Welcome to Suncom, a member of the AT&T Wireless Network.
The number you have called is no longer in service.
If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and dial again.
Message TR22.
Come for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
One little bit more!
We'll be right back.
Joined tonight by Kyle.
Hi.
And out in Signal Land, we have Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
And we have Gila.
Good evening.
Well, okay.
We have a lot to discuss, a lot to get over tonight.
We also have overtime coming up at 8 o'clock on YouTube, which is always fun.
Opportunity to call us directly and chat without radio restrictions, which is always a bit refreshing sometimes.
But, you know, we have some breaking news here.
Apparently, the new supreme leader of Iran has a verified Twitter account.
Did you know that?
Yeah.
No, I didn't.
That's the headline from CNBC.
Iran's supreme leader.
Forgive me if I pronounce this wrong.
Moshtaba Kameni.
Kameni.
I understand you're supposed to pronounce it differently.
Kameni?
Or Kameni or something.
Kameni?
It's weird.
It's...
Well, we'll settle on something.
It's basically the same arrangement of letters, but just with different pronunciation.
So, it's a different Ayatollah, Kameni or Kamani.
I don't know.
I don't...
There's a lot I don't understand.
But he's found to have a verified account on Twitter.
I should point out, having a verified account on Twitter don't mean squat.
But really, because anybody can just pay to get that little blue check.
It's not like in the past, where the blue check was something that was vetted, and there
was a team of people or something that went out and said, yeah, you're who you say you
are.
You're legit.
This is just to hand over a certain amount of money to Elon Musk, and you get a blue check.
Gila?
Is it a blue check?
Or is it...
Aren't there, like, gold checks and gray checks and a various variety of gray checks
if they're, like, politicians or something?
And it was supposed to mean something different.
But the other thing I wonder is, is there, like, an Ayatollah Twitter handle in the same
way that, like, Pontifex has been passed down between three popes now?
Well, okay.
I'm going to give you the account name.
And you can check yourself and see what color the check is.
But, you know, just when I give you this, I think you'll understand why I don't really
believe that there is an official checkmark of any sort.
But the name is, I guess it's pronounced, Rob Barangahelab, and spelled R-A-H-B-A-R-E-N-G-H-E-L-A-B
underscore.
Now, it's that last part that tells me that whoever has that account without the underscore,
maybe they're the Ayatollah and not the person who has the underscore.
And, you know, why would you take that as your name when it doesn't even resemble the
name that you're using in real life?
And you could probably get that without the underscore, right?
I mean, I don't use Twitter very much at all.
But that seems like common sense, which I know is the last thing anyone is subscribing to
these days.
Yes, Rob.
It's interesting because we pulled that account up, that Twitter account.
And there does not currently seem to be a check of any kind, of any color on the account.
Nor do there appear to be any posts.
Now, I'm not signed into Twitter because I can no longer do that.
But I see an account that says, Rob Barangahelab hasn't posted.
When they do, their posts will show up here.
But it appears to be a blank account with 81,000 something followers.
Wait, hold on.
Because there's 30 posts up at the top.
So are there anything under replies?
I can't see replies without logging in.
You've got to log in.
You've got to play the game, Rob.
There's no way we can do this without actually looking at the account.
Okay.
Well, then somebody with a Twitter account will have to log in and check this out.
Is this your way of exposing who still has a Twitter account?
I'm just saying, this is not a function I can fulfill on our team at present.
Fine, fine, fine.
I'll do it.
But you have to fill time with something else.
While I use one of our spare accounts and see if the Ayatollah has a blue check mark.
Because that apparently is news these days.
Well, we can also speak to the underscore because that screen name without an underscore on Twitter appears to be another blank account that was started in May 2023, according to this.
So somebody was really forward-looking when they started this account and then apparently did nothing with it.
But, yeah, there's not even a user pick on this one.
Okay, I'm seeing a lot of posts.
A lot of posts with this account.
Okay.
It's in Arabic, so I can't understand what's being said.
But 81.2 thousand followers and following seven.
Yeah, that's what I'm looking at, except I can't see any posts.
So here's one other note is that apparently the username is, it's not Arabic, it's Persian.
Oh, I'm sorry.
In Persian, it means leader of the revolution.
Well, it's interesting you say that because, you know, he's following another leader of the revolution a little further down.
Um, and that account is, uh, M-K-H-A-M-E-N-E-I underscore I-R.
Okay.
And that's the official account for the news and statements of the leader of the Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Saeed Maja, the same guy, basically, a few more names.
And that's 131,000 followers.
I don't see a check, though.
Anyway, the point is, the point is, um, CNBC, uh, got all excited because they found a verified account and, and, and they assumed that was him.
But my point is, verification doesn't mean anything anymore because it's not verification.
It's simply writing a check to Elon and, uh, getting a check in, in, in return, a different kind of check.
So that's, that's, that's how we get our news these days is by, by, by, by some, uh, fanciful, um, uh, authority telling you that this is legit when in actuality, there's no indication that it is.
Yeah.
I seem to be remembering when Twitter opened up the verification thing to anyone who threw them, what was it, like $8 or something?
Um, someone immediately got verified as a fake Elon Musk, which, uh, was entertaining, but.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Yes.
But, you know, apparently since statecraft takes place on social media now, be it Twitter or Truth Social, um, you know, this is warfare by social media post, apparently.
It's just, it's a shame they're not fighting on the same platform.
Yeah.
Is it a shame?
Well, I mean, yeah, everyone's on different platforms.
Trump is on Truth Social.
A bunch of us are on Blue Sky or Mastodone or, or, um, other things that are out there as well.
Well, it's a real problem because we can't really communicate, um, and, and, and reach people
anymore.
Uh, and, you know, I, I don't, I don't get, uh, the people who say, yeah, I don't use email
anymore.
What did you replace email with?
That's what I'd like to know.
Carry your pigeon.
But.
We all have jokes, but there's no answer, you know?
No, I know.
And we're not talking to each other.
But here's my question.
If the Ayatollah and the president of the United States were on the same social media
platform and could just engage in a flame war back and forth and tweet or truth or whatever
we're calling it these days at each other that our heart's content instead of dropping
actual bombs, wouldn't that make the world a better place?
Yes, Virginia, there, there is, there is a place where leaders can go, maybe be locked
in a room someplace and, um, and, and everything will work out.
But you know what?
They're going to talk past each other no matter what forum they're in.
They're, they're not interested in listening.
They're interested in provoking and in getting attention and in being powerful.
It's all nonsense no matter what side you follow and, you know, it always has been.
Uh, and now it's splintered.
It's, it's splintered all over the place.
So you can't even, um, uh, reach the same people, you know, everyone is following one
person over here and the opposition, everyone's following over there.
They never talk to each other.
They don't hear any, any opinions that diver, you know, digress too much from what it is
they're saying.
It's very unhealthy.
I just, uh, the first, uh, warlord who gets on the Fediverse, that'll be newsworthy.
Well, maybe they're already there.
Look, what's, what's stopping them from doing that?
No, sure.
I'm not, I'm not kidding.
What, what, what is stopping them from getting onto mastodon?
Nothing.
And if they spin up their own instance?
Oh yeah.
Nothing at all.
Okay.
We keep laughing about it, but, but you know, this should be a reality.
This should be something that is easy to do.
And yeah, we should be able to talk to world leaders on the Fediverse, but they don't seem
to be there.
And that's a problem.
It's, it's a funny thing to think about though, because, you know, in, in the very early days
of the, uh, you know, public facing web, it was a big deal when the president got an email
address that was published and it was president at whitehouse.gov.
And, uh, it was, uh, president Clinton at the time.
And, you know, of course that's not his personal email address, but, uh, you know, you could
email the office of the president and theoretically have your stuff read, but it was still a very,
like, um, throwback to when you would just write a letter to the white house and, uh, hope
that someone somewhere reads it and files it somewhere.
But we, we found ourselves in a social media era where people are expecting immediate access
to companies and public figures and politicians of all stripes.
And the, the lack of that now is, uh, kind of being felt.
And I don't, I don't know if I miss it as much as I thought I might.
Kyle.
Yeah.
I think Rob's point is, is well taken, you know, he doesn't miss it because for what it
turned into the negative aspects.
I think that's, that's what he is saying in, in this and no, I mean, everybody has their
own reasons for different things, but like that, and it's really just a historic legacy
that it is, um, that those particular sites commercial as they are ad driven or algorithm,
um, be damned.
They're there because early on that was a way to attract customers.
The companies have changed.
They turned into real shells of their former selves.
And what we're faced with is something that's still very real in a part of their business
model, which is making it illegal to interoperate with their platforms.
They want everybody there captive and only using things on their terms, a la driven by
ads and algorithms and whatever other crap they want you to be subjected to.
They won't allow people to interoperate.
And unfortunately there are, there are aspects of the way the elections went when, um, there
were, um, different agencies that were using data from, uh, Facebook interoperability to,
um, run polling and then, uh, uh, use it for certain forms of political strategy, uh, in ways
that Facebook hadn't really been transparent about.
So for rightly, so people were critical of that scheme and saying, okay, well, we shouldn't
have interrupt interoperability, but that wasn't what killed it.
It is that these companies didn't want people to be able to do whatever they want with like
writing their own sorts of, uh, uh, programs and things that interoperate with data to display
or, uh, analyze or, um, uh, allow it to, to reach other parts and protocols of the open
internet.
So as wonderful a utopia as the federated universe is, it is locked out.
It's not that the federated platforms can't participate and, and they do people screenshot,
I guess that's a crude form of it.
But there are probably people that are trying to string things together, but they're working
under a environment where they could be charged, practically speaking, for trying to develop
any kind of software that did this because the companies that are now hosting a lot of
government sites and that have been really changed in a lot of ways, but are really totally
for profit.
Those companies are still acting with that, uh, sense of like, uh, a closed environment
like America online was in the early days or, or prodigy or, or whatever other comp you
serve, all of those things.
They're, they're very much playing out like that and calling it a new thing.
Like, like with 3d avatars saying, Oh, this, this is web three, but they're really running
playbooks from, from pre-web stuff.
So I think it's just, it's interesting and I'm hearing all of this in the conversation,
but yes, it's, it's historically that they were, um, the hegemonic platforms, the dominant
players got all these government accounts and they're considered like the place where, uh,
government and, uh, society, uh, popular influence, influential types are that may not be where
everyone is, but it is just something we're dealing with.
But on top of that, my point is that we're really locked out from playing together or
interoperating in any kind of automated way.
It's really just like screenshotting and moving content over to one or linking from one platform
to the other.
It could be a lot better.
And I think there's, there's a lot of room to operate to, to innovate with this, but these
for-profit players aren't playing nice.
Like they never have been, and we can't expect them to be, they, they're literally trying
to sue people who want to make software that works with their stuff.
So, okay.
You're saying that people are being sued who try to make it so that you can, you can read
one platform on another platform.
I'm saying that if you develop software that does stuff they don't want to do, they'll
shut it down.
They will, they will attack you because it, it allows their platforms to do things that
they don't want it to be able to do.
And they might give you all kinds of reasons about safety or various precedent where, um,
people abuse the ability to interact, um, and develop tools and things that worked on top
with these platforms, but they really clamped down on it.
And I think, I don't know, I'm not saying there's pending losses.
I don't have, uh, uh, uh, uh, specific cases I can cite, but I'm saying this practice of,
of, um, developing apps that are then bound by all sorts of terms and conditions, this stuff
that we've talked about on this show and various in one way or another over the years and, um,
and, and talk to many other people about, and it's just, that's why we're fragmented.
Right.
It's, it's that these platforms could do that.
They just don't.
Well, you can take, for instance, let's use Trump as an example.
He, he posts on true social, uh, which I don't think any of us have an account.
Actually, I did have an account on that, uh, on that once and it got purged without me doing
anything just because of my name, which is, yeah, that, that tells you something.
Uh, but, um, you know, he posts things on that platform and they get reposted onto Twitter
and I'm not going to call it what it's called now because I think it's stupid.
Um, but, um, uh, there are people who do that.
People take a post and they post it over there.
Sometimes there are official people in the administration that do that, but there isn't,
I think what Kyle's speaking through, there isn't a way to automatically do this.
Like I remember back in the early days, my Twitter account would automatically repost on
my Facebook account, which yes, I have a Facebook account.
I never check it.
I never go in there, but it exists.
And back then I would, I would post quite a lot because I'd be posting on Twitter and
it would show up on Facebook.
And granted, I wouldn't see replies on Facebook, but, uh, you know, at least it got to people
who were interested and you can't really do that anymore.
I would like to see that on every platform and maybe, you know, as hackers, uh, we should
make that a project to make that easy.
So people can do that and, and challenge them to come after us and say, yeah, you're not allowed
to, uh, share information from one platform to another.
I think that would bring people together so that, you know, no matter what you post on,
your friends can read it.
You know, I think, isn't that what we all want to be able to talk to people who are interested
in what we're doing?
We seem to have lost that.
And it's very frustrating.
You know, you can't join every single platform there is, and you don't have time, even if it's
just, you know, three or four of them.
That's how, that's a lot of different platforms that you have to, you know, keep updating and
checking and resetting.
Um, you know, we, we, we should have something where you basically, you're able to say your
piece, you're able to read what people are saying in return and you move on with your
life.
You know, isn't that the dream?
It was the dream.
And in the early days of like the blogosphere, when everyone figured out RSS feeds and you could
post something and it would get propagated out, reposted elsewhere, syndicated.
Uh, you know, pulled in all sorts of directions and all these people would be reading the stuff
you put out there wherever they might be.
And that was a decentralized, um, scheme that, uh, that worked, I think really beautifully
and still does for the, uh, half dozen of us or so who are still using RSS feeds as a,
as a major thing.
Yeah.
I'm sorry about that.
There has been a lot of, uh, coverage of RSS lately, just as it's, uh, aged, uh, so many
years on, and I don't even know what the number is.
It's been around for a long time, but people are finding it, uh, revisiting it as a way
to get information anew, uh, in the form of RSS readers.
And if you're interested in filtering stuff on the internet, it's a great way to do it.
And a lot of people do consume stuff, um, all types of media news in particular, I just
want to go back to the, uh, interoperability thing though.
If you, if you could filter and choose different things, especially on a multitude of platforms
based on, uh, stuff like a silver check Mark where it's coming from a, or whatever the color
is for like, uh, official government accounts that aren't paid for, not the, not the blue
necessarily, uh, but you should be able to customize it or particularly, uh, verified news sources,
right?
If you want to get, um, that, uh, pushed from whatever platform they are present on, and then,
uh, you get it delivered to wherever, uh, you are on, on your own, uh, social network.
So you can have that in your, your timeline or feed or whatever you're calling it.
That may accomplish with upvoting by, by users, not so much what they're saying, but who they
are so that when you see associated press posting, is that the real associated press
or, you know, some kids somewhere, uh, there are people who are following that particular
account.
They say, yeah, that's legit.
That's legit.
And, you know, that is what generates a blue check or equivalent, you know, not, not, uh,
paying a certain amount and the post itself, you know, I think that should be just open
for everybody to interpret, but the actual account, you know, that's.
That's something that, um, uh, I, I, I think the people you're speaking to, they're the
ones that say, are you legit or aren't you?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And this has all been thought through.
It's just been torn down and rebuilt and pushed or, you know, turned into different things.
So let's build it again.
So it absolutely, yeah.
We have to keep building it.
I think this is, this is something that should be a priority because this is our communication.
You know, we, we, we love to say at society, we love to say this particular piece of technology
is dying.
Radio is dying.
We're told that all the time.
Uh, you know, telephones are, are, are, are dying, you know, landlines.
And, and now, um, it's, um, various platforms are, are, are, are dying or, you know, kind of
interconnectivity is dying.
Um, we don't have to accept that.
That just seems to be, uh, eventually what everybody is, um, uh, labeled as it's like jumping
the shark or, you know, this, this rock band has put out too many albums, you know,
they're no longer relevant.
Well, you know, it's, it's up to all of us to prove, no, it is still relevant.
And, uh, you know, we, we can continue doing this or improve upon it or, uh, connect it
to something else.
We don't have to accept that, uh, this is no longer relevant just because we're told
that.
Yeah.
It's, uh, it's like, you know, these, these platforms that are commercial and they're
there to make money.
They're going to do all kinds of things to warp things into their vision of what the internet
should be.
And we're in an age now where social media, you know, algorithms are no longer functional
search engines, no longer work using the web is a lot harder and stupider than it used to
be.
And it's where we're, we're reaching this age where like, you don't know if an information
source you're looking at is legit.
If it's written by people, if it's, uh, you know, one thing or another.
Um, and I think, yeah, going back to what you're saying about, uh, interconnectivity, you're
going to have to see like, oh, I know, I know this person and, uh, I know this person knows
that person and, uh, just verify things like organically through our own networks.
Again, like, like we did in the old days, if somebody is looking for Gila and they're
following me and they know, I know Gila.
So the Gila I'm following must be Gila.
Um, it's, it's a lot more work.
It's a lot more tedious, but, uh, it's something that, uh, is kind of inarguable in an age of,
uh, slop, but the other thing that's occurring to me is that because we are stepping away
in so many ways from monoculture that so many things are balkanized.
And I was thinking about the Oscars, um, because I'm an awards head and the Oscars were this past
Sunday, a lot of exciting things happened, but part of the situation I talked about was
that it's going to be moving to YouTube in three years and the idea that you could tune
it in over the air and watch it privately as opposed to watching on YouTube where Google's
going to know what you're watching and where your eyeballs are, if you're watching it on
your phone and it, that's not going to be necessarily easily accessible for everyone.
So this idea that things are splintering at the same time and we're moving away from these
moments where everybody's experiencing the same thing at the same time, I think that's
also a very interesting dovetail to the whole moment.
Good point.
Yeah.
And, uh, you know, Rob, you're absolutely right that, um, uh, things have gotten harder, you
know, simple things have gotten harder.
Uh, you know, just turning on a TV set, it's no longer turning on a TV set.
There's all these, you know, HDMI configurations and input and so many different options with
the picture quality and the resolution and the surround sound and all that people just
want to turn on the damn TV and watch, you know, the news sometimes.
And it's, it's, you know, been over-designed to the point where, you know, you need a degree
in engineering to get it right.
You know, I was talking to my aunt in, um, in New York recently and, uh, you know, she said,
you know, in the middle of the night, spectrum turns on my TV and starts feeding ads or sending
ads over the TV.
I don't know what exactly is going on there, but I believe it.
I don't think she's making it up.
Uh, and, and this is what people are subjected to.
Does anyone in New York city have their TV turned on in the middle of the night?
Uh, I imagine, you know, maybe it's the cable box or something.
I don't know, but people should not have to deal with things like that.
You know, they should be able to just live their lives and, uh, turn something on when
they want it on, turn it off.
Yeah.
We can all say condescendingly, well, if you do this, that won't happen.
Or, you know, you set it up wrong or something like that.
That's what a spectrum was saying to her.
Just, you can go into the configure menu and do all this.
And she was saying, no, I want you to do that because you did this.
And she's absolutely right.
But we tend to mock people who don't get it.
And I think that's, that's a mistake we make in the tech community that we need to fix.
Uh, because those people are every bit as smart as we are.
Uh, they just don't have the same passion for spending endless hours setting things up
to work just right.
Um, we need to make it easy.
And this goes for encryption.
This goes for communication, interoperability, all of this.
We make it simple and it works.
We make it hard.
It becomes irrelevant because nobody's using it anymore.
And where we are now, we have difficulty communicating with each other.
And it's really sad because, you know, we have a lot to share.
We have a lot to share with people that we don't agree with and people we do agree with
and people we don't even know yet.
So that's something where I think we really can, um, uh, can improve.
But on the subject of, um, of, uh, world leaders, accessibility, you know, getting letters
from the white house or whatnot, uh, what do you think if, if, if, if we, uh, had, uh,
Donald Trump's phone number?
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's true.
Uh, a listener wrote in said, given the apparent ease of accessing Donald Trump's private phone
number, uh, as evidenced by the article, we're about to read a little bit of, uh, I propose
this listener proposes that the next hope conference holds a social engineering panel in which you
call Donald Trump and prank him.
Um, well, uh, let me address that for a second.
Uh, no, no, bad idea.
I don't think we should do that.
I think, uh, we wouldn't see the end of the hope conference if we, uh, if we did something
like that.
Uh, but, um, I, I am interested in, uh, seeing just, you know, uh, if it's possible to get
the phone number, uh, but I would not, uh, uh, encourage abusing the phone number, but what
would you say if you had the phone number and you were able to make one phone call that you
knew would be picked up?
You know, think about that.
I don't expect anybody to have an answer immediately, but it's an intriguing thought.
Not that I can give over the air.
Yeah.
You see, that's what I mean.
You know, if you're just going to yell at the guy, you're not going to accomplish anything.
That's, that's true in real life.
Um, but maybe you could say something that would distract him for the next three years.
We'd all be safe.
I feel like this is a fantastic essay question for like a college, maybe like.
No, sixth grade.
Sixth grade.
Yeah.
Definitely sixth grade.
Yeah.
All right.
Yeah.
Okay.
Because they won't hold back.
Wow.
So, okay.
Uh, let's, let's look at the article a little bit.
Uh, and thank you to the listener for bringing it to our attention.
Um, president Donald Trump's private digits have become a hot commodity and the white house
is receiving reports about a growing market of people trying to nab them one way or another.
Uh, the Atlantic's Michael Scherer reported on Saturday, uh, citing two administration officials
that the president's private phone number is involved in suspected horse trading and black
market sales among influence brokers.
Uh, CEOs and crypto investors are reportedly offering money for the number while journalists
are taking to trading the phone numbers of other world leaders in baseball card like
exchanges.
Yeah.
They never grow up there.
They're, they're, they're just the elementary school kids just riding their bikes and exchanging
insults.
Yeah.
And you know, your industry has a solid business model when you need this number so badly.
Well, the thing is, if you have the number, then, you know, you could just post it someplace
and everything falls apart because you can't trade it anymore.
It's not worth anything.
And Trump has to change his phone number too, which he probably doesn't want to do.
Anyway, according to the report, Trump's number has been offered for sale to deep pocketed
interests seeking influence.
Is it that easy?
You have the number and right away you can influence.
You just have to have his ear literally.
Okay.
Uh, what is unusual about the president is how accessible he is with journalists.
Often noting with surprise that they can simply call the president's private line.
If I had to say any good thing about Trump, this might be it that he is accessible in that
way.
However, that's also a very bad thing because he's accessible in that way and all kinds of
people with, uh, nefarious, uh, goals can, uh, influence him as well.
Yes, Gila.
But if there were a coordinated effort among journalists to just keep him off, like keep
him on the phone and not doing anything else.
Yeah.
I think this could be a good way to like redirect his energies.
Do you think perhaps, um, we could get an AI model to, uh, take on that job and just,
Oh, do you remember?
Was it the British AI robot that would pretend to be a befuddled grandma?
Oh, yes.
Yes.
For telemarketers.
And just talk to telemarketers for hours.
So we have one designed for Trump.
Yeah.
And if, and that, uh, bot would make phone, if you gave it a telemarketer phone number,
it would make the call.
So all we'd need to do is feed the phone number to that British telecom AI bot.
And I think we're made in the shade.
Well, you just got to get him to pay attention.
We have to keep his attention.
You know, that's, that's the important thing.
According to the Atlantic, Trump can typically receive 10 calls from the press and two hours
on his private line.
Wow.
That's, you know, that's five an hour.
It's one every 20 minutes.
Uh, and who knows how long they last for?
How does he, how does he have time for this?
You know, I, I just thought the president of the United States was busy doing other things,
not being on the phone all the time.
But what do I know, Rob?
I mean, I think, uh, I think a central element of his character that I think his, uh, proponents
and critics would agree on is the man enjoys attention.
And, uh, I think he's, he's going to be enthusiastic about anything that enables him to, um, lap up
more of it.
Yeah.
But he's talking to one person on the phone that nobody else can hear.
How is that attention?
He might think it's attention, but he's really, you know, just being distracted.
Well, anyway, one of the officials said it's literally call after reporter call.
It is just boom, boom, boom.
Many of the numbers are reportedly not even saved under names.
The number is now so widely circulated among press that White House officials have found
themselves Googling independent names they've never heard before.
An administration official said it's out of control.
It's like a wrecking ball.
Incidentally, it's out of control.
It's like a wrecking ball is a phrase that has been, uh, associated with the Trump administration
more than any other phrase in the past couple of years.
Yeah, it's true.
Uh, on top of CEOs offering money or crypto bros offering cryptocurrency, the Atlantic noted that they got their own offer for the president's number.
Um, they said we were recently approached by another journalist who offered to trade more than two dozen cell phone numbers of significant stature for the one number of most significant stature.
We declined.
One person we talked with, uh, has heard that the going rate for this sort of swap is a one to one trade for another major world leader.
Okay.
We're, we're deep in the hacker community.
We've got some numbers.
Uh, what can we trade here to get, to get his, I'm thinking, you know, uh, I still have Legion of Doom phone numbers.
I do.
Uh, I haven't used them in a while, but they, they still work.
Uh, I think that's something that, uh, it might not be a one to one trade, but it certainly could be a good chunk of it.
You guys got anything?
I mean, I've got your number, but, uh, nobody wants that.
So we need more numbers.
So this is like a good solid trade.
Like we'll do like a group buy and then everybody gets one digit of his number.
Well, I mean, you know, back in the day we used to trade numbers of all the speaking clock in London, you know, that number was, was good for, you know, a few sprint codes or whatever it is.
Um, look at the hacker community, we come together and we can do this.
We can, we can get that number and then we'll figure out what to do with it.
Well, we could turn it into a, turn it into a payphone, you know, with social engineering.
That's what we used to do.
Oh yes.
Lots of fun.
Lots of fun.
All right.
Well, thank you very much for that, uh, that listener letter.
Hey, we have another, uh, listener letter.
Actually, this is, um, uh, this is related to a letter we read last week and I wanted
to, uh, to read this as well.
We read a very short letter last week, uh, and it resulted in a very long letter that
came, uh, in response to us reading the short letter.
Um, let me, let me, let me go into it, uh, before we run out of time.
Thank you for reading my letter on the air.
I think the last time you read my letter on the air was around 13 years ago in 2013.
Wow.
Uh, your assessment of me couldn't be further from the truth.
Sounds like us.
I am not a Trump supporter that wants to silence you.
I am also not a person who was saying no one cares because I care the most.
I am telling you, I don't care because I don't care.
Okay.
I remember the letter.
I think we all do.
Uh, and, um, he did say no one cares.
So I think that's what we were referring to, but, uh, to assume he was a Trump supporter,
you know, that's on me.
I, I, uh, basically, um, we get a lot of letters.
We get a lot of letters from people who say things like, you know, does shut up and talk about hacking or shut up and talk about technology.
Don't talk about, uh, politics or, you know, it's, it's not just us, you know, um, uh, sports people shut up and dribble, you know, actors shut up and just be in the movies.
Musicians shut up and play your guitar, which by the way is a three album Frank Zappa, uh, thing that it's really worth checking out.
Um, but I digress.
Oh, no, the, the actor, uh, one, that's, that's, you're too stupid.
You're not intelligent enough to have an opinion.
That's the, that's the, the go-to.
If somebody, let's use Kid Rock as an example.
He is a, a, a musician, allegedly.
He has an opinion, an opinion I don't agree with.
I would never say, shut up.
I would never say, don't give your opinion.
In fact, I would encourage you to give your opinion because that actually helps my opinion.
Uh, but the point is everybody has an opinion and everybody should speak if they have the
opportunity to speak and if they have something to say.
So, you know, to say no one cares, I don't think that's true.
And I think that's what set us off, but we're sorry if we categorized you in the wrong way,
but that's based on the letters that we do get from people who say things like that,
because invariably they, um, uh, they, they, they basically say pro-Trump things.
Not, well, not invariably, but very often.
And, uh, it might lead to a, um, uh, an overgeneralization on our part.
Anyway, um, for the February 22nd, 2026 show, OTH host spent 45 minutes talking about political ideology and 15 minutes on anything that resembles hacking slash technology news.
I don't know exactly what we talked about on that show, but I can say that if, um, if we're talking about something, uh, quote unquote political, it has a connection to technology in one form or another.
Look, we've just talked about things now for the last, um, 38 minutes or so.
Uh, and a lot of it is, is related to politics.
We're talking about world leaders.
We're talking about, you know, policy and differences and things like that.
But we're also talking about social media and telephones and computers and, and, uh, you
know, all kinds of things like that.
It all relates.
It's all of interest to people who, um, are, are, are following these things.
And we get a lot of feedback from people who say, yes, I'm interested in, in, in, in
that perspective.
I talk about repairing things.
Yeah, you do.
And breaking things too.
And destroying things.
Absolutely.
We're all interested in that.
And, uh, audio production.
Uh huh.
Anyway, go on.
Anyway, okay.
So continuing, uh, so that is frustrating as a long time listener, referring to the,
uh, 45 minutes talking about politics, 15 minutes on, on technology.
My point to you is that I can scroll TikTok and be bombarded with endless videos of the
same device of politics from both the left and from the right that OTH spent the majority
of the February 22nd show talking about.
I got to hear this show, but I, you know, I don't think we're divisive.
I think we're always open to hearing different views and we have discussions with people
who disagree with us.
And oftentimes they're quite civil, you know, even though they don't understand how we come
up with what we come up with and vice versa.
Um, I enjoy OTH because, um, it is supposed to be hacker news that I cannot easily get
anywhere else.
Simply providing you this feedback and then being labeled as a pissed off Trump follower
by the host of OTH misses the mark completely.
Can you not see that asking OTH hosts to focus on hacking technology, which is supposed to
be the entire theme of the show resulted in me being constantly and incorrectly labeled
as political opposition to the show?
How is that not a huge problem?
That is my entire point.
All right.
You know, point taken.
I, I, I hear that.
I get it.
I hear it, but I'm also, I'm confused as to what exactly we're supposed to be talking about
that, that is, um, that hasn't already been said either on this show or elsewhere.
And that is, um, a political because my understanding, or at least my following of hacking in general
and the way technology has been pervasive in our lives, I think it's, it's become intertwined
with a lot of, uh, the political as well as the, um, the, uh, sort of commercial and,
uh, other, other parts of the technology industry, as it were, uh,
in America.
And, and that is really had a profound influence on a lot of policies and, and, uh, uh, developments
of innovation and, and things around the world.
So, I, and I, I don't know, I could, I just find that the, uh, trajectory has changed for
hacking.
Like many of the things, like if we talked about the kinds of transgressions, I guess we're
supposed to be reporting on, or are we supposed to be reporting on people that are, um,
doing ransomware or like, uh, uh, uh, infiltrating on behalf of state actors.
I think we've covered stuff like that.
We talk about that, right?
We do.
It comes up, but, uh, day to day.
Yeah.
We, we talk about what everyone else has talked about as an inch talking about as an entry point.
And I guess my, my point is a lot of the things that occurred early on, if we were talking
about them, first of all, they're illegal now, well, illegal.
They were quasi league illegal back then.
And many people got in trouble.
We've covered that people have been in prison.
They've gone to jail.
They've done time.
They've, they've, they've turned on people.
That was a big thing.
Hackers turning informants, all of that.
Like that is part of the history that landed us where we are today.
So in, with all due respect to this letter, I just think that if we ended up talking about
those things, what we would be accused of as being retro or like, oh, you're talking about
old stuff or, you know, like you'd get that complaint, that critique.
No matter what people are going to complain.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Not necessarily the same people, but people will complain about this is in our defense.
It's why maybe we might make assumptions about certain people's takes on what we're saying.
Well, we try to mix it up.
We try to talk about different things.
And my point is, um, if you, if you say to people, you're a movie star, you shouldn't
talk about politics.
You're a musician.
You shouldn't talk about politics.
You're an athlete.
You know, you're, you're doing a hacker show.
You shouldn't talk about who is left to talk about the politics and, you know, and, and,
and offer a different perspective than what you're hearing on TikTok.
Uh, which, you know, oftentimes is fueled by bots and is, uh, meant to be divisive,
hateful.
And, uh, you know, it's there to, to trigger a reaction and we're not trying to trigger
a reaction.
We're just offering our views, how it relates to the things that we do talk about, which
remain technology, hacking, hacker mentality, all of that.
Anyway, let me, uh, continue here.
Um, I don't understand how you can constantly say we need to unify as a hacker community, then
instantly label listener feedback as political opposition.
Okay.
Well, as long as many times I can apologize for that, uh, for, for labeling a person in
a particular way.
Uh, but, um, yeah, you know, uh, let's, let's continue.
I've listened to every OTH show weekly for the past 30 years.
Wow.
I have been, uh, writing the show letters for over 20 years.
That's, that's pretty amazing.
That's, uh, that's, that's commitment.
Check your inbox.
Wow.
Okay.
I, I, I've never once said, I, I didn't agree with your personal politics.
It doesn't matter if you agree or disagree, you know, that's not the point.
Uh, I just don't understand how you do not recognize the unique position you have and
not to waste it by falling into the right versus left, left versus right echo chamber
trap.
You know, uh, it's bigger than that.
It really is because what we are experiencing now, I don't think as a right versus left thing.
I think it's, it's basically a fight for the very existence of this nation.
Uh, and I know, you know, people on different sides say things like that to be dramatic,
but if you look at what is going on around, you see all kinds of institutions crumbling.
You see, um, um, um, basically the values of this nation, uh, even if they're only, uh,
in, in, in words, you see them being negated, being cast aside.
Uh, and, and in the end you can wind up with a country you do not recognize.
We're not the only ones saying this people on the right, people on the left, people from
all different walks of life and, and, uh, uh, levels of expertise are saying this is
unprecedented.
We have never lived through anything like that for us not to talk about it.
Um, that would be tone deaf.
That would be something that, um, I don't think any of us as thinking people could live
with.
And I, I, I imagine most of our listeners as well, Rob.
Yeah.
Um, I, I, exactly along those lines, like my life as a hacker, my view as a hacker, my perspective
as a hacker, um, I think that's, you know, our perspectives as hackers are what we all
add to this program.
And my perspective as a hacker is such a major part of how I see how things are.
And for all of us to be observant in this way and proficient in all our different, uh,
skill sets and interests and everything, um, and pretend that we can't see things that
are going on in the world just because, uh, we want to force ourselves instead to talk
about like new AMD chips or something.
Um, I don't think that would be a very hacker thing to do.
I think that would be sticking our heads in the sand and none of us have ever been about
that on this program or on the station.
To answer Alex's question, if I would complain if OTH was talking about Biden, Clinton, or
Janet Reno, the answer is yes.
Uh, the proof is in the OTH inbox.
I am not the new go back to Cuba guy.
Oh, okay.
He knows what he's talking about.
If he knows to go back to Cuba guy, this guy has been listening or, or, or woman.
I'm not going to reveal details.
Um, the, um, uh, the letter was short because I've written this to OTH so many times, uh,
when feeling the show has gone completely off the rails from its roots, I didn't feel
I needed to justify it again.
Okay.
Um, we don't keep track of who says what.
Uh, so, uh, you might, obviously, you know what you've said.
We're not going to know everything you said.
We're not going to say, Oh, but you're deviating from your point of three years ago.
Uh, and we get, we get a lot of mail.
So, uh, it's, it's entirely possible that, uh, we don't know exactly where you're coming
from and what you've, what you said previously.
Um, lastly, if the reason Emmanuel said he was not going to read my name, uh, because
he was doing me a favor was in reference, uh, to my federal criminal record.
Okay.
We have no idea what that's all about.
Uh, I am not ashamed of my criminal record.
I'm a whistleblower and, uh, okay.
I'm not going to go into the details that you sent after this.
But you should be proud of what you have done and, um, to not be ashamed of your criminal
record.
I think that is also a point of honor and, uh, something that we, many of us, uh, can, can,
uh, identify with.
So, um, all right.
That's, that, that's really, that's really kind of, um, kind of amazing.
Uh, I 100%, uh, actually, let me, let me zoom over here.
Uh, there, there is a, um, an unfortunate narrative, uh, by the DOJ about me, but that
is where the government, that is what the government does to its perceived enemies.
I'm not trying to convince you, apologize, or justify my criminal record.
I'm saying that I am not ashamed of it.
And, and bravo to that.
Uh, listening to OTH, writing OTH, having my letter read on the air has been the first
consistent step in rebuilding my life after this major disruption.
I appreciate this dialogue more than you will ever understand that has brought a small
piece of normalcy back to my life.
Thank you.
This to me shows how, uh, we can sometimes forget that everybody who writes a letter is
a human being, has a story, has a lot more to them than what you might assume.
And that was, that was on us for, uh, you know, making assumptions and they happen to
be incorrect.
Um, it's not to say that, uh, they're not correct sometimes, but I'm glad we have this
listener.
I'm glad this listener cares enough to write to us and, uh, I'm glad we do what we do,
but we will always try to do better.
We're always trying to, you know, um, uh, address the, um, um, the, uh, desires, complaints,
whatnot of the people listening.
And if you're one of those people who has something to say to us, no matter what it is, OTH
at 2600.com is our email address.
We encourage you to write to us.
We get a lot of mail.
We don't, uh, read them all on the air.
Uh, but, uh, occasionally when we do, you know, we, we get a big discussion and that's
what it's all about.
And I'm glad that, uh, we can all participate in that way.
Well said.
Well said.
Yeah.
Um, while we're, while we're still, uh, on, I just want to give a shout to WBAI and encourage
people to keep us doing what we're doing here.
The, uh, fundraising efforts on this station are ongoing.
Um, go to give to WBAI.org.
That's give the numeral to, uh, WBAI.org and throw in what you can to, uh, help us out.
Yeah.
This, uh, this radio station is non-commercial.
We have never aired a commercial, uh, except on the old time radio shows on Sunday nights where,
where we play radio from many decades ago.
And there are some commercials there that, uh, are, are played for demonstration purposes,
but they are not advertisements.
Uh, we depend on our listeners.
Our listeners have kept us going since 1960 and hopefully they'll keep us going to 2060
and beyond, uh, give to WBAI.org or, uh, buddy.wbai.org.
Uh, the important thing is to pledge whatever you can, uh, become a BAI buddy.
A monthly payment is, is, is so good for us.
Uh, and, uh, we can continue speaking our minds.
Uh, you can continue speaking your mind and, um, that's, that's the most important thing
in this, uh, this day and age.
Oh, and that means our time here is up, but we'll be back next week with another over the
air show at seven o'clock, seven to eight o'clock here on WBAI 99.5 FM in New York City.
Coming up at eight o'clock on YouTube channel 2600 on YouTube, you will hear our voices continue
to speak, uh, except they will be joined by some listeners who will call us and speak their
minds as well.
So that's kind of, that's kind of fun.
Uh, again, channel 2600 on YouTube or go to the link on the top of www.2600.com.
And again, our email address, OTH at 2600.com and keep listening to 99.5 FM in New York City
and, um, pay attention to what's going on in the world and what's happening with technology.
And maybe we can build better technology and a better world.
Who knows?
See you next time.
Good night.
We'll be right back.
Thank you.


And welcome everybody to channel 2600 on YouTube. We are back for another edition of Overtime
that follows off the hook on WBAI. It's Manuel. Hopefully I'm in YouTube land. Kyle, you as well?
I land. I land with you.
We learned yesterday that your microphone, which used to be my microphone,
might not be heard by callers.
Oh, I did do an adjustment so that the little twisty knob thingy, they're all the same now.
There's like 50 of those.
The one I was using was a different, or the one that you were, whatever.
They weren't equal, now they're matched.
I also matched channel 4, the one next to it, just in case I wanted to hop over there
if maybe it's a buggy channel.
Of course, yes.
But all three now.
And I also switched the labels around, so they're correct.
Yes, I noticed that I'm no longer bringing up your name for me, which was confusing for a while.
No one really needs to know that, but if you're interested in production,
that's been some small changes to try to work on that.
We'll see.
We'll see when people call, when you give out the number.
Channel 4 is the important one, and we've got that going.
No, no, no.
You said Channel 4.
I heard you.
I set it up, but I haven't actually switched over to it.
I'm still on the screen.
Oh, yeah, you haven't switched over to it.
I know that, but, you know.
Okay, never mind.
So back in Signal Land, we have Rob and Gila.
Hello.
Yes, we do.
We do.
And I would like to say hello to everybody who's with us on YouTube.
And our friend Tim in Connecticut had a question, which I am very excited to be able to answer.
I was jumping right in, huh?
One minute into the program, already we have questions.
So Tim said, welcome one and all to another Off the Hook Overtime.
And then he asked, what number it is.
What number what is?
What number overtime this is.
How many times?
Who the hell is keeping track of that?
Well, funny you should ask.
I did figure it out.
By going to the live page on Channel 2600 and just searching for the term over, which yielded.
Apparently, this is the 163rd time we've done this.
Well, couldn't that also be listeners saying, I'm over this, I'm gone?
No, because I'm just looking at the titles of the live event.
How many different overtime broadcasts there have been?
That's a great way to filter it quickly on the site.
And we only say over once per title.
We don't say overtime over or something like that.
Right.
It says Off the Hook Overtime and then the date.
Okay.
So, okay, here's a fun little question.
Do you know when we started doing this?
Yes.
It was sometime after 2020.
Because it was the pandemic that made us do this.
Yes.
Emmanuel, I am sorry to have to say this to you, but it was not after 2020.
We started doing this little clambake of ours here.
The first one was December 9th of 2020.
Well, okay.
That's what I meant.
All right.
Yeah.
The inclusive after.
After 20.
All right.
Fine.
You got me.
So, the first one was December 9th, 2020.
We were streaming for 27 minutes and 51 seconds.
Oh, the days where we could just sum it up quickly.
We went over an hour for the first time on March 24th, 2021.
It took us that long?
Wow.
We were building up.
And, yeah, an hour and four minutes on March 24th.
Do you have the longest show we ever did?
I don't know if that's something I can search.
I can stream.
I can sort by.
But I will say that on February 18th of this year, we went for an hour and 40 minutes.
That is pushing the longest.
Guaranteed Alex was on that show.
We've been.
Excuse me.
Oh, nope.
I'm wrong.
March 3rd, 2025.
We went for almost two hours.
We went for an hour and 42.
You're not counting the week where we forgot to turn it off and actually went the full week.
Ran for 24 hours.
No, it went a full week until the next time we went into the studio.
We had more listeners then than when we actually are in the studio.
So, I thought that was interesting.
Yeah, because people will just tune in once the link is live and just wait until we go live.
Yeah, it's also kind of peaceful sound, you know, empty studio.
One thing that is fun is, Kyle, to get to see the difference in the backgrounds.
Oh, cool.
It evolved, I'm sure.
It did.
Starting with the post box.
Are you saying we're due for a change?
It has been a minute since we've changed it up.
It has.
The thumbnail is the same on everything going back to 2022.
That was the longest silence that we've had during the show without us signing off.
Phone lines are open.
No, they're not.
They're not open.
No, no, no.
I mean, whenever you're ready and people that like talking want to talk, you know.
Good Lord.
I'm so sorry.
Any more stats that we want to share with people?
Sorry, nothing immediately springs to mind, but I think we should probably do something exciting for, you know, when we get to 200.
That's a good milestone to reach.
What are we at now again?
This is 163.
All right, so we're getting there.
We're getting there.
That gives us some time to come up with a graphic idea.
Yeah, maybe like within a year or so or yeah, that'll be something that we should do.
Yeah, I definitely feel like a level of competence that is a little bit frightening.
It is.
Well, competence always frightens us.
I know.
I mean, there's a lot of YouTube streams out there, but it wasn't that much of a learning curve.
I feel like we're doing a lot.
Even though it's super simple, but I feel we could do more video wise to get the likes and the, you know, the follows and the, the, the, the hypes and whatever else people have on YouTube.
Because, you know, I see things, you know, it's, it's ridiculous.
Somebody, you know, trips over a hose in the garden and that's a hundred thousand views right there.
And here we are.
What are we at?
50.
We have 44 people with us right now.
Well, we can't break a hundred, you know, and, and, and we're providing, we're providing some, you know, um, some, some, uh, good discourse here, but it's not video.
No one falls down.
That's not true.
That's not true.
But I don't want to go into the details, but, uh, yeah, people fall down, but nobody gets to see it.
Nobody but us gets to see it.
You don't see it.
Yeah.
Should we, should we describe it?
I mean, if I were going to watch somebody trip over.
I don't think, I'm not sure if having video would improve things.
What were you saying, Gila?
I was going to say, I would be entertained by watching someone fall over garden hose and I'd probably back up and watch it again.
Um, we do have the capability, obviously, since there's, uh, uh, uh, visual on our stream, we, we can mix things in to that.
And we do have quite a bit of capability to play around with video as everybody does.
There's lots of ways to do it.
You could hook up a camera.
I'm sure, uh, or I'm sorry, uh, smartphone camera in addition.
We've got that figured out.
We need a camera.
As I said, phone lines are open.
We are doing more since we've improved the phone.
Uh-huh.
No, the phone sounds great.
So we could add a camera as I'm, as I'm so poignantly, uh, observing.
It's very true.
Um, but Emmanuel, I'm going to do one of your least favorite things and respond to a listener comment on stream.
It's okay if you do that.
It's just, if you respond to it without saying what you're responding to and you just say, don't try that again, Jack.
Nobody knows what you're talking about.
And it's just, it's kind of a little frightening because it's like you're possessed and you're talking to somebody who's not there.
Well, I mean, I may be, you don't know.
Well, that's true.
That's always true.
I know.
So there is a listener who said, please change your background.
And then said, make the background, your call in phone number.
So I, we're going to make the announcement we have to make every so often and remind everyone why we don't do that.
And the reason we don't do that is because we have one phone line.
And if we have the phone number out and people try to dial it and dial it and dial it, you will wind up in voicemail.
Hell, the phone will ring and we don't want to do that to you.
So we announce the phone number when it's time for a call.
Well, okay.
How about this?
First of all, how hard would it be for us to have a slide that exists now when we're not taking phone calls?
And then a different slide when we, when we opened up the phone lines that does have the phone number on it.
But when people call and they get that voicemail, hell, the message in voicemail, hell, tells them where they are and that they need to hang up and call back.
Would that make everyone happy?
There is one other issue, which is, don't forget, well, but in terms of talking about slides and timing, because of the delay.
So when we say it, we get a 30 to 60 second delay, I feel like, when things are going out loud.
God.
Yeah, but here's the thing.
We don't always say it.
So we're, we're talking away and, uh, you know, the phone number is up there.
People will say, okay, you know what?
I'm going to call now.
Uh, if they don't know the phone number, they have to wait for us to say it.
Then there's a delay on top of that.
Uh, whereas, you know, they might have a chance or they could write it down for future reference.
Exactly.
But the reason we don't keep the phone number up all the time is that we, we don't want people to keep calling and not being able to get through.
Um, we did get a listener suggestion just now saying we can configure OBS to turn the layer with the number off on and off, depending on when it's dialable.
Yeah, I just, I just made another scene and that's why it went black for a second, but, uh, you made a scene.
I made a cop.
Well, I'll have to copy the current scene with, I guess the van, but yeah, I know that's the level of production that I'm, I'm complimenting us on.
I mean, we can do a lot of this stuff.
So that's a great suggestion phone number in the, in the slides.
That's fine.
That's like super easy to do.
Uh, just got to noodle around with, uh, OBS as the, um, uh, listener just said.
Um, some of you may have seen some social media posts over the past week, uh, saying to expect an announcement in the next, uh, few days concerning the hope conference.
And that is true.
That is true.
Expect an announcement.
That's all we can say at this, at this point, I can say, uh, by the time next week's show comes on, uh, that announcement will have most likely, most likely nothing is, is definite yet, but, um, uh, the announcement will most likely have gone out and we'll be talking about it quite a bit, uh, because, um, if it does go out, it'll be extremely exciting.
And that's all I'm going to say about that.
Uh, so, uh, be prepared, be ready.
And, uh, don't be surprised.
I'm excited.
I'm excited.
And hack some things, uh, because we want to talk about those things on, uh, off the hook and, uh, off the hook overtime.
And we, you want to talk about all the technical nitty gritty details of how, and what goes on out there on the wild, wild web.
Now, um, I want to talk about this a little bit.
There's an article in boring, boring, uh, that, uh, came out last week about this thing called payphone go.
You guys hear about this scavenger hunt for California's last pay phones.
I love this stuff.
Um, unfortunately it's over the, the, the scavenger hunt has ended.
Uh, but that doesn't mean it's, it's, it's not still amazing.
And that, uh, things like this can't still happen.
Um, according to the article, California still has 2,203 licensed pay phones.
And, uh, now, or, or then there's a game for hunting them down.
Payphone go was created by, uh, someone named Riley waltz, uh, maps every working pay phone in the state of California.
The database comes from California's public utilities commission, uh, which waltz pried open through a public, uh, public records request.
The PSE still licenses pay phones.
It turns out the rules are simple.
Create an account, get a nine digit player ID.
Find the pay phone on the in-game map, dial a particular number, which is a free call from the phone.
You go to the pay phone and hopefully it has a dial tone and you dial the number and you punch in that nine digit player ID.
So the system identifies which pay phone you're calling from because you're dialing a toll free number and, uh, A&I is going to kick in.
The first caller to each phone earns 20 points.
The second caller from that pay phone gets 10 points.
The third gets five and everyone after that earns one.
So if you're first, you get a whole lot more.
Uh, first callers can also leave voicemails that show up for future visitors.
Digital graffiti on analog infrastructure.
Yeah.
That is just a beautiful turn of phrase.
Isn't that amazing?
I love it.
That is, that is so incredible.
Uh, Walsh describes the project as a love letter to a disappearing piece of infrastructure, according to the game's website.
The, uh, leaderboard competition ran through March 15th.
Uh, players who find pay phones missing or out of service can report inaccurate listings to help keep the database current.
And what I want to do now, well, actually, you know what, uh, Kyle, can we, can we call this number?
Uh, there's a phone number right there in the second paragraph of this, of this story.
And if you can call that, we can hear what it says now.
Um, cause you can't call anymore to report a pay phone, uh, because the scavenger hunt has ended.
And Kyle's dialing the number.
And you have to switch over immediately because, uh, recording comes on very quickly.
I don't think you switched over.
It's up, Kyle.
It's, it's been up.
No, uh, all right.
Um, well, now it's up.
I didn't press the button.
You didn't press the button.
Yeah.
You got to press the button harder.
All right.
All right.
One more time.
Just hit redial.
Is there a redial button on the phone?
Yes.
Okay.
Hit redial and then it'll be quick.
Technology folks.
This is fine.
Here we go.
Pay phone.
Go has ended.
Thanks for playing.
Check the leaderboard on the website.
Yes, that's, uh, that's the recording you get now.
Can I have the article back?
Cause I want to read the leaderboard and report who has won this particular scavenger hunt because,
uh, well, you, you deserve it.
Deserve some recognition.
Uh, number one is Eber Vector with 601 points.
Number two is Creature Vector with 600 points.
Wait a minute.
A difference of one point and you both name something Vector.
That's a, there's a story there somewhere and I want to hear it.
All right.
I want to know what the hell is going on there.
Um, yeah.
Uh, the first to call from pay phone, 20 points.
Second gets 10, third gets five.
Everyone else gets one.
So that's, that's how they, um, uh, they awarded points.
Fund number, by the way, uh, triple eight, six, eight, three, six, six, nine, seven.
Uh, the idea was to call that number, enter your nine digit player ID and, um, uh, the
phone you were calling from would be logged through A&I and, um, you'd get the, the, the,
the certain number of points, 601 points, second place, 600 points, third place, uh, a pink
DS light.
I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right.
Uh, a pink, how do you know?
How do you know I'm pronouncing it right?
Do you know this person?
No, but, uh, DS light was an, uh, Nintendo console and, uh, this person named himself
after a pink one.
Um, as far as I could tell.
So interesting.
I'm curious though, if they're going to reopen the game because it looks like only a little
more than 10% were claimed.
There's a lot more ground to cover.
What's, what's telling you that there's a map on the home screen and at the bottom,
it says 2,203 pay phones, 245 claimed.
Really?
So that's all that was claimed.
Hell, I'll go out there.
I'll go out to California and, and, and drive around.
That's probably why rebel is out in California all the time.
He's probably driving around and calling from pay funds.
You know, he'll do it.
Honestly, just drive from Santa Barbara to LA.
There's so many blue dots on the map.
Yeah.
The blue dots on the map are, are apparently phones that, uh, exist or are purported to
exist, but were not claimed in this game.
And green ones are, you can click the green phones and hear messages that, uh, the first
callers on these left on, on the system.
Oh, you can hear it on the, we can play it on the air then.
Okay.
We're going to try that.
Um, so anyway, uh, uh, pink DS light got 508 points.
Number four was penguin camp with 465 points, not my SQL, 375 points in fifth place coming
in at sick on sixth place, uh, solid grandma with 365 points.
Number seven was play to pay phone.
Clever.
340 points.
Uh, number eight, T Konorsky with 310 points.
And if something tells me that's a real name, uh, number nine, uh, Anton now 190 points
and 10th place botch RF 171 points.
So congratulations to all the winners there.
Um, and we have some, we have some frequently asked questions.
Uh, how do you know which pay phone I'm calling from?
Every pay phone has a unique phone number.
When you call the phone number, uh, I see the number you're calling from and match it
in my database.
What if the pay phone is already claimed?
Well, you can still call.
You'll earn less points and still be added to the phones, to that phone's log.
Can I call from the same pay phone twice?
You can, but you'll only earn points once per pay phone.
Where did you get this list of pay phones?
By filing a public records request with the California public utilities commission, public
utilities commission.
Uh, you get that reference?
Does anybody get that reference?
No, you don't.
Okay.
Uh, for some reason, pay phones are still licensed.
Why pay funds?
Because there are still some left in California and that number is shrinking.
Consider this a love letter to a disappearing piece of infrastructure.
I've heard that before.
Uh, I called from a pay phone, but the system didn't recognize it.
Some pay phones have numbers that aren't in a database or some pay phones in our database
may not exist anymore.
This data is from the state of California, but it may not be totally accurate.
Shoot me an email with the pay phone's location, address, cross streets, or a photo, your player
ID, the actual phone number if you have it, and I'll try to fix it.
Give me a few days to respond.
This is cool.
This is what people should be doing with technology.
Old technology, new technology.
It's awesome.
So, um, uh, pay phone go the scavenger hunt.
Now, okay.
Um, you guys are on the webpage itself.
Yes.
So if you could share the URL with me, I will try to click on those, um, those ones that
have messages and, uh, we'll, we'll listen to them on the air.
Absolutely.
So the URL is walser.com.
That's W A L Z as in zebra are.com slash pay phone dash go.
Okay.
I would not have guessed that.
Okay.
There I am.
Which is fair.
Game has ended.
So, okay.
What I do now is I go to the map and what do I click on?
Click a green dot.
Oh, okay.
I see.
Well, I have to zoom in first.
Yes.
All right.
A lot of blue dots here.
I guess the blue dots are the unclaimed ones.
Mm-hmm.
And only some of the green dots have messages.
But, uh, once you find one with a message, there'll be a little audio embed to play it.
Okay.
I wish I knew California, uh, better so I can identify where I'm clicking.
Uh, but somewhere by the water.
I can tell you that.
But it'll also give you the address and in the, in the fly out, it'll give you the address and you can open it in Google Maps.
So you actually get a sense of where you are.
Okay, uh, we are going to play this particular message, which is the message from the first caller at, uh, Highway 1 in Carmel, California.
So we're, uh, PCH right now.
We were just driving me and Riley at this moment, uh, and we just saw this.
And I was like, holy shit, payphone.
And so we took a U-turn, uh, and we're in, like, a London-looking style payphone.
There are apparently a lot of spiders.
I'm actually out of the payphone booth right now.
Um, this has been a lovely drive.
I've seen some really beautiful sights on this PCH.
We drove the whole PCH just to get to this phone.
That's not true, but we did, like, stop at a time for, like, 15 minutes to, like, look for one and we couldn't find one.
And, yeah, it's a joy to get my first few points.
And, Riley, do you have anything to say?
Man, this is a cool phone booth.
All righty!
All right, goodbye and good night.
I heard this guy say that he was with Riley.
Isn't Riley the guy who ran the website?
Uh-huh.
All right, so that was the voice of the person who, uh, came up with this whole thing, so that's kind of cool.
The second voice.
That was pretty cool.
I would also like to point out, just as a bit of a throwback, um, if you're feeling archivy and you want to go into the Off the Hook Show archives and check out the episode from March 4th, 2020, um, in which Rob called in from a payphone in our very neighborhood, which doesn't exist anymore.
Oh, yes.
Yeah, but you didn't get any points for it.
No.
No.
No, we did not.
It did not count.
It cost us money, too.
It did.
We spent a lot of quarters.
So we tried to figure out if we could both be on the phone and it wasn't working, so I just stood there and held the cup of quarters.
Rob does not.
We still got the...
We still got the rest of those quarters.
We still got the rest of those quarters that we didn't use.
We just put them on a shelf and they're still here in our apartment.
Just in case.
You might need to correspond from, from, uh, payphone once again.
Um, but I will testify, uh, Rob does not play.
I could have told you that.
Let's, um, let's go to Saratoga.
This actually is in, uh, Los Gatos, California, which I think is near Saratoga.
Got it.
Okay.
Yeah.
Uh, 305 Blossom Hill Road.
Um, let's, let's listen to this message.
I'll reprise my love for you, though you are never mine.
I'm having fun with this.
This is all, you don't know what you're going to hear, um, or who's going to be saying anything.
Um, wow.
Okay.
Somebody pick a part of California and I'll find the green dot that's near that part.
And, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll hear some fun things.
Well, I used to live in Southern California, um, in the LA area.
So, um, LA, what's that?
Los Angeles.
Los Angeles.
Los Angeles, which you can't really see cause it's covered in dots.
So you have to scroll, keep scrolling.
Oh, that's why I'm not finding.
Okay.
Yeah.
So you see, there's a whole lot of blue dots.
Yeah.
What the hell is going on with that?
That's crazy.
Um, so it appears that this game caught on a little more in Northern California than it
did in Southern California, um, for better or worse, or there are a lot of dots for pay
phones that don't exist anymore.
Both are very, very possible.
Is there a part of Los Angeles you'd like me to find?
Yes.
I'm actually looking.
Um, well, don't look.
There's no challenge if you already find it.
Just tell me the.
Okay.
So if you could find something near Bel Air.
Belt.
Wait.
Cause that is where I live.
Where is Bel Air?
God damn.
There's so many cities here.
The phone line is not open.
No.
Well, Bel Air.
I only know the directions from that sitcom, uh, theme tune from back in the day.
I found Beverly Hills.
I found Burbank.
Okay.
You're doing great.
Uh, is that anywhere near Bel Air?
So we were at the intersection basically of the Santa Monica freeway, the, the 405 and
the 101.
Yeah.
That's not on here.
So I can't, I can't even find that.
Well, if you just find something green in the area and, and, uh, we'll get as close as
we can.
All right.
You know what?
You're going to get Burbank because that's, that's the closest one I could.
Oh, wait, there's, there's actually five phones in Burbank that were claimed.
Uh, pick a number from one to five, please.
Actually, no, wait, four of them are unclaimed.
So you're, you're getting the first one, which was, I don't know why I would choose one that
wasn't claimed.
Uh, this is 501 South Buena Vista in Burbank.
And let's hear what, uh, the, the, the person who found that pay fund says.
Hello, this is play to pay phone.
Just claiming another pay phone.
And we know that name because that's one of the winners played to pay.
Very clever name.
Wow.
Excellent.
So people wandered all over the state claiming pay phones and recording.
This is amazing.
This is so much fun.
Yes.
So the people who are jumping in and saying, we need this in New York, you can find out
all the data about how to do it on the, um, on the website, which again is walzer.com.
I'll put it in the chat.
And if you want to do this yourself, go nuts and tell us about it.
It would make a great hope talk.
Yes, it would.
Uh, and, um, also, you know, this, this is a great reason to keep pay phones around.
Another great reason, uh, to keep pay phones around a good way to test them, make sure
that, uh, they're working, uh, and, uh, making it a fun activity as well, where people are
running around and, uh, people like that kind of stuff, geocaching or scavenger hunting or
these augmented reality games, um, out in the world, especially when the weather gets
nicer.
So yeah, that's, that's really cool.
So it's, it is just that geographic area.
Yeah.
And that's also the thing that I was thinking is it sounds like geocaching.
It really does.
A lot.
Yeah.
And it helps people create a directory of where these things are for overall access and
if they're functioning.
So that is a really, really neat idea.
Would we like to open the phone lines?
Uh, well, no, we were having too much fun with this right now, but I understand that,
but time is fleeting and we gather here.
Well, I found the Northern most phone that was claimed on a North interstate five in Hornbrook,
California.
However, the person who claimed it did not leave a message.
So there's no message there.
So I have to go to the next one, uh, which the same person also claimed it did not leave
a message in Klamath river.
And I, I, I fear that the third one, uh, they also claimed, uh, and yeah, they did that
to 9134 highway 96.
Okay.
Um, let's see, I'm going to move a little further West.
Try this one out.
No, no, no.
Some people just don't want to record anything.
It's the same person every time.
Um, wow.
Someone did a lot of driving.
Okay.
Uh, so there are no recordings in the North.
Okay.
I found one.
I found one.
And this is from the person that didn't leave recordings anywhere else.
I guess they thought they didn't have that much to say.
Well, you're wrong.
You had a lot to say because all these phones are different.
This phone was found in a place called Sawyer's bar, California on three nine Oh three nine
Sawyer's bar road.
Let's have a listen.
Hi everyone.
Calling from forks of salmon, California, tiny little community, a little magical though.
Like crazy, like steep, steep cliffs, um, you know, with the river going right through old,
like, um, gold mining town with like wild horses, like a wild horse just went up to my
car and like wanted food.
So kind of really unique little place.
And they have a working telephone.
Pretty cool.
If you ask me.
And that was from creature vector, uh, who didn't record anything on the other phones
up North, but recorded something there.
And it was quite interesting.
And I know, uh, they were one of the winners.
So, uh, that's pretty cool.
That's pretty amazing.
Very cool.
Indeed.
This, this reminds me of the old, uh, phone freaking days when it was a big deal that you
were talking to someone far away because that wasn't always easy to do.
And you would just sometimes get someone, uh, if you would call a pay phone somewhere and
wait for someone to pick up and get someone and ask them, so, you know, where are you?
How's the weather?
Um, you know, what's going on over there and just, just have that experience of connecting
with someone over a great distance like that before, um, that seemed like such a standard,
uh, day-to-day thing to do.
I'm sorry.
I'm just lost in this world here.
This is, this is so much fun.
I wish it were in other States.
I wish other States were doing this, but you know, there's no reason why other countries
can't get involved in this either because they have pay phones as well.
I'd like to know what was involved in putting this together.
So you're right.
This would be a great hope talk.
It really would.
And to inspire people, I think to, yes, uh, to inspire people to do it in their own States.
Also, we had a question from our pal loop zero, who is the one who digitized, not digitized,
but is hosting the entire 2600 voice BBS archive, um, who said, I don't know how pay phones work
here in the U S but can you call a pay phone? It would be cool to have a project that randomly
calls a pay phone and records whoever picks up on the other side.
Well, you know, it's funny you should say that because, um, we used to do that back in the
early eighties, uh, on, on the radio.
In fact, there's, there are recordings of us doing this on WUSB and, and, uh, those shows
are a part of, uh, I believe voice of long Island in the radio section of 2600.com.
Uh, occasionally we would just, um, I remember it was actually a pay phone outside the hotel
Pennsylvania because back then hotel Pennsylvania was where we, uh, had the intercollegiate
broadcasting, uh, service conventions. In fact, that's kind of what led to us having the
hotel Pennsylvania for hope before it got torn down. Uh, and we would call that particular
pay phone because they would take incoming calls. Um, if you can find pay phones these days,
it's quite likely that they don't take incoming calls, which is sad because, you know, there's
a lot of magic there. If you can, um, uh, if you can get somebody to pick up, but sometimes,
sometimes people would say bad things over the air and, uh, yeah, but it was late at night.
So it didn't really matter that much.
And, and it's kind of a lost art because, uh, of course, when you call the pay phones number,
the phone would just ring back in the old days. Um, I think when it was, I think it was when
everything went over to electronic switching that pay phones stopped ringing and stopped letting
people just, uh, you know, call a pay phone and see who answers. Um, and, uh, you know,
fortress phones and cocots and everything took over and those were less phones and more like
self-contained computers. Um, and it became a thing, it stopped being a thing that was so easy
to do to just call a pay phone and have someone pick it up. All right. We're going to end with one
more, uh, pay phone that was, uh, claimed. This one is on four, four, four, five Magnolia Avenue
in Riverside, California and La Petite Jort, uh, who is somebody who did not something funny
about that name, Rob. That was me. Sorry. Sorry. You both seem to be, uh, bent over laughing there.
Okay. Well, this person did not win. If you find that amusing. Okay. You know, some people just did
it for, um, maybe one pay phone. I don't know. Uh, La Petite Jort, uh, is, uh, the person who,
uh, left this particular message. Let us listen. I'm in the hospital where my son was born. Uh,
fortunately it's the only memory I have of this hospital. Nothing bad has happened, but, uh,
you know how time is. I'll probably be back at this hospital for some reason. So see you then.
Bye. Wow. A little dark, but, um, but good. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that. That's,
um, that's pretty awesome. All right. And that, um, you can listen to the, um, recordings yourself.
Uh, w a l z r.com. Um, actually, you know what? Um, I have a different URL than I think you did
because I'm looking at specific pay funds. So Gila, can you give out the URL again? Uh,
so it's w a l z as in zebra r.com. And it's just the letter Z. I just wanted to clarify that it's
Z and not anything else. So w a l z r.com slash pay phone dash go. Okay. Uh, and, uh, we're going
to open up phone lines here. Uh, it takes a little doing to, to get that going. Um, who would like to
give out the phone number? We can, uh, I can give out that phone number this time. Uh, you can join
us at a United States. Don't do it yet. Cause I haven't turned it on yet. Hold on. Oh, okay. I'm
trying to kill, kill some time here. Uh, it'll just take me a minute. Um, you can start giving
out the number slowly. Can you do that? Okay. The phone number, which is in the United States.
So that's country code one. Okay. Um, I'm ready. That is United States phone number
eight zero two three, two one four two two five. That's eight zero two three, two one hack.
And the phone is on now. Uh, so, uh, you can call us and, and maybe reach us and say whatever is on
your mind. Yeah. Um, you can also get us toll free at eight, three, three, seven, five, five,
20, 600. Um, I believe that's still up and running, uh, put together by a friend of ours,
but the main number eight Oh two three, two one hack. And I believe we have a phone call coming in,
which, uh, Kyle is going to process. And when he's done with that, we will have the phone
call to put on the air or internet as it were. And Kyle's just phone number phone call approved.
Yes. All right. And good evening. You're on off the hook over time. Go ahead.
That didn't work out. Did it? Let's try that again. Eight zero two three two one four two two
five. That's our telephone number. Eight Oh two. I'm so impressed. Eight Oh two three two one four
two two five. What's he doing? Oh, I put the phone number on the stream. It's paint. Okay.
Nicely done. My dude. I had it. I was doing it while out of the corner of my eye. Hold on.
Are you painting on the screen? I just thought I'd help with the number. I was wondering what
that smell was. And do we have a phone call? I think. All right. Good evening. You're on
off the hook over time. Go ahead. Speak up, please. Maybe we should explain when people
call. We expect a little more than just you calling. We expect you to actually speak with
us as well. You know, say something when we say hello to you. You could say hello back
or something else. I don't know. Not going to say hello back. It's just kind of rude. I'm
not going to write a script for you. I'm using the normal amount of rings. I give you two
rings. What? Two rings. That's what you get. Yeah. Two rings. 802-321-4225. If you're
calling and speaking and we're not hearing you, maybe there's something wrong with your
phone. Or maybe there's something wrong with our phone. I don't think so. I think we tested
it. We called the pay phone go thing. And we have attempt number three now. Are we cleared
to go ahead, Kyle? Kyle's not answering. Yes. Okay. Good evening. You're on off the hook
over time. Go ahead. At this point, I have to wonder if... It won't. Okay. I hear a voice
now. Hello, Emanuel? Okay. Yes. Who's calling? Yes. Hello. Can you hear me? I'm on my new
headphones. Headset. Okay. This is either Rebel or it's somebody pretending to be Rebel. And
that sort of counts for the delay. No, it's me, Emanuel. Okay. It is you. You claim it's
you. But how can you prove it's you? Okay. I'm on my new headset. That's how I can prove
it. Is that why you're delayed in talking to us? I don't know. Is it delayed? Well, did you
call three times before this? Yeah. I must have had it on mute or something. Ah, okay.
Well, there's the explanation. Can you hear us well? I can hear you well. Can you hear
this quality or is it... No, you're fine. You sound fine. Yeah, you sound really good.
It's a little bit different, like, encoding or modulating or whatever. It's not the Rebel
we're used to, but it's a Rebel we could get used to. We could grow accustomed to this.
Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, if it's not good, then I'm going to listen to it and then I'm
going to exchange this headphones. No, I wouldn't say it's not good. It's different. And,
you know, we have to adapt. Okay. One moment, sir. What's he doing? Did we just get transferred?
Did he call you, sir? Yeah, I think he did. Are you a customer service agent?
Oh, for God's sake. This is the whole reason he got a headset. We fell right into his trap.
Wait. Just one moment, sir. I'm going to... I want to talk to your supervisor now.
You'd like to... We're doing one moment, sir. You'd like to... This is outrageous. Do you
know who I am? Area code 292-212-394-7? Okay, 292 is not an area code. I'm sorry. It never
will be. I'm sorry. I'm sure that's a new area code in California. Yeah, I'm sure it is.
They'll just give anything an area code status out there, won't they?
All right. Well, this has been great. A good test of the... Okay. Now, let's see if you can hear,
can you hear the background noise? No, I just hear you getting further and further away.
Are you running away? What? You're running away from your headset?
Yeah, you're very far away. No, no. I was... I was... I'm going to put the headset down and see if
the noise canceling works. Okay, I'm going to... Yeah, it's doing a little bit. It's canceling
you. Okay, we don't hear any noise. We just hear you breaking up as you get further and further
away. You know... It did cancel when he was walking away. We are not the place where you test your
purchases. Yeah, you could do this with friends. We're a radio show. You're supposed to be talking
to us about things, not testing your damn equipment. Okay. You know what I like? You
know what I like? I like... I like a ringtone on my cell phone that sounds like an old, you know,
analog, like a crossbar switching. I would like a strawberry ice cream cone, but I'm not getting
that either. Well, what about... What about... What about if you have a ringtone, like, you know,
instead of when you call somebody, you hear the regular ring, like... Instead of hearing that,
you hear, like, a crossbar switching, like... Or something like that.
Wow, that sounds exactly like I remember. Yeah, what if that did happen? That would be
something, wouldn't it? Is there maybe an app that you can customize ring back to... Like,
you know, there used to be a thing where you can... Where you call somebody and they say,
please hold on and listen to the music while your party has reached. And what if the music
was a ring? Right. Yeah. You want to mess somebody up, put them on musical hold, and the music will be
the sound of a phone ringing. And they won't stick around. They won't stick around. They'll just assume
they're being ignored. Okay. Yes, Gila. Gila has something to say. Go ahead. Sometimes when we were
kids, my little brother would be on the phone, and then he would decide he didn't want to talk to you
for a minute. So he'd be like, please hold. And then he would just start singing some random elevator
music. And he would do this for five to ten minutes. He did it to our grandmother once,
and she just hung on to it for a really long time. Wow. And then he did it another time,
and he started breaking in every 90 seconds. Your call is important to us.
You know what? How do I know that this thing is on mute? That's the...
Well, I'll tell you, it's not on mute now.
Well, it's not on mute now, but I just want to, you know, test it out and say,
because I just, I guess I push that button and, you know, okay, it's inside the room. Now,
the microphone's away from my face. Now I'm going to put it toward my face, you know, blow into it.
I'm sure everybody on that, too bad we're not on the air and off the hook on WB.
Yeah, it really is too bad. I wish we could have done this on the air. You know,
50,000 watts spread to four states. Yeah, that's a lost opportunity.
Let's see. So, yeah, so I like a ringtone. Maybe there's an app that you could get that you can
set your own light to. Like when your phone, when your mobile phone rings, it'll ring like,
you know how many times you've been on like a bus or a train or in public somewhere when
you hear a ringtone and you reach for your phone, you've got the same ringtone, you know?
Yeah, and everybody has the same ringtone on the bus. Yeah, it's, um, I've never had that.
Well, I mean, like wherever, wherever you, I mean, wherever you are, you hear that you have a
specific ringtone that when somebody calls you and then, you know, another person has it and you
don't know which is yours, but whether you go for your phone. You can make your own ringtone. You can
make your own ringtone. You know, you can just record anything. It's an audio file. It's an audio file
you have to do wherever, whatever phone you have is know where the audio files are stored
for whatever sound you, you want to replace. And you simply put that there. It's, it's, you know,
they make it harder than it should be, but it's, it's, it's definitely doable.
Yeah, that's true. Now, what about the other way around when you call somebody, like if I was
calling you, like when I call 802-321-4225, instead of getting the ring, I mean, I know it's a Google
voice thing, but you can play a step ring or, you know, that's. Yeah, that's good. That's a,
that's a good step ring imitation there. That's not bad. Rob, did you have something? Go ahead.
Yeah, Rebel, you can actually, most smartphones these days have an audio recording app and you
can record an audio file on your phone and then just select that audio file as your ringtone. So
Rebel, you could make a ringtone that's your voice going ring, ring, ring, ring, and nobody else would
think it was their phone. I promise you. Rob, what are you doing? You're suggesting that he
record his own voice. Yes. And so that when he's on the bus and his phone rings, people hear him
saying ring, ring, or whatever it is that he says, you know, do you really want that to be happening
on buses and, you know, on the street and, you know, in buildings and all kinds of places where
people are. Well, you know, you got the new Rebel ringtone. I'm just saying it might not have the
effect that you want. And, um, it could, it could result in a lot of confusion. Maybe that's the
effect. The more interesting one thing would be the other way around where, when you call the cell
phone, you hear the old ring. Well, yeah, but then you got to somehow get into the switch and, uh, you
know, change the way the rings. I mean, it's doable. They could do it. It's mostly simulated.
It's not your point. The ring you hear when you call somebody is not coming from that person. It's
coming from the phone company. And, you know, the phone company is certainly capable of programming
all kinds of different sounds, but it's not of interest to them. But yeah, if we made it of
interest to them, it's something people wanted. Although I doubt many people even care.
They also want standard standardization. Like if every stop light had different color schemes,
it would be. Oh, that'd be so cool. Yeah. And then you'd have like people that have a purple
light. Yeah. But what about colorblindness in certain conditions? What about a black? You gotta
have, come on, man, a black light at a four way intersection. That'd be cool. I'm not. I'm not
denying that traffic engineers are getting to work on this right now. All right. Go ahead.
No, I was just thinking about my dad's custom ringtones. My dad had a custom ringtone that was
a cough. He had a cough and he had a throat clearing and one was a text and one was email.
And so if he forgot to mute his phone before he went into a meeting, no one noticed.
Uh-huh. It was very clever. Wow. That's, that's, that's brilliant. You know,
a good ringtone would be, uh, someone's voice saying, uh, can you hit the stop button please?
And on a bus that would always cause confusion because somebody will hear it and hit this and
the bus wasn't supposed to stop there or, or, you know, things like that. Or, uh, uh, or,
is that a rat there? I don't know. There's all sorts of ways you can cause confusion and,
and, uh, chaos. Uh, rebel, uh, some, some final thoughts here. It's been fun.
Yes. I'm under the, I'm under the covers now.
I don't need to know that. No one needs to know that.
No, no, no. The reason I'm doing it so that I don't, you know, so that I don't,
I just, you're, you're over modulating. It's muffled. I don't think that's the best,
uh, audio quality. Then. All right. So then how has this done? It's improving, but, um,
I would just keep, keep trying this with other, uh, other people and just see what their, uh,
reaction is. Cause that way you'll have a wider sampling of what people are listening on.
And now I can't pair this. It's my Linux, my, uh, computer on Linux. It's some strange reason it
says it's connected, but it doesn't, I don't hear it. Oh, I see. Our time is up rebel. Uh,
but thank you for calling and please won't you call again, but not tonight.
Yeah. All right, then we're in agreement. Thank you. Thank you. And, um, uh, best of,
best of luck. And, uh, our front lines are now open again. And Gila has something to say. Go ahead.
I do. Yes. People are speculating fun things that you could make a ringtone say like,
uh, a ringtone of rebel, just saying hi, Emmanuel, or a ringtone that says, I got to take a shit.
Oh, that's nice and cultured. Thank you for that. That's, uh,
Would you prefer I got to take up poo? Well, I don't know why someone would be announcing that.
I need to visit the water closet.
Well, you know, I might take that from this episode. I might download the video,
clip out that bit of audio and use it as my ringtone for you now, Gila.
Yeah. See how you feel. I don't ever call you.
No, that's true. And she probably won't now. Wow. Um, you know, while we were talking about all
this, anybody remember that odd couple episode where, where, um, uh, anybody remember the odd
couple? You guys know what I'm talking about, right? Not the music. Yeah. Okay. But I mean the
show, the show with Felix and Oscar, you know, Jack Klugman and, and, uh, Tony Randall, uh, where,
where, uh, Oscar says to Felix after Felix has been annoying to him, uh, they're on the phone.
Um, and, um, he says, yeah, I'm going to put the phone down. It's going to sound like I hung up,
but I'm just putting it down for a second. And then Felix says, it did sound like you hung up.
And then he's like saying a couple more things. And then he finally realizes that the phone was
in fact hung up. And he says into the phone, I know what you did. And it always got me that,
you know, if he knew what he did, why is he saying it into the phone when he's not there
and has already been hung up on just something I was thinking of. And if you haven't seen that,
I suggest finding that because it's really funny.
That was one of those programs. Everybody knew back then.
Yeah. The monoculture when everyone was watching the same things,
well, different things like nobody was watching PBS, right? So, uh, there was that.
There wasn't PBS.
There was PBS. Absolutely. In the seventies. Sure. There was,
but it wasn't as nationalized. Was it?
It was fairly, it wasn't as nationalized, but it was fairly nationalized. Uh, okay. Trivia question.
What was the predecessor to PBS? Don't look it up.
Hmm. I should know this. I should know this.
And there's a big clue in New York city.
Read all those Sesame street books.
Books about Sesame street, not like Sesame street books. Um,
I should know this.
Yeah. I got, I got it. I pass.
You don't get the pass. You just say you don't know and you fail.
Okay. I don't pass. I fail. Okay.
Do you know the call letters for the PBS station in New York?
Um, W N E T. That's right. It's N E T national educational television.
That was the network before. In fact, uh, they had an owl as their, um,
as their symbol and you can find it online too.
You can find all kinds of, uh, uh, graphics and, and,
and stingers and things like that. Uh,
the funny thing is that, uh, channel 13 back then wasn't known as W N E T.
They were known as W N D T. And, uh, yeah. And, uh,
and also final fun fact there from New York, New Jersey, not from New York.
Yeah. Okay. Uh, ready for another phone call?
802-321-4225.
See who else is out there.
And, uh, you've brought some Guinness. Thank you very much, Kyle.
Yes.
May I, uh, toast your Guinness.
Yes. Wait, you gotta, you gotta open it on mic.
Well, okay. Too late. There we go.
Very nice. Um, while we're, while we're waiting for another call,
um, Oh, I spilled beer on my keyboard.
Oh, I hate when that happens.
There was an episode of Gilligan's Island where an undersea phone cable
washes up and they tap into it and make calls using a phone made of coconuts.
Yes. Um, that was brought up in our chat.
And that was, yeah, that was my favorite episode of Gilligan's Island.
Well, uh, there's another show called Green Acres where there's this whole series of episodes
where, uh, they're running the phone company. In fact, that is where my previous reference
to the public futilities commission came in, which nobody got. And, uh, yeah, there's,
you know, I thought Green Acres was a stupid show, but when I watched that, I realized, wow,
this is really well written.
I remember him climbing the telephone pole to like talk.
Yeah. They'd have to climb the telephone pole to answer their phone because the phone company
wouldn't run the wire further than that down into the farm. Right.
I got to find those episodes. Now there's, there's about like four or five of them.
Excellent.
Phone line is open.
And if you had an independent phone company somewhere in, uh, you know, in, in the outskirts
of America, you were familiar with that, you know, GTE, one of those companies, uh, they
made it very difficult to do anything. And just even dialing numbers, you had to dial a one
for local or all kinds of bizarre rules. I'm sure there are people who remember them. I was
never lucky enough to have an independent phone company, but, uh, I, I heard some of the
stories. 802-321-4225. And what do you have there, Kyle?
Ow, that fucking hurt. Damn it. Stop doing that. Like you're going to fry the equipment.
And our earbuds.
That's a little busted.
That's a Captain Crunch whistle you have.
Yeah. It's a 3D printed one. So it's not quite, I don't know if it works that well. Maybe
you got to blow the dust out.
Well, maybe you don't blow it into the, into the microphone. Hold on.
I think you have to blow it hard. Something like that.
Yeah, that was good.
Yeah. Does anybody have a, um, in-band signaling phone line that I can test this on?
Not handy.
Well, someone let me know when it's safe to put my headphones back on.
I thought we were supposed to be phone freaks. What the hell?
Sorry. Sorry about that. Um, we are waiting for our next call and don't give out the phone
number now because it's on the screen.
Fair enough. And if you're hearing this without listening, without watching the screen, then
you're not authorized to call us.
Oh, if you need us to say it, you are non-sighted. Then I will say it, uh, after this call's picked
up. 1-802-321-4225. 1-802-321-HACK.
This call is ready.
I'm not, though. I'm trying to do something else. Uh, if you could kill time for a second
while I try to figure this out.
I don't want to kill time. I want time on my side. I want to hear more of what time has
to say. I'm interested in enjoying time and really, really seeing time for what it is.
Time can't change me.
I'm so glad we had this time together.
Yeah. Okay. I'm going to have to play with this a little bit.
Time has come today.
Good evening. You're on Offlook Overtime. Go ahead.
Yeah. Yeah. I just, uh, had a quick question. What is the process to submit something for,
um, uh, for the, um, what is it called again?
I don't know what you're talking about. Hope Conference? Magazine?
Hope Conference, right? Where could I find out how to submit something for Hope Conference?
Well, there is a website, hope.net, uh, and that is basically the clearinghouse for all
information about Hope. Uh, and right now there is a link to submit talks because, um, uh, the
conference is accepting, um, um, talk submissions, uh, without having a definite, um, uh, location
for the conference other than it being in New York City. However, next week that, um, that is
likely to change and, um, come next week we will have announcements on that, but you can submit
your, your, your, your talk proposal now. Oh, okay. Okay. Very good. That answers my question.
Do you have any other questions about the process? I mean, there, there will be, um,
additional explanations as we update and, uh, uh, share more information, but it's generally,
um, a brief kind of summary of, uh, whatever you're interested in talking about and do your best
to just be succinct and, um, people will, uh, then take a look at it and, uh, see if it fits well
with the, with the program. Okay. Very good. I'll go on the site. Thank you so much. All right. Take
care. Thanks for calling. 802-321-4225 is our phone number. That it is, um, talking of old, uh, classic
television. Uh, someone in the chat brought up Ernestine played by Lily Tomlin as, uh, her
operator character. We don't have to care. We're the phone company. We don't have to. We're the
phone company. That's the one. And cause I was thinking about this earlier. If like, if I walked
by a ringing payphone, I'd probably pick it up and say a gracious hello. Is this the party to whom I'm
speaking? Yes. I remember picking up ringing, ringing payphones. It was always a fun adventure
and sometimes they would be trying to reach a payphone. Some more often it would just be a wrong
number and somebody very angry that they didn't get who they wanted. And that was always fun to
deal with when presented with that conversation unsolicited.
We are accepting telephone calls. The number is on the screen. If you are unable to see it,
it's plus one, eight Oh two, three, two, one H a C K that's hack. That's plus one, eight Oh two,
three, two, one four, two, two, five. This is off the hook over time. And the phone is ringing and we
are about to pick it up and say, good evening. You're on off the hook over time.
Good evening. How are you doing? Pretty good. Yourself?
Good. This is John from Jersey. John from Jersey. That's a great handle.
I've been listening to you guys for a long time since Redbox has worked.
Oh yes. Redboxes. That was the way of making free phone calls from payphones, from, from bell
operated payphones. Yeah. I've been buying the magazine since then and listening to you guys.
And, uh, this is the first time I'm calling in. I just wanted to say,
I love the show and everything. I don't listen to you guys on the BBI. I just listen to the
podcast. So you only, you're local. You can get the BBI, but you choose to only listen to us on
overtime on the podcast. Oh, you know, you don't know where I live. I can't, I might not be able
to get you. Well, you said John is from, you're from Jersey. I just figured you lived in Jersey,
but maybe not. Maybe it's a Jersey. It could be the Jersey in UK. You don't cover everything.
Does it cover all of New Jersey? Oh yeah. Well, not all of New Jersey. It depends what part of
New Jersey. Yeah. The, uh, footprint of the, yeah. Yeah. The broadcast area footprint has changed in,
in the last 10 years. But, um, what do you mean? Over the radio. Sorry. But I don't anymore.
Okay. I used to look closer to the city, but you can listen to the show on the internet as well.
I'm curious. I did that today, actually. I did that today, but usually I download it and listen
to it through a podcast player. Exactly. Okay. That's what I was asking is, is by podcast,
you mean it, you listen to it in its entirety, not just the half that is streamed after the radio show.
So I think we misunderstood that. All right. Well, actually today, I rarely listened to the
overtime, but I did today because I wanted to call it. If we're done interrogating our caller,
uh, what's on, what's on your mind? I would love for you guys to talk about,
uh, these flock cameras more on the radio. I don't think people understand how crazy they are.
And, uh, which, which cameras people hear about flock. Oh, flock. Oh my God. Yeah. Who,
who wants to begin? I think it's, uh, you know, I don't know. Maybe these things are super scary to
me. Maybe I'm overreacting, but, uh, well, what scares you about them?
Uh, the interconnectivity of it. I think, I don't think, I think people, when they say,
oh, there's cameras going up, they think, oh, good. That'll prevent crime. And
if you have nothing to hide, then you shouldn't be worried about it and all that other nonsense.
Right. Right. But, uh, I think when people think of cameras, they think of like a blurry black and
white static bank camera from like the eighties, you know? And it's not bad. This is, this is,
you know, it's everywhere. It's everywhere. Identifications. It's AI. It's license plate
readers, license plate readers. Yeah. They're on highways or on streets. And many times they are
accessible to anybody who has the address. No password required. Right. Right. Well,
that's something I want to point out, you know, like just give a shout out to Ben Jordan. He's
got some great videos on YouTube about it. Um, he would be a great folk speaker too, actually,
I think. Yeah. Not, not a bad idea. Uh, but I would love if you guys talk about it more on the
radio just because I don't think, I don't think you, I think you'd get a wider audience. I love
when the BAI audience calls it. I love hearing that on the radio because it's like surprising to
me, you know, because I'm like, yes, yes. I love hearing like an 80 year old woman call talk to you
guys. I think that's amazing. That's awesome. That's the magic. That's the magic of radio.
Cause you never know who's out there and there's no way to track them. It's, it's a passive technology
and you, you don't know who's going to call or who's listening. Right. Right. I just, I don't
know. I, you guys are doing a great job. I was just like, I was just like, Oh, I got to tell
us that I was talking about flock and I think the whole super bowl ring debacle kind of like
let them sweep themselves under the rug. Yeah. There's a show not too long ago where I, I brought
up the fact that, uh, people are talking about flock cameras and we've never actually talked
about flock cameras on the air. And you're absolutely right. We need to talk about it more.
We need to learn more about it. Yeah. I think at most we've talked about, um, we've talked
about sites like Shodan, uh, that allow you to view cameras that are online. And then I
think we've also talked about probably license plate readers, automatic license plate readers.
We've talked about that a lot more on the show over the last couple of years, but I'm just
recollecting. I mean, just vaguely remembering, uh, the kind of weightedness. Yeah, no, no, it's
a job. I just, I just feel like this is like a thing that's kind of, I mean, there's a million
horrible things to talk about the world right now. Don't get me wrong. Yeah. Yeah. But it's
exciting. It's new and there's a lot of, um, backend on these cameras. And like you said,
it's evolved. It's, uh, uh, much greater resolutions, uh, multi-spectral like, uh, night
vision. You have all these kinds of capabilities. So yes, it, and then it's being, um, integrated
and, uh, and made, um, accessible forever as far as whatever's captured. You're, you're
absolutely right. And I'm sure, um, there's a lot of different angles we could, we could
cover. We'll, we'll look at, uh, our sources and, and, um, by all means, if you find anything
or if anybody else finds things, please send us some, some story ideas.
And nothing, nothing ties together, uh, all the, uh, quote unquote political things we talk
about with technology better than this subject, because you know, it's just, it's such an
encroachment of your privacy. Uh, and it's, uh, it's an advancement of technology. It's
Orwellian. It's got everything. It's kind of, it's, it's everywhere. So yeah, we need to
do more. You're absolutely right. I would listen. I've been, I've been listening to you guys and
and reading the magazine probably as long as that other guy wrote that letter into you guys
that you read over the air. And, uh, I don't understand that bullshit. Like you guys,
have always, it's always been politics, you know what I mean? Ever since you guys, you
know, when you guys see the MPAA or whatever and all that, you know, that's politics, you
know, everything's politics. It's all politics. That's how the whole world works. Do you know
what I mean? So it's, it's related, but I do understand, I do understand people getting
sick of it after a while because it's everywhere, but you know, we have our own unique spin on
it. Uh, and, uh, it's, you know, do people, do people expect to tune in and you're going
to tell them how to set up their router or something? I don't understand.
Yeah. You know, I, to be honest, I am not a technical person, you know, do they think
it's going to be, you know, like an hour about the flipper zero? I love technology. I love
to talk about technology. I like to break technology and fix technology, but you know, I also like
to mix it up with, uh, whatever, whatever else is going on in the world and tie all that
together and, and, and learn from it. Rob, you have something. Go ahead.
Yeah. Just on the subject of flock cameras, uh, just today, there was a post on the site
tech spot, um, about how a number of us cities are pulling the plug on flock safety's, uh,
AI cameras. Uh, the conversation is out there. It's having an effect. Um, this post says over
the past six months alone, 38 cities have rejected or shut off flock cameras, part of a larger
wave now encompassing 53 municipalities across 20 States. Uh, yeah. So there, there is, there
is grumbling out there about this. It's not just us super nerds who are upset about it anymore.
Um, the, the conversation is happening out in the wider sphere and, um, the best any of
us can do, can do is keep that conversation going on this program, but also just, uh, in
our local communities and areas and, uh, you know, folks we know.
One great story you guys can point to is I don't know if you saw it, but there's, there's
a great story where this cop goes and harasses this lady and accuses her of, uh, being a porch
pirate because he's got her driving by the spot cameras and the timeframe that's it.
Uh huh. And, uh, the only thing that really saved this woman from being harassed by this
cop is that she had a car that had cameras recording also. Wow. So she can prove, Hey,
I wasn't there over there. She's like, I went to the hairdresser. I don't know what you're
talking about. You know? So one form of camera helped her against another form of camera.
Yeah. But I mean, that's only cause she's, she's driving like, you know, she's able to afford
a car that has a camera system like that. If she didn't have that, she was driving my car.
Uh huh. Yep. Be asked out, you know? Yep. I hear that. She wouldn't be able to defend
herself. It's crazy. That's the thing. Like, you know, you guys know how it is when people
who have unscrupulous motives have access to systems they shouldn't. Yes. Or just unlimited
access. Yes. Like it's how I try to explain to my friends. I go, you know, but if you're
dating a girl and you don't know that maybe her ex is a cop, you know, and he's parked outside
her house and you drop her off one night. Now he's got your plate number. Now he's tracking
you. Now he knows where you work. He knows your route to and from home. Yep. And you've
got a new enemy. You don't even know about. Right. So much information for a bad actor.
You know, it's yeah. Every bit of technology. This is something we've noted over the years.
Every bit of technology has good potential and bad potential. And, you know, we need to recognize
the bad potential right away and not be surprised by it. I have one last thing before I let you get
to go with that if I can. Go ahead. What is the deal with the Facebook group? I don't even know
what that is. What do you mean? I know what Facebook group is. I know we have multiple 2600
Facebook groups. Yes, there are several. And we stay away from them like just like IRC channels
because we don't have the time to get involved. But I know this. I know there's drama going on
constantly. They're run independently. It all seems like a bunch of crazy red hat
people. I don't understand it. It's like, why are you here? But you answered your own
question. You said Facebook. Well, yeah, that's the other thing is I don't go there really
either. You know, my advice is family hostage. I think everybody's still trying to hang out.
Remember, it's Facebook. You know, real life is much better. And, you know, you get it whenever
people are in control or, you know, think they have a captive audience. They're going to misbehave.
We've made our peace with that. But as long as people have some some way of sharing information
of interest, then, you know, it's probably the good probably outweighs the bad. But if it gets
to a point where the bad outweighs the good, then we we would disassociate, obviously.
It's just weird to me to see some of the tapes I see in there. So I'm like, well, how do you have
you to be a fan of the magazine or the radio show or anything associated to it? And they have these
opinions, you know? Well, you know, maybe somebody, maybe somebody will speak up and say why. And
then you have more people who see that point of view and say, yeah, I agree with that. You know,
you need to be challenged. You need to be challenged. And sometimes you get challenged with
ignorance. Well, that's someone else's job. I'll not police. That's great. Uh-huh.
I should be on there. What are you talking about? Yeah. All right. Listen, thank you so much for
calling. It was great hearing from you. Oh, thanks. I hope to make it out to hope one year
and see you guys. It'd be great. I'd like to be in a picture in front of the truck while I'm still
running. It is. Well, maybe this year. Well, we'll have more information next week. All right.
Excellent. Take care. Thanks for calling.
And that is our last call of the night. And we had some good calls tonight, didn't we? Yeah.
Yes. Thanks, everyone. And one was Rebel, too. So that's not bad. You can write to us,
OTH at 2600.com, if you have anything that you would like to say. Any final thoughts from folks here?
Yeah. And that actually, the folks who contact us and say you should talk about such and such a
subject, you know, if you see a story about that subject, send it to us. You know, we get so many
of the stories that we talk about from listeners who say, hey, I think you folks might be interested
in this. So, you know, keep sharing them. Let us know what's going on. Let us know how you feel
about them. OTH at 2600.com. That's our email address for people who might not be familiar with
email. It's really cool and handy. OTH at 2600.com.
And I just wanted to add, I mean, there's a lot of different ways to talk to hackers and
the greater sort of technology enthusiast affinity group. So seek them out. And of course, filter
as you would anywhere on the aforementioned wild, wild web. But try to have fun, too. And if you're not
having fun, then seek it out. So yeah, but there's lots of ways to interact and interface. And
also, the hacking community has a sort of long history of being a pretty narrow cross-section of
society and has strived in, I guess, the last several decades, the intervening years, to become
something else, to become something more welcoming, to become something that is a lot more eclectic.
And I think that we still struggle as much as we are living out our ideals as a subculture. I think
we struggle in a lot of ways. And particularly not becoming bigoted ourselves. Because in the growth,
I think we also have to accept, like, there are, we could come off as hypocritical. And if we don't
recognize that, yeah, there's going to be a lot of people that are into technology that you also
don't agree with. I think you can see that in a lot of the leadership and some of the corporate
sides of things. So just recognize that it is a eclectic community. That's the way we want it to be.
And that means you're going to bump into people that suck.
And people who don't, people who are coming from a place you never imagined, and you can learn so
much. And teach so much as well. It's magic. Hey, we'll see you next week. Next week, I think, might be a
very exciting week for all of us. But you know what? I don't, I don't really know anything.
OTH at 2600.com. We'll see you next week. Good night.