The number you have dialed is not a working number. Please check the number and dial again. Altel 83. The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall. I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a cough. It couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would. Bum Diddley Bum for the best, expect the worst. I hope that's understood. Bum Diddley Bum! Bum Diddley Bum. is good evening and um that looks like gila over to your your left good evening and uh do i see alex you're correct once again on a roll emmanuel good evening wow it's just like old times and by old times i mean at least a month ago which is the last time we we gathered here uh since that that time uh kyle and i have been traveling all throughout europe uh talking to so many people including a good number of our listeners uh and it's just it's it's great to be back it was great to uh be traveling and to be talking with uh uh with so many of you uh and just to be experiencing all kinds of different things that there's so much to share so much to uh to talk about i should point out i just had a tooth extracted so i'm a little out of it uh and and the dentist said i shouldn't talk so much i'm not sure if he was referring to in general or uh just you know because of the medical procedure but i'm gonna you know try and fall back a little bit and and just um uh try and say what's um uh what's absolutely vital uh but any any um um updates or or questions or things that um uh we need to catch up on oh just uh we are interested in hearing about uh your adventures and travels and uh so now that you can't talk as much that's not as that's not as useful a question unless uh kyle you want to take the uh the lead on telling us about what uh what you've been up to there well one of the things that i took away uh was that it really has changed in just a little bit of a hiatus for me in traveling just some of the um ways that it is a little bit easier than i remember it as far as planning and um taking care of different logistical parts of of being out in the world and i've definitely been inspired by some of our listeners travels and um getting back out there it just was really cool to notice how many places are pretty welcoming and generally kind to visitors yeah there's systems there's different elements of places that can be a little cumbersome and hard to navigate or just don't feel as welcoming but for uh for me that reminder of um just how welcoming the the outside world can be and inviting to just explore and and find cool things and then you get to take it back in the form of stories and and uh adventures that you get to share you know i'd say the only the only time things seemed unwelcoming was uh upon arrival where you weren't sure where you were where to go how it all worked but then once you got used to that it became very familiar very welcoming and and things work like technology works great you know everyone has uh these contactless cards for mass transit and um it's it's like the omni card you know it's it's just it's a universal thing absolutely contactless payment and um just the ease and sort of speed you can um transact and go about having your your uh snack or or a coffee along the way it just it really is uh kind of amazing how you just don't have to deal with a lot of um cumbersome stuff like with cash and and uh you can pretty well take care of yourself without doing a lot of like uh withdrawing money and exchanging it and trying to keep track of exchange rates um the other thing that i think i really appreciated is there were some countries that we went to that just had uh ubiquitous access to internet and i think that's something that has has to catch on there's still this attitude that it's um it's a a sort of a perk or an extra thing as as opposed to being sort of standard and expected and really everybody needs to access data and it was just really cool to be in certain places where you check if there's a a connection other than like cellular and it's just there you're not uh wandering through accepting a whole bunch of terms and taking different time uh signing up for things and and creating this pattern or or this uh uh trail of of uh marketing and and advertising that that you have to agree to there's none of that and some of the uh places that i got to visit and that that feeling of like wow this is just normal uh and your your um your standard of living is that people should have access to they deserve information and it helps your uh overall economy because our home carriers really sucked they were terrible they were slow uh they were spotty uh oftentimes we would get absolutely nothing and you know every country that i um i entered i would get welcomed by my carrier saying hey if you want true high speed internet you got to pay more uh otherwise we're going to limit you to 128k uh which is not exactly uh um feasible for almost anything uh so but you would just look for wi-fi and you know if you're on a bus hey bus has wi-fi or this this train has wi-fi no password nothing like that just it's everywhere especially places like estonia the the baltics were great as far as connectivity rob um one question i have um i think for all three of you guys who have been doing uh some international traveling at this particular point in world history um have you noticed any difference in the vibes um traveling as an american i was really worried about that because um uh while i'm a european citizen and i i switch to european as soon as i get on the plane uh i i readily admit i'm from new york when you say you're from new york people light up they really do and they say it's my dream to go to new york of course i'll never be allowed to go to new york so many people say that too and these are people who live in europe not allowed to come to the united states uh you know if i say i'm from the united states i'm gonna get a look i know that um but if you say you're from new york it means something different it really does uh and um we didn't get any hostility for uh where we were from and um you know we we didn't uh exhibit any hostility towards people because you know we're all in this together and um people really look out for each other you don't have to know the language you don't have to know the culture you just have to be open to it and that's the magic of travel and this is the first time since before covid that kyle and i have been overseas so it was really important to catch up with a lot of people uh and you know we went to the chaos communication congress which is the annual hacker event takes place in in hamburg i believe we talked to you on new year's um and uh that was that was you know like mecca for hackers it's you know about 20 000 people show up for this thing and it's just an incredible uh display of light and music and and technology and just magic and the thing is you know so many people came up to us wanting to know about hope uh and and the fact that hope was canceled uh by saint john's university because there was an anarchist in our midst we we allowed anarchist collectives to be part of um of the entire conference as attendees and that was too much for them and uh and that's why uh hope was canceled due to that and you know the number of people who uh talked to us and paralleled that to what's going on in our country you know with all the horrible things and boy did we hear a lot of horrible things while we were traveling and occasionally turn on the news um we didn't see it as quickly that yeah you know what what happened to hope is is very similar to what's happening all across the country universities are terrified to have anything resembling free speech these days because they will be targeted and many of them are simply uh just lying down and taking it and it's awful it's awful for people who want to be able to express themselves it's awful for people that want to expand their minds it's awful for people who want to push back and right now you know that's that's a lot of us who want to push back and you know ever since we got back which is only a few days ago uh wow it's really gone into hyperdrive and um you know i'm i'm i'm super impressed with what i've seen from fellow citizens here in the states but you know i want them to know that the rest of the world or at least the parts of europe that we went through and that's starting in iceland and going down through the baltics and western europe they're with us you know they support us they are um uh sending their support their love and you know we have the ability to inspire them as they inspire us um you know when we were in um um was that lithuania i'm sorry sometimes they merge together yeah lithuania had the buses that every single bus said vilnius loves ukraine you know there were so many shows of support for a country being besieged by another country and it doesn't stop there you know there there were all kinds of displays of support for people who were being oppressed or victimized and that extends to us because guess what we're those people now too you know and um we're living in a society where you can be executed in the street now that is a reality and it's scary to think that's true what's even scarier is the possibility that we might think that's normal that we might start to accept that and what i'm so happy about is that i'm seeing people aren't accepting it driving down the street today there was a protest at an intersection just right there anti-ice there was one on saturday they're not going away this time i don't think they're stopping and that is inspirational to the world and i just hope people realize that that none of us are alone none of us are alone people are watching people care people ask us all kinds of questions about what's going on here about how such a thing is possible how did we get to this stage it's hard to explain it really is hard to explain but it's something that a lot of us saw coming and um we have to deal with it and make no mistake we have to deal with it all of us all of us listening and just know that places like wbai who i really hope you support because can you imagine not having this voice they are going to be so important in the days weeks months years ahead as long as we have that amount of time that's where you will hear different points of view that's where you will hear what is actually happening and that's where you will get past the lies the disinformation that's being spread i mean we all saw it last week we saw how you know you could see something with your own eyes and be told that no you didn't see that you know they used to be just an orwell uh saying but now it's it's reality and um you need places you need alternative media you need individual people to tell you that you're not alone that we're in this together and that you're not crazy you know that that um these things are actually happening and we have to find strength in each other and find unity in each other so i'm not sure if i was answering a question just now but i really i felt i had to get that out because i haven't been saying a lot recently and um uh there is so much going on and we're really at a pivotal point in history and i just don't want anybody to um to pass up being a part of that pivotal part of history alex i see your your hand is up yeah well you know on that that very note i want to mention a few things that that i've been up to over the last couple of weeks here too i mean i've been very angry with what's happening with ice all around the country especially in new york and and i think what you're speaking to emmanuel it really i think it it strikes a chord with so many people right because you have to do what you can do it could be joining a protest it could be making calls it could be something but you know we have to push back in some way or another because this is not it's not just ice it's a coordinated attack on our freedom and our democracy and on in particular this station as well if you think about how public funding for broadcasting related issues has been just yanked across the board i mean this station and many stations are suffering and it's it's more important by the day by the minute i think to have listener sponsored places like this that give everyone a sense of community and show them that they're not alone and on that front i i thought i was going to be alone and doing something a couple of weeks ago i got this email as part of a mailing list i'm i'm on um with some nyu folks and whatnot and it was a request to join in this effort from an nyu law clinic to push back on the ice detentions that are happening in new york in the five boroughs and it was a request for people to volunteer and file habeas petitions basically contesting the right of the federal government to hold these detainees in federal custody because very often ice is using the wrong authorities when they detain these people or they're detaining them under an expanded theory of authorities that is not actually the law and so any event i said to myself well you know what i have to i have to do something and i'm a lawyer here and i have this superpower i have this ability to file these habeas petitions under my own name so i checked with the founder of of the ethereum name service you know the entity for which i'm i'm general counsel and uh he's over in the uk and he's he said not only do i i think you know you should be doing this but i entirely support it and we can support this financially if you need to and i showed up for this training for lawyers that volunteered and i couldn't believe what i saw i mean it was absolutely incredible it was so inspiring to see not just my name and like five other people there were hundreds of lawyers that volunteered to file these habeas petitions i mean i could you could just the names just kept scrolling and scrolling these were coming from non-for-profit organizations they were coming from private law firms they were coming from in-house they were coming from all over the place everybody was volunteering to get this and now when these cases come in they're hard to get because people volunteer so quickly to pick them up there's there's more lawyers than there are actual cases and detentions happening right now that are willing so i feel really good about the fact that my profession is pushing back really hard against ice right now in new york and we're going to continue to do so and i will probably get my first habeas petition within the next week or so to be filing so something fun and i'd love to talk further about that on this show as uh as this effort gets underway well you know um on the subject of of ice and and training and all that you know to train law enforcement um officials takes months at least takes you know a number of months um six months perhaps 20 weeks i don't know i've seen all kinds of different um uh figures thrown around and um for these ice agents who they are literally grabbing from the streets you know basically they're looking for um uh mega supporters they're looking for gun rights people uh the qualifications are not that high you don't have to have an education uh and they're basically just handing out guns to people and saying you now have authority the um this i i just read this a little while ago and i'm still stunned that this is actually what's going on the training period has been reduced from from months down to 47 days and the reason it's 47 days is because donald trump is the goddamn 47th president you know this is the kind of childishness they engage in it's all about numbers and symbols and power and it doesn't matter about qualifications anymore you know they just will take anybody and we saw we saw in minneapolis what happens when you have people who don't have a handle on their emotions and don't have proper training and have way too much power you see what happens there you see what happens throughout the country when somebody steps up and challenges these people as everybody has the right to do everybody i think has the obligation to do what they are doing is no different than what jackbooted thugs do in in in places where where people are are holed up in their houses trying to um trying to live their lives and not be brought to some horrible place that they probably won't survive you know and this is not what people voted for it certainly is not what people voted for but this is the reality that we're facing right now so yeah people don't want this people are standing up to it and boy i gotta tell you it is making them mad it is making them insanely furious i'm not just talking about the ice agents i'm talking about people in the upper echelons of government because they are becoming increasingly unhinged and i think that is the best thing to do is to keep pushing them until they go stark raving mad and let's not be afraid of the power they have because don't forget we gave them that power we can take it away and we need to push hard to do that you know i've been to a bunch of these demonstrations and they're great you know hundreds thousands of people and we're talking about you know not very large places and they're all over the area all over the country but you know i ask myself how many people do i know who are basically passionately in favor of these things quite a few how many of them do i know who went to one of these demonstrations almost zero and there's all kinds of reasons why not and they're valid reasons for sure but can you imagine if we all showed up if we spread the word and you know a lot of this also is the way the word gets out you know i ask people these demonstrations how do i find out when the next demonstration is oh you have to join our facebook group i'm not on facebook i i don't give a rat's ass about facebook i don't want to be on facebook isn't there a better way to let people know when the next demonstration is we just need to be more open to new people coming in and um i don't think we have to worry about being disrupted by new people i think new people are the key uh so um yes gila go ahead um i had seen a uh a tweet that went viral about a week ago and i enjoyed it and just wanted to share it um cheesecake factory training is up to four weeks and then even after that you're still in a probationary period and have to follow lead servers around until they deem you fit enough to drop brown bread by yourself just leaving that here for some framing and that quote tweeted um the atlantic saying ice agents only receive 47 days of academy training and that came from a person who's known as grip skylark at tallyberry baby um on twitter um i moved to new york from the twin cities so this is a very strange um moment to be seeing um seeing the people i know talking about it in what's happening in their neighborhoods what they're seeing as they take their kids to school and try to go to the grocery store and the way that the community is coming together is heartening um it shouldn't have to be but it is communities are coming together to create mutual support for families who are too scared to go to the grocery store because people are not leaving their homes right now for very very good reasons and it's terrifying to see um and that the secretary of the department of homeland security was standing behind a podium that said one of ours all of yours yeah that hits something scarily in my gut um i don't i feel like i've been saying this a lot over the past few years but i i am so frustrated and so scared and so unsure of what to do other than throw up my hands and hide i hear you and uh it's it's difficult but again knowing that we're not alone knowing that there are many people around us that means the world especially if you're somebody who is who's trapped somebody who feels like they can't even go outside without being grabbed because either uh you don't have all the right papers and you're still in the process of of filling out all the right forms uh or you look like somebody that they might think fits that qualification it's disgusting and this is not at all what people even people on the other side you know what they voted for at least in my mind the people i know who voted that way would never want something like this they would want you know violent criminals and threats to society yeah take them off the streets absolutely but that's not what's happening that's not what has been happening over the past year and um it's got to stop it's got to stop and if if um uh doing everything possible to stop ice from from finishing whatever it is they start if that's the way to do it then that's what has to be done we need trained people trained law enforcement to carry out law enforcement you know people who are qualified to do the job we don't have that right now we have a bunch of people who are power hungry and over weaponized and they're abusing their power there are so many videos out there of of people who basically are are commanded to stop and then they have their windows broken by these thugs because they didn't stop fast enough or they didn't stop in the right place and these are these are citizens not that it should make a difference you treat everybody with respect this is one thing you learn traveling is that people treat each other with respect you know you may have nothing in common with them a totally different background totally different language but you treat people right and that comes back to you and what's happening now is is so ugly so disgusting that if if we don't fight it if we don't destroy it we're going to lose whatever it is that we have here in this country it will fall apart and we used to think we were immune from what's going on right now we are not immune from that we are not immune from from whatever can come about as a result of this you know to bring it to technology you know i i just want to ask this question how many of you run windows 95 be honest be honest now yeah now no nobody no okay i'm surprised why uh all right i mean windows 95 is a good operating system uh it it worked you know connected to the internet and all that and had programs that worked and uh nobody really nobody is running windows 95 okay um i don't know i'm not running it yeah okay well that's kind of honest um all right well okay i i imagine you're not running it because you believe it's outdated and i guess maybe you've updated to another windows platform or or maybe you've gone to ubuntu or something or you know some other linux distribution you've you've upgraded updated you've you've modernized right because that's what you do with systems you don't leave them as old systems because they're prone to all kinds of malfunctions and and and things get really slow and there's security issues and it's just not smart it's not smart to do that sure you know you could probably run some programs but i really wouldn't advise connecting to the internet or to other computers because you know they'll pass you around the campfire like a bag of chips it's just basically you know you will be a victim it's it's it's awful uh what will happen to old operating systems what we have in this country is a very old operating system and i worry that it's not prepared for what is happening right now you know i'm i'm seeing in the news that um uh hey the congress is going to vote on the president's uh power to uh invade foreign countries like venezuela you know they're going to do that this is considered a victory but okay you know in the unlikely event that it actually passes in the first place the president can just veto it he can just say no so what kind of a system is that you know that seems like a very uh antiquated outdated system where you need to rein in somebody and the person you're trying to rein in can simply say no i won't be reigned in there's nothing you can do about it we seem to have this scenario over and over and over again where this guy can just destroy the white house he can get rid of of public broadcasting he can do all kinds of things and nobody can stop him he can get the supreme court to to do his bidding and there's no way around it it just feels like you know if um the founding fathers had maybe spent a little more time thinking of the the the possible scenarios out there we'd have a better operating system or maybe we need a way to do some updates every now and then what do you say every tuesday we do an update you know just send it out and uh it works for computers i you know i really think it should work for uh for governments because right now we have is a very very broken system alex do you agree do you think the system is broken i know you're uh you know you're into the whole uh legal system being a lawyer and all but you must see that a lot of it is failing uh i do think so i i absolutely do think so and what's it's really weird that you you mentioned this because my my next article that i'm thinking of and already putting the bones together about um is is here's the working title for it democracy is unpatched code in a failing state machine literally that's that's the working title of the next article that i'm writing and i and i do think there is a there's an analogy to be made here right because we have a lot of modern democracies that do seem like they're they're almost like window dressing in a sense you think about like today in brussels they've got 600 days without an actual government that's kind of amazing like so you have to really wonder like what is the actual function of modern democracies and are we confusing uptime essentially with something like self-government and self-rule you know the fact that these these systems just keep trucking along and haven't been rebooted and haven't been taken down and haven't been patched does not necessarily mean that they're great and that they're fit for purpose right like like you're trying to make this analogy not you're not running windows 95 anymore because you know you you'd be subject to attack you need to you need to update you need to upgrade and so i i do think that we have a lot of broken processes that we need a very serious reboot of democracy and think about how we do this because to bring this back down to to hacker terms again democracy is just a system it's a set of rules it is a a a system that has certain vulnerabilities in it and it has certain people exploiting those vulnerabilities in ways that i think we need to patch now and the systems by which we ordinarily do this namely the legislative process and the election of officials that we trust to represent the public interest well that those processes all seem to be in some way or another infected or also being exploited at this particular time as well and it does seem like almost from a constitutional perspective we need to rethink how the system works how it operates how we can make it stronger and more resistant to these threat actors that were certainly not anticipated back in the 18th century it's founding fathers constitutional malware you can use that by the way i can use that yeah i mean it really is crazy that you you're mentioning this particular analogy right now because that was something i actually started writing earlier today so um i guess mediocre minds think alike i've heard that said yeah well okay so um yeah it's it's um it's a trying time and um you know i just hope we all stay alert and awake and involved because that's that's the only way it changes yeah my thought uh when i was traveling was that you know we have a lot of um support and interest and ideas but we have a unique set of circumstances and and problems and we'll have to solve it in uh only ways we we understand in this context so as a system it is what we have and there's there's quite a bit that um needs to be improved long term but as it stands now i think it's really just about um our own sense of dignity and control uh as as um the does this design of the system dictates uh with co-equal branches and the like that that system is um i think lost um faith and i would say credibility uh and it it should be something that we can count on as uh a sort of guardrail and that that really deteriorates when you have like the kinds of flaws we're seeing in the judiciary and um and with uh our representative um institutions it just doesn't seem like they're really that busy with our interests yeah i i couldn't agree more with that kyle and um and i i think that you know we really have to think about how we elect our politicians as well i mean there is like we have a lot of people that are elected that don't necessarily feel like they have a mandate to represent the public interest because they were never they were never really elected on running for something like the public interest and so i i think in in the absence of some kind of watchdogs or or you know robust civic or institutional you know equivalence it's going to be you know really difficult for any kind of government i think to to repair itself here i think there needs to be more institutional changes we have to change it i think from the outside in um and what i think is really quite fascinating if you think about the history of our republic going back to the 18th century these problems that we're having right now do seem to all be entirely unique and so many of them seem to be born out of the misuse of technology and the misuse of data and the surveillance capitalism economy that we've allowed to be put in place that allows these bad actors foreign hostile actors as well to target the polity and manipulate the people in certain ways that were never even imaginable 15 to 20 years ago and so it's incredible how quickly things can degrade how quickly this system can degrade and essentially become headless in so many ways and i think if we don't act quickly to begin to repair it and to patch it and perhaps it needs some downtime i don't know if that's necessarily a government shutdown i don't think that's the kind of downtime that we're talking about but i think time to to think and repair and change some of the democratic processes that we've had in place because i think we're sliding into an area and a time where it may be difficult to to ever get out of this type of quicksand there's been some staying power uh with the protest actions and um also i think murmurings or just uh whispers of of uh general strikes and walkouts and things like that and at least some of the regional actions that are going on in response to the the um the news cycle and the sort of horrific nature of what has been going on with uh ice actions but um yeah we could maybe expect some of that on a larger scale to actually have an impact and be felt because um those are those are valid forms of of action that are um really uh something that are the like last uh form of civil disobedience i think that people can really exercise on mass without facing um the sorts of repression and and um authoritarian tactics and and basically being uh cast as rioters or something when you're actually um out there voicing your opinion and exercising your your first amendment rights because i think after a certain point you you reach a consensus with people that are in an action and you need um you need to have some some uh other recourse pick up the the um demands of people on mass and and put that into action yeah and i i you think um you know a lot of people saw that um uh when the folks in minneapolis were characterized as violent rioters and you know everyone saw the videos and knew that that was a lie and they saw our our highest officials just jumping into the lie without any evidence whatsoever uh within minutes of the incident itself and i think a lot of eyes were opened at that point we realized how low they will go and how how much of a how much they will lie without any shame whatsoever and meanwhile characterizing the riot the true rioters of january 6th as heroes it's just we're living in the upside down i mean we really are um you know there was this uh piece that i i keep seeing on on late night tv about uh trump appointing himself acting president of venezuela on wikipedia and i was wondering okay first of all how does a person do anything to themselves on wikipedia that's not supposed to be the way it works uh it turns out that uh it was a doctored wikipedia page which i believe doesn't mean it was an edited wikipedia page it was a wikipedia page that was simply um uh made to look like it was changed when it wasn't uh and that page called himself the acting president of venezuela in a truth social post so basically he was spreading a lie on a wikipedia page that did not exist if i understand that correctly uh the way it was being portrayed though in the media was that he had somehow changed the wikipedia page which i'm sure he believes he has the right to do but he really doesn't so did i have that right i mean i just had to do some research because it wasn't really being reported anywhere rob yeah anyone can make a wikipedia page not only change it to say anything you want and uh you know get your screenshots or whatever but you don't even have to go that far if you're if you edit a wikipedia page make the changes you want to appear have been made and then just click preview you will get that page as if you made those changes to it with no record of you doing so um so you know you would be free and clear to take screenshots and spread them around and do whatever you liked but um as opposed to if you actually edit a wikipedia page and there's a log of your user account or your ip address or whatever um just uh and also a digital screenshot is eminently alterable to say whatever you want in any case so yeah it's it's easy to fake so there's no record because you didn't actually do it and if you did do it uh you'd be set upon immediately by a whole bunch of wikipedia editors who would quickly fix whatever it is you were trying to pull off yes because there are crack uh there are crack wikipediaans out there who are very good and wikipedia has been so amazingly excellent at um beating back the tide of um biased and uh fake edits and things like that um it is it is really a triumph in terms of uh community-led projects unlike some so many um out there it is it is a shining beacon in the world of uh projects like this where people who are actually there just to make it the best uh reference site that they can make um keep it that way we need so you know we need to recognize uh their contributions and the amazing value that they add uh to uh to everything really uh and and there are so many um uh journalist outlets that um get it wrong that that basically uh bow down to the pressure we're seeing that everywhere in the corporate media which is why the corporate media was always a bad idea and you know we've railed against that for decades having massive corporations take over newspapers doesn't work out well and we're seeing the proof every single day uh so um that's something to keep in mind and of course you know you can always uh start another paper you can always uh you know get more people involved and and fight back against this simply by telling the truth uh okay we have a letter i'd like to read uh our email address is oth at 2600.com uh hi all hope your new year is off to a good start i don't know about that uh i mean you know we're fine but uh boy everything around us is falling apart but uh thanks thanks for the uh good thoughts i'm uh looking forward to hearing uh uh many more great off the hook shows this year well we will see uh i hope emmanuel and kyle have made it back safely to the u.s from ccc as well as alex from the fancy dress party in london yes um i hope i hope you enjoyed that too i would really like to hear um their and the rest of the crew's perspective on the attack that martha root performed live at ccc that is making the rounds uh this is from frank and you know that's an interesting question because kyle and i were at ccc the chaos communication congress in in humburg uh and uh this martha root talk somehow we missed that there were so many talks there really were tons of them so it's not hard to miss things but um we didn't find out about this until days afterwards but basically martha root um from what i understand uh hacked a um uh some kind of a dating site for white supremacists live on stage and was able to reveal the identities of their entire user base i'm not sure i have that incredible totally right uh you're waving your hand frantically alex so what what go ahead correct me i'm going to pass it over to rob to explain the urgency here yeah because um we we actually we read this letter and talked about this story last week when uh you folks when you uh you emmanuel and kyle were not with us um but uh the the story was amazing and there's there's been this huge reaction to it but you know we we did go we we did go into depth on what happened and how it happened and uh but there has been um there since last week's there's been an interesting update to it um a story from the 11th from the observer in the uk um a couple of those leaked white supremacist dating site profiles have been linked to tory and reform counselors uh a conservative counselor that's a that's a member of representative government over there has been suspended after her account was included on a leaked user list from uh one of the sites um that's so you know the pink power ranger performed this great act of uh superheroism at ccc and uh our friends at uh ddos secrets uh were hosting some of the material not not putting it all out in the into the public um but uh making it available to researchers and journalists um who who uh who requested it for you know proper reasons and this story appears to be the result of that um the uh people found by the observer in the database this from the story here appear to include an ex-member of the british national party activists within the neo-nazi group patriotic alternative and a man who ran for political office for britain first also listed as lilith osborne a former teacher and conservative counselor in glastonbury somerset um and when she joined the the pro-white dating site before she was elected she described her political orientation as pro-white and said she was seeking a partner interested in indigenous european spirituality um so yeah there there has been fallout from this uh amazing move on the part of the pink power ranger over there in germany so i i know that uh whenever smack this happens there are questions raised about privacy about uh doxing people and things like that um where is the line because i you know if if i got a list of everybody who voted mega i don't think it would be appropriate to release that list but we're talking about people who are overtly white supremacist here and and i believe that's the difference is it i i think that's a part of it but also these people who are in government who are in public service and uh as such need to be um you know prepared for the level of accountability that comes with that sort of work theoretically um we're not seeing that always uh the case at least in this country but these people who were in positions of power in the uk um who on the down low were on a neo-nazi dating app um i think i think that's worth knowing that knowledge is worth uh spreading out there and um at least one politician seems to have lost their job as a result well if it's on the down low they're going on to this white supremacist site and entering their real name so how much on the down low is it actually well i think that's also part of what the presentation included was that part of it was that the security and the um uh practices the uh opsec thank you uh we were so small they were it was terrible and the fact that morph the brute was able to set up an ai chat bot lure in users and get them to identify a bunch of information about themselves um i mean i just the the sites that got wiped are so gross sites plural and i mean this whole story is fascinating we did talk about it a lot um last week but yeah i didn't listen to last week's show i'm sorry but you know it was an interesting letter and i i wanted to talk about a little bit too because you know it it kind of um it's an interesting test as to what the boundaries are as to what is what should be considered private and what needs to be known and i think if people are you know uh spouting white supremacy that needs to be known especially if they're in positions of power but you know i'd also like to know uh if uh if if my neighbor is a white supremacist i think that's of interest you know that could that could definitely come up in the future uh so um um this is something that i think is is important and and i don't know will we see more things like this well i guess if people are dumb enough to do this yeah we will also i think in in the context of something like this like if you're putting yourself out there on a on a let's say a dating app and uh you know the info you're putting about yourself on there is stuff you're sending over the internet about yourself and you're ready to go out into the dating world and say this is hey everyone this is who i am uh shouldn't you be ready to back up all that same this is who i am in terms of being accountable to a public who you uh you serve oh i guess we'll we'll see now uh okay uh we are going to have overtime tonight on youtube we haven't done that in a while uh what you do is you go to youtube.com slash uh slash channel 2600 or just go to the link that's on the front page of 2600.com join us at eight o'clock and uh you can listen to us talk more and maybe even call in and and have all kinds of uh fun in that regard i wanted to close though with um a couple more observations about uh our travel overseas you know we um we we tried uh kyle especially tried to get um you know the hard plastic cards that are um a contactless uh rfid that uh you use to get onto buses and trains and things like that and you know we noticed in a couple of cities in in uh warsaw uh basically and in prague uh you can ride mass transit for next to nothing or completely free if you are over a certain age which i happen to be and so it was suggested to me uh particularly in prague that um yeah you know what you don't have to pay anything to ride the buses and the trams and the trains all you have to do is uh show your passport if you're challenged or show your license or whatever and um that's it so you know i find that very interesting that um there are free buses in many parts of the world it works the system really works some cities also offer this to students so don't tell me it can't work in new york i think it can it just has to be done intelligently and it's going to be um an interesting uh test ahead to see if we catch up to the rest of the world alex i'll let you have the last word on this because we got yeah sure i mean i'd like to say to the to the struggling masses contemplating the free buses out there that the you know the reality of the fact is if you ride the buses like i do very often in the city mostly nobody pays anyway these buses these mta buses in manhattan i don't think i think maybe 85 of the people probably don't pay for them now anyway so i doubt there'll be much of a difference to the mta's budget even if people started paying or the which we just make them free because they're kind of symbolic anyway we have to leave it there we're going to close with a public service announcement and uh we'll see you on off the hook overtime at eight o'clock on youtube and next week here on wbai at seven o'clock good night this is a public service announcement with guitar you have the rights you have the rights you have the rights you don't mind a little investigation humiliation and if you cross your fingers we have the intention know your rights these are your rights hey say why how the things to do your rights ... Oh, you know these rights Number three You have the right to free speech As long as you're not dumb enough to actually try it Know your rights These are your rights Oh, know your rights These are your rights Of the oven And it has been suggested in some quarters That this is not enough Whoa Get off us, please Get off us, please You're right Thank you. And welcome everybody here on YouTube for another exciting edition of Off the Hook Overtime. This is Emmanuel. I'm joined over there by Kyle. You are. Out in Signal Land, we have Rob and we have Gila and we have Alex. Yep. Hello. Yeah. Okay, and we just are awaiting confirmation that we made it to YouTube. We did in fact make it to YouTube. I expect we'll have no listeners this week because we haven't been on for a month and people forget and they have other things in their lives now. Amazingly enough, we have 23 people with us already. Okay. Which is really quite good. Is that quite good? Really? 23 people? At the beginning? 23,000 people, I would think. Off to the races here. It's one of these well-known secrets, I suppose. Well, you know, Gila, you mentioned this to me, I think, weeks ago, that Alex makes noise every time he comes in. He has a mute button that actually makes noise. I'm hearing it now. I never heard it before, but now I'm hearing it every time. Alex, are you muted now? You're nodding your head. This is radio. Yeah, that noise. Okay. That's really annoying. Why does that show up? I mean, I asked some colleagues. I cannot believe I didn't notice that all this time. I guess I just assumed it was one of those. How do you not notice that? Because I hear a lot of annoying noises in my daily life. So I just assumed this was another one of them. I'd like to ask the listeners of the 23, 24, whatever people. 38. Okay, 38. Oh, my God, it's a landslide. It's growing. Wow. You know, if they can hear it, because I was talking with a friend of mine, a colleague of mine, who listens to the show, and he said he doesn't hear that. People lie to you all the time, Alex. I guess so. Maybe that's it. But it is really annoying if that comes through, because there's a look for ways to shut off the beep of when you go in and out of muting, and it kind of defies the purpose of being on mute. It's funny. Yeah, mute button that makes noise. It's like, you remember the old telephone recordings that journalists would have to use where they would beep every 15 seconds to let you know you were being recorded? Yes. Boy, this is going to get annoying really fast. Yeah, I assume everybody can hear that. I don't know why only we would be able to hear that. Oh, no, they can all hear it. Uncommon Geek says, the sound is a recent addition that has been happening for a few weeks now. And our buddy Lex Pendragon says, yep, Alex, I hear it, and I hate it. So, Alex, did you get something new in the last month or two? No, nothing. I don't know why that's coming through. Maybe you're more conscientious and you're muting yourself when you have nothing to say. Well, I do that, but I've been doing that for forever. I do that constantly because I'm, you know, I'm afraid that something will come across the airwaves that I'm not supposed to say if I don't continuously mute myself. Well, I mean, you know, as long as you're not, like, you know, belching into the microphone or your dog's not barking or one of your children isn't screaming, then, you know, you can leave the mic on, I guess. I guess, but no, I don't know. It's too risky to me. There might be some kind of outburst or something. Yeah, let's keep the mic on. Let's see what happens. We'll see. I'm going on mute. This is craziness. In the interest of tracking this down, have you changed what you're using? Like, are you muting with some sort of hardware device or are you using your, like, mouse to click the button on your computer? No, I'm just using the mouse. And I don't think it's signal either. Maybe. I don't know. Is there a way to turn off the stupid noise within signal? Is it signal that's doing this? Do you have hardware or is it just simply? No, it's signal. Somebody out there knows the answer to this. Okay, but wait a second. Because we, obviously, we're also on signal. We are also pretty cautious about muting ourselves. Do we make a little bloopy? Well, why don't you test that out? Mute yourself. They've been muting themselves on and off all night. Why don't you mute yourself, Alex? Here we go. All right, here we go. They're talking, but nothing's coming out of their mouths. And now we're unmuted again. I didn't hear a damn thing. I didn't, I mean, I didn't hear audio. I didn't hear a beep. I didn't hear any of that. I hear you now. So, Alex, you're doing something different. Okay, OSs. What OS, Rob and Gila, are you running? Ubuntu, Cobuntu, actually. What now? Linux. Okay. And Alex? Well, macOS. I'm running here, yeah. I hate to say that's your problem, but, you know, I kind of love to say that, too. Yeah. We have a couple people suggesting that is a software mute versus a hardware mute. The Mac Geek suggests if you had a proper USB mic with its own mic switch, it wouldn't make mute sound. That sounds a bit scolding there, but it's probably true. I don't write the comments. I just read them. Yeah. Well, Alex, you're a software mute. That's what we've determined here. I have another option because I have a microphone that I can use, which I found wasn't, I don't know, it didn't really enhance my sound, I think, more than the internal microphone in a Mac Air. You sounded like crap before. You sound better now, but you have that annoying clicking noise. Yeah, so I could install that, and then that's a hardware type of mute, an unmute type of thing that doesn't make any noise. So I could do that if need be, but I'd rather figure out how to change this and signal. I have a question. Do you have a volume control? Can you make yourself really low? Oh, yeah, that's a good idea. Let's try that. So instead of clicking, you just go low. Look, he did it. Now I'm unmuted. Did you hear it? You didn't hear it then, right? No. Wow. So Emanuel's custom support, yet again, has solved the problem. Yeah, that solved the problem, but then I can't hear anything, obviously. So that just creates a different problem because if I turn the volume down and then I unmute myself so that I'm not making a sound, I can't hear what you said or what other people have said. It'll make the whole thing very awkward. That's why we wear headphones. Okay, how about this? How about this? First, you bring the volume down, click mute, then bring the volume up. Actually, wearing headphones would probably solve the whole thing. You know, how often have I been trying to get you to wear headphones for this show? Yeah, I know. I know. That would solve the problem. Speaking of customer service, I had to deal with Amazon customer service today. You know, I realized I forgot to buy calendars. They're the worst. I bought a kitten calendar, all right, and it was supposed to arrive today, and I went to the Amazon place and picked it up. And what was in the bag? But a bunch of women's shirts. Now, the thing is, the thing that drove me crazy was when I opened it and realized these aren't kittens here. This is a five-pack of women's shirts that I don't need, it showed itself as being a kitten calendar that had arrived. And so, you know, I was faced with the choice of, what do I do with this? You know, this is wrong. So, I went on Amazon and clicked. The order was wrong. And it kept proceeding, like, I wanted to return the kitten calendars. And I would have to drive to a distant Whole Foods to drop it off before I could get a refund. But there was, you know, they acted like they had delivered the kitten calendar instead of the women's shirts. They wouldn't acknowledge that. And finally, you know, I turned to Gemini, you know, as I often do, for help, and said, Gemini, how the hell do I get a human with Amazon? And it told me how to do it. And I was speaking with Jaya not too long afterwards, and she was very nice, and she understood the situation, and she told me to discard the women's shirts, and she would send me a new kitten calendar. So, Sunday, I hope to get that. But that's what you have to do. You have to rely on artificial intelligence to get a human with Amazon. Well, artificial intelligence, an LLM-generated thing like Gemini, only knows the answer because a lot of people wanted to know the answer and have posted the answer somewhere out there online for the language model to pick up. I'm actually, Emmanuel, now that you mention it, I, as I explained to some of my colleagues, succumbed to the siren song of a promotional deal and got myself a new phone around New Year's. And I had to ship in the old phone to get the credits, and we dropped it off at the UPS store a week and a half ago. And according to UPS, the phone is now at, like, the site, but they're not seeing that, like, it's not showing up in the system. So, your phone provider has not yet logged the receipt of the phone that UPS says they gave them? The, yes, that is correct. They still think I haven't dropped it off. And UPS says it's in Texas. Wow. So, what are you going to do? I don't, I'm not sure what to do. Also, Emmanuel, and I am just quoting here, Rebel says, give the shirts to your wife. Yeah, thanks, Rebel. That's really helpful information. Yeah, I don't know what I'm going to do with the shirts. I won't discard them. I'll donate them to somebody, I guess. I have no idea what, I don't know what kind, they're, they're V-necks. I don't know. I didn't order them. Are they T-shirts? Are they button-ups? Could you use them for cleaning screens or make them into cute little throw pillows? Do I look like the kind of person who would do that? Fair point. Well made. It's like, it's like some kind of active wear, but that's just to be precise. Can I try in here for a sec? Oh, Alex, you have a comment? More of like an experiment, okay? I'm going to mute myself in three, two, one. Oh, listen to that, listen to that piece. So professional. Did anybody hear me mute and unmute at that point? Nope, did not. No. Okay. I figured out what the culprit was. Okay, let's hear it. It was presumably an ID10TR. It's what most people in the comments, I'm sure, will describe it as. But there is a setting in macOS for playing system, I'm sorry, playing user interface sound effects. And the volume, the alert volume was all the way up. So it was like, it was like this. Right? We hear it now, yes. We definitely hear it. Yeah. Now if I turn it down to like a reasonable level, now I can go on mute just like this. And then I can come off it just like that. What a problem. We heard it slightly the last time. We heard it very slightly. Slightly? Okay. Sorry. I'll go down even further. So let's test it now. So I'm going to go on mute. Now I'm unmuted. Did you hear it all? I mean, it's not nearly as annoying, but we still hear it. Oh, Jesus. Okay. So I'll go even lower. Why don't you turn it off? Why do you need it on the first place? How low can you go, though? Yeah. Well, let's see. Let's see if it still registers. All right. Off. On. Was it still? Was it more? All right. We can hear it. We can hear it slightly when you go back on. So when you turn it off, it's being muted. Yeah, we don't hear when you go on. When you unmute yourself, we hear it. I'm just going to turn the whole thing off. And now I'm going on mute. Off mute. Nothing. Okay. That was good. Why didn't you do that from the start? Because I didn't know about the setting. I had to. I'm saying, why didn't you turn it off instead of going all the way down and torturing us? Well, because then I could still hear these user interface settings, but at a lower volume, such a volume that it wouldn't register on the microphone. I thought there was a threshold level at which it wouldn't carry over. But I was apparently wrong. You're either crying, Kyle, or you're laughing hysterically. I don't know which it is. But it's all justified. I'm sorry. What was that? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all. But on the subject of notification sounds, you know, again, Gemini was very helpful with this because on my Android phone, I was able to make a different sound for any app that I wanted. And so when there is an ice raid anywhere in the area, I have a siren that goes off. It's really cool because, you know, you suddenly hear a siren. You know there's an ice raid going on. And you grab the phone and see where it is. Well, it worked in Europe, too. While I was traveling, it would happen on the train. And we were six hours ahead. So, you know, it happened all different places. And every time it happened, I'd have to either pretend I had no idea where it was coming from or quickly grab my phone and turn it off. But it definitely got attention. When people heard the siren, everybody perked up. What's that? So it's kind of cool to have different sounds for different apps. It's just something that I think more people should make use of. So this reminds me of something that my dad did. And he had very, he made his own sounds for when he received a text and when he received a voicemail. Let me try that again. When he received a text, when he received an email. And one was a cough and one was a throat clearing. Wow. So if he forgot to silence his phone, no one noticed. What if somebody coughed, though? Wouldn't he get confused? It was weird because it sounded very specifically like my brother coughing. And every time I would, like, be with my dad and his phone would make this sound because he'd gotten an email, I was looking for my brother. My brother was in another state. But it sounded exactly like the, it was, it was amazing. Also, I have a message for you from at Dwight Schrute says, who wants you to know that you can return Amazon items to staple stores. Okay, that's, that's not much more convenient, but thank you. That's good to know. I just think, you know, all those annoying trucks that are driving around, getting in the way. Why can't I just give it to one of them? You know, they could serve a purpose then. Fair question. Yeah. Um, also, before he calls, because I know this is going to happen, I would like to remind Rebel that I am not the wife of the show. And also, Rebel, you're banned. Remember, we banned him. Right! We banned him. That's right! Because you insisted on calling when we asked you not to call because you had already called, taken up a fair amount of time. So, yeah, you thought we'd forget. Sure, a month has gone by, but there was no show. There was no, no overtime. So this is the show where you are banned. Now, if you call again, uh, then you get banned for two shows and if you, it just, it'll, it'll get worse and worse. So, you know, sit back, listen, enjoy, do something else, get a Mai Tai or whatever. And, uh, you know, uh, call next week. But because we know you're listening, I just want to remind you that I'm not married to all four of my co-panelists. Um, so. Is that what he thought? Well, he said, give them to your wife. And then he said, give them to me. And I just kind of assumed. He said, give it to Gila. He said, well, he said, give it to Gila. And I, that's me. Um, also there's no E in my name, but that's a different discussion. Um, so yeah, just wanted to put out there that I am married to one of my fellow panelists, but not all of them. You'll have to figure out which one that is. But, you know, that's, uh, those kinds of assumptions, uh, uh, don't serve anybody. So, uh, yes. Um, hey, would you like to hear my ringtone for my phone, which I programmed myself. Anybody who gets this knows what it is, wins a prize. Y'all ready? Uh-huh. All right. Uh, hang on. I guess the lesson there is that I have to turn audio back on. Leaning in like I'm not wearing headphones. Hold on a second. I didn't turn audio on my phone. Um, oh no, I did. I did. I don't know why it's not working. Hold on. I have to turn this up. Yeah, I know how to use a phone. Don't worry about that. Okay. So, no, that's not right either. It's a phone. Okay, now, all right, let's, let's, let's try this one more time. Let's try this one more time. It doesn't work. I don't know. Okay, let me, let me press it a second time. Okay, I don't know how to stop it now, but yeah, but just throw it. Anybody can figure out what that is. Yeah. Yeah, you win a prize. That's the, uh, that's the Sopranos theme song, isn't it? Wow, you're very close there, Alex, very close, but no cigar, no cigar for you. All right, we are going to, um, we don't know if the phone's going to work, by the way, because we haven't done this in a month. What's that? Actually, I will tell you what it sounds like to me. It sounds like the beginning or an ending of a transmission of a number station. That's what it actually sounds like. Okay, but you've got to be more specific than that if you're going to go that route, is what I'm saying. So, uh... You have to be more specific than that? Like, I have to tell you what the number station is? Yeah, who it belongs to. I mean, I've never heard of a number station that had musical notes beforehand, but maybe, maybe you're onto something. I think so. I mean, it's the Lincolnshire Poacher or something. This was mostly for the listeners, though. I'm sure there's somebody out there that can identify that sound. And, you know, on this planet, I know only one person that successfully did that. I won't say who it was. All right. We are starting to get some comments and chiming in from the chat. Increasingly hostile, too, right? Zap says it sounds like a Fisher-Price record player. Rebel says it's Germany. Sarah said some spooky number station somewhere, probably. Hang on, hang on, hang on. Ask Rebel to elaborate on what he means by that. And go ahead. All right, Rebel. Please elaborate on what you mean by that. And I will also say that when that... He's bad. He can chat. And we don't have to read the chat, but he can chat, but he can't call. But I would like to point out that when you did first play that ringtone, three people said, oh, it's the beginning of the show again. What? How is that the beginning of the show again? You played a bit of the phone ringing tone. We heard the phone ringing. And you know how the phone, the show now starts with the phone ringing before the... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's funny. So. All right. So... I thought it sounded like it's a small world, by the way. Yeah, that's totally wrong. All right. So we're going to turn the phone on, but we don't know if it's going to work because we haven't used it in a while. And we might have forgotten how it works. So do you think it went stale? Their national anthem, he says. No. No, you're wrong. But you know, you're on a good path, which I've never said to Rebel before. Keep going down that path and see what happens. You might actually get it. You might actually get it. It doesn't give you any privileges on calling in, though, this week. So don't try that. Okay. Our phone number, 802-321-4225. The phone is now on. And we'll see if it works. We'll see if all the modifications that Kyle did last year have stayed in effect. And I assume the bell is on, so we'll be able to hear the phone if it rings. Oh, you want that on? Well, how else are we going to know if the phone's ringing? I know that it's ringing, and I'm picking it up. Okay. Is it a TV shutdown tune? Is the new... What is a TV shutdown tune? I've never heard of that. I don't know what that is. I think when a station would go off the air for the evening, back when they used to do that. Or the national anthem they would play. Or the melody that your TV plays when you shut it down. Like ours used to before we turned the setting off. Is this like a drier sound that plays a little symphony every time the clothes get finished? I mean, our TV used to play a little song, which we called the Song of Our People. But then we adjusted that setting. And now Johnny Fusion asks, is it a bell tower in Hamburg? I don't know what that would mean. Bell tower in Hamburg. Why would that sound like anything? A bell tower in Hamburg. Why would a bell... Like a bell tower. Oh, you mean like a church bell? Yeah. Well, I didn't hear any bells, did you? It sounded a little bell-ish. It sounded like a... Yeah. Okay. I've never heard a church make a sound like that. I've never heard that. But maybe... I don't know. I haven't been at church in a long time. But no. Kyle, go ahead. I'll just say keep guessing people and ease trying to throw you off, so... I'm not trying to throw anybody off. No, you're being defensive. Come on. There's good... Oh, my God. These are good guesses, and you're trying to throw... Yeah, but I don't want to give away too much. Look, I'm encouraging people. All right, so... We have a phone call tonight. Please call us. We gave out the number. It's working now. We're going to test this. Please. No hum. No hum. Please no hum. You can call us about user interfaces and how you make things sound the way you like them, what you do with sounds. And, you know, please try not to put me into an argument of some sort, because my dentist specifically said, shut up, don't talk so much, and, you know, because for healing, for my pulled tooth, I have to not be moving my jaw. So, if somebody calls in with some kind of political debate, I'm going to sit back and let you guys handle it. All right. And good evening. You are on Off The Hook Overtime. Go ahead. Hi. I have a follow-up question related to that program you did after Mom Donnie was sworn in, and Rob mentioned that there were three legitimate ways to visit the old City Hall train station, but he didn't get to the third one. He said one was to become a member of the New York Transit Museum. One was to stay on the sixth train after it reaches the final stop in Manhattan and has to turn around. And there was a third one, which he didn't mention, so I'd like to get that. If I said three, I misspoke, because there are only the two. You either stay on the sixth train while it goes around the loop, or you get a proper tour through the Transit Museum. Well, I can think of number three right away. You break in, not as a member of that group, and go down a manhole or something, but you figure out how to get into the City Hall station. But that's how you get to the actual station, because when you're on the train, you can't get off. Right. But, Rob, have you actually gone on the tour through the Transit Museum? Well, you just know that it exists. I know that it exists, and you can find info on the Transit Museum's website, I believe. But I have been on the sixth train through that terminal loop multiple times to check it out, and it's always cool to look at it from there. Fun fact. Okay. The taking of Pelham 123, it is the sixth train they take down, and I believe they escape in the abandoned 18th Street station. If I'm not mistaken, that's how they get onto the street. Okay. So it is only two methods, then, like you said. Yes. Yes. Two legitimate methods. Two legitimate. Okay. And, Emanuel, when will you be announcing the new venue for the next HOPE conference? When we get the new venue for the next HOPE conference, which we are looking into all kinds of options. People are working so hard to find a way to make this conference happen. We really want it to happen. HOPE 26. It's, you know, there are only two years that have 2600 numbers in HOPE H2K in 2000, 00. And this one, 2026, 2-6. You know, we're never going to get this chance again, so we have to have it somewhere. So we're looking at all kinds of venues throughout the New York City area. And, you know, we've gotten so many emails from people who want us to have the conference someplace else, someplace more welcoming. And almost invariably, the place that's more welcoming is where they live. And I know that's a good idea to you, but it's not a great idea to us because we would have to move everything out there and organize over months. And it would just be prohibitive for us to do all that. We think there's a solution here. We think there's a solution somewhere in the New York City area. And we think there's probably a longer term solution if we work together. So stay tuned for the next few weeks because I think we're going to have some major changes and things to talk about. Is it your preference for a college campus? Well, right now, we're open to pretty much anything, you know, that has a roof and, you know, rooms to have talks in. So, you know, we didn't think of a college campus the first time when we got St. John's. Right. We're considering it now. There are a lot of college campuses I didn't even know about. But, you know, we're also considering other venues as well. The thing is, you know, they have to be affordable and some of them are just, you know, in the stratosphere. But then there are some that are actually possible. We just have to get the right people. You know, if there are people who know how to communicate with all these venues and, you know, make deals and, you know, like, for instance, hotels, you get discounts if you are able to get people to stay in rooms and things like that. But, you know, we need to know how to do all these things. And we spend most of our time organizing the conference, which is a couple of full-time jobs right there. So we're trying everything we know. But we could certainly use help. If people want to help, they can write to us, hope at hope.net or OTH at 2600.com. Well, I hope you'll consider maybe Queens College, Queensborough Community College or Stony Brook. I mean, you went to Stony Brook. Have you looked into that? Stony Brook is pretty far away. I mean, you know, people said St. John's is far away. Stony Brook is very far away. It'll be a two-hour ride on the train. I think that's too much. I think we need to stay within New York City. Okay. Well, there's obviously a lot of colleges and universities. So I hope you can find something within the five boroughs or maybe New Jersey, maybe Rutgers. I mean, there's a lot of transportation to get there. And they have a very big campus. Well, we'll consider that, even though it's technically not New York City, but we'll consider that for sure. Good luck to you. Thank you. Hope you find someplace. Thank you very much. Thanks. And did you notice how good that caller sounded? That's a good phone line, Kyle. I think the system works. And he could hear you guys, too, I believe. Mm-hmm. All right. 802-321-4225. 802-321-HACK is our phone number. And hopefully we get another phone call. While we were talking, Gil, I did find some info about the Transit Museum tours. The tours go on sale three times a year. Today happened to be one of the three times a year the tickets went on sale to members. Everything sold out since 10 o'clock this morning. Wow. So you have to become a member and then wait for the next chance to buy tickets. Wait for the next chance to buy tickets. Hold on a second. No, there's a person. Kyle, are you informing me that Rebel is calling? Pick up the phone. If it is Rebel, he gets banned for two weeks. Do we pick up? Good evening. You're on off-look overtime. Go ahead. There's nobody there, Kyle, because the phone's still ringing. Can you pick up the phone? What's going on? Okay. Good evening. You're on off-look overtime. Go ahead. A wise move. All right. Do not call back. All right. We don't know for sure. Somebody might have spoofed his number, but I did not hear his voice. But yeah, don't be pranking us either, because that's going to piss us off. 802-321-4225. Rebel, I look forward to talking to you next week. All right? Because otherwise, it'll be a few weeks. Yeah. 802-321-4225. So yeah, you know, speaking of the train museum and tickets going on sale to members and things like that, I missed my opportunity to buy World Cup tickets. Yeah, I forgot. I forgot to buy into their racket of, I think you pay like $200 for the possibility of buying a ticket or something like that. But you're not, that money goes towards the ticket, I believe. But it's too much. It's too much money. So I'm glad I missed it, you know? And if there are other ways of getting tickets, somebody tell me what it is. Because I always thought, you know, when the World Cup finally came to this country that, you know, people would be able to buy tickets to it. It wouldn't be this whole big thing where you have to be members of things and spend all Why would you think that? I don't know. I guess I thought FIFA was less corrupt than it actually is. Now, if you pay that $200, but you don't end up getting a ticket, do you get your $200 back? No. No, I think that one, you know, I'm not sure. There are so many schemes they've got going. It's ridiculous. But my impression was that one that expired yesterday, you would pay that money and it would go towards a ticket or not. But you wouldn't lose the money. There are other ones, though, where you bet everything on one team and you either get it or you don't and you could lose thousands that way. Yeah, it's gambling, really. I just want to be able to buy a ticket and go into Meadowlands or whatever. Or, you know, I'll watch teams I don't even know who they are. Just to say I went to a World Cup. You know, there's going to be all these games. Dub hub. Dozens and dozens and dozens. I'm not sure why that's funny, but OK. What's that? But I'm just saying, I'm pretty confident that people are going to start reselling their tickets. Yeah. And you can take out a second mortgage to buy one, I guess. I'll pay 50 bucks. That's what I'm paying. 50 bucks for a ticket to a team that nobody wants to see. Hey, OK. How about this? Brazil versus Morocco. OK, anything with Brazil in it. Brazil could be, you know, playing a brick wall and people will go crazy to see them. World Cup Group C. Two tickets in Category 3. $856. OK, so that's actually $420 and change is what you're saying per ticket. That is what I'm saying. OK, so let's not exaggerate. But you're looking on that. I don't think so. Yeah, I'm on StubHub. What teams are those? This is Brazil versus Morocco, Group C, Match 7. Oh, poor Morocco. They're going to get their asses kicked. This is fun. That one we didn't talk about. Was it StubHub? There was some ticket resale things happened in the last few weeks where they were advertising tickets to a metal show by a band called Lamb of God. And it turned out that the algorithm had just fucked up and they were actually selling tickets to a Christmas pageant called Lamb of God. Wow. I forgot about that. Yeah. Metalheads like descending upon some random church for this concert. And that's not what happened. That's that's the funniest thing I've heard in a while. Also, someone said FIFA gives Trump some kind of award and you thought they were less corrupt. Well, that's about when I started having suspicions. OK, they hadn't been doing things like that before. Not not as much. Anyway, 802-321-4225. We don't have a phone call, do we, Kyle? We do? A phone call on the line? You didn't tell me. Yeah, we were busy with some stuff that the phone did ring. OK. Good evening. You're on off the hook overtime. Go ahead. Yes, I'm on your calling from California. And that's your last call for the next two weeks, Rebel. We warned you. Warned you. So let's see. Let's do the calculation now. Today is the 14th. So he can't call on the 21st or the 28th. But if the 28th is a call-in show for BAI, that gets pushed to the next week because that doesn't count. I was going to ask that. Yeah. So. But he can't call that show either. He can't call that show either. Yeah. And then should he call during the two-week ban period that gets a three-week ban, right? No, he'd get permo-banned then. Yeah, permo-banned. And it's happened before. Yeah. As you will get if you keep calling back tonight. And if that's him calling again, that's very, very possible he'll get permo-banned. Go ahead. You are on off the hook overtime. You know, I don't make the rules. That's just how it is. But I did want to say a couple things. Number one, would you consider Newark as far as that? I'm just trying to piggyback off of the gentleman earlier. Um, what's in Newark? What venue are you thinking? Like the university, Rutgers University, are those places you would do, you would consider? Is Rutgers in Newark? I don't know where Rutgers is, but I didn't think it was in Newark. It's in Newark. They have a camera. Can I ask where you're calling from? Because there's this loud hiss, like you're very far away. Can you hear me better? Yeah, we hear you. There's a loud hiss. It's really weird sounding. Oh. Sounds like the ocean. You guys hear that? Let me just say what I have to say quickly before I go to. You know, Trump, he banned like 75 countries today. Like no visa application ever before. He banned 75 countries? What do you mean? Like, it's basically you can't know, you can't come in from these 75 countries. There's just no visa, nothing. No way you can, that's it. Are these countries that are playing in the World Cup? Most of them are, yeah. These are, you know, a lot of African countries, you know. Well, then they can play in Canada or Mexico and give us the middle finger and they have every right to. That's ridiculous. Yeah. I hadn't heard about that. Yeah, if you Google it now, you'll see it. 75 countries have been completely banned and they just stopped visa applications. You know, this guy's out of his mind. We have to deal with this. And like I was saying on the show, our system seems ill-prepared to deal with a lunatic in power. And we need to figure out how to do that. There's a patch for this system that we have that really needs to be installed quickly. Anyway, that's all I have to say. All right. Thanks for calling. And yeah, wherever you're calling from. But boy, that sounded far away. I noticed Rebels call sounded far away too, but I'm not going to draw parallels between that. 802-321-4225 is our phone number. Gila, you were nodding when he said that. Do you know something about the countries being banned? Yes. I was looking at it earlier, actually. Anyway, 75 countries, shockingly enough, they are all from Asia and Africa. You know, people of color. It was really gross. It was a fascinating list. And yeah, they're just not going to process visas from those countries anymore. Well, what if the players already have visas? Somehow, I don't think the World Cup is going to be affected by this. Okay. All right. Also, people want you to know that there's a newer campus of Rutgers. It's not the main campus, but there is a newer campus. Okay. We can look into these things for sure. The problem with campuses, obviously, is they have school. And so you can't have conferences when they have classes. So that pretty much limits it to two, maybe three months in the summer. And we have to make sure that it's not already booked for something else. But, you know, we're looking into everything. And, you know, more suggestions, the better. Again, email address is hope at hope.net or oth at 2600.com. Good evening. You're on off the cover time. Go ahead. Speak up. All right. We're getting at this. Do you know anything about that, Kyle? Or is that just something about these connections? No, I don't know anything about it. What was the area code for that call, if you don't mind me asking? 209. 209. That's not, I think that's, where is that? Is that Idaho? That's somewhere weird. No offense. I do have a little more information about that. I think it's California, actually. Wait. It is? Didn't Rebel say he was in California? He did. Rebel, you're playing a dangerous game here. I'm not kidding around. It appears to be Northern California. State Department spokesman Tommy Piggott said the indefinite. His name is Piggott? Again, I don't write him. You can have fun with pig, but you can also rhyme it with bigot. There are so many possibilities here. I mean, it also could be Piggott. It's got two Ts. The indefinite pause. These are just for immigration visas, by the way. So, again, the World Cup will not be affected. The indefinite pause aims to limit applicants deemed likely to become, quote, a public charge, a term for someone who relies on government benefits for their basic needs. The order takes effect January 21st, and a full list of the countries on the administration's list has not been released. But it's not good. I am so sick of this shit. Oh, wait, nope. Here's a list. You're going to read 75 countries on the air? Do you know how quick I can talk? All right. Let's hope this person's not out of payphone. Go ahead. Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Myanmar. Why is that alphabetized there? Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Colombia, Cote d'Ivoire, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominica. Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, the Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, North Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Republic of the Congo, Russia, Rwanda, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Uruguay, Uzbekistan and Yemen. You asked about Myanmar. The reason Myanmar is there is because I know why used to be called Burma. Used to be called Burma. Yeah. And they just never changed the alphabetizing. Wow. How stupid. Who was the responsible for that list that couldn't even move a B to an M? Source, U.S. official. I'm assuming that they're using some outdated database that did not. Oh, Johnny Fusion, by the way, said it was him. It was me, not Rebel. I could hear Rob and Gila, but not you. And the connection just crapped out. 209? He was calling from 209? Is that what he's claiming? That is what he's claiming. Okay. All right. Thank you for saying that. We have somebody on the phone now. Good evening. You're on. What's so funny? I'm sorry. Lex just said, I hope Lou Reichu is listening to make a new 2600 remix from this one. This is why we don't read the chat while we're doing the show, because it distracts from the show. Except the one of us whose job it is to read the chat. That is very true. Then read silently. All right. This is not going well. Good evening. You're on off the hook over time. So, is it me? I don't know. Only you know that. Okay. I guess it must be. Well, I don't know how you hear me. I heard you fine on the computer, but I hear you like crap right now, just for your survey. But I can keep talking. It's not a problem on my end. We hear you fine. I hope I'm coming out loud and clear on your end. Now, I want to set a few things straight. As far as the World Cup goes, Morocco-Brazil should be quite interesting. Morocco was fourth of the last World Cup, and they're in line for winning the Africa Cup. They're in the final. Now, they just beat Nigeria at the penalty kicks tonight. Unfortunately, I was hoping Nigeria would make it to the final. It's a better team. They're the home team, but they're definitely not just winning because they are the home team this time. And as I said, they were, you know, in the semifinals of the last World Cup, and they qualified fourth. So it should be quite an interesting tie. Also, because Brazil, in spite of being Brazil, has got a dubious team at the moment. And it has, for the past two or three World Cups, it hasn't been the Brazil that we're all used to. So, as far as the visas go, and, you know, this is probably in line with the strategy of the present so-called administration to create chaos and fill the zone or whatever, to create confusion and panic and upset in people like us or people of good will or people who are reasonable. But the 75 countries are banned from applying as refugees. The visas are not banned. They took pain to add the business visas are allowed. So, you know, anybody who wants to come and see the World Cup for Brazil and other countries, considering the prices of tickets, will have their means to come and see the games. I'm sure they're not denying millionaires and billionaires from entering the country. And it's not statutorily so with the latest rule. As far as what's going on in the bigger picture, I think we're witnessing a slow-motion coup d'etat that has started at least 30 years ago. And, you know, it's essentially since the Rehnquist court, when Rehnquist was promoted by Reagan to chief justice, we have seen more and more dubious decisions. There have been various lobbies of fascist and right of fascist orientation that have been working very steadily to, A, stack the judiciary as much as possible, especially at the Supreme Court level, and, B, to deny voting rights at every possible level, at the state level, at the national level. And these are the results. Basically, we, the good people, because we are good people, because we want to enjoy life and focus on other things, have been letting these bastards occupy the territory that we didn't defend. And these are the consequences. And this is just the beginning of the consequences, because every day keeps getting worse. Now we're going to have, you know, NATO doesn't exist anymore, essentially, as of today, which, you know, you may say, oh, this guy doesn't know what's going on. No, he knows. That's what he wanted to do with his first term. He already declared NATO, UN, all the world, obsolete. What they want is a tripolar world, or maybe bipolar, but there will have to be a war to make it bipolar, where China, Russia, and the U.S. are basically partitioning the world according to their reciprocal conveniences and fuck the rest of the world. And it's not a matter of what's right or what's wrong. It's a matter of, it's not safe for anybody except for the people of means who are part of this regime. So we should all, you know, not just talk on the radio. We should really start organizing. Well, not start. We should be way along. But we have to do something, because if we don't, the world is really going badly. And I don't think you will end up very nicely. You know, you have essentially three brutal powers, in spite of China playing nice right now, who are armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, and, you know, the rest of the world has to comply or else. That's essentially what's going on. You know, all this theater of, you know, Ukraine, Gaza, Greenland, those are already the pawns that have been moved. Russia gets Ukraine, the U.S. gets Gaza, and Greenland. Venezuela. Don't forget Venezuela. The influence. And that's, you know, that's basically it. I will just hang up and listen on the computer, because I can hear you better the way, unless you have questions. No, I think you pretty much got it. Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. It's a little better, but still, the breakup. I mean, you're pretty much on point with the things we were saying earlier. The one thing I would say, though, is that, yeah, you're right. Trump knows, you know, what's going on, but I don't think he knows history. I don't think he knows politics, you know, in an intelligent way. He just knows what he wants, and he knows how to get what he wants. But he doesn't really know the subtleties of it. There are many more intelligent people working for him, and I'm afraid of them. They're the ones that are the true threat. So, you know, they're all bad. They're all bad, obviously. And you say we're in a coup. Yeah. Maybe we need a different kind of coup to go in a different direction, because right now we're in the midst of this one. And, yeah, I agree. It's going to get worse before it gets better. But we have better start thinking of alternatives. The notable precedent that I can think of ended a little over 80 years ago, and it didn't end up very well for the world. Although it brought in the current order, but I think there will have to be something of that magnitude. And my desperation is due to the fact that if Stalin equals Putin, and by default, unfortunately, our present leader equals Hitler, who are the Churchill and FDR of these days? Xi Jinping? The world is really not very well set up at the moment. That's all I can say. Okay. We'll address issues off - well, we'll address issues on air, and you can listen on your computer. Always a pleasure talking with you guys. Keep up the good work, and I wish you all the best. Thank you. Take care. Rob, you had something. Go ahead. Yeah, excellent call. I would only add to that that it's very easy to say that he doesn't understand, he doesn't know, he's not intelligent. I think the far scarier possibility is that he does understand and just doesn't care. And I think that's where the real problem is, that, like, you know, he seems content to be dismantling the American experiment and democracy and everything else, just because it's good for him. It's good for whoever he cares about that week. And he's keeping himself wealthy and he's keeping himself wealthy and in power and protected from the consequences of his actions. And I think that's where the real danger is. You mean, like, giving the finger to a protester? Yeah. I heard about that. What exactly happened? He was walking into a building and a protester yelled something about the Epstein files and the president of the United States gave the man the finger and either mouthed or shouted, fuck off. I'm not sure which. You know, that doesn't bother me. I don't care about that. I remember Nelson Rockefeller did that once as governor of New York. I think he was governor at the time. There's a big picture of him doing it in the newspaper. I don't know if anybody remembers that, but, you know, that we've lost civility. So I'm not surprised that that's the way people are going back and forth. I'm more upset at what it is represents, what he is failing to do, what he is ignoring, what he is abusing. But do you remember when Howard Dean yelped into a noise canceling microphone and that was enough to disqualify him from the presidency? Yeah, because Democrats are pussies. I don't understand them. I don't understand why they don't fight. We need somebody who will fight. And they are doing a piss poor job of that. Republicans have no problem doing this. You know, it's their way or the highway, you know, and might makes right and all that stuff. I'm not saying they need to be as stupid or as pigheaded, but they need to, you know, not be so filled with doubt and, you know, just afraid of their own shadows. Wow, you both sighed the exact same time. Carl, go ahead. I'm just, yeah, I'm choking over here. Yeah, I just wanted to say there was a phone call. Okay. I knew that because you already waved at me, but I was going to get to the phone call, but then I went to you to see what you had to say. All right. Good evening. You're on off the hook over time. Go ahead. Speak up. If you fall asleep on the phone, please wake up now because it's your turn to speak. Kyle, how do you explain this? I cannot. No, no, you can't, can you? All right. Well, we'll possibly take one more phone call if it's a successful phone call. Alex, you look, you look bored. Unmute yourself. Unmute yourself. There you go. Yeah, I was, that was seamless on unmuting. You heard that, right? Yeah, it went very smoothly. Yeah. We're still talking about it, but it went very smoothly. I'm troubleshooting and listening at the same time here. I thought you shot the trouble already. I know. All right. We have another phone call. Let's take this phone call and not leave them hanging. Good evening. You're on off the hook over time. Go ahead. Speak up. Okay. So what's going on? What now? Where are people calling? You tell me. You're the one who said there was a trouble to be troubleshooted. Okay. What? I think this is somebody impersonating Rebels. Well, they're doing a good job. Yeah. I think they're using like, what is it, like 11, Studio 11 or something like that. What's Studio 11? What's that? It allows you to generate audio. And that's actually pretty incredible. You don't really need that many seconds of somebody talking in order to generate audio in the likeness of somebody else. Really? Do go on, Caller. We're fascinated by this. Wow. That's really something. What? How do you know it's fake? And you say it can make the person's voice indistinguishable from the original? Yeah, I guess it does. Pretty, pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah. Can you say something insulting about Rebel just so that we know it's not him? What's the point? I'm just going to sound like the same fake audio. Wow. Amazing. I realize I've been suckered into listening to Rebel's voice regardless. But this is funny. This is, yeah, you got us good there. Anything you'd like to say as yourself? All right. How can you dig it? Go, get up. I can't see it. I. I can't see it. STANDING Oh, man. Okay, everybody just sit down. That got us. Wow. I'm sweating like a pig. That was good. We all got up on our feet there. Lou Raychu, is that you? That's got to be him. Still there? Every day, dreaming of a time and a place not far away. Hi, this is my stop. I'm getting off the bus here. No, this is it. I'm done. Thank you. Thank you for that very entertaining call. And, yeah, you win the call of the night, for sure. We've had a request for the download link. If you want to send us that download link at OTH at 2600.com. We'll have it next week, for sure. All right, you know, we're out of time. This was fun. Good to be back. I have to stop talking because, you know, I'm still healing. But what do you say? Next week, we do another one of these. And the week after, we do a call in on BAI. And then the week after that, we come back to this. And then after that, Rebel can call again. This is a solid plan. Assuming he doesn't call. Well, you know, then we never have to deal with this again. And we can also, you know, ban from chats and things like that. We can totally militarize this if we have to. Yeah. I'm sorry for whoever's calling now. We are just out of energy, out of time. But any final words from any of us? Yeah, it was actually not Studio 11. It was 11 Labs is the kind of the deepfake audio system that I'm guessing somebody probably used to generate Rebel's voice. Okay. Lou Raychu says, not me. I was hacked. Oh, my God. Wow. I wonder who it was. We may never know. Like how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, the world may never know. I think having 55 folks with us now is really good for the first time after the first time back after a month away. I'm still out of breath from all the dancing. I mean, that's that's the last thing I needed to do right now. Didn't your dentist tell you no dancing? He did actually say that. I didn't understand it at the time. But now I do. I predict it'll take us like a week or two to get back into things. Why does my tooth hurt from that? Just calm down. Get an ice pack. It's not even there anymore. It still hurts. Are you having phantom tooth pain? I think so. Yeah, I think so. All right. OTH at 2600.com to reach us. And we will see you next week on Off the Hook. 7 o'clock on BAI. 8 o'clock on Overtime. Good night, everyone.