[00:12.280 --> 00:13.740] [SPEAKER_01]: We'll let the machine get that.
[00:13.960 --> 00:15.000] [SPEAKER_01]: I am busy.
[00:15.640 --> 00:16.820] [SPEAKER_01]: A very good evening.
[00:17.000 --> 00:20.920] [SPEAKER_01]: The time is just about 7.01 p.m.
[00:21.740 --> 00:28.740] [SPEAKER_01]: You are listening to radio station WBAI 99.5 FM, WBAI.org everywhere.
[00:29.420 --> 00:33.880] [SPEAKER_01]: And it is just about time for another exciting edition of Off The Hook.
[00:39.610 --> 00:44.150] [SPEAKER_04]: The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
[00:45.070 --> 00:49.650] [SPEAKER_04]: I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
[00:50.310 --> 00:57.940] [SPEAKER_04]: We couldn't get much rock and wood from Diddley Bump, but the best is paid for worst.
[00:58.460 --> 01:00.420] [SPEAKER_04]: I hope that's understood.
[01:00.700 --> 01:01.500] [SPEAKER_04]: From Diddley Bump!
[01:37.180 --> 01:39.960] [SPEAKER_01]: A very, very good evening to you.
[01:41.000 --> 01:43.160] [SPEAKER_01]: Program is Off The Hook.
[01:43.860 --> 01:44.580] [SPEAKER_01]: Rob T.
[01:44.700 --> 01:45.700] [SPEAKER_01]: Firefly here with you.
[01:45.840 --> 01:48.080] [SPEAKER_01]: And I am joined by Gila.
[01:48.280 --> 01:48.720] [SPEAKER_05]: Good evening.
[01:49.320 --> 01:52.180] [SPEAKER_01]: And out in Skype-land, we have Alex.
[01:55.100 --> 01:56.300] [SPEAKER_01]: Alex, can you hear us?
[01:58.380 --> 02:00.120] [SPEAKER_01]: Alex, can you hear us?
[02:00.740 --> 02:02.580] [SPEAKER_05]: Can you feel us near you?
[02:07.020 --> 02:07.460] [SPEAKER_01]: Skype-land.
[02:07.960 --> 02:08.840] [SPEAKER_01]: Not Skype-land.
[02:09.060 --> 02:09.500] [SPEAKER_01]: Signalland.
[02:10.420 --> 02:11.600] [SPEAKER_01]: Whatever land it is.
[02:12.180 --> 02:13.940] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm wondering if the land can hear us.
[02:14.220 --> 02:18.380] [SPEAKER_01]: While we work on that, let's see what...
[02:18.380 --> 02:19.200] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[02:21.160 --> 02:22.160] [SPEAKER_01]: Alex, are you with us?
[02:25.710 --> 02:26.550] [SPEAKER_02]: I am.
[02:26.670 --> 02:27.170] [SPEAKER_02]: I am now.
[02:27.170 --> 02:28.030] [SPEAKER_02]: There you are.
[02:28.210 --> 02:28.830] [SPEAKER_02]: There we go.
[02:29.450 --> 02:29.670] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[02:30.110 --> 02:32.790] [SPEAKER_01]: I turned you up, and turned you up, and turned you up.
[02:33.150 --> 02:34.570] [SPEAKER_01]: And then you blew my ears out.
[02:35.510 --> 02:35.950] Okay.
[02:37.350 --> 02:38.150] [SPEAKER_02]: There we are.
[02:38.430 --> 02:40.830] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a process, this program we do.
[02:40.830 --> 02:43.450] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, you know, it's a celebratory evening tonight, so...
[02:43.450 --> 02:44.750] [SPEAKER_01]: It really is.
[02:44.930 --> 02:48.630] [SPEAKER_01]: It's, you know, it's a cultural sort of day of celebration.
[02:48.950 --> 02:53.170] [SPEAKER_01]: And Alex, I understand you're out there, running around there, out there in the world somewhere.
[02:53.430 --> 02:54.030] [SPEAKER_01]: What are you up to?
[02:54.110 --> 02:54.790] [SPEAKER_02]: I am.
[02:54.930 --> 02:56.170] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm in Florida.
[02:56.790 --> 03:12.190] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm, believe it or not, I'm actually sitting in my little sister's driveway here, because we've just showed up for Christmas Eve dinner here, and so I won't be able to stay the entire show with you guys, I'm sad to say.
[03:12.530 --> 03:17.110] [SPEAKER_02]: But I will hang out for, you know, 15, 20 minutes, something like that, just to see everybody off.
[03:17.390 --> 03:36.090] [SPEAKER_02]: And next week as well, I think, is New Year's Eve, and so this may be the last show of the year for me, because I will be abroad next week, and maybe I'll try to join a little bit after midnight, my time, because I'll be in London next week.
[03:36.270 --> 03:42.590] [SPEAKER_02]: So depending upon how things are going over at the Chelsea Arts Club, I will, you know, perhaps join.
[03:42.970 --> 03:51.490] [SPEAKER_02]: But I might be, I would anticipate being a little bit over-served as well while joining the radio next week.
[03:51.710 --> 03:57.850] [SPEAKER_02]: But, yeah, I'm in Florida here, and kind of down in the Fort Myers area.
[03:58.230 --> 04:05.410] [SPEAKER_02]: As some of the listeners will probably remember, my sister called in a couple of years ago during, I think it was Hurricane Ian, right?
[04:05.410 --> 04:05.850] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yes.
[04:06.010 --> 04:15.030] [SPEAKER_02]: This place was really devastated, and I was around Sanibel Island today, where you could see still the vestiges of that devastation.
[04:15.610 --> 04:33.690] [SPEAKER_02]: But I have to say, it's being down in Florida for this particular Christmas has been somewhat emotionally raw for me, too, because this is the first time that I've been back down to Florida during Christmas, which I used to always do with my mother.
[04:34.390 --> 04:40.290] [SPEAKER_02]: And as you all will remember, my mother passed away in July of 2024.
[04:41.130 --> 04:47.110] [SPEAKER_02]: So I haven't been back down this way for Christmas since then, and got to see my stepfather a bit.
[04:47.270 --> 04:52.390] [SPEAKER_02]: And then I didn't realize, you know, how much it would affect me being back down here, but not seeing my mother.
[04:52.990 --> 05:00.630] [SPEAKER_02]: And we've been staying at this resort that we went to with her down in the Cape Coral area.
[05:00.670 --> 05:04.190] [SPEAKER_02]: So not too far from my sister, but over on the West Coast.
[05:05.070 --> 05:07.010] [SPEAKER_02]: And my mother really loved this place.
[05:07.010 --> 05:12.510] [SPEAKER_02]: We went there with her a couple of years before she got sick, and then she loved it so much that she went back with her friends.
[05:12.770 --> 05:14.550] [SPEAKER_02]: And so it was a special place for us.
[05:14.610 --> 05:16.230] [SPEAKER_02]: And we decided that we would go back there.
[05:16.310 --> 05:25.530] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's been so crazy to me because I'm in the same space that we used to be in together, but in a different time.
[05:25.530 --> 05:39.310] [SPEAKER_02]: And there's something about time and space that is, you know, that's brought back all these memories and all these emotions that's made it a lot more resonant, I think, than just being a memory of itself.
[05:39.510 --> 05:42.150] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, there's a vibration there of this particular memory.
[05:42.450 --> 05:53.230] [SPEAKER_02]: And it allows me, I think, to hold those memories a little bit closer, being in that same space, even if it's at a different time, if that makes any sense at all, I guess.
[05:53.230 --> 05:57.870] [SPEAKER_02]: But that's my way of saying, it's been an emotional time for me down here.
[05:57.990 --> 06:03.090] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm glad to see off the year with you guys for a little bit of it.
[06:03.890 --> 06:04.610] [SPEAKER_01]: Likewise, likewise.
[06:04.830 --> 06:11.270] [SPEAKER_01]: And we definitely look forward to next week if you can join us from next year and let us know how it's all going to turn out before we get there.
[06:12.910 --> 06:16.750] [SPEAKER_01]: Because, again, time and space and time wounds all heals.
[06:17.190 --> 06:22.590] [SPEAKER_01]: And as it is over here, New York is pretty much as you left it.
[06:23.370 --> 06:29.810] [SPEAKER_01]: I may have been to your place and started a little fire this morning, but I think it's probably under control.
[06:31.230 --> 06:32.270] [SPEAKER_02]: That's fine with me.
[06:32.450 --> 06:33.430] [SPEAKER_02]: That'd be totally fine.
[06:33.430 --> 06:38.210] [SPEAKER_02]: I wouldn't mind if my building actually, you know, went up in flames.
[06:38.370 --> 06:41.470] [SPEAKER_02]: As long as I'm not in it, of course, that would be totally fine.
[06:42.490 --> 06:45.830] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but I hear you guys are bracing for snow or something, right?
[06:45.870 --> 06:47.430] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's like 85 degrees down here.
[06:47.590 --> 06:48.370] [SPEAKER_02]: It's extraordinary.
[06:48.950 --> 06:50.870] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it's definitely not 85 degrees here.
[06:51.830 --> 06:56.910] [SPEAKER_05]: No, I'm hearing somewhere in the area of like four to five inches of snow, I think.
[06:57.230 --> 07:03.610] [SPEAKER_05]: The band is, I think, the full storm, I think, is eight on the high end, but not in the city.
[07:05.870 --> 07:09.650] [SPEAKER_05]: I saw someone say it's not going to be a white Christmas, but it'll be a white weekend.
[07:10.810 --> 07:15.590] [SPEAKER_05]: Which I think you have to be very careful about quoting, because that could be really bad in certain contexts.
[07:15.910 --> 07:18.010] [SPEAKER_05]: But, no, it's good.
[07:18.010 --> 07:22.490] [SPEAKER_05]: It'll be a nice, snowy, early weekend.
[07:22.650 --> 07:29.550] [SPEAKER_05]: And I will say that my big plan for next week is trying to maybe go back to my office for a day.
[07:29.550 --> 07:32.430] [SPEAKER_05]: I figure, you know, do it in a slow season.
[07:34.110 --> 07:39.930] [SPEAKER_05]: And when, like, there's no school, so the trains will be a little emptier and see how that process goes.
[07:40.170 --> 07:40.310] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[07:40.450 --> 07:49.010] [SPEAKER_01]: And for those who might not have listened to last week's show yet, you had a bit of a medical situation, which has necessitated you staying home for a while.
[07:49.330 --> 07:49.390] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[07:49.390 --> 07:51.650] [SPEAKER_05]: I had emergency surgery two weeks ago tomorrow.
[07:52.630 --> 07:59.690] [SPEAKER_05]: And I did actually have my post-op follow up with my surgeon today, who said everything is healing great, and things are on the right track.
[07:59.990 --> 08:01.230] [SPEAKER_05]: So, hooray!
[08:01.230 --> 08:01.290] [SPEAKER_05]: Yay!
[08:02.070 --> 08:02.270] [SPEAKER_01]: Excellent.
[08:02.570 --> 08:07.410] [SPEAKER_01]: And we've had some well wishes from listeners and folks, and we definitely appreciate those.
[08:07.630 --> 08:08.050] [SPEAKER_05]: We definitely...
[08:08.050 --> 08:11.170] [SPEAKER_05]: We as a group do, but I certainly do.
[08:11.210 --> 08:14.090] [SPEAKER_05]: As a human being, it is...
[08:14.090 --> 08:15.430] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, but I appreciate them, too.
[08:15.570 --> 08:16.850] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, this is about me.
[08:16.890 --> 08:17.190] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, yeah, most things are.
[08:17.190 --> 08:17.730] [SPEAKER_01]: What's going on with you.
[08:17.810 --> 08:18.290] [SPEAKER_01]: It's about me.
[08:18.510 --> 08:18.550] [SPEAKER_01]: Most things are.
[08:18.630 --> 08:29.250] [SPEAKER_05]: But, no, the support I have received both from the on-air crew here and from our listeners who have wished me and us well.
[08:30.370 --> 08:32.650] [SPEAKER_05]: It's been remarkable.
[08:33.150 --> 08:38.930] [SPEAKER_05]: I was telling someone today that, yeah, we just spoke about my health last week for 15, 20 minutes.
[08:38.930 --> 08:45.890] [SPEAKER_05]: And I appreciate having all of you folks in my life.
[08:46.870 --> 08:56.830] [SPEAKER_05]: It really is a gift to have this community and to have the support of a lot of people as I'm embarking on this particular healing journey.
[08:58.450 --> 09:02.870] [SPEAKER_01]: That's definitely something that I think comes into sharp relief for many right now.
[09:03.250 --> 09:06.530] [SPEAKER_01]: Many find this time of year nice and celebratory and everything.
[09:06.730 --> 09:12.210] [SPEAKER_01]: Many find this time of year particularly difficult to get through for a variety of reasons.
[09:12.450 --> 09:24.650] [SPEAKER_01]: But either way, the importance of finding your folks and, you know, maintaining contact with them, saying hi, checking in on folks cannot be overstated.
[09:25.070 --> 09:38.790] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think those of us in the WBAI community, in the hacker community, and just anyone out there, yeah, if there's someone you haven't called in a while, maybe give them a call, shoot them an email, text them, use some sort of messaging app.
[09:39.030 --> 09:44.050] [SPEAKER_01]: But, yeah, this is a time of year for saying hi and maybe being said hi, too.
[09:45.610 --> 09:47.230] [SPEAKER_01]: And, yeah, go from there.
[09:47.230 --> 09:53.570] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot going on in the news this week that is really of interest.
[09:56.270 --> 09:56.710] [SPEAKER_01]: PDFs.
[09:57.190 --> 09:57.630] [SPEAKER_05]: PDFs.
[09:58.210 --> 10:11.830] [SPEAKER_01]: I know, Alex, you probably can't stick around for too much of this story, but have you heard of this fun little story that's been going on about certain government-published documents with red actions that did not stick as these things go?
[10:12.330 --> 10:13.310] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yes.
[10:13.310 --> 10:24.150] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I heard that, you know, not surprisingly, like every time there's major redactions in some kind of public release, there are crafty people that figure out how to unredact these redactions.
[10:24.350 --> 10:31.070] [SPEAKER_02]: And I didn't dig into it too much because I've been running around Florida with my family here.
[10:31.070 --> 10:44.210] [SPEAKER_02]: But would I be right, Rob and Gila, in saying that a lot of the redactions were unredacted by things like cutting and pasting into Google Docs and other things?
[10:44.210 --> 10:49.310] [SPEAKER_02]: It seems like that's been one of the most effective ways of unredacting these documents.
[10:49.470 --> 10:49.690] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[10:49.930 --> 10:50.410] [SPEAKER_01]: Unbelievable.
[10:50.410 --> 10:58.170] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it's not particularly like the things are being unredacted so much as they were never redacted correctly in the first place.
[10:58.430 --> 11:01.730] [SPEAKER_01]: Most people, I think, listening will know what a PDF file is.
[11:01.850 --> 11:02.630] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a form of document.
[11:02.790 --> 11:08.390] [SPEAKER_01]: You can pull it up and it ostensibly looks the same on whatever computer, whatever device, whatever.
[11:08.810 --> 11:16.030] [SPEAKER_01]: But when the government published the latest batch of documents from the Epstein files, a lot of things were redacted.
[11:16.130 --> 11:17.870] [SPEAKER_01]: You would see black bars across the text.
[11:18.390 --> 11:26.570] [SPEAKER_01]: And to redact something in a digital text file properly, you have to do something that removes the text data.
[11:27.850 --> 11:31.210] [SPEAKER_01]: And the redactors of these files didn't always do that.
[11:31.330 --> 11:35.890] [SPEAKER_01]: They would paste a black bar over the letters, but the letters are still there.
[11:35.990 --> 11:48.970] [SPEAKER_01]: And you can't see them visually, but if you select the text and copy and paste into anything, notepad, a text editor, whatever, you would get the text that you were supposed to not be able to see.
[11:49.110 --> 11:50.250] [SPEAKER_05]: So let me make sure I understand.
[11:50.470 --> 11:50.690] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[11:50.790 --> 12:03.150] [SPEAKER_05]: This is the redaction equivalent of writing a mean letter in wingdings and leaving it in Word so that whoever could just come and change the font and find out what you were saying.
[12:03.350 --> 12:05.210] [SPEAKER_01]: That is an old school hack and I love it.
[12:05.950 --> 12:10.630] [SPEAKER_01]: The great thing about this is that there are tools out there.
[12:10.810 --> 12:19.130] [SPEAKER_01]: There is, there is a tool, um, there's a tool on GitHub by, uh, published by Freelaw Project and it is known as X-Ray.
[12:19.330 --> 12:21.050] [SPEAKER_01]: That's X dash and Ray.
[12:21.690 --> 12:28.890] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, the use of this tool is to use it to check your PDF files to see if there are any bad red actions.
[12:29.110 --> 12:36.050] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, obviously you're supposed to use this, um, to double check things you're publishing maybe to make sure you're not making any stupid mistakes.
[12:36.170 --> 12:43.570] [SPEAKER_01]: But if you point this at any batch of files you may have hold of, um, it will just as easily tell them if they have bad red actions in them.
[12:43.730 --> 12:45.990] [SPEAKER_01]: So, um, interesting stuff to play with there.
[12:46.370 --> 12:49.970] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, Freelaw Project on github.com.
[12:50.450 --> 12:53.950] [SPEAKER_01]: And people are, are finding all kinds of fun stuff.
[12:54.210 --> 13:14.790] [SPEAKER_01]: People are, uh, saying, you know, there's a, there's a bit of, uh, unredaction here published by on, uh, on Twitter by someone called Ed Krasenstein, um, where a section that's been redacted says, uh, defendants are also actively obstructed law enforcement by denying investigators access to Little St. James beyond its boat dock.
[13:15.270 --> 13:19.770] [SPEAKER_01]: Defendants also attempted to conceal their criminal sex trafficking and abuse conduct by paying.
[13:20.030 --> 13:24.690] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, and Krasenstein says, this is one file in the Epstein files that was released.
[13:24.690 --> 13:27.490] [SPEAKER_01]: And you won't believe how I unredacted these red actions.
[13:27.670 --> 13:31.370] [SPEAKER_01]: I simply highlighted the text, copied it, and pasted it in a document.
[13:31.710 --> 13:34.090] [SPEAKER_01]: Why is the Trump administration hiding this stuff?
[13:34.210 --> 13:36.330] [SPEAKER_01]: And why are they so freaking incapable?
[13:36.550 --> 13:37.470] [SPEAKER_05]: Of doing everything.
[13:37.710 --> 13:40.250] [SPEAKER_05]: How many other files are not really redacted?
[13:40.550 --> 13:40.990] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[13:41.150 --> 13:42.950] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's, that's, uh, that's the important thing here.
[13:43.010 --> 13:44.090] [SPEAKER_01]: They are not really redacted.
[13:44.150 --> 13:48.830] [SPEAKER_01]: This is not people breaking into anything to, uh, to access this information.
[13:49.050 --> 13:57.410] [SPEAKER_01]: This is people taking the documents that the government has put out there themselves and, uh, simply highlighting text and copying and pasting from it.
[13:57.770 --> 14:00.990] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, this is, this is not like, uh, you know, hacking the Gibson here.
[14:01.110 --> 14:02.410] [SPEAKER_01]: This is copying and pasting.
[14:02.990 --> 14:06.090] [SPEAKER_01]: And it is, it is fantastic that it, uh, that it's working.
[14:06.230 --> 14:06.570] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, Alex.
[14:07.590 --> 14:13.210] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, the, the, the level of incompetence here is somewhat astounding to me.
[14:13.330 --> 14:20.270] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, even after so many years of, of seeing the incompetence levels rising, kind of like the, like the sea levels here.
[14:20.830 --> 14:34.710] [SPEAKER_02]: But the, what, what, what I just don't understand is that Adobe has this, this redaction tool within the, the, you know, the program itself.
[14:34.950 --> 14:38.330] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's specifically for redacting text.
[14:38.470 --> 14:39.310] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's really simple.
[14:39.450 --> 14:45.970] [SPEAKER_02]: And you just literally make a square, you draw a square over the text that you want to redact and it's redacted.
[14:46.050 --> 14:50.570] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's redacted because like you said, Rob, it destroys the underlying text there, right?
[14:50.570 --> 14:54.590] [SPEAKER_02]: So that data that is underlying that text becomes unusable and unreadable.
[14:54.790 --> 15:02.830] [SPEAKER_02]: It's, it's like corrupting that particular, that aspect of beta within that particular, that, uh, that field that you have drawn.
[15:03.130 --> 15:03.330] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[15:03.330 --> 15:04.150] [SPEAKER_01]: And this is a...
[15:04.150 --> 15:04.370] [SPEAKER_02]: So here...
[15:04.370 --> 15:04.430] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[15:04.830 --> 15:05.430] [SPEAKER_01]: Go ahead.
[15:05.470 --> 15:05.630] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[15:05.730 --> 15:16.390] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, here people just assume that a square, that square, that redaction square is the equivalent, is the same as any other black square that you could draw.
[15:16.610 --> 15:26.850] [SPEAKER_02]: So they're drawing black squares and then cutting and pasting and then redrawing those black squares around other text and assuming that it's doing the same thing as the redaction black square.
[15:27.510 --> 15:33.750] [SPEAKER_02]: But why would, I mean, you have to, in the, um, and to bring this back to like legal terms, right?
[15:33.830 --> 15:36.290] [SPEAKER_02]: You have this rule of superfluity, right?
[15:36.390 --> 15:39.270] [SPEAKER_02]: Or that there shouldn't, nothing should have surplusage, right?
[15:39.270 --> 15:47.730] [SPEAKER_02]: When you're interpreting a contract, all the language is supposed to be given meaning and you're supposed to, you know, assume that one clause is not supposed to be surplus to another, right?
[15:47.730 --> 15:55.050] [SPEAKER_02]: So this redaction tool, people are just assuming is surplus to the square making tool, right?
[15:55.110 --> 15:57.210] [SPEAKER_02]: That it's the same thing, right?
[15:57.350 --> 15:59.230] [SPEAKER_02]: As opposed to something else.
[15:59.530 --> 16:05.510] [SPEAKER_02]: If it's the redaction tool, you're supposed to just use the redaction tool, not draw a square.
[16:05.830 --> 16:09.270] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, how many times do we have to do this over and over and over again?
[16:09.450 --> 16:10.190] [SPEAKER_02]: It's unbelievable.
[16:10.670 --> 16:12.610] [SPEAKER_01]: You want to know something funny about that?
[16:12.610 --> 16:31.070] [SPEAKER_01]: We got an email from a listener who didn't sign their email, so I won't say their name, but, uh, uh, they write, I have no clue if you'll see this in time for an upcoming show, but I've been informed via Twitter that the likely reason for the reason the recent Epstein files redactions being easy to bypass is that it is highly possible Doge cut their Acrobat Pro subscription.
[16:31.970 --> 16:38.650] [SPEAKER_01]: And Acrobat Pro is, uh, evidently the version of Acrobat with this redaction tool that would do it correctly.
[16:39.230 --> 16:51.510] [SPEAKER_01]: So if, uh, if, if the government agency that was handling this was not able to pay their Adobe bill because of Doge cutting their, uh, resources and, uh, ended up doing it the wrong way, this is only a theory.
[16:51.790 --> 17:06.210] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, they, they passed us some screenshots of what looked like, uh, you know, uh, some sort of conversation, whether this is on social media or privately, I don't know, but, uh, this was posted to Twitter and, uh, it is, it is people, uh, discussing apparently that,
[17:06.210 --> 17:13.630] [SPEAKER_01]: uh, the DOJ masters are incredibly miserly with Adobe Pro subscriptions, uh, which is what you need to do redactions correctly.
[17:13.870 --> 17:24.610] [SPEAKER_01]: So, uh, as, as our writer notice, uh, notes in the, in the email, um, it would be beautiful to, to see the scumbags at Doge get blamed for this mess.
[17:25.710 --> 17:30.510] [SPEAKER_01]: So it might be, it might be just incompetence with the people using the tools.
[17:30.510 --> 17:38.270] [SPEAKER_01]: It might be incompetence on an organizational level, um, forced by, uh, current, uh, screw uppery.
[17:38.610 --> 17:39.710] [SPEAKER_01]: Or it could be all of the above.
[17:39.930 --> 17:41.270] [SPEAKER_01]: It could be a bit of all of the above.
[17:41.410 --> 17:41.510] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[17:41.850 --> 17:44.270] [SPEAKER_01]: So this is truly a fascinating story.
[17:44.970 --> 17:45.350] [SPEAKER_01]: Go ahead.
[17:45.410 --> 17:46.710] [SPEAKER_02]: Or it could just be karma.
[17:47.090 --> 17:50.090] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think, I think karma, it might, it just might be that.
[17:50.310 --> 17:52.470] [SPEAKER_02]: That's the way to, to describe it perhaps.
[17:53.730 --> 17:54.090] [SPEAKER_02]: Unbelievable.
[17:54.790 --> 17:58.730] [SPEAKER_02]: But to get, to go back to it in the last few minutes here that I'll hang on with you guys.
[17:58.970 --> 18:10.950] [SPEAKER_02]: But, um, has anything been revealed from these redactions that weren't actual redactions that were cut and pasted into Notepad or Google Docs or Word or whatever?
[18:11.110 --> 18:13.890] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, have there been any major revelations so far?
[18:13.970 --> 18:19.810] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think there's a lot of documents, as I understand it, to, to, uh, to analyze.
[18:20.770 --> 18:21.830] [SPEAKER_01]: There, there is a lot.
[18:21.970 --> 18:27.630] [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know of any particular, uh, reveals just because I, I haven't been able to dig that far into the, uh, into the story as yet.
[18:27.750 --> 18:33.970] [SPEAKER_05]: But if there have been major revelations, they have not been massively publicly shared.
[18:34.430 --> 18:45.370] [SPEAKER_05]: The thing that I'm most reminded of, honestly, is when children learn how to play cards and children learn how to hold their cards in front of them so you can't see them.
[18:45.530 --> 18:47.850] [SPEAKER_05]: And then they just flip them real fast and say, oh, did you see?
[18:48.090 --> 18:48.930] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, did you see?
[18:49.650 --> 18:53.030] [SPEAKER_05]: And no, because they've turned it around for two seconds.
[18:57.550 --> 19:02.050] [SPEAKER_05]: Everything that has come out, people are obviously looking, they're parsing.
[19:02.510 --> 19:08.970] [SPEAKER_05]: If there have been major revelations, um, I don't believe they have been that publicly reported.
[19:10.010 --> 19:22.970] [SPEAKER_01]: But, um, Alex, uh, in the, in the last minute we have with you, um, what do you, what do you think of any sort of responsibilities people would have with these files and publishing the information that, um, was ostensibly not supposed to be decimated,
[19:23.130 --> 19:26.990] [SPEAKER_01]: but, uh, or disseminated rather, decimated, um, but, but has been?
[19:28.130 --> 19:30.350] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I think people are going to get in trouble.
[19:30.790 --> 19:36.790] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and it seems like this was very likely a Department of Justice screw up is what it sounds like to me.
[19:36.930 --> 19:53.350] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and I'm guessing that there was probably some kind of supervising attorney over at Maine Justice who tasked a paralegal with their responsibility of doing something like this, just saw a whole bunch of red boxes, I'm sorry, black boxes around various texts and said,
[19:53.450 --> 19:55.290] [SPEAKER_02]: oh, this looks great and let it roll out.
[19:55.850 --> 20:08.070] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and what, what also would be quite interesting to review would be to take a look at the metadata for the individual PDFs that have the redactions as well.
[20:08.630 --> 20:20.070] [SPEAKER_02]: Because even though there isn't a lot of metadata associated with PDF files themselves, you should be able to get information about at least the last time the file was accessed and when it was created.
[20:20.330 --> 20:30.110] [SPEAKER_02]: And so you might be able to get additional information from that metadata about the time, uh, at which the redactions were made to those particular documents.
[20:30.830 --> 20:36.410] [SPEAKER_02]: If you recall and go way back to what was, what was it, 2018 or 2017?
[20:36.410 --> 20:41.130] [SPEAKER_02]: I can't, it must have been 2018 or 2019, I guess, when the Mueller report came out.
[20:42.070 --> 20:50.450] [SPEAKER_02]: That, that was interesting in that it was a PDF and it was, uh, I believe there were a bunch of redacted portions in the Mueller report.
[20:50.770 --> 21:07.970] [SPEAKER_02]: But when you looked at that particular metadata, I believe what had happened is somebody had printed the document and then actually scanned it at a copier and created a PDF so that redactions could not be unredacted like this.
[21:08.090 --> 21:15.190] [SPEAKER_02]: That even if there was a screw up, there was a printout with the black box on the document and then a scan of that document.
[21:15.370 --> 21:28.810] [SPEAKER_02]: And then that document that was scanned was released to the public so that even if somebody had idiotically redacted something like we see, um, in this particular instance, it still wouldn't have been able to be unredacted by cutting and pasting.
[21:29.490 --> 21:43.890] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and so I wonder if people are going to be digging into that metadata and if they aren't, I would encourage them to do so because I think there may be additional revelations about the nature of the screw up and who should be held responsible from that particular data in and of itself.
[21:45.490 --> 21:50.930] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is definitely something that, uh, we're going to be hearing more about, uh, even on this, uh, holiday news week.
[21:51.230 --> 21:53.510] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, yeah, keep it, keep your eyes open.
[21:53.790 --> 22:02.450] [SPEAKER_01]: If you're of, uh, of a mind to start playing with this data and, uh, poking around in it, we, of course, would love to hear about anything interesting you find in it.
[22:02.630 --> 22:06.830] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, you can always get in touch with us, oth@2600.com.
[22:07.310 --> 22:15.530] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, Alex, you're looking a bit, uh, um, antsy and I think we have to let you get on with your life this evening, but, uh, thank you so much for popping in and joining us for a bit.
[22:15.530 --> 22:17.150] [SPEAKER_02]: No, it's a, it's, it's a pleasure.
[22:17.410 --> 22:27.850] [SPEAKER_02]: And, um, I want to wish all of the listeners that celebrate Christmas, uh, Merry Christmas or, or happy Christmas as they, for some reason, inexplicably say in the UK.
[22:28.190 --> 22:32.430] [SPEAKER_02]: So for those of you listening in, in London and elsewhere, happy Christmas to all of you.
[22:32.870 --> 22:42.370] [SPEAKER_02]: And, um, hopefully I'll be able to join you guys even, uh, briefly next week, but if not, I'll see you on the other side and 2026, it's been a fun year, 2025.
[22:43.230 --> 22:49.330] [SPEAKER_02]: And, um, I trust that you will, um, keep the listeners in good company for the next, what is it?
[22:49.510 --> 22:50.410] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, 36 minutes.
[22:51.470 --> 22:52.470] [SPEAKER_01]: We will do our best.
[22:52.630 --> 22:53.070] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, thank you.
[22:53.210 --> 22:53.730] [SPEAKER_01]: Our level best.
[22:54.770 --> 22:55.130] [SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[22:55.310 --> 22:55.710] [SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[22:55.950 --> 22:56.810] [SPEAKER_02]: Much love to all of you guys.
[22:57.130 --> 22:57.630] [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks everyone.
[22:57.890 --> 22:58.450] [SPEAKER_02]: Talk to you soon.
[22:58.650 --> 22:58.970] [SPEAKER_01]: Good night, dude.
[22:59.150 --> 22:59.330] [SPEAKER_01]: Good night.
[22:59.490 --> 22:59.630] [SPEAKER_01]: Bye.
[23:01.050 --> 23:03.470] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, that is about it for Alex.
[23:03.770 --> 23:05.430] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, it's now just us in this room.
[23:05.630 --> 23:06.370] [SPEAKER_05]: It's just us in this room.
[23:06.770 --> 23:08.270] [SPEAKER_01]: On this, uh, on this, uh, edition of Off The Hook.
[23:08.470 --> 23:08.630] [SPEAKER_05]: Whoa.
[23:09.150 --> 23:13.110] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, yeah, I think we've done this once or twice in our, in our time on this program.
[23:13.110 --> 23:13.610] [SPEAKER_01]: Have we?
[23:14.070 --> 23:22.170] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I, I, I have definitely had you when, when we were recording in Brooklyn, I definitely had you in the studio as the only person with me.
[23:22.270 --> 23:23.910] [SPEAKER_01]: We maybe had someone else on the phone.
[23:24.770 --> 23:26.930] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, I'm going to challenge you on that.
[23:27.070 --> 23:28.070] [SPEAKER_01]: You can challenge me on that.
[23:28.210 --> 23:31.710] [SPEAKER_05]: I remember being in the studio with Neo.
[23:32.050 --> 23:37.570] [SPEAKER_05]: I remember being in the studio with Nina, with other people on the phone.
[23:37.830 --> 23:43.670] [SPEAKER_05]: There has never, until right now, being a moment on Off The Hook where it was just you and me.
[23:44.170 --> 23:44.530] [SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[23:45.430 --> 23:45.790] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[23:45.950 --> 23:49.090] [SPEAKER_01]: So we, we, we do audio stuff in other contexts and things.
[23:49.230 --> 23:51.210] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, so this feels very familiar.
[23:51.210 --> 23:59.630] [SPEAKER_01]: So I, I guess I had not realized that we had never done this, uh, just as a duo before on Off The Hook on the WBAI airwaves.
[23:59.950 --> 24:01.090] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, so this will be fun.
[24:01.330 --> 24:05.890] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and thank you, uh, thank you listeners for continuing to put up with us.
[24:05.990 --> 24:07.730] [SPEAKER_01]: So what else is going on in the world?
[24:07.930 --> 24:18.150] [SPEAKER_01]: There is a, there is another story about, uh, which also involves something, uh, being disseminated that, uh, was not planned to be.
[24:18.670 --> 24:19.090] [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[24:19.310 --> 24:22.130] [SPEAKER_05]: Can I tell you how dumb I am?
[24:23.330 --> 24:27.630] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I'm going to challenge you on that because I think you're very smart, but please, please continue.
[24:27.870 --> 24:28.010] [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[24:28.230 --> 24:39.510] [SPEAKER_05]: So this past Sunday, um, we were going to be watching the CBS news special they did about the life of Rob Reiner.
[24:39.690 --> 24:39.970] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[24:40.130 --> 24:44.790] [SPEAKER_05]: Because certainly some of us are having a hard time coping with that piece of news.
[24:45.050 --> 24:45.370] [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[24:46.530 --> 24:53.130] [SPEAKER_05]: And it was going to be football, football, football, 60 minutes, and then this special.
[24:53.550 --> 24:53.830] [SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.
[24:54.070 --> 24:59.570] [SPEAKER_05]: So I turned on the CBS affiliate when I thought it was time.
[24:59.690 --> 25:03.010] [SPEAKER_05]: And it turned out that football had gone into significant overtime.
[25:03.410 --> 25:03.770] [SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.
[25:03.770 --> 25:06.010] [SPEAKER_05]: Everything was running about an hour behind.
[25:06.750 --> 25:13.650] [SPEAKER_05]: And then I saw something go by on social media saying that a story had been pulled from 60 minutes.
[25:13.830 --> 25:25.530] [SPEAKER_05]: And because I am a very trusting person, my assumption was that they just said, oh gosh, we're massively behind schedule.
[25:25.530 --> 25:28.470] [SPEAKER_05]: We're just going to shorten 60 minutes by one segment.
[25:28.730 --> 25:29.090] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh-huh.
[25:29.690 --> 25:30.910] [SPEAKER_05]: That is not what happened.
[25:31.070 --> 25:32.610] [SPEAKER_01]: That is not, in fact, what happened.
[25:33.270 --> 25:39.750] [SPEAKER_01]: A news story from USA Today, uh, from the 22nd, which was, uh, which was the other day, which was Monday.
[25:40.350 --> 25:44.650] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, CBS pulled a 60-minute segment on El Salvador's Cicot prison.
[25:45.450 --> 25:53.290] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, CBS, uh, pulled a 60-minute segment hours before it was set to air on December 21st, a move that has apparently sparked backlash from its correspondent.
[25:54.110 --> 25:57.830] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, it announced the programming update in a statement around 4.30 p.m.
[25:57.890 --> 25:58.690] [SPEAKER_01]: on the 21st.
[25:58.730 --> 26:02.050] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, that was Sunday, adding that the piece will air in a future broadcast.
[26:02.050 --> 26:05.550] [SPEAKER_01]: We determined it needed additional reporting, CBS News said.
[26:05.770 --> 26:11.910] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, this came down from the CEO of, uh, CBS News, the editor-in-chief, Barry Weiss.
[26:12.470 --> 26:29.610] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and, uh, there was sort of an outcry about this and also some more incompetence because the segment that they said they were not going to show, um, it was accidentally put online.
[26:31.310 --> 26:33.170] [SPEAKER_05]: It wasn't accidentally put online.
[26:33.650 --> 26:41.910] [SPEAKER_05]: It, they, well, it was because they uploaded the wrong episode because they replaced the segment as opposed to just making it shorter to get things back on schedule.
[26:42.090 --> 26:45.670] [SPEAKER_05]: Like I thought, again, very trusting, very wrong.
[26:46.370 --> 26:50.490] [SPEAKER_05]: And the original episode ran in Canada.
[26:50.990 --> 26:51.350] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[26:51.690 --> 26:51.790] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[26:52.110 --> 26:53.030] [SPEAKER_01]: I thank you for that.
[26:53.050 --> 26:54.750] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, thank you for that clarification, that correction.
[26:55.310 --> 27:01.430] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, yes, it aired in Canada and, uh, copies of it were grabbed and put online.
[27:01.930 --> 27:08.230] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, our friends over at, uh, Distributed Denial of Secrets have, uh, have pointers toward where you can view this segment.
[27:08.570 --> 27:09.870] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, it's been backed up.
[27:09.950 --> 27:11.110] [SPEAKER_01]: It's, uh, it's on torrents.
[27:11.210 --> 27:12.550] [SPEAKER_01]: It's on the Internet archive.
[27:13.470 --> 27:16.570] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, it is devastating.
[27:16.850 --> 27:18.090] [SPEAKER_01]: We, we watched it earlier.
[27:18.290 --> 27:18.670] [SPEAKER_05]: We did.
[27:18.930 --> 27:27.350] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, I will say that if you're looking to see it, you will do best with a VPN, which puts you outside of this country.
[27:27.610 --> 27:27.990] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[27:28.190 --> 27:34.130] [SPEAKER_05]: The, um, some of the mirrors that are going up are getting takedown notices from CBS news.
[27:34.930 --> 27:35.410] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[27:35.550 --> 27:38.290] [SPEAKER_05]: That's going, I know I, somebody just put that up on social media.
[27:38.390 --> 27:42.890] [SPEAKER_05]: Like I saw it go by on, um, Mastodon, right as we were going on air, which is what I was pointing at.
[27:43.130 --> 27:43.270] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[27:43.630 --> 27:47.950] [SPEAKER_05]: And it is utterly devastating.
[27:49.390 --> 28:10.450] [SPEAKER_05]: And the contention that it had to be re-reported because they hadn't gotten an interview with the Department of Justice or the Department of Homeland Security, uh, massively problematic because they reached out for a comment and the departments said, didn't respond.
[28:10.970 --> 28:11.410] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[28:11.690 --> 28:16.130] [SPEAKER_05]: So the reporter, whose name, Sharon Alfonsi?
[28:16.670 --> 28:20.190] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I believe that's, uh, I believe that's correct, but let's, uh...
[28:20.190 --> 28:20.630] [SPEAKER_01]: Woohoo, go me.
[28:20.750 --> 28:22.710] [SPEAKER_01]: See if we can find the...
[28:22.710 --> 28:23.470] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[28:23.690 --> 28:23.850] [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[28:23.990 --> 28:24.610] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Sharon Alfonsi.
[28:24.790 --> 28:31.890] [SPEAKER_05]: ...said basically, great, now you've just handed the, uh, administration a kill switch.
[28:31.890 --> 28:32.490] [SPEAKER_05]: Mm-hmm.
[28:32.590 --> 28:38.590] [SPEAKER_05]: And if there's something that we're reporting on that they don't want us to talk about, they just don't have to respond to the request for, for comment.
[28:39.050 --> 28:39.310] Right.
[28:39.310 --> 28:40.470] [SPEAKER_05]: And then she won't run it.
[28:41.250 --> 28:41.390] [SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.
[28:41.630 --> 28:46.050] [SPEAKER_05]: Also, I've said this to you before, but I want to go on public record.
[28:46.350 --> 28:46.430] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[28:46.670 --> 28:47.770] [SPEAKER_05]: Barry Weiss...
[28:47.770 --> 28:47.910] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[28:47.990 --> 28:52.970] [SPEAKER_05]: ...is giving Jewish women with brown hair and glasses a very bad name.
[28:54.590 --> 28:56.490] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's why you're here, to give it a better name.
[28:56.590 --> 28:56.910] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you.
[28:56.910 --> 29:06.810] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, but, uh, yeah, so the, obviously people, people's interest in seeing this was all the more, uh, sparked by the unavailability of it.
[29:07.510 --> 29:07.850] [SPEAKER_01]: Um...
[29:07.850 --> 29:09.290] [SPEAKER_05]: Streisand effect rears his ugly head again.
[29:09.470 --> 29:09.850] [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[29:09.890 --> 29:11.190] [SPEAKER_01]: We love that Streisand effect.
[29:11.470 --> 29:30.210] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, if you go to, uh, the distributed denial of secrets site, D-D-O-S-E-C-R-E-T-S, that's D-D-O-S-E-C-R-E-T-S dot com, um, the first thing on the list at, uh, at time of this broadcast is inside Seacot, and, uh, links to downloads and torrents and all that,
[29:30.210 --> 29:30.950] [SPEAKER_01]: uh, sort of stuff.
[29:30.950 --> 29:32.530] [SPEAKER_01]: So you will be able to see this.
[29:34.090 --> 29:35.730] [SPEAKER_01]: And, yeah, it...
[29:35.730 --> 29:43.890] [SPEAKER_01]: Part of understanding why it's so important to let things like this be seen, um, I think involves seeing it.
[29:43.890 --> 29:45.370] [SPEAKER_01]: And it is, it is rough.
[29:45.550 --> 29:52.930] [SPEAKER_01]: It is not a good watch, uh, in any emotional sense, but it is, it is stuff that I believe is important to know.
[29:53.110 --> 30:16.870] [SPEAKER_05]: It's stuff that's incredibly important to know, I think, for many, many reasons, not least of which is the whole, uh, series of mistakes, lies, and downright falsehoods that the administration has been perpetrating, that are all shown to be a big load of,
[30:16.870 --> 30:22.110] [SPEAKER_05]: uh, hooey in this particular segment.
[30:22.550 --> 30:22.910] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[30:23.450 --> 30:24.870] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, I don't know.
[30:25.050 --> 30:30.350] [SPEAKER_05]: When I was growing up, we were a very hardcore 60 Minutes family.
[30:30.650 --> 30:33.290] [SPEAKER_05]: We watched 60 Minutes every week.
[30:33.290 --> 30:33.850] [SPEAKER_05]: Mm-hmm.
[30:34.050 --> 30:45.170] [SPEAKER_05]: And the idea that the teeth are being taken out of 60 Minutes, my parents always said, you know, 60 Minutes had, whatever, three or four segments every week.
[30:45.250 --> 30:50.210] [SPEAKER_05]: And we would watch the, you know, the beginning when they would mention like 10 seconds of what everything was.
[30:50.410 --> 30:50.570] [SPEAKER_05]: Mm-hmm.
[30:50.570 --> 30:55.050] [SPEAKER_05]: And then my parents would look at each other and say, okay, what's the up this week?
[30:55.610 --> 30:56.310] [SPEAKER_01]: The up?
[30:56.430 --> 30:56.790] [SPEAKER_05]: The up.
[30:56.950 --> 30:57.890] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, what does this mean?
[30:57.890 --> 31:12.710] [SPEAKER_05]: That there was always, there were a few very serious news stories, and there was one that was more heartwarming, happy, less, you know, spit on your neck, kick you in the teeth.
[31:13.090 --> 31:13.490] [SPEAKER_05]: Sad.
[31:13.910 --> 31:14.130] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[31:15.210 --> 31:15.950] [SPEAKER_05]: What's the up?
[31:17.330 --> 31:17.730] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[31:18.570 --> 31:32.270] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and 60 Minutes, uh, for those who may not be familiar, cause I don't believe it's, uh, the case in the current generation really, but you know, we're, we're a couple of Gen Xers, um, and, uh, you know, raised by people older than ourselves, as, as many are.
[31:33.110 --> 31:35.390] [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, 60 Minutes was the thing.
[31:35.510 --> 31:36.510] [SPEAKER_01]: That was the one with teeth.
[31:36.670 --> 31:43.330] [SPEAKER_01]: They were the ones saying that cigarettes were bad for you back when, uh, you know, people didn't, uh, didn't commonly accept that.
[31:43.530 --> 31:52.010] [SPEAKER_01]: And then the, the financial, uh, monoliths that sold cigarettes were fighting tooth and nail to have this, uh, information not disseminated.
[31:52.190 --> 31:55.510] [SPEAKER_01]: But CBS was the ones that were, they were the ones that were there.
[31:55.510 --> 31:56.850] [SPEAKER_01]: 60 Minutes was the place.
[31:57.230 --> 32:02.250] [SPEAKER_05]: But 60 Minutes had that story with Jeffrey Wigand, Wigand, I'm not sure how it's pronounced.
[32:02.490 --> 32:04.530] [SPEAKER_05]: And they spiked it for a little while.
[32:04.690 --> 32:04.830] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[32:05.050 --> 32:10.550] [SPEAKER_05]: And then there was this massive backlash, um, reputational issues.
[32:10.810 --> 32:10.990] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[32:11.190 --> 32:11.850] [SPEAKER_05]: A movie.
[32:12.170 --> 32:12.510] [SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.
[32:13.030 --> 32:14.570] [SPEAKER_05]: And it, they got back from it.
[32:14.710 --> 32:16.350] [SPEAKER_05]: It took some time, but they got there.
[32:17.410 --> 32:18.570] [SPEAKER_05]: What's going to happen now?
[32:18.710 --> 32:18.790] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[32:19.470 --> 32:19.990] [SPEAKER_01]: Until now.
[32:19.990 --> 32:40.190] [SPEAKER_01]: So, and in this, in this era, in this media environment in which we find ourselves, where it's so easy to fake anything now, and it's so difficult to find sources that, um, you can trust to be objective, to be truthful, to, uh, put out the stuff that's important to put out without clogging it up with bullcrap.
[32:40.450 --> 32:51.390] [SPEAKER_01]: It is, it is, um, all the more vital that we have something, that we have these, these, uh, these media outlets that we could trust, that we could depend on.
[32:51.710 --> 32:54.710] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's harder and harder to find anything like that.
[32:54.710 --> 33:12.830] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to use that point to seg into the fact that WBAI's fundraiser is ongoing, our end-of-the-year fundraiser, and it is so vital to the, um, future of the station that if you are able to throw a little something in to help us keep doing what we do here on independent,
[33:13.730 --> 33:26.990] [SPEAKER_01]: um, community-sponsored radio at WBAI, now is the time to go to buddy.wbai.org or, uh, call, uh, 833-WBAI-NYC, that's 833-922-4692.
[33:27.590 --> 33:42.110] [SPEAKER_01]: And throw in, if you can throw in a little bit, if you could throw in a one-time donation, if you could throw in a recurring donation, um, and, uh, and do what you can to keep us doing what we do on this station and on this program and on this, uh, Pacifica network.
[33:43.070 --> 33:46.970] [SPEAKER_01]: Because, yeah, we say this sort of thing a lot, but that's because it's true.
[33:46.970 --> 34:09.430] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, you, the, the, the, the, the, the outlets like WBAI, the outlets that are community-based, that are your neighbors talking to you, that are not bound by, uh, relationships with commercial entities and that, uh, are not known for, uh, spiking things because the government wouldn't like it.
[34:09.430 --> 34:11.170] [SPEAKER_01]: This is an activist radio station.
[34:11.350 --> 34:12.690] [SPEAKER_01]: It was started by hippies.
[34:12.830 --> 34:19.970] [SPEAKER_01]: It is still a very, uh, a very, a very, uh, um, activism-centered force in the media landscape.
[34:20.290 --> 34:23.810] [SPEAKER_01]: And it has been for 65 years now.
[34:24.350 --> 34:30.670] [SPEAKER_01]: So, buddy.wbai.org, 833-922-4692.
[34:31.270 --> 34:33.830] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, keep us going with what you can.
[34:34.070 --> 34:34.250] [SPEAKER_05]: Exactly.
[34:34.430 --> 34:42.270] [SPEAKER_05]: One thing I have said a lot over the last few years is the more you give us, the less we have to ask you.
[34:42.510 --> 34:42.930] [SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.
[34:43.370 --> 34:48.330] [SPEAKER_05]: And do you want to, uh, plug the buddy program a little bit?
[34:48.550 --> 34:56.710] [SPEAKER_05]: The best thing any nonprofit can have is a really dependable set of, set of monthly income.
[34:56.710 --> 34:57.310] [SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.
[34:57.630 --> 35:07.950] [SPEAKER_05]: And the more people who sign up as buddies, and if you pledge $10 a month, $10 a month, that will give us $120 a year.
[35:08.070 --> 35:14.910] [SPEAKER_05]: That will make you a voting member of WBAI, which is also a very important thing that you can do, um, once your second month goes in.
[35:15.470 --> 35:15.890] [SPEAKER_05]: Mm, third.
[35:16.510 --> 35:20.170] [SPEAKER_05]: Once you make, once you have given more than $25, you're a voting member of WBAI.
[35:20.430 --> 35:20.650] [SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.
[35:20.650 --> 35:26.810] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, but, again, the more you give, the less we have to ask.
[35:27.770 --> 35:31.810] [SPEAKER_05]: And that's good for us, because we can talk more about news and all kinds of fun things.
[35:31.870 --> 35:36.870] [SPEAKER_05]: You may notice we haven't done as many fund drives in the last couple of years.
[35:37.110 --> 35:37.370] [SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.
[35:37.730 --> 35:39.330] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, we're shifting some of the models.
[35:39.730 --> 35:40.890] [SPEAKER_05]: We, we appreciate it.
[35:40.950 --> 35:41.850] [SPEAKER_05]: I hope everyone else does, too.
[35:41.950 --> 35:47.910] [SPEAKER_05]: We've been preempted a lot less than we had been, which is great.
[35:47.910 --> 35:48.470] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[35:50.550 --> 35:52.990] [SPEAKER_05]: And your support is what keeps us on the air.
[35:54.450 --> 35:54.850] [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[35:55.010 --> 35:56.950] [SPEAKER_01]: Buddy.wbai.org.
[35:57.110 --> 36:01.410] [SPEAKER_05]: And don't forget to tell them that you're becoming a buddy in our name.
[36:01.750 --> 36:06.110] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, tell them that you're, that Off The Hook sent you, because they will ask what your favorite show is.
[36:06.450 --> 36:15.110] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, that, that, uh, helps us show the station and the management that, uh, yeah, our listeners will, uh, will be there for us.
[36:15.170 --> 36:17.010] [SPEAKER_01]: Our listeners can throw in their support.
[36:17.010 --> 36:31.150] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, of course, the media landscape is a real pile right now, and we are going to continue to do our best for as long as we are able to, um, sift through some of it.
[36:31.650 --> 36:32.610] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, okay.
[36:32.890 --> 36:39.530] [SPEAKER_01]: So, another, another interesting, uh, another interesting thing going around is, uh, Spotify.
[36:40.730 --> 36:42.770] [SPEAKER_01]: Spotify is a music service.
[36:42.930 --> 36:43.950] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a music streaming service.
[36:43.950 --> 36:56.430] [SPEAKER_01]: It is known for, um, paying the artists behind its music a pittance, um, while, uh, making tons of money off of, uh, off of their listeners.
[36:56.950 --> 36:59.210] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, they have been hacked.
[36:59.490 --> 37:09.470] [SPEAKER_01]: They appear to have been hacked and scraped by people who downloaded, um, tons of their, their audio files and their metadata.
[37:10.010 --> 37:12.430] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and, um, apparently the...
[37:12.430 --> 37:13.790] [SPEAKER_05]: Predominantly music files, not podcasts.
[37:14.350 --> 37:14.550] [SPEAKER_01]: Correct.
[37:15.030 --> 37:22.190] [SPEAKER_01]: And apparently the, the folks who did that are preparing to release them online, according to this, uh, station, the, according to this, uh, story from the Guardian.
[37:22.870 --> 37:32.450] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, platform with 700 million users says it's investigating after Anna's Archive, which is, uh, a site that posts things, uh, claims to have scraped tracks and metadata.
[37:32.970 --> 37:42.710] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and, uh, yep, uh, Observer said the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their technology because it all comes back to AI now, doesn't it?
[37:43.050 --> 37:44.070] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, that is my question.
[37:44.290 --> 37:52.450] [SPEAKER_05]: You know, the organization that did this is saying, they described its mission as preserving humanity's knowledge and culture.
[37:52.730 --> 37:53.030] [SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.
[37:53.810 --> 37:54.330] [SPEAKER_05]: Cool.
[37:55.390 --> 37:56.330] [SPEAKER_05]: Cool, cool, cool.
[37:57.410 --> 38:00.350] [SPEAKER_01]: We know of quite a few organizations who do that sort of thing.
[38:00.430 --> 38:01.250] [SPEAKER_05]: We certainly do.
[38:02.050 --> 38:02.570] [SPEAKER_05]: But.
[38:02.850 --> 38:03.290] [SPEAKER_01]: But.
[38:03.510 --> 38:03.910] [SPEAKER_05]: But.
[38:04.090 --> 38:04.430] [SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
[38:04.970 --> 38:12.170] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, are our friends at the Internet Archive keeping things so that they can then get scraped by LLMs?
[38:12.730 --> 38:18.850] [SPEAKER_05]: Are they helping AI produce things in the style of what they have scraped?
[38:19.890 --> 38:26.110] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I don't know about that, but, um, these numbers are pretty interesting, uh, oh, excuse me.
[38:26.770 --> 38:35.830] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and as Archive said, it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million rows of metadata such as artist and album names.
[38:36.110 --> 38:42.910] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, Spotify, which hosts more than a hundred million tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.
[38:44.050 --> 38:44.230] [SPEAKER_01]: Um.
[38:44.550 --> 38:46.350] [SPEAKER_05]: Now, wait, going back for a second, though.
[38:46.390 --> 38:46.570] [SPEAKER_05]: Sure.
[38:46.770 --> 38:46.990] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[38:46.990 --> 38:47.110] [SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[38:47.470 --> 38:50.950] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, when digital music first started becoming a thing.
[38:51.130 --> 38:51.650] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yes.
[38:51.990 --> 38:52.670] [SPEAKER_01]: Napster bad.
[38:53.510 --> 38:54.870] [SPEAKER_05]: Not even what I was going to say.
[38:55.070 --> 38:55.370] [SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[38:55.610 --> 38:58.290] [SPEAKER_05]: I remember when I got my first MP3 player.
[38:58.450 --> 38:58.710] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh-huh.
[38:58.770 --> 39:00.410] [SPEAKER_05]: It wasn't an iPod.
[39:00.730 --> 39:00.870] [SPEAKER_04]: No.
[39:00.990 --> 39:05.310] [SPEAKER_05]: It was a big boxy MP3 player by some company I do not even remember anymore.
[39:05.750 --> 39:05.910] [SPEAKER_04]: All right.
[39:05.990 --> 39:08.970] [SPEAKER_05]: And I sat there with my CD collection.
[39:09.370 --> 39:09.570] [SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.
[39:09.570 --> 39:12.510] [SPEAKER_05]: And I ripped a bunch of stuff to put it up.
[39:12.630 --> 39:12.890] [SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.
[39:13.010 --> 39:18.030] [SPEAKER_05]: And I had to track down the metadata for every single track.
[39:18.390 --> 39:18.670] [SPEAKER_04]: Uh-huh.
[39:18.670 --> 39:20.190] [SPEAKER_05]: And type a bunch of stuff in manually.
[39:20.410 --> 39:20.730] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yes.
[39:20.950 --> 39:21.610] [SPEAKER_05]: And type...
[39:21.610 --> 39:25.570] [SPEAKER_05]: So, I mean, kudos to these people for getting the tracks and the metadata.
[39:25.770 --> 39:27.030] [SPEAKER_05]: You've made everyone's life a lot easier.
[39:29.550 --> 39:31.150] [SPEAKER_01]: Ah, certainly.
[39:31.430 --> 39:32.290] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's...
[39:32.290 --> 39:35.550] [SPEAKER_01]: I think the main thing on this is it's hard to feel bad for Spotify.
[39:36.890 --> 39:44.750] [SPEAKER_01]: Because, as said, I mean, I've seen musicians, professional musicians, post at the end of the year their revenue from Spotify for the year.
[39:44.870 --> 39:55.070] [SPEAKER_01]: And you can have millions upon millions of listeners and, as a band, get back a check for something like $50 because you get fractions of fractions of a cent for each play.
[39:56.470 --> 40:08.590] [SPEAKER_01]: And I can only hope that this continues to show people the value of maybe using other means to listen to their music, like, say, buying it directly from the artists.
[40:09.270 --> 40:13.150] [SPEAKER_01]: Things like Bandcamp are great for digital folks.
[40:13.270 --> 40:21.210] [SPEAKER_01]: There are other digital services out there that artists can put their own stuff on and, you know, make reasonable amounts of money for when they sell them.
[40:21.210 --> 40:22.810] [SPEAKER_01]: Or you could still buy CDs.
[40:23.290 --> 40:24.330] [SPEAKER_01]: I love CDs.
[40:25.070 --> 40:27.590] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, we are digital media first.
[40:27.730 --> 40:28.530] [SPEAKER_05]: Let me try that again.
[40:28.730 --> 40:31.650] [SPEAKER_05]: We are physical media first people.
[40:31.870 --> 40:32.870] [SPEAKER_01]: In this household, yes.
[40:32.990 --> 40:33.490] [SPEAKER_05]: In this household.
[40:33.750 --> 40:34.090] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[40:34.230 --> 40:35.130] [SPEAKER_01]: We still have...
[40:35.130 --> 40:41.790] [SPEAKER_01]: We have our CD collection, which takes up a large amount of space under our main sort of shelf.
[40:42.050 --> 40:44.830] [SPEAKER_05]: And we have, you know, my gigantic CD wallet.
[40:45.110 --> 40:51.010] [SPEAKER_05]: We have functionally a floor-to-ceiling shelf of DVDs and Blu-rays.
[40:51.010 --> 40:51.490] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[40:52.510 --> 40:59.550] [SPEAKER_01]: And many, many bookshelves in what is a small studio apartment in the heart of Queens, New York City.
[40:59.790 --> 41:03.910] [SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, we live here and so does our hard media collection.
[41:04.390 --> 41:05.910] [SPEAKER_05]: Because that means we own it.
[41:06.370 --> 41:06.990] [SPEAKER_01]: It does.
[41:07.090 --> 41:08.350] [SPEAKER_01]: It means we own it.
[41:08.490 --> 41:16.010] [SPEAKER_01]: And it also means that for every one of these that exists, the people who made them maybe got a little more than a fraction of a fraction of a cent.
[41:16.010 --> 41:16.630] [SPEAKER_05]: Exactly.
[41:16.970 --> 41:21.670] [SPEAKER_05]: But also, no one is going to say, you don't have access to this anymore.
[41:21.990 --> 41:22.470] [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[41:22.830 --> 41:27.790] [SPEAKER_01]: No company can shut down or change its terms of service or change the content.
[41:28.830 --> 41:38.070] [SPEAKER_01]: We've seen cases of digital books being changed after the fact, after they've been published or even made, you know, pulled from shelves after they've been published.
[41:38.070 --> 41:53.930] [SPEAKER_01]: There was a very, in retrospect, funny, but also not funny case of an edition of George Orwell's 1984 being pulled from Amazon, which, if you're familiar with what the book is about, that's extra fun.
[41:55.150 --> 42:00.230] [SPEAKER_05]: But at the same time, I, you know, have been watching older things that we have in our library.
[42:00.450 --> 42:01.950] [SPEAKER_05]: I've been home a lot recently.
[42:02.190 --> 42:02.470] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[42:02.850 --> 42:06.670] [SPEAKER_05]: And talking about the U2 album.
[42:06.910 --> 42:07.470] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yes.
[42:07.530 --> 42:11.910] [SPEAKER_05]: That just appeared in everyone's Apple Music library, whenever that was.
[42:12.090 --> 42:15.690] [SPEAKER_05]: And the hoops you had to jump through to not have that anymore.
[42:17.910 --> 42:28.630] [SPEAKER_05]: I like the fact that if you purchase something, we have it and we're not, you know, getting handed things or getting things taken away from us.
[42:28.630 --> 42:49.830] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, and I recognize that it's a weird, um, position to take in the year 2025, that I support physical media and not because I am a pretentious human being who, like, loves vinyl, man.
[42:56.650 --> 42:57.810] [SPEAKER_05]: Sorry about that.
[42:57.810 --> 43:04.790] [SPEAKER_01]: No, but, um, you know, another important fact of the CD collection we have is all our CDs are there, but they've also been ripped.
[43:04.790 --> 43:11.670] [SPEAKER_01]: And we, we have a shared, uh, file server here in, here in our place, which has all of that stuff as FLAC files.
[43:11.770 --> 43:16.290] [SPEAKER_01]: We can take those, we can play them on our computers, we can play them on our phones, we can play them on whatever the heck we want.
[43:16.770 --> 43:22.110] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, we can load up a whole grip of stuff to listen to if we go on a road trip.
[43:22.270 --> 43:23.390] [SPEAKER_01]: We can, and we have.
[43:23.910 --> 43:29.990] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, you know, this, this is stuff that's, uh, that we can, that we can decide what we do with it.
[43:30.210 --> 43:37.990] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, we could even take things that, uh, that we have and, you know, rip the audio from them and use it for other audio purposes.
[43:38.430 --> 43:40.450] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, you, you mentioned Rob Reiner.
[43:40.450 --> 43:45.850] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, last week we closed the show with a song from Spinal Tap in, in, uh, in his honor.
[43:46.170 --> 43:48.930] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, that's an album that I have.
[43:49.730 --> 43:54.210] [SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, the, the, the ability to do this sort of thing is important.
[43:54.710 --> 44:04.470] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, vinyl, I can't say that I understand so much just because I remember growing up with vinyl records as the, uh, format of the day.
[44:04.470 --> 44:19.050] [SPEAKER_01]: I remember that being how you listen to music at home and, um, I, I really found it clunky and also annoying and the records always got skips and they got scratches and I was happy to move on to CDs.
[44:19.410 --> 44:23.310] [SPEAKER_01]: And I, I kind of stayed there because they're, it's digital data.
[44:23.530 --> 44:24.310] [SPEAKER_01]: It's always the same.
[44:24.490 --> 44:27.650] [SPEAKER_01]: You can shift it from one format to another and it doesn't degrade.
[44:27.650 --> 44:30.130] [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't destroy itself every time you play it a little.
[44:30.430 --> 44:49.370] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, but, uh, I do respect the, the folks who are passionate about vinyl and their willingness to not only collect the things that they love, but track down new and weird stuff because that, that is something that's not so easy to do nowadays in the digital streaming era is you don't really,
[44:49.550 --> 44:53.170] [SPEAKER_01]: you don't really find new stuff to get, uh, to get pointed toward.
[44:53.170 --> 44:57.290] [SPEAKER_01]: You don't really, you can't dig through a crate of, of, of digital.
[44:57.570 --> 45:05.050] [SPEAKER_01]: You can't dig through a crate of streams and find something that looks interesting because of its huge, weird cover art and all of a sudden have a new band to follow.
[45:05.310 --> 45:06.370] [SPEAKER_05]: No, that's very true.
[45:06.670 --> 45:26.430] [SPEAKER_05]: And even as we've kind of moved away from, uh, the mix concept that, you know, early Pandora, early, early Spotify, you know, I would put in a song and then it would say, Hey, we think you will like this.
[45:27.370 --> 45:28.970] [SPEAKER_05]: And this is actually very funny.
[45:29.190 --> 45:29.450] [SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[45:29.870 --> 45:31.910] [SPEAKER_05]: Early Spotify, early Spotify, early Spotify.
[45:32.350 --> 45:34.810] [SPEAKER_05]: This was 12 years ago, maybe more.
[45:35.090 --> 45:42.370] [SPEAKER_05]: And I was listening to Spotify and it suggested to me a song from a band I'd never heard of before, but the song was called Gila.
[45:42.590 --> 45:43.770] [SPEAKER_05]: So I figured I'd check it out.
[45:44.170 --> 45:45.030] [SPEAKER_01]: Was it a good song?
[45:45.530 --> 45:46.490] [SPEAKER_05]: It is a good song.
[45:46.590 --> 45:47.350] [SPEAKER_05]: I like it quite a lot.
[45:47.350 --> 45:50.410] [SPEAKER_05]: Actually, it's by a band called Beach House, who I'd never heard of before.
[45:51.470 --> 45:52.750] [SPEAKER_05]: Hey, we live in Queens.
[45:53.090 --> 45:53.670] [SPEAKER_01]: We do.
[45:54.230 --> 45:57.750] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, we, we live, uh, right by both big airports around here.
[45:57.850 --> 45:59.390] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah.
[45:59.450 --> 46:03.530] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyone who's listened to our broadcast knows that, uh, planes like us.
[46:04.230 --> 46:04.430] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway.
[46:04.710 --> 46:05.630] [SPEAKER_01]: So Gila.
[46:05.930 --> 46:06.410] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, Rob.
[46:06.570 --> 46:07.210] [SPEAKER_01]: The song Gila.
[46:07.210 --> 46:07.710] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yes.
[46:07.970 --> 46:08.430] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[46:08.970 --> 46:10.250] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, yeah.
[46:10.470 --> 46:11.150] [SPEAKER_05]: The song Gila.
[46:11.350 --> 46:17.730] [SPEAKER_05]: And it said, okay, these, you know, based on certain characteristics of things you listen to, we think you might enjoy this.
[46:18.110 --> 46:18.370] [SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.
[46:18.870 --> 46:19.970] [SPEAKER_05]: They were right.
[46:20.370 --> 46:33.610] [SPEAKER_05]: It was always very weird how, you know, Pandora or Spotify could, like, get into your brain and figure out what, why you liked what you liked.
[46:35.790 --> 46:41.370] [SPEAKER_05]: And give you more things I thought you would like based on melodic patterns and chord sequences.
[46:42.270 --> 46:42.370] Hmm.
[46:42.710 --> 46:44.430] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you know what else does that sort of thing?
[46:44.850 --> 46:45.190] [SPEAKER_01]: People?
[46:45.530 --> 46:45.930] [SPEAKER_01]: People.
[46:46.330 --> 46:46.730] [SPEAKER_01]: People.
[46:47.050 --> 46:50.410] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you could, uh, you could listen to a radio station that plays music you like.
[46:50.610 --> 47:00.230] [SPEAKER_01]: You could listen to a DJ that you enjoy or a themed music show that, uh, that has a, that has a genre that you, that you dig and see what they've got for you.
[47:00.230 --> 47:09.030] [SPEAKER_01]: Because there is a living, breathing human, uh, who knows about this stuff, uh, shuffling through stuff and trying to find stuff that you might like.
[47:09.150 --> 47:09.450] [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, Rob.
[47:09.690 --> 47:09.890] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[47:09.970 --> 47:11.050] [SPEAKER_01]: How many of those exist anymore?
[47:11.990 --> 47:12.890] [SPEAKER_01]: Not so many.
[47:13.150 --> 47:17.530] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, radio stations, music radio stations are by and large robots these days.
[47:18.110 --> 47:21.670] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, at least in the commercial band, at least on FM.
[47:21.670 --> 47:22.930] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, oh, except for us.
[47:23.070 --> 47:23.490] [SPEAKER_05]: Except for us.
[47:23.610 --> 47:32.290] [SPEAKER_01]: Here at 95, 99.5, 95, 99.5 WBAI on the FM dial in the heart of things.
[47:32.450 --> 47:33.970] [SPEAKER_05]: Smack in the middle of the FM dial.
[47:34.050 --> 47:34.210] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[47:34.370 --> 47:36.250] [SPEAKER_01]: We, we don't just, uh, talk and blather over here.
[47:36.370 --> 47:37.950] [SPEAKER_01]: We, we, uh, we play music.
[47:37.970 --> 47:39.110] [SPEAKER_01]: We, we talk about news.
[47:39.290 --> 47:43.730] [SPEAKER_01]: We do all sorts of interesting things that are still being done with the radio format.
[47:43.890 --> 47:46.630] [SPEAKER_01]: Go to buddy.wbai.org to keep that happening.
[47:48.090 --> 47:52.230] [SPEAKER_05]: And our, the carts you hear between shows, those are real people.
[47:52.470 --> 47:53.090] [SPEAKER_01]: They are.
[47:53.330 --> 47:54.570] [SPEAKER_01]: Humans recorded those things.
[47:54.810 --> 47:56.470] [SPEAKER_05]: Humans we know, by and large.
[47:56.630 --> 48:06.790] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and humans are pointing, uh, you know, they're not swapping around physical cartridges so much anymore, but they are pointing and clicking and lining those up in a way that, uh, will, um, hopefully please the listenership.
[48:07.090 --> 48:10.570] [SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, I, I am so happy.
[48:10.710 --> 48:16.430] [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't say this on the show enough, but I am so happy and proud to be part of this station, to be part of this program.
[48:17.210 --> 48:20.750] [SPEAKER_01]: And it is, it is just such a, it's such a joy in my life.
[48:22.030 --> 48:27.490] [SPEAKER_01]: And it, uh, it is a thing that I am so glad that I, that I get to do, that I'm glad you get to do it with me.
[48:27.550 --> 48:35.810] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad our colleagues who are not, um, on the air with us now, but, uh, who still, you know, who will be back, um, I get to do it with us.
[48:35.970 --> 48:41.810] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm, this is, this is just such a precious resource and it is insane that it exists.
[48:41.950 --> 48:44.470] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's the kind of insanity we need more of in the world.
[48:45.410 --> 48:45.730] [SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely.
[48:46.870 --> 48:48.170] [SPEAKER_05]: Do we have time for anything more?
[48:48.310 --> 48:58.290] [SPEAKER_01]: Or we, uh, we have a little bit of, uh, time to just, uh, quickly mention a, a, the first national website dedicated to documenting ice license plates is here.
[48:58.490 --> 49:04.430] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, this is a story from, uh, LA taco.com, which, uh, is a locally produced news source from LA.
[49:04.930 --> 49:07.150] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, talking about how much we like that sort of thing.
[49:07.430 --> 49:16.370] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, when a federal raid happens or when a vehicle is suspected of belonging to federal immigration agents, community members observe each of the vehicles and make note of their license plates.
[49:16.610 --> 49:22.970] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, this tactic began in California during the beginning of the federal immigration siege on Los Angeles before spreading nationwide.
[49:23.030 --> 49:27.690] [SPEAKER_01]: Everyday citizens are forming groups and using this information to protect their communities.
[49:28.230 --> 49:32.610] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, one of the places this is, uh, being wrangled is stop ice.net.
[49:32.790 --> 49:35.450] [SPEAKER_01]: That's S T O P I C E dot net.
[49:35.650 --> 49:39.490] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, we've also got some, um, some Instagram handles.
[49:39.690 --> 49:54.670] [SPEAKER_01]: If you use that particular service, uh, uh, at moral resistance at Harbor area, peace patrols at PDX underscore Pally dot, uh, underscore boost and, uh, music city migra watch that's music city, M I G R A W A T C H.
[49:54.790 --> 49:59.770] [SPEAKER_01]: Those are all, uh, handles on Instagram where the sort of info is being wrangled.
[50:00.150 --> 50:18.990] [SPEAKER_01]: And we've spoken about, uh, public use of things like license plate scanners and databases and, uh, wondering about the value of that, or if the information could be, um, misused by the agencies collecting it, but it has now been turned back around and used to keep an eye on the authorities to watch the watchers.
[50:19.350 --> 50:23.830] [SPEAKER_01]: So very interesting stuff going on there at stop ice dot net.
[50:25.630 --> 50:29.890] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, this is, this has been, this has been quite an evening.
[50:30.070 --> 50:31.050] [SPEAKER_04]: It certainly has.
[50:31.250 --> 50:32.010] [SPEAKER_01]: An interesting show.
[50:32.210 --> 50:38.790] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, we will, uh, we will be back next week for our new year's Eve special and, uh, send us some email.
[50:38.930 --> 50:39.330] [SPEAKER_01]: Talk to us.
[50:39.490 --> 50:41.810] [SPEAKER_01]: oth@2600.com.
[50:42.010 --> 50:47.050] [SPEAKER_01]: You can find us on Mastodon off the hook at masto dot hackers dot town.
[50:47.530 --> 51:04.990] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, I'm going to wish all of you who celebrate a very Merry Christmas, uh, wish all of you who don't celebrate that particular, um, festival to have a very good time regardless for off the hook for Gila, for me, for Alex, for Emmanuel and Kyle still away on assignment.
[51:06.070 --> 51:07.190] [SPEAKER_01]: Have a very good evening.