeah.
I think, I think we proved that people on the phone, wait a minute, if people on the phone can't, does that mean people on the radio listening can't hear us, can't hear the hum?
Um, because if we're the only ones that hear the hum, well, we can, we can deal with that.
Um, I do, I do hear the hum on the, uh, on the, uh, off the hook.
I mean, when I'm listening online.
Okay.
So, so the hum is there.
I can't hear it now.
You don't hear it on the phone or whatever it is.
You're okay.
Yeah.
Um, folks on YouTube have been, uh, have mentioned that they can hear the hum, but they can hear Rebel Fine over it.
Okay.
So let's just go with that and not worry about it anymore.
Yeah, keep the, keep the board below unity.
Well, the reason I brought it up louder was because people aren't talking loud enough.
So Rebel, one more time, talk louder.
Right, but if you boost it, boost it from these EQ points, but keep the, the slider below unity.
I thought it wasn't allowed to touch those ones.
You can.
I'm allowed to touch those, those knobs?
Yeah, because if it's below unity, you can add, uh, part of the EQ, but it won't be adding.
Okay, everyone got angry last time I did that.
Okay, so.
We'll be adding to something that's overmodulated.
What about this one here?
Because it seems to be.
That's bass.
That's a little bit off.
Do we need more bass?
Turn it up.
There's more bass.
Yeah, that's more bass.
Too much bass.
See, it's not.
And too little bass.
It's not distorted because it's still below level on the board.
Okay.
How about if I stand over here and then I walk over to this part?
Okay, yeah, just keep moving around people's ears.
There's a lot of controls here.
We can do all sorts of things.
This is fun.
Can we go quadraphonic?
We can do that, you know?
Sure.
Yeah.
People have to get another set of speakers, though.
I don't know what kind of setup you have.
You'd love to know that, wouldn't you?
Yeah.
Yeah, you and everybody else, but highly guarded secrets.
It's proprietary.
Yeah, it's a Hum2000.
Proprietary.
Proprietary.
How do you have your 950 number?
What about, why did you just throw out these questions?
950 numbers, what now?
Oh, we're supposed to use a different phone number.
Yeah, 950 number.
Remember your 950 number?
They don't still work.
Do any 950 codes still work?
I don't think so.
I don't know.
If you can find one.
I'm thinking of just, you know, I'm thinking of getting a wired light phone, just like a
Verizon wired light phone, a basic phone, nothing, no internet, no fire, just to have one, maybe
for a month or two, just to play with it and see what works and what doesn't, you know?
Yeah, I support that.
Calling the operators and things like that, and, you know, because the operators don't really
do anything, but, you know...
I'm sure, I'm sure they'd be happy to hear you say that.
Rebel, please wrap it up, because we have another call from that other person that was
trying to call us at the beginning of the show.
Okay, I'm having an efficient computing experience.
You're having an efficient computing experience?
Yeah, I'm sure people are hopeful.
That sounds good.
Alex, are you trying to say something?
Just jump in.
Yeah, I'm being patient and diplomatic here, I guess, when I don't really need to be.
But the question about the 950 numbers actually got me thinking, but I wonder, I wonder if
anybody knows this, maybe somebody in the chat as well, but I wonder if the 950 numbers
went obsolete when dialing required you to insert the area code.
Is it, remember, 950 was always like...
Well, it's got nothing to do with area codes, it has to do with carriers.
Yeah, it's...
Right, but it was always a seven-digit number to dial, right?
950, I just don't think it, like, you could dial a 950 in a separate area.
I think you're mixing up 950 numbers with carrier access codes, because carrier access codes,
that's how you selected, with OnePlus dialing, an alternative long-distance code.
It started off as, was it 10288 with AT&T?
And then it expanded, I don't know why, because there never were this many long-distance companies,
it was 1010288 for AT&T, before you dialed your phone number, which included one and an area code.
But 950s, you would dial 950 and four digits, and you'd get a tone, like, for instance,
9501022 was MCI, 9501033 was Sprint, and then you get a tone, and you would enter your code
and your phone number, but that was for areas that did not have the ability
to use carrier access codes, the 1010XXX.
That's interesting.
I didn't know that it was the alternative for it, but I certainly used them way back in the day,
the 950 codes.
Oh, we all did, believe me.
That was a ton of fun.
It was fun because, you know, it was the first phone number,
I think many of us experienced, that didn't ring.
It just went to a tone immediately.
I think it was called Feature Group D, I think, if I recall correctly.
No, I don't know.
Yeah.
Rob, go ahead.
Sorry.
Yeah, the 950 codes were the reason that there isn't a 950 area code,
because when they introduced area code dialing, they weren't able to use that for an area code
because it would trigger the 950 codes instead.
But the functionality of them was basically subsumed by the 10XXX codes,
which were later the 1010XXX codes to access competing carriers.
So, but 950 still was, it wasn't used as an area code,
and it couldn't be used as exchanges for the rest of the analog phone system's lifespan.
And I don't think, I mean, I think that the exchange is still there.
I don't think it's been reassigned.
So, if anyone could find a working number in 950 anywhere, 950 exchange, any area code,
let us know.
We'd love to hear that.
Rebel, maybe that's an assignment for you.
You could spend every waking hour tracking this down.
A 950 area code, you just, if you dialed 1-950, then that would be an area code.
They could still have an area code.
But if you just got a regular 950, you just, that would think that it's a regular 70?
Well, yeah, I mean, you could.
Back when 950 was introduced, I don't think you were able to have 5 as a middle digit for an area code.
I think that might be what Rob was saying.
Yeah, so NAMPA just, the North American numbering plan never assigned 950 to an area code.
It does not exist.
Right.
Right.
And then 950s were people who don't, who weren't able to dial carrier access.
950s were to New York City.
You were able to dial carrier access because of New York City.
Yeah, I'm not sure what your point is.
Well, you said that 950s were implemented for people who cannot do a dial 1-0-2-8-8.
Yeah, but they could be used by anybody.
They were for people who didn't have access to carrier access codes, but they could be used by people who had access to carrier access codes.
You couldn't turn it off, in other words.
Right?
I remember when I, I remember back in the 80s, I, there used to be something called a police call, where I would, back in the 80s, dial the regular operator, like TSP effect, and say police call, and then give a four-digit number, which would be like a badge number, and then she'd put the call through.
Well, that's just one of many tricks that Rebel would share with us.
Anyway, we're going to disconnect now, but I think, Kyle, you might have found some interesting clues here.
Thank you, Rebel.
And, no, when you moved that wire, the hum got louder.
This one?
I'm not sure which one.
If you could disconnect that, that phone.
Okay, now try it now.
Move the wire.
No?
Okay.
That's, I think, for our guests to hear the phone call, the phone line.
It, like...
See?
Oh.
Yeah.
We're troubleshooting on the air again.
But there's something, something there that's, that's...
Well...
That's trouble.
Yeah.
We'll figure that out.
This was all off when there was, uh, the event.
We'll just call it the event.
Yeah, we had an event as well on top of this.
We lost a phase, but it's...
Oh, you know what?
It's not a big deal.
I was trying to say the phone number, but somebody already called, so let's...
Everything's fine.
Let's take that.
And whoever is calling, please be a loudmouth.
As loud as you can be would be helpful.
Good evening.
You're on Off Look Overtime.
Go ahead.
Fine.
Great.
I hope I sound better now.
Yeah, you sound a little far away, but you know what?
We can hear you.
Go ahead.
No, it's going to be close.
I'm on a nice phone now.
I'm on an iPhone.
Yeah.
Rebel beat me to it.
Yeah, he'll do that.
I got two things.
I got two things.
I'll help Rebel out.
I don't know why.
But 950 no longer exists for one reason.
Because 950 was a seven-digit number.
Like, if you were in 212, and you walked into a payphone, you could dial 950-1033-1044, or whatever.
It always had the last two digits would be the same, and it would immediately connect you to either MCI or SPRN or whoever was going to be the long-distance carrier for that particular number.
Now, you can't dial a seven-digit number from anywhere.
Everything is ten-digit, so 950 is not going to work.
Well, then I wonder what they're going to do with the exchange.
And I also wonder if that's true, if every part of the United States and Canada is now ten-digit dialing.
I suspect there might be some areas where there's only one area cut in a state or a province where seven-digit dialing still works.
Have you heard otherwise?
As far as I know, the protocol is that you can't because you've got Internet, you've got all of the various type of carriers, so you've got, you know, Google Voice.
Everything today is a ten-digit number.
Now, realize this, over 99% of the calls you've made today, the phone numbers are not really a phone number.
It's just an IP data, an IP point somewhere.
That's true.
You're right.
That makes me, like, okay, if I have a, like, if I say, give an example.
A lot, if you follow up with any number today with ten digits, you no longer can find out where you are, you know, you won't get, like, 9901.
So, very few exchanges are still regular exchanges.
Like, I'm in the, let's say, the 969-380 exchange.
That doesn't even have a CO anymore.
They took away the building.
Wow.
Wait, you're in the 969 area code?
That's an alternative New York City area code?
No, I'm in the 718.
Okay.
And I'm not giving you my own area code.
It's just three or four area codes, you know, exchanges.
I'm in the 718, let's say, the 969, okay?
If you were to dial 718-969-9901.
Right.
It would tell you your location, yes.
That's only a New York feature, I believe.
I don't think that existed anywhere outside the Northeast.
It was a great feature.
You could always find out where an exchange was by dialing 9901 after the exchange.
But, unfortunately, other phone companies didn't do that.
Yeah, that's true.
All right.
I just want to say that, but that's why 950 is not going to work.
Even back then, if you try to dial a 10-digit number and use 950, it's just not going to work.
You've got to get a reorder.
Or, if you're calling, let's say, from, you know, your internet provider or your cell phone company, it's not going to be up in that look-up table.
So, the computer system is going to say, hey, what do I do with this call?
Right.
Okay.
All right.
I gave, hopefully, I gave Rebel some information.
But I do remember the 950.
Oh, yes.
You could dial 5-digit and call anywhere else.
But the big problem was the audio quality wasn't that good, really.
MCI was usually micro-a-linked, and they did not have good audio transfer.
Well, that's what MCI was.
MCI stood for micro...
Micro-a-communication.
Right.
By the way, that was a big...
The guy who started, that was a big con.
But, I'll tell you what, at least he was able to go up against Marvell.
Uh-huh.
And he started by, I believe, it was only between two cities.
Was it between Cleveland and Chicago or something?
Yes.
It was mainly for truckers.
Yeah.
And he wanted to be...
And also, he also wanted to provide radio communication so truckers could talk from their
trucks on UHF to get in on microwave ones.
And some more history.
Sprint was Southern Pacific Rail.
That's what the SPR stood for.
They used right away for train lines to run their wires.
And then Sprint came out.
We could remember that.
Clear audio for 10 cents a minute.
Oh, yeah.
I don't know.
All right.
But I called about something else, but I wanted to help out Rebels.
Uh-huh.
Here's two things.
Okay.
The real ID, I have something called enhanced ID.
I think that is allowed to be used instead of a real ID.
Yes.
It's the same thing.
It's just, it's a little more.
It allows you to cross land borders to Canada and Mexico.
I know, but it doesn't have the star.
So it's very confusing.
It doesn't have a star?
Really?
No, it says USA.
Okay.
All right.
It has a flag.
It has a flag instead of a star.
Because the mass media is telling everybody, look for the star.
But if you, oh boy, people must be panicking.
Okay.
But I'm blind.
But I got to tell you, there's a problem for blind people.
You know who I am, the guy with the guide dog.
Okay.
I went to a place called it's easy.com.
You can look it up.
Really nice people.
I paid the extra $70 or $80.
I went and got myself a passport and the card.
And the nice lady had to pay three times.
She kept on taking my picture.
And the machine said, I can't read your face.
That's because you have to take off your glasses.
That's number one.
And they have to be able to see your eyes.
Okay.
Whatever you call it.
The eye.
And be able to see the retina, you know, the center of the eye.
And be able to get an eye scan.
Okay.
A lot of blind people don't always keep their eyes open.
So it took about three times.
And I also had a sign, an affidavit that she had that was from, you know, the State Department,
one of their forms, that said that I was blind.
So we'll see if they're going to let me get a passport.
I'll wait and see what's going to happen.
I had to renew a passport.
So it was easy.
I didn't have to bring anything.
I just brought my old passport there.
Yeah, it should be that easy.
It should be up to five years.
You're allowed to do it.
But the state of New York is crazy.
Yeah.
And I probably don't need the passport.
But it's so confusing between the real ID and the enhanced ID and all of that stuff.
But my enhanced ID is not a driver's license.
But I've been told that the enhanced ID, it doesn't allow you to passport.
It allows you to drive in the other country.
That's what the enhanced ID allows you to do, as far as I understand.
Well, I think you can drive in other countries with your current license, no matter what kind it is.
No, no, no.
Canada will not let you drive in their country.
You have to have an enhanced driver's license.
I didn't know that.
That's the first I'm hearing about that.
You're saying I can't drive in Canada if I just have a regular New York State driver's license.
No.
That's never been the case before.
Maybe you need a passport, but that's why they say that the enhanced driver's license allows you to drive across the border,
and you don't have to have a Canadian or that country's license.
Okay, we're going to look into that, because that would be serious if that was the case.
One thing I want to say on this matter, I know there's a lawyer within this group.
Yes, there is.
What I don't understand is this.
The Constitution says you don't have to show papers to be able to travel within the country, okay?
It says that you don't have to present papers.
So how are they able to deny people the right to travel when the Constitution gives you the right to freely travel between states?
That's a good question.
I remember this came up before, too.
But maybe, Alex, do you know something about that?
I think it's a very good question.
I don't know the answer to this either, because the right for interstate travel, the right to travel and go from place to place is something that I don't know if it's a fundamental right.
I can't remember from my constitutional law class.
But it's a pretty significant right that is really enshrined in the Constitution, and I think it's one of these rights that comes from other rights and other words and things.
And so what's happening here right now is, I think, arguably really pushing up against that.
I think you're right to identify that.
I think it's an open question, and I don't think it's something that's been tested in the courts yet.
I mean, could it be something like you can't be forbidden from, say, going to Texas, but you can be prevented from going on a certain company or a certain means of travel because of the rules of that means of travel?
Would they get away with it that way, Kyle?
Yeah, but even that, I don't know if I'm up.
I can't hear you.
Even that, I would say, is not uniform because, yes, air travel is federally regulated, and that's where they're implementing this.
And I think because that is the most utilized form of travel, it's easier, and, of course, the risks of flight and that kind of thing and all of the other security concerns that are well established with air travel.
But on the contrary, the federal railroad system is federally regulated, and I don't think anyone traveling by rail would be too agreeable, or at least they'd be very surprised if all of a sudden you had to have a certain sort of ID to use the rail system.
But on Amtrak, it does say you have to show ID to get on the train.
I've never been asked, but it does say that.
It doesn't say you have to have real ID.
Well, not yet, but it could, I suppose.
But I don't think that's something they – for some reason, land borders aren't treated the same.
Exactly.
And their business model would probably itself be a barrier to trying to enforce that because it's hard enough to get passengers on the trains.
I'm pretty sure Greyhound is rather lax about that as well.
Any other words from you, caller?
Yeah, I got a couple more things to say on this, guys.
Okay, here's what I say.
I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but doesn't the Constitution say you don't have to show papers?
I mean, they can't ask – a cop could ask you for your ID, but you have the right to say no.
Isn't that true?
Except if you're driving a car where you have to show a driver's license.
But if you're on the street corner, you're standing there doing nothing, and a cop comes up to you and says, can I see your ID?
Isn't that a sign in the Constitution where it says that you can't be asked for your papers?
Yeah, you can say, I have no ID.
I do not have ID.
Or no.
Yeah.
Can you just say no?
Because I don't believe in having to show my ID.
On a public right-of-way?
I don't – unless there's some probable cause, I don't think they can do a spot check.
But then they'll make probable cause.
They'll say, well, you know, I smelled alcohol or something, and I'll just make something up.
Well, that's the KKK for you.
It is.
Yeah, but if you don't have to show it – the federal government can't stop someone from crossing from New York to New Jersey.
You have a right to cross – you have a right to travel within the United States because you're not going to a foreign country.
So you don't have to show a passport or an ID.
So I think that – well, look, I think that – you know, someone did say – it was the search the president did say – the Constitution is not a suicide pact.
No, I actually think you should show some kind of an ID.
But at the same time, I think that this is not helping because you have such convoluted stuff.
Under the other administration, illegal aliens – and I'm not going to say that's – you know, say anything bad about them –
but they come into the United States, travel by airplane, and they didn't have to show an ID.
But because I'm a U.S. citizen, I have to show ID.
So, you know, there's a lot of stuff that does not make any sense.
Well, I don't think any undocumented people have rights that you don't have right now.
I'm pretty sure that's not the case.
Yeah, but I will also say another thing is this.
This whole thing – you know, you have to take your glasses off.
So, you know, I hear that it's been talked about in some of the blind groups that a couple of blind people are having problems getting passports
because they can't get a proper scan over the eye.
Because if they can't use your eye as identification – and, you know, the government is so far behind.
Look at Apple.
Apple has a way around that.
You can use face or ID without focusing on the phone.
The phone uses other technology.
So, if you're a blind person and your eyes are deformed or don't focus, you may not be able to travel.
Well, that's something that definitely should be looked into because that's not right.
Gila, did you have something?
Well, first of all, I heard in the chat that I'm very high.
So, I wanted to check on that.
Your personal life is not anybody's business.
But I did do some checking, and apparently your U.S. driver's license from any state in the union can be used in Canada and Mexico.
Okay.
It's a – I just wanted to confirm that.
That's a relief because that would have been a real pain in the ass.
By the way, guys, you may have a ground loop.
Just to see if you have a ground loop.
Maybe one of your shields is touching something.
I'm beginning to suspect it's coming from inside the board.
Yeah, I think the board might be the issue.
Yeah, well, we have to take apart the board then, and that means taking apart everybody on the air.
Try a different outlet or try some kind of an isolation thing.
You may be plugging something in.
You may have another piece of equipment in that you're using it.
So, you're getting an AC ground loop.
Yeah, I think you're right.
It's just confusing because nothing really changed in the configuration.
It sounded better before the show.
It's not like we didn't touch this and try to figure it out.
We thought we had it.
That's an analog issue.
That's not happening within the digital codec.
That's an analog issue.
Right.
You do have an A ground loop.
So, check all your – I don't know if you're using RCA or you're using that other –
what's that other type of connector that they use for stereo –
you know, if you're in a studio.
What do I – I can't even think of the word.
You know what's –
Tip and ring and XLR.
Yeah.
Yeah, XLR.
Yeah.
That's a balanced – it's a balanced connection.
Yeah.
I don't know if you guys are running –
I don't know if you guys are running 600-owned balance lines and stuff like that.
Okay, guys.
Look, I've been on long enough.
I don't want to be like Greville.
All right.
Well, we look forward to seeing you at Hope.
I don't know.
Maybe I'll be there.
Maybe not.
I'll have to talk to you guys.
Okay.
Some things that – look, politically, you know, whatever.
I like talking about technical stuff, but when you guys get into politics, I do get a little annoyed.
Well, you don't have to talk to us about politics.
Talk to us about technical stuff.
You know, I can't talk to everybody about everything.
So, that's –
That's true.
Yeah.
I might be there.
I might be there because it was fun.
It was fun.
I hope it's not going to be as hot as it was.
Well, that's not up to us, but it wouldn't be the same without you, so we look forward to seeing you.
Okay.
I'll try to be there.
And your dog, too.
Oh, I may have a new dog by then.
Wait.
No.
Why?
Because she's going to be 10 years old.
She's got to get retired.
You've got to give her a little bit of a break.
Well, then –
It's not easy to work with these little –
She can just come on her own then, you know, just for fun.
Yeah, but –
Yeah, I can bring her, but –
No, she'll still be working.
I'm getting another dog next year.
Probably in 2020 –
In 2026.
Uh-huh.
But she's going to be 10 years old next year.
Yeah.
For a while, you know.
That dog has a very good attitude.
I just have to say that.
Oh, I know.
She's a beautiful dog.
She's a great dog.
Yeah.
She's a great, lovely dog.
Okay, guys.
All right.
Seriously.
Take care.
Maybe something –
Is Rebel going to come?
I never met Rebel.
Yeah, well, if that's something you're looking forward to, that's the way to do it.
We can introduce you.
Yeah.
He'll probably be there.
Yeah.
Or we can just tell you where he is, and you can, you know, decide which way you want
to walk.
Wish us luck.
Yeah.
All right.
Good night.
Great talking to you, guys.
All right.
Take care.
And just like that, the hum is gone because I pressed the button.
And see, we don't have to hear the hum when we're not talking on the phone.
If it was in the board –
I think it's in the board.
I really can't hear myself.
If it was in the board like that, though, like why wouldn't it be in other channels?
And we did move the telephone around to other channels.
Well, something coming into the board with the phone –
Right.
– is making it make that noise.
Yeah, we moved to other channels, but I still think it's a bad cable or something.
Cable?
Yeah.
It's always a bad cable.
I don't know.
It might be the hybrid, too.
Uh-huh.
Like, it's not – maybe it suffered some way or – I don't know.
See?
Because I –
And you touch things here and –
If I –
Whoa.
I just removed the phone line from the hybrid.
Oh, okay.
It went away.
Now it's back.
Oh.
Okay.
Well, we're going to have more of the hum because somebody's calling in.
Try to keep it a little bit lower, though.
Well, I was trying to – I was trying to show off the hum.
Yeah, you were really showing off.
All right.
Let's – let's take another phone call.
And good evening.
You are on off the hook.
Over time.
Go ahead.
Hello.
This is Blue Wright.
You're from Washington, D.C.
Calling on a Western Electric 2500 that hopefully you can hear correctly.
Well, we hear you, but you sound a little distant, but that's probably the nature of that phone.
Well, yes.
I've had some problems with it.
I mean, I am talking directly into the bounce paste, and I raised the volume on the ATA just for you guys.
So, enjoy.
Well, we appreciate that, and I am sorry about the quality of the line or the board or whatever it is.
But, yeah, we got to do some real dissecting and figure out where this is coming from.
But I think the previous caller was right about it being a ground loop.
What's on your mind?
Well, I was going to chime in earlier and say that it was – it sounds like some sort of ground issue, but he got on there first and explained it.
So, yeah, yeah.
It would be interesting to see what frequency the hum lies at.
I think it's 60 hertz, and that is used both for the AC mains and the AC phone line, I believe.
Mm-hmm.
They're both 60 hertz.
Yeah, I mean, this – I took – I tried to – in anticipation for the show, I took apart this phone because when I tested it, like, I don't know, last week or the week before, the middle buttons, 456, weren't working correctly.
And after I disassembled it and then spent an hour or two trying to figure out how to put it back together, I ended up making the problem worse, like, here's one.
Okay, when I –
Earpiece, and I can't even hear.
And you went away for a second.
Huh?
You went away for a second while you were doing that when – we heard the tone.
Did you hear a DTMS tone?
We sure did.
Okay, yeah, because it did – because it – because if I press a button, it's going to kind of be my microphone.
Yeah, that's what it did.
Three.
Okay, four.
This is the row that did work before, I think.
It's worse now that I took it apart, but here's four.
Did you hear anything?
I don't –
We just – we just – we just heard a click for four.
Oh.
Yeah.
Five.
Five is also a click.
Hey, this is fun.
We can diagnose – touch – okay, that's kind of weird.
What was that?
That was six.
Do six again?
Yeah, six cuts in and out.
Huh.
Yeah.
Here's seven.
Seven was fine.
Seven sounded good.
Yeah.
Yeah, it cut in and out for me like I pressed it.
It muted my microphone.
So you heard six.
We got a cutout six.
You got a cutout seven, and we heard a healthy seven.
Yeah.
Huh.
Phones are weird.
Here's eight.
Yeah, that's eight.
No question about it.
Hey, nine.
Yep.
Yep.
That's nine.
Hey, star.
Nope.
That's a click.
That's a click.
No, I heard it.
Wait.
What was – okay, that's star?
Yeah.
Okay, we heard that.
Yeah, the first time I pressed it, I hear a dealer when I pressed it again.
Okay.
Okay, zero and pound.
That's zero.
Yeah, I heard that.
Okay.
And pound?
Yeah, that's it, pound.
Okay.
Yeah, so some of the buttons are broken, and I looked on – well, at first I wanted to
go to PhoneCo.
I think you had them on the show earlier, and they're in the magazine, but their website
doesn't appear to be functional.
Oh, really?
Like, I go there.
I go there, and the server doesn't look like it wants to give a reply.
I mean, it takes time.
Well, yeah, that's kind of been the way it's been for a long time, but I don't know.
I haven't checked in on them in a while, but hopefully they're still around, because,
boy, they had some incredible stories and incredible hardware.
Yep, because I definitely need a new dial pad for my 2,500.
I just said last year is working fine, but oh well.
Wow.
Do you remember there being two different sets of buttons?
Because the buttons I have in this phone, the broken ones, they actually push down, like
more.
And then there's another kind that doesn't push down.
It'll go down as much as much.
It's more like a click.
Yeah.
I remember a keypad where you touched it, and the key's barely moved, and other ones
where you got a satisfying amount of movement.
And, uh, hang on, Rob, go ahead.
Yeah, the very early touchtone phones would actually mechanically cord together multiple
contacts to make the multi-frequency tones.
That's what mine does.
And, yeah.
And, uh, more modern phones, um, it's all just done with a microprocessor, so it's, you
know, the squishy rubber dome sort of key, um, that, uh, that you can, that you can find
on any device or computer.
And so the old ones you needed actually a bit of mechanical force, and you got, you
got, uh, that cool springback effect, uh, when, when the, when the things buckled back
into place, when you let go.
So, yeah, that, that's definitely noticeable if you're using a lot of, uh, different touchtone
phones from different parts of history.
Well, this is the only one I own, but, yeah.
Well, you can get many more, uh, you know, garage sales and, uh, antique shops.
That's where I got this, that's where I got this one is from a local house that was being
cleaned out because it's in my neighborhood.
Uh-huh.
People just seem to throw in a lot of stuff, laptops, smartphones.
This is a great time to get old technology because people don't realize the value of it,
the sentimentality of it, and, um, the long-lasting nature of it, because these things will work
forever.
I think the first micro ATX PC that I ever, uh, I'd ever, uh, I'd ever messed, I'd ever
messed with, I got from a dumpster in this hood, it was a Pentium 3 or 4, uh, no, it was
3.
Okay.
Well, cool.
Thanks for sharing that with us.
It's, uh, it's, it's fun to play with these things.
All right.
All right, well, um, we'll talk to you again next time, I guess.
Yes, I'd also, I'd also like to make a collection to my, oh, there is a website out there that
explains how useful W3M is, and is a text terminal for Unix systems.
It's W3M.rocks.
.rocks.
That's a, that's a top-level domain.
Yeah, that's a new, that's a new TLD.
Oh, wow.
Okay, well, somebody get 2600.rocks before, before the bad people get it.
Yeah.
Or hope.rocks, that'd be cool, too.
Can we get that?
Yeah, why not?
All right, we'll look into this.
Thank you.
All right, sorry, oh, and also about, uh, WBAI, I was trying to, because I'm not in broadcast
range of WBAI, the station, I usually listen over the internet.
Right.
And I missed half of the show, and I missed half of the show, because of that, it was,
I, of course, um, I usually use TuneIn, or one of the, uh, streaming apps to get on.
Yeah, but unfortunately, TuneIn also uses WBAI as the source, and they, they've been having
massive trouble with the archives, with the stream, uh, but fortunately, we record it locally,
so what we put up on 2600.com, that will be the full show.
All right, well, hope to listen.
Thank you.
All right, take care.
Sorry about the hum.
Oh, don't apologize for the hum, Kyle.
No, I'm, I feel really embarrassed.
We love the hum.
The hum is part of us now.
No, no, the hum is...
If you get rid of that hum, I am going to be really pissed off.
Someone, uh, someone in the chat, uh, referred to the hum as the actual star of the show now,
so...
See?
That's what happens.
That's what happens.
The hum is loved.
All right.
I'm, I'm, uh, I'm very sad to report that both 2600.rocks and Hope.rocks seem to be,
uh, the property of what looks like domain squatters.
Son of a bitch.
You know what?
They can have it.
Yeah, they're going to get it, too.
We know we rock.
Yeah, but, but, but does the rest of the world?
We rock.
We rock.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Yes, Kira?
And is it R-O-C-K-S or R-O-X?
R-O-C-K-S.
Yes.
Yeah, R-O-X isn't a TLD yet, but could be.
What else is going on?
Um, callers.
8-0-2-3-2-1-4-2-2-2-5.
Yeah, call us with the loudest phone you have, because, um, I don't know what it is.
Tonight, we seem to have soft-spoken callers.
Um, you know, I, we, some, some loud mouths we, we would like to hear from.
Well, it depends what they say, I guess, but at least we won't hear the hum.
You can also reach us at 833-755-2600.
Okay.
Maybe we'll get to the bottom, the bottom of this thing.
Do you want to know some, some domains that were created yesterday in the .rox top-level domain?
Yes, sir.
Want to hear some of them?
Yeah, go ahead.
While we're here for a call?
Yeah.
Um, did you .rox get my .rox, my job .rox, which I don't know, what a, what a dork you have
to be to get my job .rox, jerk, the bend .rox, swatting .rox.
Oh, that's not good.
Yeah.
Maybe that's an exterminator for bugs.
Yeah.
Let's, let's look up that one.
Let's look up that one.
Oh, wait, no.
Oops, that's, that's the wrong domain.
Swatting .rox.
Let's see what the config is there.
Yeah, that was created yesterday at 1849 Zulu time with name server records pointing to
Cloudflare, of course.
So who the hell knows what swatting .rox is going to be.
Annoying.
Yeah.
To say the least.
Now, if we want to know that the domains that have just expired in .rox.
How long has .rox been around?
It's been around for a while.
Well, no one told me about it.
A lot of domains, um, expiring.
0x0 .rox.
Um, askkick.rox is expiring.
Askkick.rox is going to be available?
Yeah, it will be.
Yep.
Oh, hell yeah.
Um, as well as rock, rockcovery.rox.
Yeah, that just never worked out.
Salestoday.rox.
I know that's one of your favorite publications, Emmanuel.
Good God.
We have a phone call, which has to be better than this.
Is kick rocks?
Can we available?
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Over time.
Go ahead.
Uh, yes.
I just wanted to ask a quick question, and I'm just going to hang up and listen to your
response.
Uh, the, uh, as far as the, uh, uh, uh, the event coming up this summer, uh, what do you
call it again?
Uh, Hackers on Planet Earth or Hope?
No, Hope.
I meant Hope.
Yes.
Can you talk, can you say something else about that?
Is there anything new about that?
Is there, is there a website somewhere where we can, uh, you know, look up who's, uh,
who's going to be there and stuff like that?
Yeah.
In fact, I'm glad you, you mentioned this because, uh, we did just announce in the past
week, our first batch of accepted talks.
If you go to hope.net and, uh, click on the talk section, you'll see a list.
That's a very tiny part of what we have.
Uh, I think we, we have about 20 talks up there.
We're going to have at least a hundred.
We've had more submissions this conference than I think we have ever had before.
And we still have the entire month of May to go for more submissions.
So it's, it's really, uh, it's, it's turning into, uh, uh, something that is bigger than
we thought it would be, um, workshops.
Um, we have more workshops than ever before.
In fact, we have so many of those that we're going to, um, cut them off next Tuesday.
That'll be the deadline.
If you have a workshop idea to submit, uh, go to the workshop section of hope.net, but
everything else is on that website, including how to get tickets, uh, where it is, um, and
all kinds of other information.
But if you have anything to ask here, feel free.
Oh, no, that's all I need to know.
Like hope.net.
Correct.
Is that the website?
Yeah.
At St.
John's university in Queens.
Spread the word.
Yes, please.
Thank you.
All right.
Take care.
We always forget to promote the damn conference.
Why is that?
Well, we have excellent callers that remind us that call sounded a little better.
I'm just observing something about it, but you're right.
We should be talking, um, a bit more about the event, but if people have questions about
hope, please, uh, feel free to, to call in and ask or write O T H at 2600.com.
We'll answer your letter, um, about hope there.
If, if, uh, if we can, if, uh, it isn't some, uh, something that you can find on the website,
we'll do our best.
We are so bad at promoting that, um, we really need help in getting the word out.
A lot of people don't know about hope, even though, you know, we have the website, but
if you don't know about the website, how are you going to find out that we have social
media, but people have been leaving social media in droves or which social media do they,
do they go on to?
So basically, you know, we need help word of mouth, uh, to, to let people know about
hope.
Hope.net is the website.
It's taking place August 15th through 17th, St. John's university in Queens.
It's an amazing campus, uh, a lot of space, a lot of places for us to hang out.
And, um, it's going to be, it's going to be so much fun.
Like I said, we've had so many, um, um, so many talk submissions, so many workshop submissions
and, um, uh, interest, but we do need more attendees.
That is, that is for damn sure if we're going to survive.
So please help spread the word.
Yeah.
And in all kinds of novel ways that we might not know about, please do that.
Uh, the, as you said, those, uh, platforms don't really have the same reach and it doesn't
work the same way.
We're not PR people per se.
And of course we're, uh, busy, uh, working on the event and, and, uh, planning parts of
it.
So anybody that can augment and share and, uh, uh, reference past content, share some of
the videos that we host on channel 2600 here on YouTube.
If, um, if you send that around or tell people about it, that might be interested or groups,
clubs, please do it because it really helps.
It really goes a long way.
And we absolutely want to have, uh, uh, a nice, uh, a nice amount of people to host
and, and show all of these incredible workshops and, and presentations.
And if for whatever reason, you can't make it to New York city in the middle of August,
but you still want to support the conference can get a virtual ticket.
It's a fraction of the cost and you'll get access to all the talks.
You'll be able to ask questions, interact with other attendees, but most of all, you'll
be supporting the conference and making the next one possible because, you know, as of
this year, because of all the crap that's going on, we decided to go annual.
People told us they need this event.
They need to be able to, um, express themselves and gather and learn things and just feel like,
um, their community matters, that they belong.
But in order to do that, we obviously need people to support the conference, either by
showing up in person or showing up virtually.
So hope.net, all the info is there.
Yeah.
At long last, we are doing this annually in earnest.
It had been something we were a bit reluctant about.
I'm going to say it was, you know, a lot to, um, to actually imagine, but the timing and
the need given the, the greater context with what's going on in technology and stuff, it
felt like this moment, actually, this was the time to, to step it up and create this opportunity
for people to present for people to check things out and learn and share about technology.
So here it is.
And, uh, please tell a friend, tell everybody, uh, as many people as you can.
We, we really want to have a, a really fantastic event and can, to continue to do it, especially
in these interesting times.
And we have a phone call.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook overtime.
Go ahead.
Is somebody there?
Technically.
Yeah.
Did they step away from the phone?
That could have happened.
Let's give them a moment.
Uh, is anybody out there?
We have picked up the phone line.
Finally.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Can you hear me?
Damn it, Alex.
Are you on the phone too?
Or are you just on?
He isn't.
He just, I don't know what he's doing.
I just, I just did that.
Disconnect that.
We only have a couple of minutes left.
So if anybody else calls in, it has to be fast and quick and hopefully loud because of
our, our hum there.
Sorry for interrupting the phone caller, but it is typical that, you know, we finish our
thoughts and then go to the call.
So please don't be alarmed if we answer the phone and you hear us, but we're not quite
ready to talk to you.
Yeah.
That's why we put you on hold.
802.
You're safely tucked away.
802-321-4225.
That's 802-321-HACK.
You can also reach us at 833-755-2600.
I believe that's a toll free number.
Well, somebody called one of those numbers and this will be our last call.
And good evening.
You are on off the hook over time.
Go ahead.
Hello.
Yes.
I'm calling from my computer.
Can you hear me better?
Rebel, we, you're not fooling anybody and you're tying up the line for somebody else.
So we're going to disconnect from you and leave the line open for somebody else.
We sure hope you're able to get out of your computer.
802-321-4225.
I want to give this a couple of minutes and rebel, if you call again, you'll be banned.
And we don't want to do that.
It's been banned more than anybody.
If only Rebel knew how to open ports on his system, he might be able to get out.
He needs those ports more than...
I don't know how to, how to explain ports to somebody who doesn't seem to see the parallel
between today's computer ports and yesterday's computer ports.
Well, ports in an OS...
Any port in a storm.
Ports in an OS are distinct from ports in IP layers, right?
Now you're asking.
I don't know these things.
I'm not an expert on...
Well, we don't talk about this stuff enough.
Do...
Yeah, I don't know if I want to talk about it more.
We just have to say the wrong thing and then be corrected.
And that's how we get the right answer.
Yeah, okay.
A port is like a directory where you keep all your files and such.
That ought to get some...
That ought to get some mail coming in.
Yeah, a port is like a PowerPoint presentation.
That too.
A port is the left side of a boat.
It's a clip art.
Well, in Canada, yeah, but not here.
Port outbound Starbird Home.
One more minute and then we are closing up shop for the night.
We did have a question I wanted to relay across, which is,
is there going to be an app this year?
Is there going to be an app this year?
What kind of a question is that?
It's Hope App.
Oh, wow.
I imagine.
I mean, if we had one before, we'll have one again.
I don't know.
I can't remember who is doing that.
See, yeah, we need people to do things, to volunteer.
And make these projects happen because, yeah, everyone loves the event
and the projects and things like that.
But it's so hard to find people to do simple things,
like designing websites, for instance,
or just making an app that works well,
or having some kind of a program that can handle scheduling.
You know, they exist.
They're great.
But you need to have a number of people to do them.
We have a great staff.
Don't get me wrong.
It's just, it's an ongoing thing.
And especially if we're going to be annual now,
we need more people to step up.
And that's been a challenge.
And, you know, I'd say at least half of it
is because we're bad at reaching out
and getting the right people to participate.
But I'm expressing that that is a need that we have.
And you can go to the volunteer section of the website, hope.net,
and mail us and tell us what you're interested in.
And guaranteed, we will appreciate that
and become a valuable part of our community.
We are indeed recruiting.
We want people in the ranks of volunteering,
of coordinating, of in all regards.
This is like all hands on deck.
People have, they come and go,
and we have to retain people
and retain the ingenuity.
As technologies change,
we want people that have expertise in different things
because a lot of that evolves
and people that were familiar with one thing
don't necessarily,
they may not really be interested
in what newer things are being used.
So there's plenty of examples.
Oftentimes though, with regard to the app,
I think that may be in reference to scheduling.
That usually is something that
once we've shared the wider schedule
or talks come up,
someone will take that from the site
and apply it
and build something themselves.
It's often come from the community,
come from people on the volunteer lists
and ranks that are just passionate
and say like,
this should be in app form
and it is made so.
So anyway, that's an ongoing thing
and I absolutely,
I really hope we continue to have new faces
and new ideas coming from people.
Speaking of which,
I think we have a new person on the phone.
Kyle?
Yeah, but I believe this person called before.
Let's find out.
Good evening.
You're on off the cover time.
Go ahead.
This is an old person.
Check out IO ports
on the IBM PC architecture.
Goodbye.
Okay.
Thanks for that closing remark
because we're done for the night.
Yeah.
I think we're just confusing ourselves.
I've been confused in the beginning.
Yeah, ports are like,
they're like a fine...
Why are we talking about this?
It's like a fine wine.
Oh my God.
It's like a sherry.
Well, there is port wine.
I mean, that's like dessert wine.
But it's also like a session,
I want to say,
or like a processing.
I don't know.
I'm thinking like on a multi-user system.
Well, we can amuse about this
in the time that we have
before the next show.
Indeed, hackers.
What are ports?
Write to us.
O-T-H at 2600.com.
And that goes for
what you've heard on Overtime
as well as
what you've heard on the radio show.
And we'll keep things humming.
Hopefully not.
And I'm sorry for this person calling in,
but we're out of time.
Oh, this is an overseas call.
Okay, fine.
Really?
Thank you, Connor.
Let them get in on this.
Come on.
No, it's okay.
I've got all the time in the world.
Good evening.
You're on Overtime.
Go ahead, overseas.
Hello, everybody.
Hello.
Where are you calling from?
It's from London.
Oh, wow.
You sounded different somehow.
Maybe it's the hum.
It's me putting on funny voices.
Well, I'm glad we didn't miss this one.
Yeah, I just wanted to phone up quickly
to find out if the hum
is actually on international calls as well.
It is.
It sounds a little more sophisticated,
but it's still a hum.
It's us, not you.
Yes.
In a different accent.
So how are things over in the UK there?
Is that...
As far as I know, everything's okay.
I'm not too good still,
but that's just me.
Yeah.
Well, it's good to hear your voice.
It always cheers us up.
I'm not sure why,
but it just does.
I think it's all the comedy
and the jokes that I do.
Yeah.
No, you're quite entertaining to talk to
and to hang out with.
Yeah, I thought I'd give it a quick call
just to see about the hum,
but now that I'm on the phone,
I was thinking,
when we were in Europe,
you could go abroad
on a driving license
because the UK
doesn't have identity cards
where the rest of Europe
I think does.
I know Spain definitely does.
Now,
to travel though between countries,
well, you're not in the EU anymore,
but to travel within countries in the EU,
I don't think you need
any kind of card,
do you?
You need some form of ID
if you're traveling,
so I would have thought
a driving license
at the bare minimum.
Uh-huh.
Now you need a passport.
You do need a passport
between countries in the EU?
You do now
because we're out, aren't we?
Oh, yeah,
the UK does.
That's true.
Well, you know,
it's becoming more
of a surveillance state
and we just have to
accept this
because I don't think
enough people care.
What do you mean
it's getting more
of a surveillance state?
We've always been
a surveillance state.
Yeah, but they're getting
better at it.
You know,
this whole real ID thing,
that worries me.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, it's being solidified.
It's in the psyche
and people think
then in questioning it,
you become sort of a
the anomaly, right?
Versus people
just accepting it
and in accepting it,
they're not asking questions.
You don't get to augment it.
You don't have representation
refining it
and creating ways
that it protects people
and doesn't become
as abusive as it is.
You know,
I remember something
going back to
one of my first trips
over to Europe
being in Germany
where people were upset
at the introduction
of German ID cards
which supposedly
was something that
you know,
they were very
opposed to
for the most part.
But I happened
to look at one of those
and I noticed
that they had
the same
pattern of numbers
that U.S. passports
had at the bottom.
And that's when I realized
that these systems,
at least some of them,
are tied together
and they use
the same formatting.
So I can only imagine
now how sophisticated
they are,
how tied together
they are.
We got stopped
by Germans once
in Frankfurt,
the police.
That's true,
we did, yeah.
We were just walking.
We were just walking
in Frankfurt,
probably coming home
from food or something.
Or no,
we were down
in a train stop
and then we just like
came up to the street level.
I seem to remember
a tunnel of some sort.
Yeah,
we had been like
down there
and then like
came up to the street level
and then we were like
basically just got
spot checked
for randomly,
I guess,
because we're,
I don't know,
suspect.
But yeah,
we had to like
show our passports
and all that.
That's why you have to
keep that on you
when you're traveling.
I once had a ticket inspector,
a couple of ticket inspectors
on an S-Bond train.
So basically the way
it works there
is you get on the train
and you're supposed
to have a ticket.
It's kind of like
the select buses
in New York
where they might inspect
for the ticket
or they might not.
And this was many years ago.
I thought it was
somebody asking for money.
So when they nudge me,
I just said,
no, thank you.
And they don't like that.
So when I found
I was a ticket inspector,
I was able to find
my ticket forthwith.
But that is
the appropriate response.
Well, I'm a New Yorker.
I'm used to that.
With any of those circumstances.
Just keep your eyes down
and don't make eye contact.
Especially with police.
Just say no thank you
to anybody.
Or ticket inspectors.
Just tell them no thank you.
Yeah, yeah.
They didn't appreciate
the English either.
Anything else, Zapp?
Yeah, you were saying
about numbers on the passport.
I'm sure I remember
that my American visa
had part of the number
that's linked to the passport.
Okay.
So maybe it's
a passport number
that's linked somewhere.
I'm sure it is.
I'd love to study that
or have an article
on that or something.
But when you came
to the U.S.,
you had to get a visa?
Unfortunately, yes.
Interesting.
And that's true
presently as well?
Yeah, go on.
Pardon?
Is that true presently
that people from the U.K.
have to get a visa?
No, I'm a special case.
Oh, okay.
I was, unfortunately,
have some legal problems.
I see.
So at the time,
even if you got arrested
and there was no conviction,
you would still need
to apply for an American visa.
It was one of the criterias
of going to America
in 1997.
I wanted to be 100% legal,
so I asked at the embassy
and they said,
no, you will need a visa.
And then they checked
into my dodgy pass
and found out
I'm not that much
of a risk
so I was allowed to go.
Uh-huh.
And what did the visa
look like?
Was it a full page
of your passport
or was it a separate document?
Yeah.
I've got my old passport
in front of me.
It's no longer valid,
but it's actually one page
and it was valid
for 10 years.
Oh, wow.
And I used it three times.
Well, that's pretty cool.
I like those full page visas,
like going to China,
going to Belarus,
going to Russia.
You get the full page visas
and they're just great to save.
Yeah.
So I don't know
what the rules are now.
I think they've changed
a little bit.
So if I was to go
to America again,
I'd probably have to go
through the whole process.
but I would need to check
with the American embassy.
But I can guarantee
I'm not going to the U.S.
for the next four years.
No, that's probably wise.
And you might see us
over there
within the next four years.
We were thinking
the same thing.
But I think I might get
a virtual ticket to Hope.
I'll have to see
what my finances are.
Well, it'd be great
to have you virtually
or physically,
whichever.
We always appreciate
your presence.
It won't be physical,
so virtual is the best
I can do.
And with any luck,
I can convince
some of the other
U.K. 2600 groups
to do virtual as well.
Well, we could just
move the conference
over to the U.K.
What do you say, guys?
No, you don't want
to do that.
Well, yeah.
Well, maybe we'll pop over
for a visit all the same.
Yeah, on maybe
the Saturday
at the conference.
Yeah.
I still remember
the problems we had
with our first
Packer Conference
in 1995,
which I believe
you keynoted, Emmanuel.
Oh, that was the one
at, what, King's College
with all the heat?
Yep.
I remember it well.
There was something wrong.
It was summertime
and the heat
was on full blast.
Yeah, that's the time
in the English, too.
They put the radio
to the zone on summer.
Was that the one
where I jumped out
a window?
No, that was in 1996.
Wow, you have my life
catalog better than I do.
Yeah, I somehow,
I had to be in Paris
the next day
and there was a party
in a pub
but the pub
was shutting its doors
at like, I think,
1 a.m.
But the party
could still go on.
It's just nobody
could go in or out,
which left me
with the problem of,
well, how do I get
into a taxi
to get to the airport
if I can't get out?
Which, when I think
about it, boy,
what a real fire hazard
that must have been.
But somebody there,
I think his name
was Dodger,
had abseiling equipment
for some reason
and hooked it up
so that I could just
step out
facing frontwards,
facing towards the building.
I could just step out
and descend
onto the street.
And of course,
that's not what happened.
I just,
I was immediately
upside down.
And I wound up
on the street
and very cautiously
right as my cab
was arriving.
So it was,
it was quite a way to go.
Yeah, good times.
There's video
of that somewhere.
There is.
Unfortunately,
I can't find my copy,
which is a shame.
And I can't find
my digital copy either.
But I think it was
uploaded to the
2600 FTP site.
Well, I'll try to find it
and we'll try to
send you a copy.
We have your email
address, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Quick question.
Is the 2600 FTP site
still up?
You know,
I haven't thought
about that in many years.
So I don't know
if it is.
If you're able
to reach it,
that's more than
I can do.
But yes,
it hasn't been maintained.
Let's put it that way.
Okay.
And I'm trying to think
in 96,
that's when you convinced
all the UK people
to come to America
for Beyond Hope.
The second conference.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anyway.
Yeah, that was
that was historic.
That was the only one
that took place
in the Puck Building
downtown
as opposed to
Hotel Pennsylvania.
Neither of which
still exists.
The Puck Building
is now,
what is it,
REI?
Yeah,
it's an outdoor
sporting goods store.
Uh-huh.
And Hotel Penn
is a pile of rubble.
But St. John's University
is awesome
and it's got
everything we need
and more.
Yeah,
I've heard
from people
that have actually
gone to say
it's really good.
Yeah.
On-site dorms
and everything
so it makes it
a lot easier.
If you can get
an on-site dorm.
I recommend it
because the hotels
have sold out
from what I understand
but the dormitories
are,
because of how late
it is in the summer,
we have full rain.
There aren't other groups
that are taking up dorms
so,
you know,
we can fit
a lot of people
in there.
It's not a hotel room,
there's no TV
in the room,
but you're right
on-site
and you walk
out the door
and you're at hope.
It's safe,
you can get
some quiet,
some distance
from the event.
Yeah,
think of it
like you're
going camping
except you're
in a building.
And it's also
in crawling distance.
Uh-huh,
uh-huh.
And it's cheap
as hell too.
It's like under
a hundred bucks
a night
per person.
Yeah,
that's the pros.
The cons are
just staying
a little bit longer
in America
then you've
got to find
other accommodations.
Well,
that's true.
Hope doesn't
last forever.
Okay,
that's it.
All right.
I don't know
when I'll tune in
again,
but everyone
have fun
and I'll
keep listening
and keep
joking
on the chat.
Okay,
I'm very glad
you called Zap.
I'm glad we stuck
around for that
one extra call.
Thank you,
Carl,
for the notification.
Thanks for all
you do
with meetings
and shout-outs
to everybody,
all the different
locations out there
in the UK.
Thanks for that.
All right,
you be well.
All right,
see you there,
everybody.
Take care.
Take care.
And with that,
Zap and the
Hummer gone.
All right,
we have a minute
before we sign off
to say whatever
people need to say.
We zap the hum.
I will just say,
where did I put it?
I put it right here.
Keep WBAI going.
Go to buddy.wbai.org
or call 833-WBAI-NYC.
That's 833-922-4692
to throw in with
what support you can
to keep us going
over on our radio
home.
Please subscribe
to this channel.
No,
no.
I mean,
yeah,
if you want to,
but we're not
going to say that.
Like and subscribe
bullshit is what it is.
If you dislike us,
please like us.
Couldn't care less.
Every damn channel
on YouTube is the same.
They always are doing this
and Google with their
damn ads.
I was watching
the damn chimney
with the Pope,
you know,
to see if it was going
to be black or white
today and Google
inserts an ad
in the middle of that.
What if the Pope
got selected right then?
I would have missed it.
I don't think
I don't think
that,
you know,
the Reuters News Agency
or AP
or any of the other
outlets that are
broadcasting this
are basically
asking for Google
ad money.
I really don't think so.
Used to be
you could just
watch a feed for hours
and it was
a service.
You think the Cardinals
will just like
stick a firecracker,
like a firework in there
and just Roman candles
out the chimney?
It's purple smoke.
I did want to share
one thing
from the chat
a little earlier.
A user named
Unix Ninja
said,
hackers aren't omniscient,
just curious.
That's a question
or a statement?
That's a statement.
Hackers aren't omniscient,
just curious.
I would like that
on a sampler.
They are just curious.
I get it.
Yes,
that was a comment
somebody else had asked
if they're hackers,
why can't they figure out
the audio issue?
And that was
a very apropos response,
which I appreciate.
We're hackers,
that's why there is
an audio issue,
because we're always
messing with things.
Yeah,
it's,
I think,
to say,
to be generous,
I think,
you have to,
you may not be as familiar
in asking that,
because,
yeah,
there's some scrappiness.
We're not funded,
or,
you know,
this is independent stuff,
and we cobbled things together,
and we don't have
a big commercial entity
or broadcast set up.
We found this board
in a dumpster.
This was a hand-me-down board,
yeah.
And,
yeah,
I guess that's
another good reason
to support WBAI,
because they themselves
keep things going
with people's
operational,
their contributions
to their
operational efforts.
And we do our best
with the equipment
we have,
both when we're
on the road
and
using
commercial apps
as we did
with Skype
for so long.
And we don't
understand everything.
That's the thing
with hacking
in general,
as the
person
responded
to that question.
It's not
that we're
experts,
right?
Like,
being a hacker
doesn't mean
you're
necessarily
an expert.
You may
aspire to that
in some field,
but then
there are fields
that you may not
have any kind
of familiarity
with.
And the
vastness
of technology
and even
the telephone
system
or
computers
or software
development,
it is a lifetime
in and of itself
to master
any one
aspect of it.
So,
I implore people,
give others
a break,
be kind,
forgive yourself
if you're not
an expert
immediately
in things.
This is a
practice.
It's like
any hobby,
like any
interest
or vocation.
It takes time
to even
learn a sliver
of any of it.
And you may
not ever
be the best
at any one
thing.
Or even
a particular
thing,
you may have
good days
and bad days
and that goes
to setting up
equipment and
we do our best.
We all do our best.
And I just
think that
that may
get lost
because we
might have
opinions about
something,
we might
approximate
our specific
take on
something.
It doesn't
mean that
we have
the final say
or that
we've figured
it out.
And to be
scolded in
that way,
as I said,
is really
just
emblematic
of being
unfamiliar
with hackers
because they
aren't all
experts,
but they
get together
and we
encourage that
with the
conference
and with
this radio
show and
in publishing
and reading
letters and
encouraging
people to
check things
out in the
magazine or
independently,
that sharing.
And I
personally,
my interest is
teaching and
learning.
I like
creating
understanding.
If you can
learn stuff,
if you can
teach stuff so
that others
learn,
you're doing
a lot for
society and
for your
community.
And I
think it's
really important
to emphasize
that.
Yeah, just
because you
become the
expert, that
was what it
was back in
the day when
you couldn't
talk to
people without
spending a
lot.
Well, now
that we have
sort of
wider open
networks, I
think it's a
benefit to
share what
you know a
little bit.
And there's
so much
emphasizing in
private circles
and in
government to
not talk
about technology,
to not talk
about security
or encryption
or whatever
knowledge is
being held
sacred.
We're not
about that.
We want
people to
understand.
We want
to try to
teach as
best we
can.
We want
to learn
as best
we can
to get
better so
that society
itself evolves,
so that there
is no longer
a digital
divide.
And that
has become
a chasm.
That chasm
has become
ever smaller
because people
understand technology
a lot more
and we want
that to
continue.
So, yeah,
it's about
sharing what
you know,
but also
teaching others
and teach us.
Yeah, if
somebody out
there knows
about this,
it would
help us
greatly,
but troubleshooting
hums is
never fun.
All right.
We, oh,
I gotta get
that.
we are,
I think,
done for
the night.
Any other
final words
from anybody
out there?
Skype?
Not Skype,
I'm sorry,
Signal Inn?
Dead name
the chat.
Yes.
Good night,
everyone.
Good night.
Yes, we'll
see you next
week.