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A very good evening to everybody. The program is off the hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening, joined by Kyle.
Hey, how's it going?
Out in Signal Land, we have Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
We have Gila.
Good evening.
And we have Alex.
That's right. Good evening.
Now, Alex, I understand you've had quite an adventurous week with some kind of victory you'd like to share with us.
I have, actually.
I have had quite a week.
It has been pretty adventurous, I think, but some good stuff to report, as usual.
I have, last week I took on another habeas matter, another petition for rid of habeas corpus on behalf of an ICE detainee.
And I won this case on Tuesday, I think, really, in record time.
I mean, I filed this thing on Thursday night.
And then on Tuesday, actually, no, it was Monday night, I got an order from Judge Vargas at the Southern District of New York.
It was around 1030 at night.
So it was really about four days from filing to the immediate release of this ICE detainee.
And I'm glad you brought this up, too, Manuel, because there's a lot, I think, to unpack here in terms of what's happening with respect to ICE.
And that's not political.
It's very systematic in many ways.
So if you think about this, this is four days from filing the petition for rid of habeas corpus to release.
And let me tell you about this guy who was in ICE detention.
He was 22 years old.
He came here through a coyote from El Salvador.
He and his brother, his older brother, used a coyote to get into the United States and then turn themselves in at the Mexican border because they were recruited by a gang in El Salvador called Barrio 18.
And Barrio 18 wanted them to become gang members.
They refused.
And Barrio 18 then murdered their father.
And it was at that point that they sought to come to the United States.
And that was 10 years ago.
So they'd been in this country for 10 years.
And then on New Year's Day, this 22-year-old was picked up at the Long Island Railroad train station and held for basically what was about four months in detention, almost four months in detention.
And really, all he needed was somebody to show up and assert his rights.
Can I just ask one question, Alex?
You say he's 22 now.
That means he was 12 when he came to the border and turned himself into the authorities.
Yeah, he was just 12, maybe 13 years old.
And he and his older brother.
His older brother was a couple of years older than him.
And so it's a really it's a tragic story.
But but we got him out.
He had been sitting there, though, for four months, just about four months.
Right. And all he needed, quite literally, was somebody to show up and file a petition for a bit of habeas corpus.
Right. And but the the issue here that's a systematic problem is that the reason why he's out is because we drew a judge from the Southern District of New York that was a favorable judge.
Right. So that's why the government had conceded.
She had already ruled on this issue about whether or not ICE could use a particular statute to detain people in a mandatory way that most courts in this country, including the Southern District of New York, had said, no, ICE, you're not allowed to do that.
So this judge had already ruled in a couple of cases against ICE.
So the government conceded.
And when the government conceded, it was Monday night.
I will never forget it.
They conceded around 10, 20 p.m.
By 10, 25 p.m., Judge Vargas had already issued the memorandum, opinion and order, ordering the immediate release of this ICE detainee.
Literally, that's all it took.
It was like minutes afterwards.
It was unbelievable.
But here's the problem, though.
I have another client, another case that I've been handling now for quite a while.
Same all almost almost the exact same facts here.
Same everything. Right.
But he also comes from El Salvador, also came over as an immigrant.
I'm sorry, as a juvenile immigrant.
And he drew a different judge.
And he's been sitting in detention now for 11 weeks.
ICE actually arrested this guy at his own green card interview.
We're talking about the same courthouse.
We're talking about the same government.
We're talking about the same lawyers here.
So what we have is not a system of justice.
We've got a lottery.
That's what's happening here with these ICE detainees.
This is a literal goddamn lottery.
And whether you sleep tonight on a concrete slab or in your own bed can literally depend on something like a case assignment wheel at the Southern District of New York.
And that's because the Department of Justice is changing its position on the law depending upon the judges that they draw.
So they don't have one position on whether your detention is going to be legal.
They've got several.
And they're going to pick the one that matches the judge that they draw.
That's not law enforcement here.
That's abuse of a system that is vulnerable.
I mean, I think that we know quite well as hackers, as technologists, that when a system produces different outputs for identical inputs, when it's so non-deterministic like that, that's indicative of something, a broken system here.
And when people who maintain this particular type of system know that it's broken and try to exploit that vulnerability rather than fix it, well, we know what that is.
That's abuse.
That's abuse of this particular system.
So most people who are in this situation, Emanuel, they're never going to see a lawyer.
For every person that we get out as a pro bono lawyer, there's going to be scores in the same facility with the same rights that nobody is going to assert for them.
Alex, I just wonder, you know, we're talking about different results from different judges.
But what if it were the same result from every judge, but that was not the result we wanted?
Wouldn't that be a worse scenario?
It could be, right?
But that's the scenario we sign up for, right?
We have a - and it's always up to the judge here, right?
So it's not - that's not the issue, right?
The judges can decide the law as they see fit, but the Department of Justice is supposed to take a consistent version of what the law is.
It shouldn't be unconstitutional when it's applied to you, Emanuel, and then constitutional when supplied to you, Rob, depending upon the judge that you draw.
That's not seeking justice.
And as the Department of Justice lawyers, one of the things that I think is incredibly important to remember here, their client is the United States of America.
The United States of America doesn't have an interest in winning a case.
The United States of America has an interest in seeking justice.
That's the duty statutorily and ethically of every single lawyer that's admitted to practice in the federal courts where these cases occur.
So that, to me, that's my real beef here is about this lottery.
So I think the work that we're doing as pro bono lawyers here with the NYU Immigration Clinic and with the Immigrant Arc is incredibly important.
And I'll tell you this.
We're going to keep filing these.
We're going to keep doing them one petition at a time, one person at a time.
And I think it's so much more important now, not because the system is working, but because it isn't.
I think the only thing worse that we know than a broken system is one that runs unopposed.
So I have to say it does.
I've said this before.
It feels really good to be a grain of sand in the gears of this awful machine.
But I think that it's on all of us, every one of us, to make sure that this awful system that's very not often reported in the news anymore.
People think everything's OK with ICE now because it's just not newsworthy anymore.
But these detentions are happening every day.
And there are people languishing in these cells for extended periods of time because nobody is raising their hand to assert their rights for them.
Actually, Rob is raising his hand.
So, Rob, what do you have?
Go ahead, Rob.
So I'm really interested in the idea that the system is broken.
And if the system is to provide equal justice and equality and things of that nature, then, yes, the system is broken.
But if we come at this from a different point of view, that the system is there not to serve but to frighten, to oppress, to keep a certain segment of the population more fearful than another segment of the population, then the system is working perfectly.
Absolutely. As technologists and hackers, but also as people just very interested in this sort of thing, I think most people in the know will agree that the secret to any system depends on how it was designed, and that depends on why it was designed.
So if this is a system that was designed in such a manner that the cruelty is the point, that the fear is the point, then it's just working as smoothly as you could ask for.
Well, to that, I think there's a lot to unpack there, too.
I mean, I think that the Department of Justice lawyers that have the job of defending these particular types of action on behalf of ICE have got a tough position.
I don't think they necessarily believe it in their bones and in their minds that this is what they want to do with their lives, and this is what, when they wake up every morning, that they feel good about themselves justifying these particular detentions.
It seems to me like these are political mandates that have been put on these otherwise honorable lawyers in many respects.
I think they're generally pleasant to deal with, but I think it's beholden upon them to take these positions in these particular cases because it's what's expected of them politically, that it's come down from the top onto them in this respect.
And that's why I think this weaponization of the justice system like that may, in fact, be the point, Rob.
You might be right about that.
But ethically, legally, statutorily, the Department of Justice is supposed to be seeking justice.
We're supposed to have things like the equal application and protection of the laws.
This is the foundation on which any constitutional democracy should really rest.
I mean, and that's the floor, right?
Like, we should never go below that level here.
We should never have the unequal protection of the laws, the unequal application of the laws, depending upon justice.
Because what's happening here is essentially forum shopping for judges, but with human lives.
That's deplorable.
Winning at any cost.
I can understand that from some perspectives, but not when the cost is human lives and time in a cell for somebody that you know is being unconstitutionally deprived of their substantive due process rights.
That, to me, is unacceptable.
Well, you know, Alex, as you know, we've been doing this show for a few decades now on WBAI, and we've talked about a lot of cases in the hacker community.
And I sense a lot of people out there might be saying to themselves, there's been many cases of injustice and unequal treatment of people based on where they're from, the judge that they drew.
I'm thinking of Kevin Mitnick in particular.
But there are so many other people that I could point to in the hacker community who were treated unfairly, and it's not limited to the hacker community by any stretch.
This kind of thing has been going on for ages.
What is it, in your view, that makes this particularly egregious?
Yeah, well, and that's going to happen.
I mean, a great case in point for just that, Emanuel, is what happened with Virgil Griffith just a few years ago as well.
Virgil got a very strict judge who came down on him extremely hard in the Southern District of New York.
Very tough judge, Judge Castell.
And that resulted in a very harsh decision.
It wasn't great.
If he was in another court and before another judge, the outcome certainly would have been different.
But that's judge dependent.
That's not law dependent.
That's not the Department of Justice taking one stance with respect to the laws that applies to Virgil and another stance with respect to the laws that applies to Gila.
That, to me, is the exact unequal application of the laws that we're talking about here.
Judges are going to have their various wrinkles.
They're going to have different opinions.
They're going to have different sentences that they meet out.
We can expect that to happen.
But the uniform interpretation and the uniform application of the law by the government itself, that's what's critical.
That's what's important.
We should not allow the Department of Justice to go from one courtroom to another, sometimes quite literally right next to each other, taking different interpretations of what the law is.
That's what's wrong.
That's what's unethical here.
And also, just the, I guess, massive application that we see every day going on, that's particularly frightening to many, many people to see that.
Yeah, it is.
And what's really egregious about this particular situation, too, is that if you count up all the cases from across the entire United States that have dealt with this issue,
it's an issue of statutory authority between sections 1226 and 1225, 1225 B2A1, I think, and 1226 A1.
So it's a pretty technical issue.
And it has to deal with, when somebody is in the country, what statute can ICE use to detain them?
Can they be detained under 1225 B2A, where they can just mandatorily detain these people?
Or does it require some kind of due process?
And there's this legal fiction that ICE has espoused that says, well, we're going to just pretend that everybody who doesn't have a green card or isn't a permanent resident alien,
they're all seeking admission to the United States.
And that's what justifies this use of 1225, okay?
But that's some kind of crazy fiction, because people already in the United States, especially think about the case I just mentioned, been here for 10 years.
If you're already in the United States, how can you be seeking admission to the United States?
If you're in the theater, and you're sitting down watching a movie, you're not seeking admission to the same theater.
You're already there.
So all the judges across the country, the vast majority of them, I would say 95 to 99% of them, have come to the conclusion that this separate statute, 1226, applies.
And therefore, if 1226 applies, you have to afford these detainees' due process, an individualized hearing as to whether or not they pose a flight risk or a danger that would justify their detention.
And that's due process, that's notice that there is a potential that your liberty is going to be deprived and you have an opportunity to be heard.
You're not just taken off the streets when you show up to your immigration court hearing.
You're not, you know, swept up at the Long Island Railroad on New Year's Day and held in detention without any kind of bond hearing or any kind of due process for the last four months,
like my client that drew the wrong judge has been.
So that's the big difference here, right?
So these judges, the vast majority of them, if they've all decided that 1226 would apply,
how is it then that ICE can still maintain with a straight face that they're using this other statute, this other law to detain people?
The vast majority of these cases go against that.
They know that they're breaking the law.
And then in front of some judges, the small minority of them that have gone the other way and have ruled in favor of ICE,
the Department of Justice will take one version as to the authority of the statute in their courtrooms
and a completely different version of the authority of those statutes in another courtroom where they've been ruled against.
So that's what's wrong here.
So ICE knows that it's breaking the law, knows that it's violating the Constitution, repeatedly does it.
And then you have the Department of Justice selectively justifying certain cases and conceding others where they know that they're going to lose.
That's the unequal application of the law and systematic violation of a vulnerable population's constitutional rights.
That's a systemic problem.
That's abuse of a system here that is broken.
You know, while you were speaking, I was looking at another story that recently came in.
It speaks to what a lot of people would counter what you're saying by saying,
well, you know, if people simply would come in the legal way, this wouldn't happen.
Well, I'm looking at a bunch of people who came in in a pretty legal way.
You know how legal it was?
They actually helped the American war effort in Afghanistan.
We're talking about interpreters and people who basically kept American troops safe while they were in Afghanistan.
And now Trump is rewarding them by sending 1,100 of them to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Yeah, apparently that's their consolation prize.
Because originally they were supposed to come to the United States and be granted citizenship.
But now it's the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Human rights activists say that country is not equipped to take in any more in the midst of their fighting with neighboring Rwanda.
But, you know, it's about hatred.
It's about anyone who is not looking like the people in charge of this country right now, sending them someplace else.
And telling yourself that you're doing them a favor, which is really, really disgusting.
Out on Long Island, East Hampton officials are advancing legislation to bar the local police from cooperating with ICE on immigration enforcement.
They've become the first East End municipality to back that proposal.
It would also require police departments to notify newly created task forces about ICE activities if their officers were called in to respond to a raid.
So, you know, with every bad news, there's some good news.
And the important thing is to pay attention and to know what's going on out there.
And not to think, as Alex mentioned before, that everything's okay, everything's normal.
It's not normal.
None of this is normal.
This is all very messed up.
And every day, more and more lives are being ruined.
And another life that, according to the mass media, is being ruined is that of Kash Patel.
Have you heard lately what's happening with him?
All kinds of stories about him being passed out drunk and having to have people bash down his door to wake him up.
Yeah, the Atlantic reported this, I believe, last week.
And now he's suing them for a quarter of a billion dollars.
A quarter of a billion dollars.
That's how sensitive this guy is.
This is the head of the FBI.
Yeah, so don't criticize him.
Or who knows what the Justice Department might do to you.
That's the country we are living in right now.
Well, a pro-Iranian hacking group claimed on Friday to have hacked an account of Kash Patel's and posted online what appears to be photographs of him, a few years old, along with a work resume and some other personal documents.
So his world is just getting more and more embarrassing.
He once saw his name displayed with pride on the agency's headquarters.
Now he will find his name among the list of successfully hacked victims.
That's a message from the hacker group Handala, the Iranian hacker group Handala.
And the message was accompanied by more than a half dozen photos of Kash Patel, including ones of him standing beside an antique sports car and another with a cigar in his mouth, which I guess isn't incriminating.
The group also said it was making available for download emails and other documents from Kash Patel's account.
Many of the records appear to relate to his personal travels and business from more than 10 years ago.
But this guy can't keep his own email account secure.
He's in charge of the FBI.
You have to wonder.
You have to wonder about the level of competency here.
So, yeah, that's what's going on in our country.
If you're listening from somewhere else, yeah, it's a never-ending carnival over here.
Oh, boy.
Anyway, you heard about that, right, Alex?
I'm here, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
Well, Emmanuel, this case is really crazy, I think.
I mean, especially the defamation angle here.
Quarter of a billion dollars.
I mean, those are always inflated at the outset anyway.
But what Kash Patel means to think...
Not like that.
Not that inflated.
I mean, these are Trump-style numbers.
You know, I'm going to sue you for a six trillion dollars because, you know, you embarrassed me.
Yes.
That being said, the funny thing about this is, okay, let's assume that this goes to trial.
Let's assume it goes through discovery, gets over there.
Yeah, they send documents back and forth, et cetera.
Well, if you're suing somebody for defamation, the defense that they have to assert to, you know, contest the case is the truth, right?
So you are basically going to have a trial about all of these images.
Do you really want them front and center?
I mean, it's totally insane to do something like this.
It's an absolute bluff.
I think he's hoping that they'll come to the table or maybe it's some kind of symbolic gesture because this is just what Trump officials do now when there's negative stories about them.
They go out and sue people.
I think I know what it is.
He's going after the Atlantic for a quarter of a billion dollars.
Well, what's that going to do to other publications, other media outlets, especially those media outlets that are big and corporate and don't want lawsuits?
They're going to tell their reporters to, you know, quell any stories they might come upon that involve Kash Patel.
Now, I can tell you, you know, a network like Pacifica, a station like WBAI would not be intimidated like that.
You know, the administration is counting on their intimidation tactics to work, but true journalists are not intimidated.
And that is why it's so important to support this place.
Yeah, I wasn't I wasn't aiming to get into a pitch here, but since we are in the middle of a fun drive, this is a great time for people to go to WBAI.org or give to WBAI.org or buddy.wbai.org and pledge whatever you can afford.
We're going to continue talking, but please support the station so that we continue to be a voice that can speak freely about these things and not be intimidated like corporate media has been.
I don't feel sorry for them. This is what we've we've always known was their weak point.
You know, you have to you have to live by whatever regulations your corporate masters allow you to live by.
And it's not a healthy situation. Journalists need to be independent and free.
Rob, you had something. Go ahead.
Yeah, I'm just fascinated by the cartoonish number of Patel's lawsuit.
And, you know, it's it's like Dr. Evil going, I'm going to sue you for a quarter of a billion dollars and just hoping something happens in his favor.
Or when, yeah, if you if you've read the Atlantic's article, it it just seems to be, you know, attributable to sources and they don't seem to be pulling things out of thin air that they can't back up.
So I would actually really love to see this end up in court with all of this stuff on the public record, as you mentioned, Alex.
Yeah, I mean, you have to you have to stand up to this intimidation tactic and call their bluff.
And if you if you wind up in court, so be it. You will have plenty of support.
But the important thing is for the truth to get out there and for for people not to be intimidated by these extremely powerful individuals and and agencies that they they happen to be running.
I mean, I very much hope that this type of puffery and bluffing by Cash Patel in the face of what appear to be legitimate documents and records relating to his inebriated states and whatnot.
I really hope that others will see this type of reporting and the bravery of the Atlantic as well as as inspirational rather than see rather than be intimidated by Cash Patel's nonsense here.
I mean, it really is. I mean, we're talking about something called the Streisand effect, right, where when you're trying to suppress something, you wind up bringing more attention to it.
This goes back to it was early 2000s lawsuit with Barbara Streisand, where she was trying to sue.
I think it was Condé Nast to prevent the publication of photos that related to her cliffside mansion somewhere in California, Malibu or something like that.
But then in suing Condé Nast for the suppression of of these photos, it wound up bringing way more attention to the photos themselves.
So I think that's what Cash Patel is unwittingly doing, because he doesn't seem to have the cognitive abilities to think through the consequences of his actions.
Maybe it's a product of alcoholism or something like that. I don't know. Some people might might believe that.
But the thing, though, is you need media outlets that are willing to do this, who are willing to engage in what to distribute the denial of secret is coined the greenhouse effect.
So instead of chilling effect, we want the greenhouse effect where there are media outlets who are willing to report on this and are willing to support each other.
And I think this takes us really back into the realm of why it's necessary to support WBII to keep us on the air to do this.
You don't support WBII for some kind of tote bag. Right.
You support it for that oxytocin hit when you realize that there's other people out there hearing the same thing as you, part of the same community as you live right now,
sitting around in their living room, listening to Off the Hook, that you're part of this thing that has been ongoing since what year, Emmanuel? I always forget.
What, the radio show, the magazine, the conference, what?
The radio station. What was it?
Oh, the radio station, 1960.
Yeah. So 1960.
Aguila is waving frantically. Go ahead, Aguila.
Yeah, we're not on air right now.
Okay, that's great.
It's been brought to our attention that our on air, we're not. Nope, we're back.
Okay, well, that's disturbing. Did we piss somebody off?
There was some music playing instead of us, but we appear to be back on the air now, I've just checked.
Okay, well, I'd like to know why we walked on the air. If anybody can figure that out, that would be nice.
We're fine on this end, as far as I'm concerned.
As far as I can see.
Yeah, I mean, and now we're back and we're fine, but sorry, I just wanted to bring to everybody's attention that we had gone offline for a bit.
But we're back.
How do you bring it to their attention if we're off the air?
I wanted to bring it to your attention.
Oh, our attention. You know, you could just let us keep blithely doing the show, and we'd never know anymore.
All right, we're going to keep an eye on our connection here, make sure there's nothing bad happening.
Kyle, you're looking at that, right? Everything looks normal?
Yeah, so far.
Okay.
Okay. Maybe somebody could have a radio handy. If they hear the radio conk out, then we know. It's kind of hard when you're not actually in the studio to know these things.
All right, so we have to repeat everything we said? Is that...
I'm not entirely sure how long we cut out.
It appears going by what I'm seeing in our Mastodon notifications. We may have cut out for a couple of minutes, and then that's it. So I think we're good.
All right. By the way, this might be a good opportunity to let people know that we have an archive that has every show that we've ever done that we haven't lost the tapes for, and when something like this happens, we have the transcript from our local studio, so there is no cut out, so you'll be able to hear what you missed.
But oftentimes, and Jens is going to love us for this because he's the guy that does it, we also put up the one that did cut out from the BAI archives so that people get to experience that as well in case they want to, because we're obsessive about these things.
Nice to have music in the middle of the show.
So other than telling us we're off the air, Gila, did you have anything else to tell us?
That was the emergent moment, but I'm fascinated by this whole idea of what's being weaponized right now and thinking about the indictment for the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Yeah, I heard about that. Okay, so I don't know the facts about this, but I know that they had pissed off Trump. Get in line.
And now this organization is being castigated by his administration as something corrupt. It's almost humorous, but when you think of the good work they do, having a monkey wrench thrown into that is really a crime.
Exactly.
What can you share?
So the Southern Poverty Law Center has been indicted on 11 counts of wire and bank fraud related charges, mainly tied to their use of paid informants, which they have stopped doing.
But they're saying they, the DOJ is suggesting that they paid members of extremist groups, you know, the ones that they're like, trying to eradicate, let's say, in the same way that, you know, the FBI paid informants in the 60s to infiltrate civil rights groups, you know, same kind of thing.
Um, it, it, it, it's crazy.
The, okay, so the new acting attorney general, um, says the group was charged with six counts of wire fraud, four counts bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Um, this is, it is so nutty.
I don't even quite have words for this.
And the program ran between 2014 and 2023, according to the indictment.
The indictment does not allege that the funds went directly to the hate groups themselves.
Um, so, you know, there was Kash Patel standing at the unveiling of this indictment, looking completely sober, looking just the soberest anyone has ever looked.
But he wasn't blinking, was he?
No.
Yeah, so that's, that's a warning sign right there.
Neither, but.
Well, you know, it's, it's typical of any corrupt administration that, uh, the enemies are targeted, uh, what, what's perceived as enemies, and those are the people who tell the truth.
Those are people who reveal the, um, uh, inconvenient truths out there.
Uh, and there are so many of those, there are so many things to report on.
Uh, you can try and stack the White House press corps with, uh, uh, all the yes men and, and, uh, people that will, will glorify whatever it is the dear leader is up to.
Uh, but it's not going to get rid of the journalists who are out there reporting on the actual news that's happening.
By the way, um, the, um, uh, that annual White House, uh, press corps dinner is happening this Saturday.
That's going to be interesting because Trump's going to show up at this one.
And I imagine there's going to be a lot of ass kissing happening.
Uh, it's, it might not be pleasant to watch.
It might be a real embarrassment.
Or maybe somebody will actually say something directly and, uh, show some courage.
We'll see.
We'll see.
I, I, I've, I've both been, uh, not surprised and extremely disappointed in, in how organizations, corporations, individuals have acted, uh, since the second term began.
Um, you know, you, you, you would expect people to stand up for the truth and many are, but there are so many who aren't and so many who could, uh, and, and, you know, people have so much power.
I guess, you know, when you have that much power, that much money, you're afraid of losing it.
So you, you suck up as much as you possibly can, but it's disgusting.
And it's, it's not something that's going to do well in history, Alex.
I mean, we, we see this across the board.
It's not only media companies, although they, they've been pretty as well.
And people have been scared, I think, to be in the media since the, the advent of the Dick and Trump administration.
But I think where we see this most disappointingly is in the tech community as well.
And in particular with Apple, I mean, if you, on the one hand, take Apple who touts itself and markets itself as the privacy conscious, privacy protecting tech company out there.
The iPhone is difficult to breach.
Plus, you know, they have end-to-end encrypted messaging and all these things.
And they're not going to cooperate with the FBI to crack somebody's iPhone.
Remember a couple of years ago when they refused to, to bake in a back door for law enforcement purposes?
That was the old Apple.
Well, the new Apple under the second Trump administration is totally different.
The new Apple in the second Trump administration just complies with whatever they ask for.
It doesn't require legal process, doesn't require due process.
Think about the IceBlock app.
When the IceBlock app was, was available on the App Store and people were using it all around the country to alert each other about the presence of ice in their community around them.
Not necessarily to harass ice or to find them or to target them or, or to hurt ice agents in some way.
It was, it was a manner of communicating about what was happening with your neighbors in a small geographic vicinity.
We had, uh, Josh was his name.
I can't remember the developer's name, but we had him on the show and he was over at Hope as well.
Um, you know, this was an app that quite possibly could have saved lives in Minneapolis had it still been available on the App Store.
But the Trump administration manufactured some nonsense pretext.
Uh, I almost violated FCC regulation there.
I'm a little, little worked up, but, you know, came up with some nonsense, uh, about how this app could endanger law enforcement and simply ask Apple to remove it from the App Store.
They didn't go to court.
They didn't fight over this.
They didn't push back.
They just removed it.
That to me is shameful.
When you were one of the most powerful, most highly capitalized, and, and, and able to, to, to wield and, and put up a real fight against the government to, to fight for user rights and to fight for human rights in many respects, if you think about it.
Uh, and you don't, you just roll over because the only thing that matters is being on the wrong end of Trump's executive orders because that will harm shareholder value.
Well, Alex, that to me is on the matter.
Alex, let me ask you, uh, yes, uh, you, you've, you've made a good case that, that Apple has done a horrible job.
Um, as opposed to, to, to which technical company that has done a good job?
Well, I would say there's one that, that hasn't been afraid to push back, uh, anthropic.
We can point to anthropic as having pushed back against the department of defense when the department of defense said, Hey, we want to be able to use your AI technologies and discriminately to target people for weapon systems, et cetera.
Um, he pushed back and said, no, we're not going to agree to those terms.
And then the department of defense, I already made this joke in a separate show, but they basically asked anthropic, have you tried turning your morals on and off again?
Uh, you know, and you come to the same conclusion.
They still push back and they're still fighting the government on that.
So I think, I think anthropic is a good example of that.
You know, I guarantee you, uh, nobody knew the name anthropic before the beginning of this year.
How about those companies, Microsoft, Google, you know, companies like that.
Are they doing a good job?
Yeah.
No, they're, they're not doing great.
They're all falling in line.
They're all falling in line, which again is, is one of the reasons why you support WBI.
You get that, you get that oxytocin hit, as I was mentioning earlier, of being part of this community where people aren't afraid to speak their mind.
And we'll talk about these types of things because we don't fall in line.
I don't think we ever have.
We never will.
Rob, go ahead.
You know, who has been better about pushing back against these things is the not-for-profit world, open source software, Linux distributions, things like that.
Not only because of the reality of open source, the basic fact of it is you can't sneak back doors into something that's completely publicly auditable and expect that to stay there.
But it goes to show that the huge for-profit, you know, zillion-dollar business world that fuels the tech oligarchs and 900-pound gorillas that are out there right now, they are perfectly poised to just fall into line.
Because, you know, they like money and they like when the government lets them have more money.
And that's always going to be the case.
It is basic capitalism, I think.
Whereas people doing it for the love of the thing, like those in the open source world, like those in the non-profit world, like those here on WBAI, I think those are the ones that, you know, the government is going to have a lot more trouble silencing or, you know, unfairly exploiting in these manners.
Well, there's this other development that's been ongoing, and that's the whole age verification thing.
And there's been some developments in Europe.
The European Union's unveiling of a mobile app to check people's age online has quickly turned sour as cybersecurity experts found glaring privacy and security problems with the code.
Who knew?
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented the age verification tool in Brussels last Wednesday, saying it was technically ready and will soon be available to use as countries move to ban kids from social media.
It is fully open source.
Everyone can check the code, von der Leyen said.
Cyber and privacy experts immediately dove into the source code on the GitHub software platform and reported several issues with the app's design.
The saga is turning into a PR disaster for Brussels, but underneath the controversy over the code lie deeper divisions between privacy campaigners, child rights groups, tech firms, and politicians over how to protect minors online, as leaders promised to shield kids from social media and porn sites.
Within hours of the EU's app release, security consultant Paul Moore found it would store sensitive data on a user's phone and leave it unprotected.
He wrote this in a widely shared post on Twitter.
He claimed to have hacked the app in under two minutes.
Baptiste Robert, a prominent French white hat hacker, confirmed many of the issues and told Politico it was possible to bypass the app's biometric authentication features,
meaning someone would be able to forego entering a PIN code or using Touch ID to access the app.
Olivia Blasi, a cryptographic researcher who was part of a French task force on digital identity, said,
let's say I downloaded the app, prove that I'm over 18.
Then my nephew can take my phone, unlock my app, and use it to prove he is over 18.
Wow.
These kids are just so clever.
They figured that out, huh?
Um, I don't know, guys, I don't think this age restriction thing is going to work out.
I really don't.
I, I, you know, it's a problem.
The, the, uh, social media issue with, with kids.
Absolutely.
I just don't know if, uh, this is the way to combat it.
Any, any, any thoughts?
The, the, uh, the GitHub page for, for this app is, uh, fascinating.
It's, uh, it's there under EU digital identity wallet, uh, hyphens between each word.
And the issues page is filled with all sorts of interesting commentary from people in the
open source world.
Um, not necessarily about bits of the code, but just about the basic fact of the thing.
Um, one person points out that, you know, the, the only way you're going to be able to
get this app is by downloading from the Google play store or Apple iOS store.
And either of which you're allowed to download from anonymously, there's always ties back
to your identity with either of those stores.
Um, and, uh, all sorts of other concerns about just the reliability and wisdom of having
something like this as the official age verification thing.
Um, there's lots of colorful language in here.
I can't use on the air.
Um, and, uh, but it's, it's vehement and it's, uh, it's wholehearted.
How do listeners, how do listeners get to that address so they can read the colorful
language?
Uh, github, github.com slash EU dash digital dash identity dash wallet, all lowercase.
Go ahead, Kyle.
Well, I just want to comment.
I think like that there, that we're talking about making a policy like this, it makes is
an argument in and of itself or itself evident that really young people shouldn't be using
these things so quickly and doing so without a lot more intervention or a lot more supervision
in like structured ways.
And, um, like setting these gatekeep, like a gatekeeping policy for everyone else who isn't below that
age limit.
Um, I think is a red flag.
That's a sign that maybe these platforms really weren't meant for those people.
And that to try to like set, set up a rule or something to, um, I mean, I think the expectation
that you can eliminate people from accessing this stuff with something like this is foolish.
And that you should just consider that the real answer to, um, protecting people is to have a lot
more involvement in how we're using technology in a family environment and how it's set up in that
environment.
And what kind of, uh, supervision there is that I just think all of this is just really backwards
that like safeguarding it with tools and the sacrifice that people that are, are of age that
they have to make to accommodate a small segment that might, um, either find a way on or that will be
persistent enough, um, or that won't use their parents device.
That's already verifying an adult's age.
Like it just seems so silly that we're going to try to debate the best way to do something.
We really shouldn't be putting a lot of energy into in the first place.
And my heart goes out to everyone, you know, that they're, uh, trotting out to, um, illustrate
the need for something like this, but none of this technology was ever designed to be like a
little daycare and I just don't get the logic there.
I, I, it's sad that people are profiting off of technologies that make young people want
to kill themselves and stuff.
But I don't think any amount of this kind of stuff is going to solve that.
And it's also a problem for people who aren't kids.
Social media is a cancer that, that hurts everybody.
Uh, there is a serious problem here.
It needs to be dealt with.
Like I said, I don't think this is the way because what you are going to accomplish or
what you're going to accomplish with this, uh, is, um, uh, pretty much war on anonymity.
You know, one of the beauties of the internet is that you can be a dog, you know, you can
be whatever, uh, you are anonymous.
If you choose to be, you can, you can advertise every, uh, minor detail of your life too, if you choose to.
And I think that's part of the problem right there, but the anonymity is, is, is priceless.
And this is a real, um, uh, uh, it's a real shot against that.
And I think we need to, um, uh, figure out a way to, uh, preserve that, uh, important
part of what the net is all about while looking at the problems that social media and other,
other services cause to everybody.
Alex, you had your hand up.
Go ahead.
You know, what I find kind of funny about this, this whole thing, I mean, this whole
age verification sham together with this, this crazy app that, you know, is shipped with glaring security holes.
And then they, they point at it and say, oh, but it's open source.
Okay.
So what, like you still have an obligation to make software that isn't riddled with massive
security holes that a teenager who knows how to edit a config file can defeat.
I mean, that's, that's totally insane, right?
But on the other hand, you know, is it any shock to us that the, the same people who are
behind this, the sham invasive privacy age verification app are the same production company that brought
to you, uh, that brought you GDPR as well.
You know, it's all from Brussels, all from people who don't necessarily understand privacy at
all trying to regulate and legislate and mandate privacy enhancing technologies that are security
holes.
Go ahead, Gaila.
We have one minute.
Um, I was, I saw something amazing that I've been trying to find on Mastodon where someone
was saying the best thing that we can do with this new thing is point out that there are problems, but not help fix them.
And just let this thing sink on its own is the best thing that any tech minded people
can do is say, wow, that's really a mess and not help, not troubleshoot, not just let it sink on its own.
And I, I read that out loud to Rob and I was really excited about it and I can't find it right now.
Yeah.
But kids are already banned from using social media in Australia, you know, and, uh, is
that the right move or are we just going to let that, uh, eventually sink or are we kind
of, uh, see just how, how, how bad that gets?
I mean, you know, again, we know there's a problem.
We know it's something that we have to, uh, uh, address.
Is this the way?
No.
Well, yeah, that seems to be the, um, the consensus here.
We'd like to know what you think, our listeners, uh, OTH at 2600.com.
Is our email address, but you know what?
We're going to be continuing this conversation over on YouTube at eight o'clock.
You can join us there.
Uh, in fact, you might even be able to call us.
We do take phone calls over there occasionally.
And to get there, you simply go to channel 2600 on YouTube, or you click on the link.
That's on the 2600.com webpage.
Hey, uh, don't forget to support WBAI.
Give to WBAI.org or buddy.wbai.org.
Keep non-commercial radio alive and annoying the powers that be.
That's what we're for.
That's what we're all for.
See you next time.
Good night.
Charlie don't surf and we'll be sure Charlie don't surf and we'll know that it ain't nothing
Charlie don't surf for it's never gone Charlie's gonna be a napalm star
Everybody wants to roll a bird There must be something to get from birth
But to this, we'll never burn Satellites, we'll make space burn
We've been told to keep the strangers out We don't like them, we've started to hang up now
We don't like them, over down Across the world we're gonna blow them down
Charlie don't surf and we think you should Charlie don't surf and you know that it ain't gonna keep
Charlie don't surf and we'll be sure Charlie don't surf and we'll never go on
Charlie's gonna be a napalm star They know the sea powers must be yours
So many on this confidious So sing the rock and roll
The girls don't even let go, go So on the street in a one-horse town
One-as-ah-all-out-one-one-on-one-one-one-one-one-one-one-one-one-one-one
We'll see you next time.
Bye.



All right, here we are on YouTube, I think.
This is Emmanuel.
Kyle's over on the other side of the interim studio here.
We've got Rob Gila and Alex.
Guys, if you can confirm we're on YouTube,
because YouTube is telling us we're not on YouTube,
but I think YouTube doesn't know what the hell they're talking about.
We have not yet appeared on YouTube.
Okay, but usually we don't for a few more seconds, right?
Usually it takes a few more seconds, but I'll keep an eye up.
I'll let you know when we...
But this is nice.
We could just do a show for ourselves, you know, just a bunch of us.
Just have a conversation amongst ourselves.
That's always fun.
Do enjoy that.
No, we have not gone live yet.
Okay, I'm seeing an error occurred.
Please try again later.
YouTube is not receiving enough video to maintain smooth streaming.
How about I relaunch...
What the fuck?
I mean, I'm sorry, but we don't use video.
So all we need is audio.
That's so little bandwidth.
Let me relaunch this.
What's the problem here?
What are you relaunching?
Let people know.
The broadcast software that we use for this stream.
Okay, this is stuff I don't touch.
I touch the YouTube interface.
Rob, do you think it could be an ID10 tier?
By the way, Alex, your connectivity is shit as well.
I don't know where you are.
Oh, it's terrible.
That could be us not receiving him very well.
No, but it's only him.
It's not Robin Gila.
No.
On our signal connection, we're noticing Alex is choppy as well.
Yeah.
What the hell, Alex?
It's total shit.
Are you in a dry Tortuga or something?
Where are you?
No, I'm in New York.
It's with spectrum connections.
Why is it whenever you go to New York, that's when your internet is the worst?
I'm telling you, it's the worst.
It is the worst.
It could be in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, and you'll have better connectivity.
And I'm not even joking.
It's true.
On mute, I was yelling to the kids and my wife to go to a different network or use their
phones because the signal was degrading so badly here.
I was like, are you?
You know, we're going to keep this as part of the...
We're not on anything, so we're just talking amongst ourselves.
So this is a rare look at the inside of off-the-hook overtime.
Not off-the-hook.
Off-the-hook isn't like this.
We're far more professional.
But here, this is unshielded, yeah, unmuzzled.
So Alex, you're having a moment that's back like the old dial-up days where like, mom,
I'm on the line.
That's basically what it was.
And then your BBS download craps out.
I literally was yelling, if anybody's downloading something, stop.
So I'm getting a message from you to saying, connect your encoder to start preview.
Learn how to use encoders.
Fuck you, YouTube.
Don't talk to me like that.
I know how to use encoders.
I've been using encoders since before you were YouTube, assholes.
All right, so Kyle's launching the other program now.
I see the picture.
That's usually there.
And there's no button for me to hit.
That's the thing.
All I can do is end the stream.
No, hold on a second.
Yeah, and if I end the stream, then I'm definitely not starting the stream.
I don't know if this is going to be better.
I mean, this might be worse.
Well, how can it be worse for us not being connected?
I'm doing the best I can.
All right, so I've done everything.
Oh, the thing.
Look, it says excellent now.
It said poor before.
Now it says excellent.
That sounds good.
So we might, Rob, we might show up any moment now.
It's possible.
All right.
Our chat is asking, you know, it's 8.03.
Where's the show?
Yeah, you know, keep your pants on.
We're working on it.
Okay, I got the error again.
It still says excellent, though.
An error occurred.
Please try again later.
It doesn't tell you what the error is.
Wait, here we are.
And there's a play button for some reason.
What happens if I play?
I just got a thing.
All I can do is end the stream.
That's me.
Oh, there we are.
Okay.
I don't know why you're playing me to me.
That's not helpful.
Oh, there we go.
All right.
I don't know what the hell's going on.
So this might be a bandwidth issue.
We had some issues with the other station yesterday, but other people were having issues with the other station.
So we didn't think it was us.
Let's just get it.
I mean, obviously, it's Iran.
Yeah.
They are mad.
Iran is cyber attacking us.
It's understandable.
They should be mad.
Well, you know, it's legal.
It's legal for them to do cyber war on us because we're at war.
So it is a domain.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, you know, if if if your microwave gets attacked, that's the cost of war.
In this case, cyber war.
This says encoding overloaded.
You know, I think that's a compliment.
I've got a big yellow error on the screen here.
So, you know, someone can tell us.
We're seeing we're seeing the YouTube feed keeps freezing up and buffering.
And our chat are our chat folks are seeing that as well.
Something super fucked here.
OK, you know, I'm going to suggest, Kyle, that we just reboot the modem, you know, because
that's that's like where connectivity issues could happen, you know, and because we we
relaunched this program here.
We connected to YouTube and I can augment the video quality and maybe work with what
we've got.
So I don't know why we even why is video an issue?
We don't.
That's why I'm wondering.
Maybe that would help.
But a 300 baud connection would be enough.
Give me a second.
All right.
All right.
I trust in Kyle's wisdom around this.
We are we are still seeing buffering.
People are having all kinds of fun with us in the comments.
This is a problem that is affecting lots of people because on the other station, we were
told there were problems before we had problems.
So that means the problems weren't with us.
There were problems with many other people before that.
And now we're having problems here.
I don't know.
I'm not sure if there's just connectivity issues throughout the area.
But it seems like it's something that's a lot bigger than just one connection.
And of course, Alex, your connection just sucks.
And I don't think that's ever going to change.
No, it's going to change soon because I've had it with the spectrum bullshit.
It's unbelievable how much I pay for this connection.
And it is terrible.
It's absolutely terrible.
I can't believe the speeds that I get on this thing.
And I don't think it's antiquated hardware.
I think it's just going to get rid of spectrum.
I think maybe you should have a wired connection, not Wi-Fi.
I think that might be a good step forward.
Yeah, I guess.
I mean, maybe.
But I'd have to use a port to do that.
Yeah, you'd have to make a sacrifice.
And it's, you know, I'd move around this place and things.
And, you know, Ethernet cables across the living room.
Yeah, well, that's another thing.
If I could implore you not to pace around the room while you're on the air,
that would also be very nice.
But, you know, I literally got up for five seconds because I had coffee on the stove in a mocha pot
and then said to myself, oh, shit, you know, my wife is on a separate conference call.
I can't yell to the kids and have them do that because the thing is extremely hot.
So I had to go run and turn it off.
Your wife was probably using more bandwidth than we use because it was probably video,
and we don't use video.
Yeah, I think that's what was happening.
I had to switch over to 5G on my phone.
It got so bad.
But speaking of which, though, what I found actually works really well in lieu of a broadband connection
and, you know, through your cable company are these T-Mobile hotspots for home Internet.
And they're pretty extraordinarily fast and reliable.
And it's just this kind of mobile hotspot that presumably uses just, like, you know, 5G.
It's like almost like having a dedicated connection.
But, I don't know, it just seems like such a better alternative is cheaper, faster, more reliable than the spectrum at this point.
I can't take it anymore.
All right, Kyle, what's the latest?
Because I still think rebooting the modem is a good idea.
I don't know.
I just tried to lower a little bit of the video and change the amount the stream is.
If it helps, what I'm hearing is from people that are listening that we're going on and off a little bit.
Right.
So, I think that's something with the connectivity.
If we reboot the modem, at least we've done that much.
Is there a reason not to?
Okay, no one's downloading, like, six albums on Kazari.
I don't want to debate it.
I mean, if you want me to, I will.
That way we know.
I was working on this, the software side.
What happened with software side?
Because we do have connectivity.
Obviously, we're talking to people.
Right.
We'll lose connectivity, I know, for a moment while we reboot.
Well, can someone check?
I mean, is it working now?
No one's really told me anything.
No, Kyle's totally right about that.
If it was the connection itself, we would have problems talking right now.
I know that, but we keep going in and out.
So, the connection, there might be something wrong.
Yeah, what Kyle did, has that helped?
Do you have...
The van came up.
We just buffered again.
But we seem to be kind of smooth now.
It says poor for me, and I have a big yellow error again, but I don't know if that's just
stuck on my screen.
Oh, there we go.
We're buffered again.
So, it's not helping.
So, you know, my view when you troubleshoot things like this is you start at the top and,
you know, try and...
Well, actually, no, you start at the other end.
We've done that already.
So, I think just, you know, unplugging it, plugging it back in, getting it reset, and
maybe, you know, we'll get better bandwidth.
And if we don't, then we know that there's a problem somewhere else.
It seems like the snippets of audio we are getting coming through are from quite a long
time ago now.
Many minutes.
That's also true.
So, things are piling up in interesting ways.
Let people know that there'll be a full transcript available that did not make it over YouTube.
If you can get to them somehow, I guess, through the chat or whatnot.
Yeah.
All right.
So, let people know also we're about to do a reboot of the modem, and that will make them
lose connectivity, but to come back, and hopefully, we'll be able to do this thing.
Otherwise, an early night for us.
Do we know where the modem is?
I don't know where the modem is.
They moved it a few years ago.
Yeah, it's in different places.
And we use different modems sometimes.
Yeah.
It could be a DDoS attack.
You could be being DDoSed right now.
Maybe that's...
No, but...
That happened to Blue Sky.
Blue Sky got DDoSed off the face of the Earth.
Did you see that?
No, I didn't.
Yeah, it happens.
Alex, you seem to be on a satellite delay somehow, and I don't know how that's possible.
Can I do my little experiment where I count down, and you say the number at the same
time as me?
All right.
So, basically, the way it works is I go three, two, one, and we both say one at the same
time.
You want to try that?
Oh, okay.
Okay, so here we go.
Ready?
Three, two, one.
Are you fucking with me?
One.
That did not take that long.
Okay, you realize how unhelpful you are.
Do you understand how that does not serve anybody?
You don't look clever.
You look like a clod, and I don't get any answers whatsoever.
Nobody's listening to us, so you're not even entertaining anyone.
I do not understand your motivation here.
You want to try it one more time?
Let's do it again.
Because this is the last time I'm going to try it.
Okay.
I'm trying to help you here.
All right.
Let's go for it.
Three, two, one.
One.
That's too much of a delay, I think.
It shouldn't be that long.
It's less than I thought, but there is a delay.
Interesting.
How long is the delay?
You'll have to listen to the transcript, won't you?
I guess I will.
It's less than a second, but still, it's enough to be annoying.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's weird.
I mean, I got to get a new internet connection.
This is just bullshit.
All right.
So, what are we doing?
Are we going to reboot the modem?
I don't see any other alternative, Kyle.
I really don't.
This isn't working.
Well, I mean, it's stabilized.
It's better than it was.
Not what it is normally.
Okay.
Shall we try one more time?
And if this doesn't work, unplug the damn modem and plug it back in and see if that works.
So, is Gila really stuck in that expression?
What?
Okay.
I'm sorry.
You weren't moving.
I thought you were frozen.
I was just sitting very still.
We have video amongst ourselves, but that's it.
I think you should take Rebels call now.
What I see.
The phones aren't even working yet.
What I see is error.
YouTube is not receiving enough video to maintain enough streaming.
As such, viewers will experience.
It cuts off at that point.
I don't know how to see the rest of that message.
So, do you want to just stop all that and start over?
Well, it's not working, is it?
Guys, is it working?
The delays keep piling up.
Are we buffering or not?
Not at the...
Now we are.
Literally.
So, it's not working.
It has not worked once.
So, I say, let's start with the modem and figure it out from there.
If you hear me, you won't hear me long.
The snippets of audio we're hearing are...
Gila just mentioned that the van came up.
And that was, what, like five minutes ago?
Oh, wow.
That was a while ago.
Yeah.
So, the...
Packets, very...
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
All right.
We've got...
Oh, there they are.
Hey, what about it?
We've got the folks back on signal.
All right.
We're rebooting the machine that handles the connection as well.
So...
Cool.
Yeah.
So, we're not going out right now.
But we will be, hopefully, as soon as this restarts.
He asked me.
He asked me.
Please, share whatever is funny, because, uh, rebels like, why are there only eight people?
We usually have 30 or 40.
And everyone's like, because there's nothing to listen to right now.
Unbelievable.
That's how closely he listens.
I am literally on the verge of banning him from the chat for being a fucking idiot.
You know, that's going to be stored in the archive.
I'm fine with that.
All right.
Just as long as you know that.
Everything we say is on the permanent record.
No, no cover-ups here, folks.
We, uh, we, we, we just display it all.
The ugliness as well as the...
Oh, what do you got there, Kyle?
Kyle's got a snack.
Pickle balls.
Oh, my God.
You have gotten these pickle balls?
So disgusting.
Classic pickle balls.
Oh, yeah.
We had those like a year ago.
Yeah, they're pretty gross.
I won't buy them again.
They're enjoyable.
Okay, well, you can have the three that are left.
Oh, God.
All right.
So I see the chat again over here.
It says connect your encoder to start preview and then learn how to use encoders again.
God damn it.
Um, and this machine, this machine has just come up.
All right.
So it's possible it was that machine as well.
But either way, we've rebooted the modem.
And now we've rebooted the machine.
Now we're going to come up in YouTube and hopefully find a thriving community waiting for us.
Okay, well, we have corn pudding, so...
We have corn pudding.
So if nothing else, we have that going for us.
Which is nice.
This is excellent corn pudding.
You did wonderfully.
Thank you.
Alex is doing another show for another station right now.
Look at that.
Yeah.
Might as well be, right?
I mean, what's going on here today?
All right.
So what happened when we lost you guys for a few minutes and you rebooted the router?
We just spoke the truth.
That's all.
We just said what was really on our minds.
And then it just went out.
Okay.
So we're reconnecting now.
We have to log in and all that stuff.
Stream is still buffering.
What's going on?
Look, Kyle's made a noise I never heard before of befuddlement.
What the hell is this?
We locked out of our own system.
What's going on?
I see the sign.
Something will be removed, except it seems like it might have actually happened.
Why do you got to log in to OBS now?
You got to log in to OBS.
Okay, OBS is what we use.
And we didn't log in before.
So now we have to log in.
All right.
Yeah.
Maybe it'll help if you say your password aloud as you type it in.
I think the point is we didn't have a password.
We didn't have an account.
Is it asking you for your YouTube credentials to hook up to that?
It's not a account.
Wow.
I haven't used OBS in a couple years.
I'm glad this didn't happen last week when we had Jason Scott with us.
Because, boy, that would have been a lot of wasted time.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
He never would have spoken to us again after that.
Oh, I think he would have.
Yeah.
You guys, I don't mind wasting time with.
It's fine.
Yeah.
That's fine, right?
Yeah.
Thanks, E.
Appreciate that.
We're all family here.
Someone in the chat mentions, I used a computer once.
It was awesome.
So when we were on and off the air during the show, that must have been the same issue.
I thought it had something to do with Reggie being absent.
Well, that's a theory, but no, I think that's something to do with this.
It seems similar.
Yeah.
And the weird thing is that it affected other broadcasters on the other station who were
not here.
So that just tells me it's a bigger problem that's affecting.
Maybe it's affecting an entire carrier.
You know, like Optimum is big on Long Island.
Maybe it's affecting them.
Maybe it's affecting Verizon.
I don't know.
It could also just be there's things wrong, different things wrong on multiple ends of
the equation here.
Yeah.
And it's all happening at once.
This is what we have to prepare for, folks who aren't here.
I think I figured it out.
Oh, wait.
Wow.
What happened, Kyle?
Well, I'm just saying, first of all, like, there's some update with OBS and I've been ignoring
it.
So whatever.
This is what happens when you ignore updates.
Forget me.
They take you down.
Well, I mean, I was going to get to it.
Uh-huh.
Okay.
Is that $10,000?
Well, you got our attention, OBS.
$10,000.
Okay.
I'm just putting our video back to what it was.
All right.
I had it at 960 by 540.
Okay.
I want it back the way it was, Kyle.
To 1280.
Okay.
Yes, people.
All right.
So I think our bandwidth is back to what it was.
Okay.
We're all rooting for you.
$10,000.
Okay.
So.
And my video just popped up here.
Everything should be excellent.
The van should disappear and then it should come back and then the van should disappear
and then it should come back.
But okay.
So OBS has a side pane.
It looks like I'm playing back, which is weird.
All right.
Yeah.
I think we're on.
I think it looks good.
What is that?
Like OBS just has like a YouTube sign in now.
Well, we can look into that later.
We can get into that later.
But are we on now?
Yes, we are.
We are on now.
We are on now.
We sound good.
And are we, I say, are we on recently or is it last week's show?
Yes.
What does that mean?
Yes.
Everything that happens now is happening now.
Okay.
I need a break.
Yeah.
We all need a break.
All right, folks.
So we'll see you next week.
This has been a good show.
Our best show.
Oh, yeah.
Can you get that piece of paper?
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Well, that was something.
And Kyle seems to have figured it out.
And maybe that'll solve our problem with the other station, too, even though it affects
other people.
Well, this is fantastic.
So, again, folks, we've been dealing with crap over the last 25 minutes.
But everything that you missed will be on the archive.
Not here on YouTube.
It'll be on 2600.com slash off the hook.
And you can hear the Overtime segment of that, which will include a lot of things that only
made it to us.
So you'll hear us talking very candidly about some of you and basically going back and forth.
And eating some snacks.
We had some snacks.
Yes.
We had some mystery visitors that came in and all sorts of intrigue.
Yes.
I'm sorry.
You out there in video land, you missed all the special guests we had who had so many
interesting things to say.
But, you know, next time.
Well, I don't want to do anything until I'm sure that everything is normal.
Do we have...
We have our...
I feel normal.
Okay.
I mean, mostly normal.
It's our version of normal.
It's our version of normal.
The lag is back to a normal amount.
We've gone back up to 49 listeners, which is fantastic.
I'm holding out for 50.
If we get over 50, then...
Several many shout outs to Kyle from various folks in the chat.
I'm still curious.
I don't know what happened, but OBS has like a Google sign-in now.
I don't know what's up with that.
Well, we'll figure that out.
But the bandwidth that you said was...
I can't get over it.
But yeah, everything's back.
You said the bandwidth was half of what it was before.
Is it now normal?
It's back to where we were set before.
Okay, good.
It seems to be able to do what we had always done.
Just, you know, if you out there have ever been downloading a whole bunch of MP3s from
Kazaa and then mom picks up the phone in the other room and ruins it,
everything, yeah, that's where we were.
You're welcome, though.
Is Kazaa still a thing?
Is Kazaa still a thing?
I don't believe so.
I don't know these things.
You're welcome, though.
Wasn't that a movie with Shaquille O'Neal?
I don't know.
I think it's taken on different forms.
And also there's, yeah, distributed file sharing and other things.
Are we over 50 yet?
Yeah, we're at 50 right now.
All right.
Okay, well, people are welcome.
Now we're at 54.
Okay, fine.
I can go on.
Please, no, I get, like, glassy-eyed and very dumbfounded in those moments.
In my contract, I don't perform under 50.
I get very frustrated when people tell me to, like, turn everything off and on again.
But sometimes it's warranted, I guess.
Did you guys hear about this, the smoking thing in the UK?
What?
I didn't want to bring it up on Off the Hook because it's not really hacker-related per se, but they're banning smoking for people under a certain age.
Um, but here's the thing.
This is what's weird.
I'm reading this from Al Jazeera.
Um, United Kingdom has passed a landmark law which will make it illegal for anyone born after 2008 to ever buy tobacco products.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, I, I'm not a smoker, never have been, but I think this is really stupid.
Uh, on Tuesday, the House of Lords, the UK Parliament's Upper House, approved the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which has already passed through the House of Commons.
Uh, health advocacy groups have hailed the new law as the first time an entire generation of young people will never be allowed to buy cigarettes or vapes.
So basically what they're doing is they're banning it for people at a certain age, and every year that age is going to go up by one.
Um, so people will never be allowed to buy cigarettes.
I mean, just ban the things already if that's the goal.
What the hell?
This is nuts.
This is insane.
How is that going to work?
They're going to be proofing people at 65 in a few decades.
It's like, no, if you're 66, you can buy cigarettes, but you're 65, say, no, I'm sorry, you can't.
Um, no, man, that's stupid.
That's dumb.
That's, I am not a smoker, but for God's sake, if somebody really wants to buy a damn cigarette,
cigarette, either stop making them or let them buy it.
They should have a test that's something more like, if you know what MySpace is, then you can smoke.
What does MySpace have to do with it?
Yeah, because that means you're old enough for, you know, to be a certain age, right?
Instead of just banning after that.
Did you hear about this, Kyle?
I did.
I've heard versions of this.
So if you're, I think if you're 17 now in the UK, you can't buy cigarettes.
So when you turn 18 next year, 18 year olds won't be allowed to buy cigarettes.
19 year olds a year after that, forever.
No, this is, there's gotta be a better way to deal with this than, than pissing off those
particular people because they're going to give them some kind of inferiority complex
that they never are going to be allowed to do what other people were allowed to do.
And I'm not saying, you know, I'm not backing cigarette smoking in any way.
I think it's a, it's a vile thing.
But again, people have the right to, you know, to do what other people have done unless you're
going to ban it for everybody.
Yeah, this is going to have such an opposite effect because forbidding cigarettes, forbidding
tobacco from these people is just going to have the effect of making tobacco cool and
interesting and forbidden and something you're getting away with again.
Like has happened with, I think, weed in this country where, you know, the more legal it
gets, the more boring, I think the kids these days are finding it.
Well, it's an issue of equal protection under the law, like what we were talking about on
the show as well.
You're going to have two adults that go in and ask for tobacco at a shop somewhere and
one of them is going to be able to buy it and the other one's not going to be able to
buy it.
And the only differentiating characteristic is the date on which they were born.
If there are two adults in the same country living under the same set of laws and rules,
they should have the same rights and obligations.
So I think this will, will be struck down as being an unequal application of the law.
Struck down by who?
Who's going to strike it down?
Who's going to strike it down?
Well, there's an unwritten constitution in the United Kingdom.
And I would imagine that a judge would be able to, to apply, or rather decide that this
is a law that shouldn't be applied.
Well, an opinion poll carried out by YouGov back in 2024 for Action on Smoking and Health,
which is called ASH, by the way.
It's a public health charity.
They suggested that 78% of the people supported the idea of creating a smoke-free generation
in the UK, while 52% of smokers supported raising the age of sale by one year every year.
Smokers support this.
A statement from ASH at the time of the poll said the policy has broad cross-party support.
70% of those who voted conservative support it.
74% have voted labor support it.
75% have voted liberal Democrats support it.
Okay.
People don't like smoking, so ban smoking.
Do that.
But this, it's just, why?
Why do it this way?
It doesn't make any sense to me.
Well, it's weird to me that you're going to have, like, versions of humans then, right?
Like, you'll have the pre-2008 version of humans who have a certain set of rights,
and then the post-2008 version of humans that have a separate set of rights and obligations.
That's strange.
It's more like you're writing off people who were born before 2008.
It's like, okay, you've already, you know, had cigarettes.
We're not even going to try to save you.
But everybody over that, no, you don't get to smoke at all.
This also operates under the assumption that people are not mobile.
I mean, they can go to other jurisdictions and participate in this activity and be exposed to it.
I mean, we shouldn't take it so seriously.
I do think it's a bit silly, but it's not going to contain people in some way.
I mean, they're going to go on trips.
They'll go elsewhere.
They'll have lives, I think.
I'm not kidding myself.
I know people will get around it.
I don't think there's really going to be much of an effort to keep people from getting cigarettes.
But this is just adding something.
And I'm sure it can be used against somebody if you really want to prosecute them for something.
So it'll be abused, too.
I'm certain of that.
I just really, this is about the most immature way of dealing with a problem I can think of.
I mean, didn't, I guess I'm curious what the tobacco equivalent of bootlegging is going to be called.
Because, you know, did we not learn?
I mean, obviously, prohibition worked so well.
People are, so apparently you can smoke, just not buy.
And someone says, BRB, becoming the most boring criminal ever by smoking while on social media.
All right.
Well, that's where we are.
That's state of the world.
So.
If you're going to smoke something, make sure it's worth it.
Yeah, exactly.
But, you know, I see this being used on other things as well.
And, you know, let your imagination roam on that.
But it's just, if we're going to have a particular age of maturity that you're allowed to do certain things, you can't just change that as you wish so that you phase something out.
I mean, even though they're doing exactly that, it just doesn't seem like the right way, the fair way.
Well, on the other hand, some things just don't work well on older firmware.
There's a point at which you've got to get phased out.
You know, I think there is some borrowing of that particular philosophy where, you know, end of life, you know, and they basically just won't support it anymore.
Are you projecting now, Emmanuel, and this is really all about the Google Nest?
Yeah, what this is really about.
Well, you know, I've had it up to here with, you know, these things being sunsetted or whatever, you know, where you no longer are able to get what other people are able to get because you didn't upgrade your software and you can't upgrade your software because you have to upgrade your hardware in order to upgrade the software.
Which means you have to buy a whole goddamn computer because you want to run Chrome or something.
It's ridiculous what they, you know, and we've run into this all the damn time.
Okay, I had two instances last couple of days that really annoyed the hell out of me.
I was trying to order food, you know, using this thing called QMenu.
You ever use QMenu?
I don't know.
You don't ask to use QMenu.
You just wind up in QMenu.
I was trying to order something, right, and went through the whole thing, you know, got everything listed, and then it comes time to check out, right?
And so you check out, and you have to get a code sent to your phone.
So, okay, fine.
Got a code sent to my phone.
Here's the code.
All right, now enter all your payment info.
Enter the payment info.
You need the billing zip code.
Enter the billing zip code.
Enter the CVV, the little three-digit code on the back of your card.
Okay, and now you have to enter the code that they just emailed you.
So now there's two codes.
You got to email, give them back that code.
Keep in mind the place is closing in like 20 minutes.
And then they add this.
They want the billing address.
I've already given them the five-digit zip code of the billing address, but they want the full billing address.
So I give them the billing address, and I get an error saying that's an invalid address.
I'm like, an invalid address?
That's the address the credit card is registered to.
So there's a phone number to call, and I actually called this phone number.
Somebody picked up.
I don't know where they are, and I explained the situation to them, and they asked for the address.
I gave them the address, and I said, oh, yeah, we don't accept P.O. boxes.
I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about you don't accept?
You asked me for the billing address.
The billing address is a P.O. box, and you don't accept P.O. boxes?
How am I supposed to do this then?
They said, well, you could always call the place.
I'm like, why am I wasting time with you if I just would call the place?
I'm doing this online because, first of all, there's a profound language barrier with the place I was ordering from, and that would not go well.
It would be a lot of confusion.
It would take a lot of time, and this is a service that you're supposedly providing, and you come up with this half-assed policy of not taking P.O. boxes as billing addresses when they are the billing address.
They said it was a security issue.
What possible security issue is that where you don't accept the answer to your question when the answer is correct?
So I had to go through a whole different service.
Actually, I had to go through three services total, do the whole order all over again, and just make it barely before they closed.
But I found another one that didn't have this ridiculous restriction.
But somebody somewhere decides, yeah, this is going to be our policy from now on, and they're going to convince themselves it's got something to do with security.
And what you wind up doing is inconveniencing who knows how many people and also taking money from the establishments these people are trying to frequent.
You know, I'm just getting increasingly annoyed by these so-called policies that don't do anything, you know, except cause inconvenience.
Just to be totally clear, as brought up by someone in the chat, you weren't trying to get the pizza itself delivered to the P.O. box.
I was picking it up, first of all.
I was picking it up.
And it was a bit more involved in the pizza.
So, yeah, you know, I don't even know.
I didn't try putting in, like, any address.
Maybe that would have worked, which says a lot about their security.
But they just would not accept it.
I could understand if I was trying to get something delivered, you don't want it delivered to a P.O. box.
I get that.
And I think that's what it was.
It was bad programming where they just, we don't accept P.O. boxes for anything.
It's easier that way.
It's not easier that way.
Not if you use it as a billing address.
Yeah.
The food was really good, though.
It was.
It was worth it.
Oh, my God, it was worth it.
I think there might be some left.
Well, we couldn't even explain to the people there what was happening with their service.
It was, you know, like I said, profound language barrier, but so worth it.
And the other thing, okay, I had another issue with an insurance company.
I have two insurance policies with the same insurance company.
Do you know that's illegal to have two insurance policies with the same insurance company?
Huh.
No.
What?
Yeah.
Thank you, Gil.
Well, you're the only one that had a good reaction to that.
You guys were accepting it.
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's illegal.
It's illegal to have two policies.
No, it's not illegal.
Of course not.
The problem is their software couldn't handle one email address handling two insurance policies.
So what I had to do, I had to use one of my throwaway Gmail accounts and then use it again,
but put a dot in the middle of it.
And that counted as two different email addresses.
So I was able to have one insurance policy on one email address, the other one on another email address.
And that worked for the last few years until they had a security change and said, everyone's got to change their password.
The password they make you change to is something like 15 characters long, has to have special digits, you know, at signs and dollar signs and all that.
But, you know, I log into this thing maybe once every couple of years just to make sure everything is paid up.
You know, it's not Fort Knox.
I don't care that much.
But when I had to enter the new password, I had to enter all my credentials again.
And I entered email address, second email address, phone number.
And then I got an error on the second account saying that this phone number is already in use.
So now they've changed their policy so that you can't have the same phone number on more than one account.
It's like they're just trying to make things more and more difficult.
So it makes absolutely no sense to me why I wouldn't be able to have the same phone number on both accounts.
But this resulted in a back and forth with somebody in customer support who said, oh, why don't you just use the same email address for both accounts?
Because that was the problem in the first place that made me do this.
But apparently they fixed that now.
So I can go back and import my insurance policy into one of the email addresses.
I just realized that insurance policy is affiliated with two email addresses now.
But that's the way you have to do it because somebody made a decision.
And it has to do with security.
Anyone else have stories that they want to share?
Well, you mentioned phone numbers, which leads to something that we could start doing if things are up and running and able to be connected up together in a suitable manner.
Yeah, the phone's on.
The phone line is connected.
I'm sorry.
Let's start taking some calls.
Yes, let's do that.
Who wants to give out the phone number?
Better hurry.
Would you like to?
I'll do it.
Okay, so our phone number is 802-321-HACK.
That's 802-321-4225.
And while we are waiting, I will still tell people, even though we're not on the air right now, we love WBAI and we hope you do too.
And go to give2wbai.org or buddy.wbai.org and throw in on keeping it going.
And just so there's no misunderstanding, when Rob says we're not on the air, we're on this thing, YouTube, whatever.
It's just technically not on the airwaves, but we're on.
We're on the internet.
Everything is working now.
We're not on WBAI right now.
I hope not, because if we are, we have violated FCC policy so many times.
So many times.
I think I said the fuck word.
I certainly did.
Wow.
Oh, shit.
Kyle, you're the only one who hasn't cursed so far.
No, that's good.
That's good.
That's a good thing.
We have a phone call?
No.
We don't?
I heard the phone rang.
Yeah, and then it rang again.
I couldn't tell if it was connected or not.
I hear a phone way in the distance.
Did the ringer get turned off?
In the distance?
Yeah.
It's like a whole hallway away.
It rang in here before.
Now it's ringing somewhere else.
We have a very complicated system.
Kyle's pressing buttons.
Looking frustrated.
Huh.
So is the phone broken now?
I haven't brought it up, because you have to tell me if there's something here.
Matt, tonight we're really betting 1,000, huh?
Yeah, we are.
I'm going to talk to maybe nobody.
Is anybody there?
Is anybody on the phone?
No.
This is not the time to be quiet.
No, there's nobody there.
Did the phone get disconnected somehow?
When we were off the air, when we lost you guys before, Rob and I were laughing, because
we know that there's a stand-in person for Reggie tonight, right, at the station?
Uh-huh.
And how that person probably was running around with their hair on fire, thinking they did
something wrong that caused everybody to be off the air.
But it wound up being a different root cause altogether.
But that new tech, whoever was there tonight, probably really had their hands full.
Well, the people in the chat are complaining because we can curse, but they can't.
I'm sure they are cursing.
I'm sure a lot of people are cursing, but that's just...
The problem now is we can't find the phone line.
It's not showing up where it's supposed to show up.
It showed up before, because we tested it.
We always do.
So, it's like someone very sophisticated is messing with us.
I'm kind of fascinated by the whole thing.
It's a great disturbance in the force.
No, but Kyle, unless you...
Did you turn the ringer off or not?
No, it's on full black.
Okay, so the fact that I heard it far away means I heard an extension down in a different
office.
And that means somehow our phone line got disconnected in this office.
So, we have to figure out where that happened.
It was connected just a moment ago, because I heard it ring in here, but something got
disconnected.
And we're going to track that down.
So, in the meantime, I came prepared with two stories, but I'm done now.
Someone else tell a story while we try and figure this out.
There was another story that caught my eye, how the story is on the register.
Magnificent irony is Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs.
Apparently, Meta is looking to train their AI by installing monitoring software on their
own employees' computers.
computers, and not everyone's happy with that.
Business Insider has a copy of the memo that went out announcing this to the staff,
saying, all Meta employees can help our models get better by simply doing their daily work.
Starting today, we're rolling out a tool for US-based full-time employees and contingent
workers that captures computer inputs like mouse movements, click locations, and keystrokes,
as well as screen content for context.
Scope is limited to a pre-approved list of work-related applications and URLs like Gmail,
Gchat, MetaMate, and VS Code.
US-based employees will see a pop-up with instructions to enable the tool called Model Capability Initiative,
or MCI.
That initialism has been used elsewhere in the past.
That is hilarious.
Yeah.
So, to learn more about the tool works, including privacy safeguards, check out the wiki and
facts.
But the supreme irony of people who work for one of the most powerful panopticans on the
planet now not liking when the bosses are looking at them instead of their users is kind
of delicious.
But at the same time, you can't really expect any privacy on a work computer, and everyone
should know that.
No, you definitely can't.
But I would guess the other question is, does this mean, like, what is the end goal here?
What are they attempting to...
Okay, so they're trying to farm it on AI that people aren't opting into, so they're opting
in their entire workforce?
Is my understanding that correctly?
That seems to be the case.
There's no option to opt out of this on your work-provided laptops, says Meta CTO Andrew
Bosworth.
And, yes, they're...
Excuse me.
They are training their own AI with their workers, not only what they're doing on their
computers, but how they're jiggling the mouse and such like.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Hmm.
And, apparently, the Facebook employees are not, in fact, clicking like on that.
Hmm.
Hmm.
All right.
I'm going to put a question out to the chat, because I'm sure somewhere else...
We have a few more guests here now, too.
We do.
But I'm going to...
We're fixing the phone lines.
I'm going to ask who in the chat knows what...
Hello there.
Would our mystery guest care to introduce herself?
I'm the one who tolerates Alex, and I'm married to him.
That's my wife.
Excellent.
Yes.
Well, you can answer this if you know, too.
But there was a telephone company called MCI back in the past.
And who in the chat, without doing a web search, knows what MCI stood for?
The initial MCI.
Oh, I can tell you.
Do you want me to tell you?
Well, you hold off, because I want to give this time for the delay and everything.
And give the chat a chance.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, that's fine.
Yep.
And if someone knows this...
Okay, Alex, you know this.
Gila, you probably know this, because you were looking over my shoulder when I brought it up here.
I'm sure somebody in the chat knows it.
I'm sure someone in the chat must know this.
Wasn't it Microwave Communications Incorporated?
Yes.
Yes, it is.
Okay.
You just need to fall off saying anything.
Did you tell me to hold off?
I'm sorry.
We did tell you to hold off, but fortunately, someone in the chat picked it up before you
said it, before they heard you say it.
Oh, and I know who that was.
I think you do know who that was.
That was Rebel.
You do.
But I would like to point out that someone said MCI stands for MCI's current initials.
Good one, Beans.
Okay.
I love a recursive acronym, like GNU's Not Linux, or GNU's Not Unix, rather.
But yes, Microwave Communications Incorporated, which was the original name of the company.
It's just for hot calls.
Yeah.
See what you did there.
Yes.
Okay.
You know, we're still trying to figure this out here.
There's something messed up with our phones, where we pick it up, and then it disconnects.
We're trying.
We're trying really hard here.
I heard you mention Rebel.
Rebel was calling.
Of course he was.
Did he somehow reach you?
No, he's in the chat.
Okay.
Well, I don't think I'm going to try.
Is anybody on the phone line?
No, there's nobody on the phone line.
It's very weird what's happening, because the phone rings in here.
We pick it up, then it's ringing somewhere else.
Yeah, it's kind of bizarre.
Well, keep giving out the phone number, 802-321-4225.
Maybe it'll work.
Maybe it won't.
But you guys keep doing what you're doing.
We did get a question.
Tim in Connecticut asks ADT security.
Do we know what that one stands for?
ADT security.
ADT.
I confess I do not.
Alpha Delta Tango.
I had a family member who works for them, too.
I should probably know this.
No idea.
What does MVP stand for?
It's probably a couple of last names or something.
Okay, we just looked it up.
And it is actually interesting.
So, yeah, they started as a telegraph delivery system.
And in 1874, I'm just reading for Wikipedia now.
In 1874, 57 district telegraph delivery companies affiliated and became American District Telegraph.
Wow.
Interesting.
You know, as telegraphy, telegraphy, telegraphy, began waning in popularity, they pivoted, so to speak.
Thank you.
Thank you, Tim in Connecticut, for that one.
That stumped us.
Stump the panel.
Well, it is a weird night, what's happening with these telephone lines, so it's just very odd.
I think, well, if we can't get this up and running soon, we may have to call it a night early and have an overtime in which we didn't talk to anyone except each other.
It's hardly an early one.
We've been futzing around here for almost an hour.
Yeah.
Poor Kyle.
Yeah.
Through no fault of our listeners.
I don't think this is going to work out.
I'm sorry.
We have some kind of issue with the phone interface.
Try now.
Okay.
Oh, we got a busy signal.
That's a start.
As you can see, the phone line is there.
It's just a question of keeping it there.
Somebody in the chat says the phone number is not working.
It's ringing, but we're not answering.
Right, but we also know that, you know.
We're not answering because we can't get the phone line in this office.
That's what we're trying to do.
But also, if the phone rings and rings and rings, that may mean that somebody is also already on the line.
We're not avoiding you.
Now it's not working again.
Time does fly when we're having fun with technology.
Isn't that the truth?
You know what this is?
We might have somebody on the phone.
Good evening.
Is anybody on the phone?
Yes, I can hear you.
Oh, Rebel, I cannot tell you how nice it is to hear your voice because that means the phone line is working.
But it might not be working for long.
We're not sure what's going to cause it to go out.
What's on your mind?
What's going on?
Maybe you should get a regular analog phone line.
You know, something dependable.
Maybe you could help us find one.
A company that gives those things out.
It would be nice.
Doesn't the origin still do analog phone lines?
Pretty shocking, huh?
No, they don't.
I mean, I don't know.
But anyway, let's see.
I've been giving out a phone number in the chat.
The phone number is area code 630-400-0633.
Now, this number called me, and it's one of those telemarketers, but I don't know if it's one of those scam telemarketers or what.
It's an AI telemarketer where they recognize your voice.
So hold on.
I'm going to try.
Basically, what happens is they call your cell phone, and if you don't call back from the number that they called you at, this is what it says.
And now there'll be an awkward silence.
Please call back from the number we've called you.
We do not recognize your number.
That's so annoying.
Please call back from the number we've called you.
Please call back from the number we've called you.
No, please call back from the number we've called you from.
For fuck's sake.
Let's speak English, for God's sake.
Oh, you know, I didn't realize it.
Yeah, we've called you.
Let's try that again.
Well, let's see what happens when you call back from the number.
That grammar just gets me irate.
It really does.
Well, wouldn't it be the number from which you call?
Okay, if you want to be a dick about it, yeah, you can say it that way, too.
Absolutely.
Just like if you knock on the door and say, in his eye, you can do that.
But no one's going to answer the door.
That's correct.
We do not recognize your number.
I don't recognize your authority.
Anything else?
You call back from the number we've called you.
From the number we've called you.
That's interesting.
I never even noticed that.
Yeah, that's, you know, that means something else entirely.
Right.
But listen to what happens when you call the actual number from the number that they called you.
Yeah, call it from the number that they called you from.
Hold on.
Yeah, that they called you at.
Are we going to get another phone?
The number we called you is like, the number we called you is like, you are number six.
Okay.
Did anyone, can anyone call that number?
Gary Code 630.
Which number?
We're not going to call the number that you give out.
We know it's a trap.
No, hold on.
I'm not going to call it.
Hold on.
Nice knowing you, Rebel.
This is the awkward silence I was talking about.
Can you crinkle those pickleballs a little louder, Kyle?
What do you mean?
Am I new on you, Dale?
Yeah, I'm here.
What's going on?
They hung up.
Wait a minute.
Has anyone ever hung up on you before, Rebel?
No, no, no.
No, because it's an artificial and AI thing.
If you don't say hello or say something, it just hangs up.
So I think when I put three-way on, it just...
I think they got that from me.
That's what I do.
Let's try this again.
Let's try this again.
Hold on.
Aren't you glad the phone's working again, Kyle?
I swear, this show's been a technical nightmare, but I'm having fun.
Those are the best ones.
Those are the ones people really, they want to collect.
Hanging out with friends, eating some snacks.
Well, you have the snacks.
I'm rebuilding things.
I don't know why this is broken.
It seems like it's happy now.
It doesn't work.
Right.
But anyway, it's one of those scams where whatever those...
What's the scam?
I don't get what the scam is.
They say, hi, this is whatever.
I'm calling from the policeman, but never going to foveation.
We're doing our annual fundraising drive.
We're looking for your support.
You know, like the DBA, I should have something like that.
Yeah, we should have something like that.
That's, yeah.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Anything else?
Okay.
The phone number is area code 630-400-0633.
You gave it out before.
Why are you giving out the number again?
Well, I mean, in case anybody in the chat may want to call it.
Why would anyone want to put themselves through that?
Can't you just type it in the chat?
They do different things from different phone numbers.
Yeah, but they're going to get the message that you just played us that is grammatically
wrong.
They're just going to get frustrated.
No.
Actually, well, that's true, but maybe they won't.
I don't know.
Because sometimes, I mean, it's like if you don't call, like something that could block
your number selectively.
Like, if you call them, like, more than a few times, they'll just play a recording.
We're sorry.
Your call cannot be completed or something.
They'll block your number.
By the way, who knows where that area code is geographically assigned to?
Arizona.
Is that true?
Wait.
You said 630?
Yeah.
I think 620 is Arizona.
630.
Isn't that Chicago?
Wait, 630?
Yeah.
Hold on.
Pretty sure it's Chicago.
It is.
Yes.
Don't mess with me, Rebel.
I know my area codes.
Let's see.
What else?
Yeah.
So they could selectively block your number.
Like, I've mentioned this before.
I've been listening to all the old off the hooks, and sometimes you'll get phone numbers
out, and you'll call different things.
I was going to ask what you did in your spare time.
Now I know.
You listen to old episodes of the show that you call incessantly.
And when I call those numbers, like you used to call some of the phone numbers from different
companies, all of them go to basically the same thing.
Like, welcome to America's hottest talk line, or whatever.
Or, you know, we have a special offer for you, or whatever.
It's like, you know, that's why we're running out of phone numbers.
Well, you know, old phone numbers tend not to work anymore, unless you're one of the lucky
few who have the same phone number for a long, long time.
And businesses, especially, like, telephone companies, the little telephone companies that
have not existed for ages, they're not going to still have those old phone numbers probably
hooked to anything.
And so the old phone numbers, like when you let a web domain expire, will just get picked
up by whatever junky, spammy company is, you know, wrangling up these things and collecting
them and using them to just pull in random calls from people looking for something else.
Yeah, but why, why is that even a lot?
Why should a company be allowed to, like, have multiple phone numbers for the same thing?
Just like, you know, you need to have, like, multiple 800 numbers for one company.
I think that sounds like a question for next week, Rebel.
Well, we should open up the phone lines, I think, and, you know, we've got to at least
take a couple of more questions.
I think you're being dismissed, Rebel.
Okay, Alex.
All right.
That sounded a little ominous the way you said that.
But, okay, I'm sure he'll be following up.
Thank you for that call.
802-321-4225 is our phone number.
Is everything still connected?
Is the chat still connected?
Because I'm looking at a window here.
It says the chat was disconnected.
And there's no indication how to connect it again.
You might have to just refresh your YouTube page there because chat's still going.
Everything's still up and running for us.
Well, this is a YouTube page that starts the stream.
Oh, that YouTube page.
So if I refresh that, it might refresh the stream.
I mean, people have been chatting.
All right.
Well, I don't read chat anyway, so it doesn't even matter.
No, that's why you got the chat being monitored over here by your colleagues.
We got a phone call?
I didn't hear the phone ring.
Wow.
Okay, we have another phone call.
I disconnected the phone in here.
Oh, the phone's disconnected in here, but the phone line goes to the...
And the car.
Okay.
I'm here.
Good evening.
You're on...
Off the Overtime.
Go ahead.
Hey, I'm just calling to say this has been one of the most interesting shows that I have
heard in the time of me listening to 2600, Off the Hook, or any of these.
Uh-huh.
It's almost like a Freaky Friday thing going on.
Yeah, it's...
The 18th episode.
Nobody can predict when it'll happen.
It just does every now and then.
No, but I was calling to say, you know how you were talking about the whole meta and
the AI, watching everyone and stuff.
Mm-hmm.
You know, it's the whole thing with that.
You know, it is invasive and it's creepy.
But the thing with that's been going on where it's gotten me a little bit weirded out is
the smart glass, you know, because there's different things I've seen online now where
you can actually obfuscate the record on those.
Mm-hmm.
And there are places that you just should not be wearing those glasses and it's just, it's
one of those things that I'm like, wow, privacy much?
Absolutely.
Exactly, yeah.
I mean, I could not think of, you know, someone wearing those and I'm like, you know, I'm
sitting somewhere like the dentist's office or something and those glasses have no business
in an environment like that.
Mm-hmm.
And it's just like, unfortunately with the whole wearables and internet of things, it's
only going to get worse.
It's just, wow.
Because I saw someone the other day with them and I was like, oh my gosh, it's such a no-no.
Well, that's the thing.
You saw somebody with them because they look incredibly nerdy, these glasses.
But one day they're going to make them so they don't look like that.
They look like regular glasses or they'll make contact lenses or whatever and you won't
know who has cameras in their faces.
My thing is the legality and the consent and where you're bringing those glasses.
You know, I look at it, you know, you have someone that might be a museum or something
and they have, you know, somebody's art in there and it's copyrighted.
And we don't know necessarily, you know, the legalities or how long they're going to hold
that particular from that AI or not.
And it's really just Pandora's box on legal situations with, you know, intellectual property
and stuff.
Yeah.
Or, you know, a potential burglar who gets legitimate access to your house for some reason
and walks through every single room, knows where everything is, you know, and records
all that for future endeavors.
Yeah.
Now, like I said, I mean, I have nothing wrong with technology.
I love it.
Obviously, listen, y'all show, but there is a limit where, come on, guys, this is just
a little too freaky for even me.
Yes.
We're skeptics on the use of technology in many cases.
It's good and bad every time.
All right.
I just wanted to say I love the show despite all the craziness and to get y'all put on the
whole smart glass thing and its appropriate and inappropriateness.
My question is if Alex is still around, does he know anything about that when it comes
to intellectual property and the recording of those things?
Yeah.
Alex, what gives?
I know some things about that, but a lot of it is going to be dependent upon the contracts
that you sign, these contracts of adhesion for all these different services such that
you give them the right to record certain things and they have data retention practices.
They might mine this data.
They might extract metadata from it.
They might anonymize it.
They might train AIs.
There's a number of things that can be done with that data that are completely out of
our control once they start recording.
So, yeah, I think we're all right to be concerned about that.
I see Rob's hand going up, Rob.
Yeah.
And there's also the matter of if you're out in public and can you expect privacy when
you're walking past, like in this city, you go outside and you're walking past countless
security cameras and things like that and being recorded on computers you'll never control.
Um, but at the same time, if you're in someone's house or you're in your workplace or you're
in, you know, the gym locker room, yeah, the gym locker room, exactly.
Exactly.
Stuff like that.
You're like, oh no, TMI.
But, uh, and, and when it comes to the point, because these glasses do look like recording
devices now, although it is, it is kind of easy to hide that, uh, aspect.
They're supposed to have a light that goes on when they're recording, but you can disable
the light.
Um, but these things are only going to look more and more like regular ass glasses.
And, uh, if it's, uh, it's going to get to the point where you can't tell if you're being
recorded, uh, no matter where you go.
Well, is there some kind of technological way that you can detect something is recording,
uh, in someone's glasses as you pass by them?
What was that app?
That's what I wanted to know, just because of consent.
Yeah, there's, there's not, there's not a way you can tell what something is doing,
but, uh, there is an app out there for Android called nearby glasses.
And what it does is it tries to scan for the Bluetooth signature known to be, uh, uh, broadcast
by these glasses and can tell you sort of with a little bit of, uh, dependability if someone
around you is using them.
But, uh, even when that happens, you don't know who it is that's setting it off.
You don't know if it's some kind of false positive.
Um, all you can do is try and be a little more careful about what you do or say, because
it's possible you're being recorded.
Is Bluetooth essential for the, for, for using these glasses though?
I think they Bluetooth to your phone.
Okay.
I know just to the phone, but you know, like if you don't have your phone with you, that's
another question.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
I mean, like if you're looking for Apple watch, pending certain models, you don't need
that.
Right.
There are, you know, with those glasses, I think you're right.
I think it absolutely must have the phone and it must have a meta account somewhere attached
to it or whoever makes that particular glass.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And then, then the interesting question becomes, say you've got this detector app on your phone
and it pops up.
Okay.
Someone else is, someone around you is using these glasses.
What do you do with that information?
Do you start like, uh, you know, confronting people or do you just like remove yourself from
the situation?
Or do you get your ass kicked on the subway?
To put over your head.
Yeah.
It's like Pandora's box because of privacy.
And that's one thing I treasure the most is privacy because it's like, man, there's
a time part of my life that's very private and there's also a part that I like to share,
you know, but it's the boundaries and how bad it's getting blurred.
But guys, I don't want to take too much of your phone time away.
But, uh, I, again, wanted to say enjoy the show despite all the technical difficulties
and thanks for the input.
Also from Alex on his, uh, you know, standpoint on the legalities of those glasses recording
with or without consent, because that's really good points.
All right.
Well, thank you very much for your call.
Well, one question before you go.
Actually, Alex has a question for you.
Go ahead.
Oh, yeah.
Did we ask from where you're calling?
I don't think we did.
I'm actually in Orlando, Florida.
All right.
Okay.
Well, thanks for calling.
Yes.
All right.
You have a great night.
All right.
Take care.
Bye.
Cool.
And thank you, Kyle, for making the phones work.
We're getting good phone calls.
Well, it's weird.
The hybrid has like a line now.
I don't understand it.
I'm learning everything.
I think everything just went haywire, but it seems to be working somewhat normally.
I really, that last caller was so astute in some of those observations.
And there's ways of detecting cameras that are around, but you shouldn't have to be doing
counter surveillance just to be comfortable in the environment that you're in.
And I do see this issue as kind of difficult, but also a paradox.
I'll say difficult because, you know, in public places, there's been a longstanding right to
photograph.
And as a photographer myself and as there are so many cameras around us all the time, including
ones for municipal surveillance and the like, it's kind of unavoidable.
And in that space, I think that legal right should be allowed, whether the camera is itself
in something that you're wearing or a camera that you are holding in a more traditional
sense or built into your phone, et cetera, et cetera.
So I think that makes it especially difficult because in that these cameras are ever more
mobile, they can go from indoors to outdoors and from public and private spaces and back
again. So it gets kind of hard to police that.
I think it's really about etiquette and behaviors and social norms that we establish.
The other thing I think it's ironic is that a lot of the people that are embracing this
kind of filming and recording, in my opinion, might be in the camps of people that get kind
of, let's say, prickly and upset about journalists and photographers coming in where they're able
to photograph legally. And I just, I kind of chuckle to myself in thinking about people
who will, in one hand, cling to that right they have to photograph if it's their camera
on their face. But if someone's doing it professionally, trying to cover some event, they get chased out
of town.
Right, right. It's like the same thing when cops want to film you. But if you film a cop, that's
a problem.
Yeah. So, I mean, it's like, be careful when you start pounding your chest about that right
and that freedom. Because when there's a story about the perverse ways you were using these
and the big cameras come and film you, they have that same right.
We have another phone call. Good evening. You're on overtime. Go ahead.
Hello? Is anyone there?
We have a call, Kyle? I think we do. This thing says we have a call.
It's connected.
Okay. Well, there's nobody speaking.
I think they forgot about us.
Maybe.
Do you want it to go away?
Well, I want to give them one more chance. If anyone is on the phone connected to us,
we're probably talking to you.
Does anything appear there?
Yeah, I see caller ID there.
Should we let them go?
And that hiss is...
Should we cut them loose?
...the channel. I think we have to. And unfortunately, if you hear us saying this,
we have no choice. Go ahead. And that number is gone.
802-321-4225 is our number.
Oh, there's another call.
Okay. It's the same number. Go ahead and pick up the phone. And good evening. You're on overtime. Go ahead.
Yeah, I just wanted to follow up on something Rebel was talking about earlier.
Okay. That's never happened before, but go ahead.
I'm calling from Florida also. This may be a record for you tonight.
Wow.
I had a lady earlier.
Two Florida calls.
All right.
You're recording.
But what Rebel was talking about as far as the telephone numbers, where they want you to call from, the number they called you from,
or the number you called from, the reason for that, these are scammers.
And when they call you, they want you to call from that same number they called,
because they want to make sure you're legit, you're not just fucking with them.
Because right now, there's a lot of, like, what they call scam baiters on YouTube, who randomly call these people and stuff like that.
So these scammers, they like to keep control.
They only want to speak to people that they have solicited.
So when you call them, you've got to call them from the telephone number they called you from, or they'll hang up.
I love how you use the word legitimate.
You have to be a legitimate scam victim to talk to them.
You know, that's basically what it is.
And as far as the language, that voicemail that said something to the effect of,
you have to call us back from the number we called you from, and it sounded kind of awkward to you.
The reason it sounds awkward is because they normally, I mean, these are people, English is not their first language.
So they're saying these things, and they're having an AI translator say those things.
You get what I'm saying?
Yeah.
So that's the reason it sounds a little weird.
It's, you know, when that woman's here, you know.
But, yeah, I just wanted to say that.
And, by the way, if you call those numbers, you've got to be careful because when Rebel was suggesting,
oh, you should go ahead and call that number, well, when you call these numbers,
a lot of times they actually add your telephone number to their database.
So if you're going to call them, you've got to call them from not your real phone number,
some throwaway telephone number, because they might just add your number to the database,
and then you start getting calls.
And then you can call them back.
You can call them back because you are calling from the number they called you from.
Then you can call them back.
Yeah.
Then you can call them back.
Okay.
Well, thanks for all that enlightenment.
I know a lot more now than I did before.
That's what I wanted to say.
Thanks.
I'm enjoying the show.
Thank you.
Thank you for your call.
Take care.
How beautiful is the idea that the telephone robocall scam companies are like,
you know what would make our business easier?
If we could get rid of the unsolicited phone calls we're getting.
Wow.
That is incredible.
All right.
We're only taking calls from Florida tonight, apparently.
So 802-321-4225.
Sunshine State only.
Yes.
Yes, indeed.
So it's a sunshine day.
We're just kidding.
You can call from anywhere.
We'll accept your call.
I'll go for a walk outside now.
802-321-4225.
As I fade this channel down.
802-321-4225.
Laughing's fine.
Singing is not.
Is it what I was singing or that I was singing?
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
Good to know.
Thank you.
We have fun.
Well, you've got to wait a couple of minutes, though, for another phone call.
And we can't really hear the phone ringing, so.
I've made it fainter because I wanted to reduce the amount of things that were connected to that line since we rebooted everything.
We're going to do a lot of troubleshooting later.
Oh, wow.
That line thing.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
Here's a call.
See, I don't hear it ringing, but you say it's ringing.
Okay.
I hear it ringing in the other room.
We have a caller now.
Okay, great.
Good evening.
You're on overtime.
Go ahead.
Hello, guys.
This is the guy from Queens with the dog.
How are you guys?
A guy from Queens with the dog.
Well, that certainly narrows it down, doesn't it?
Yeah.
My name is Howard.
We know you.
Yeah.
I'm the guy with a beautiful lab.
How is your dog?
Oh, she's doing great.
Yeah?
That's great.
Yeah, I may be coming to that thing that you're having at the New York.
The whole conference in Manhattan.
Yes, we'd love to see you there.
Yeah, I may have a different dog.
I don't know.
She's going to get retired.
But here's what I'm calling about.
You were talking about the glasses.
You know, what are you going to say to someone who's blind and using a pair of glasses to have their environment explained to them?
How are you going to know what people are using them for?
Yeah, that's a good point.
That's a good point.
I mean, it's going to be, you know, every technology can be abused and used depending on what you use it.
But it can be used for good or it can be used for bad.
Right, right.
And the government is now trying to make so many regulations.
It's just crazy.
Welcome to WB2H.
Okay, you're going to have to explain that, right?
What's that computer saying?
Oh, you heard the computer in the background?
Yeah, what is that?
That was my radio listening to a local repeater.
Oh, wow.
You heard my repeater going off in the background.
It just said WB2H, WW.
Everybody knows who I am.
They just have to look up in the FCC database.
Yes.
Howard is a ham radio operator.
Is that a correct thing to say?
Yes, I'm a ham radio operator.
All right.
By the way, I was listening to your whole conversation a couple weeks back when you were talking about telephones and why the phone company went from letting your phone ring all the time, and now it only stops ringing after, let's say, 10 or 15 rings.
Right.
Because if you had a black box, and you were basically able to pull the line down, short the line, and open it up and just have a capacitor in series.
Right.
No supervision.
You would have, you'd be able to have a free phone call.
Yep.
That could last for days.
Yeah, well, I'll tell you what, then after a while, they got smart.
And I'll tell you what, back in the 70s, I used to have a radio tied to a phone line, and I had a, you know, I used a relay, normally closed open relay, use a capacitor in series with the relay, you short the line for a split second, the relay opens,
and then I would play your radio down the phone line to, to people, but I got caught after a while for doing that, because it was bleed over.
Oh, wow.
So I'm sitting at a desk at a central office and said, why is there audio on this phone line?
No one's supposed to be there.
Yeah, when they, when they get wise down at the central office, that's when you got to worry.
Yeah, but I have a guy sitting at a desk there going through all the lines and saying, why do I have a, why do I have a radio playing gear on a, kind of ringing?
So, did they call you, did they show up, or did they do?
Look, the guy, he came by and they told me, cut it out and we're going to, said you're going to poke.
They actually came by.
Well, the guy, believe it or not, the guy knew me, he was another ham.
Yeah, that's great.
He worked for Tom Duffy, remember Tom Duffy?
Why does that sound familiar? Who is that?
Tom Duffy was the security guy from New York Telf.
That's right. Oh my God. That's, that's stored way back in my brain.
That's Tom Duffy. And by the way, are you guys going to see Bubbles?
In the film. Do you have the info on where, when that's showing?
I think that's on May 2nd. It's supposed to be at that Moving Image Museum in Whitestone.
Astoria.
Astoria.
I think Rob or Giel are looking it up. Maybe they're both looking it up and we'll have the info for everybody in a second.
But yeah, thanks for reminding us. We're talking about the Joy Bubbles film that's, that's coming out about the blind phone freak from, where was he from? Minnesota?
Yeah, I spoke to him a couple of times. He thought, he was a, he was a pretty interesting guy.
But he was a kid, he was a kid in a man's body. He was, he was a pretty smart guy.
Joy Bubbles will be screening at the Museum of the Moving Image as part of the Real Abilities Film Festival, May 2nd at 2 p.m.
It is scheduled to be in one of their smaller screening rooms. If you want to get tickets, hop on that quickly.
Movingimage.org is the website for the museum.
Go ahead, Kyle.
If you want their phone number, I think it's 718-777-6800.
That's a good phone number. That's a really good phone number.
Kyle, you had, you had something to say.
What?
Oh, well, with this, you, you just, you have to wait a second. So open it and wait a second.
You're telling me how to open a can?
And then pour it. Yeah, just wait a second.
You could have written that down.
No, I just, I was going to send you a note, but I figured this would be fast.
I'm opening it now.
Oh my God.
Did you shake it before you came?
No, no, that's, it's releasing, yeah.
Wow, I wasn't expecting that to happen.
All right.
That was the reason why the phone company, after, back around 73, they started timing
out the rings because they realized that people were doing it, or they would have, you would
call your friend from the phone, and then you'd talk for an hour, and after you got done,
you got your money back.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, a 45 degree angle when you pour.
You don't have to keep talking about the can, Kyle.
I'm sorry, we're opening cans of Guinness, and you can do that on YouTube.
You can't do that on the radio.
Well, if you're running the radio, you can't do it.
You can do it as a guest.
Am I still talking to you guys?
Yeah, you are, but we're pouring.
I know you guys are having some fun.
We're recovering.
It's been a very, these Irish boys are, we're having some trouble here.
It's been a rough night.
Technical difficulties, I'm sorry.
We've earned this, so, yeah, I'm not ashamed.
Well, listen, are you guys going to come?
Are you guys going to go see the, you know?
What was the date again?
May 2nd.
May 2nd.
And what day of the week is that?
Saturday.
And what time of the day of the week?
2 p.m.
Okay, that's not too early, but maybe.
Do you have to buy tickets in advance, or can you just show up?
I would think you might see a bunch of blind people there.
Why would blind people go to a movie?
I mean, it's actually an accessible showing.
There will be, there will be.
Open captions, open audio.
Okay.
Yeah, open audio descriptions.
All right, all right.
Some of these glasses, seriously, some of these glasses now,
Rock is supposed to be coming out with a pair of glasses that will help the blinding.
You'll be able to sit in a movie, and it will give you a description.
Oh, that's awesome.
That's amazing.
Now, the question is this.
What's going to be the legality when they say,
well, you can't use those glasses in a theater because we have copyright law,
and you say, well, it's an ADA issue.
That would be a question for Alex.
It would be.
It would be.
And also, an opportunity for any blind copyright violators
that wish to make money distributing films.
Yeah, but let me ask you a question.
What kind of quality are you going to get?
You're moving your head around.
You're looking at a screen.
Who's going to want to watch that?
They need a social media.
Okay.
Blind people who are into copyright violations, who have a steady head,
and have decent equipment that will record it in, you know, video, audio, that kind of thing.
Look, we'll get there.
We'll get there.
Alex, do you have something to add?
Yeah, I don't know what the answer to that would be, whether the ADA would trump copyright,
but I think it probably would, since it's an accessibility issue, I would imagine.
Yeah, my wife here is also nodding her head.
She thinks that as well.
She's also a lawyer.
Yeah.
Alex, I will tell you this much.
What's going to be interesting, just talking about, let's say you're in an airport,
you're a blind person, you're supposed to meet your sister or somebody,
and it will tell you if your sister's in a crowd, and it will say,
that's the person you're looking for.
Yeah, I know.
It is crazy.
But, you know, to your point, though, about recording,
what I can see happening is since the stream of the video from the device from which you're recording,
namely the glasses, is going to go through your phone, right?
And your phone is going to go and connect into these various filters that are going to look for hallmarks
or fingerprints of copyrighted material.
And my guess is that there's probably going to be some kind of real-time alert or detection system
for the recording and potential streaming of copyrighted material,
just like there is on YouTube when you're playing background music that could be copyrighted.
So there will be some kind of real-time solution for this.
Do I have a question, Alex?
Here's the question.
I'm a blind person.
I want that thing to describe to me what that recorded material is.
Let's say it's a book.
You know, there was a big problem with Kindle.
You know, those readers, when they gave a hard time,
where they would not allow, certain authors would not allow you to take their printed material
and turn it into voice, there was a whole issue.
And I think Congress passed a law about that, that it's for accessibility to have a right,
because the Library of Congress can record any book that they want to,
as long as it's being used for people with disabilities.
Rob, you have something?
Go ahead.
Yeah, I used to do work with an accessible library,
and there is something called the Chaffee Amendment,
which cards out an exception in copyright law for the purpose of translating something to an accessible format,
like audio-described content.
So you can take a book and make an audio book of it and make that accessible for someone who is blind
or has other reading disabilities.
And I'm wondering if that would be applicable to the idea of having an automatic audio description
generated by something like this.
I think there's definitely potential for that to be a law in the books that would protect somebody in a case about this.
But, you know, and I'm not the lawyer here, but Alex, I'm thinking that, you know,
a definitive answer wouldn't be available until there's a case that decides it one way or the other.
Yeah, that's most likely it, because it does seem like this lives very much within that gray area of the law
that would require some kind of judicial decision.
And you can't have a judicial decision without having a case.
You can't have a case without having a case for controversy.
Oh, by the way, the one who said he worked at an accessibility library,
was that on 20 West 40th Street or 40 West 20th Street at the library for Andrew Haskell?
It was not the Haskell library.
I knew people who worked there, but if this was a different library, a different nonprofit.
But, you know, it was it's the same idea.
And this was a library full of as the Andrew Haskell library is,
which is located at the New York Public Library main branch.
It's a library of copies of books done in recorded formats, audio formats, as well as Braille, large print, things like that.
And the library itself is able to produce those copies without having to get permission of the copyright owner
for the purposes of having an accessible copy for somebody with that accessibility need.
Yeah, by the way, when you sign up to use the website, you also have to find something that you understand you cannot give to anybody else.
It's only to be used for your personal use or for a person that's blinded.
And you can only share it.
Like if you're getting material for a school or you're doing something, it can only be used for people who have a disability.
So you agree with that, actually.
Because, actually, I can download any book from the library.
Now, what they're doing is I can download it to my phone instead of actually physically going there and getting a cartridge.
Interesting.
Yeah, so you basically, yeah.
But that's going to be very, very interesting.
Because, look, I have applications where I can take AIs and I can ask AIs to describe to me my surroundings.
And I'll say, well, this is here in front of you.
Or I can say to it, what color search?
Or has any stains on it?
It'll actually tell me that.
Or I can say, tell me, as I'm walking, let me know when I hit a Starbucks.
Yeah, those are all really useful things.
And I hope to see more people get access to them.
Oh, yeah.
The only problem is that it divides.
If you have the money, right now you can get it.
If you don't have the money, government, you know, then those people are out.
It's a sad thing because there's a divide between the haves and have-nots.
No, it has to be a priority.
For instance, in Canada, do you know every TV station has a described video version where basically you're watching a program and it says,
Mary walks over and picks up the book off the shelf.
And then you hear her talk.
So you can watch a TV program and have a narrator describe what's actually going on.
Do we have anything like that in this country?
Like that's available to any cable subscriber?
Yeah, that's what they call SAP, I think it's called.
Yeah, how does that work?
It used to be, that used to be in the analog days, it would be a sub-carrier on the FM carrier, you would have like you have with the special, you know, when you had the pilot tone, 19 kilohertz, you had some other channels or some other carriers for meeting services.
One or two stations like WNYD would run a, would broadcast, I think at 48 kilohertz, and they had a receiver that would pick it up and then you could listen to the news read to you and stuff like that.
Okay, that's just the news.
I'm talking about actual like network TV programming in described video, which, you know, is very common in Canada, but not so much here.
And I think it really would be useful to many people.
I think they're supposed to do it, but a lot of the stations are not following the FCC requirements, because under the communications FCC, they require you to do it.
But I don't think a lot of the radio stations even bother.
They feel like, oh, if we get sued, we get sued, or they feel there's not enough population, you know?
Got to speak louder then.
Got to, you know, make them know people are out there.
Yeah, but no, seriously, you know, there's a lot of interest.
But, yeah, I was really, when you had talking about the phone stuff, I mean, I can tell you, I did so much.
A couple weeks ago, when you were talking about the old crossbar one, the crossbar fives, it's no longer interesting.
Now everything is, well, you make a phone call, you don't even know what you're talking to.
You don't hear any more carrier, you don't hear any noise.
I hear you.
The old days were more interesting.
Yeah, very much so.
Rob, go ahead.
Yeah, Netflix, back in 2015, and I believe I mentioned it on this program, Netflix put out a show about Daredevil, who's a superhero who's blind.
And the show did not have the descriptive audio track when it first went out.
And there was kind of an outcry because, you know, the blind community might enjoy a show about a superhero who's blind.
So they added it, and you can still get it if you watch the Daredevil show on Netflix.
And I don't know how widespread it is on other shows, but there is the ability for streamers to have the audio description track on their programming.
I think unlike things like closed captions for those with hearing impairments, which are very common, so much TV is subtitled now, and you can turn it on or off.
I don't think audio description tracks are anywhere near as widespread or available in this country.
You know, in the U.K., they not only have closed caption, they have open caption, which is basically somebody standing in a corner of your screen doing sign language, which, you know, is really weird to see the first time you see it, but you get very used to it.
And that happens with newscasts and other programs.
Well, the U.K. in some ways is pretty open to the blind, you know, pretty open to the blind.
I think they allow you, they let seeing eye dog into almost everywhere.
People are pretty cool about it.
In the U.S., you have it.
Now, I don't want to get into politics too much, but in New York, now you're starting to have issues since our mayor came in the mayor, because some people are saying, well, my recolution doesn't allow me to have a dog in a taxi.
Uh-huh.
Okay, I don't know anything about that.
No, there's accessibility rights.
Let's say you're getting into a, you're over in a lift.
Some drivers who have that, come from that area, have that tendency to believe in Sharia law, they think it's, they think it's against their religion to have an animal in their car.
Okay, I've never heard this issue brought up before.
I'll, uh, I'll, I'll look for news stories about it or any other, um, descriptions.
You'll see how many people have been denied, uh, denied a right because they have a service animal.
It's a big, big problem.
Even the Justice Department went after lifting over, started suing them left and right.
Uh, well, even the Justice Department is a phrase that doesn't mean that much anymore, but, uh, it's still, it could be an interesting, interesting, uh, subject.
Uh, Alex, looks like you have something to contribute.
Oh, I, I can attest that I've been passed over numerous times by Ubers who just were, the drivers just did not want to have a dog in the car.
Okay, but I don't know if you can blame that on the mayor.
That, that, that just seems a little like a stretch.
Well, no, I'll tell you why, because you can't blame it on the mayor.
I'm just saying that that's a fact.
Right.
Well, I mean, yeah, people have prejudices against dogs.
I, I'm aware of that.
I just don't know if, if Mondani is the one responsible for an uptick in that.
No, no, what, Mondani, what I'm saying is this.
Due to his religion, the drivers are now getting more pushy.
Say, I have a right to tell you not, I don't want my service, I don't want your dog in my car.
A lot of times people will say it's against their religion, which they can't force that.
They have to pick anybody up.
It's a conveyance, a public conveyance.
So it's public transportation.
And they can't say, well, you can't come into the car because you have a service animal.
Look, if they're, if they're violating the terms, you can report them.
There are numbers, you know.
Obviously, um, uh, that's not something that, you know, should be tolerated if that's the case.
But you've got to understand, if the city is not gung-ho behind it because someone is telling them to back off, then you're not going to just...
Right, that's the part, that's the part I would need more information on to believe.
Well, just Google it, you'll see it.
Okay, well, that's really not the...
All right, I'll Google it, but that's not the definitive word.
No, I'm just telling you a lot of little issues.
Right.
See, but I'll tell you what, I love that conversation.
You guys should have more conversations about the old telephone history.
Are you going to have any lectures on that at the conference?
Oh, my God, we're going to have a ton.
We really are.
It's going to be pretty amazing.
You're talking about Hope Conference, August 14th through 16th at the New Yorker Hotel.
And, uh, yeah, it's, um...
Can I ask you how much the tickets are?
Sorry?
Can I ask you how much the tickets are?
Yeah, on YouTube we can say.
It's $250 for the weekend.
Oh, you can't say it on the...
No, on non-commercial radio you can't give out prices for events or items or things like that.
Oh, I didn't know that.
Yep, it's true.
But the FCC, that's kind of ridiculous.
You're only giving information at the public...
Well, it can be considered promotion.
You don't want to, uh, you know, seem like you're, you're selling something or encouraging people to buy something.
So, I understand it.
And that's always been the case.
You guys have any idea between that and the room, what it would cost for three days, roughly?
Oh, sorry, say again?
The rooms.
Oh, rooms?
I mean, without food, for the three days, you'd be there Friday night, Saturday night, maybe you stay Sunday night or sleep or leave Sunday night.
Right.
Do you have any idea how much the package is between the ticket and a room?
Well, they're not, they're not, they're not the same package.
Like, you're going through the hotel for the rooms.
I think I saw $1.99 as the rate for, uh, for a room in midtown Manhattan.
That's pretty cheap.
Um, so I'm not sure if that's still the rate, but it's, it's, it's one of the rates that was, uh, passed around and then, and then ticket price.
So you figure for under $1,000, you can, about $1,000 will cover a three-day weekend.
It should, yeah.
I can see that.
That's not too bad.
No, it's not.
Well, I wish you guys have good luck with that.
Yeah, I hope so too.
I mean, we didn't think for, you know, we had a chance of getting back to Manhattan and, uh, it's kind of a miracle that we're pulling this off.
So hopefully it works.
All right, I'm going to let you guys go, but I just wanted to bring it up with the glasses and about the, uh, the, the old, uh, you know, the old black boxes.
Yeah, that was a cool thing.
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely.
Well, we're going to go down memory lane quite a bit and, and, uh, hopefully play some recordings and, and maybe emulate these things.
Hey, you're going to have some recordings for $2,600 and all those $7,900, you know?
Yeah.
Okay, have a great evening.
All right, you too.
Take care.
Thanks, Howard.
Bye.
All right, are we done or do you want to try one more call?
I'm, I'm about ready to, uh, pull up sticks and, uh, roll up the scenery for another night.
Uh, you know, after this week and last week, we were on for two hours.
Um, yeah.
Sound kind of cranky there, Rob.
Is it, is it building up?
Is it cumulative?
What's, what's, what's up?
What's going on with you?
A little, a little, a little bit cumulative.
Too much, uh, time with us.
We need to check in with Rob here.
I thought you enjoyed our company.
Well, okay, fine.
We're getting sick of each other and I'm sure our listeners are getting sick of us as well.
Um, but this has been a fun episode and thanks to everyone for bearing with us while we, uh, figured stuff out, uh, at the beginning here.
Yeah, you could say that again.
I mean, really, uh, thank you for bearing with us.
Well, without, without Kyle figuring out all these, uh, buttons and knobs and things.
Oh, you're giving me too much credit, but thank you.
Well, you literally did that and I was sitting here doing nothing.
And, and they're out there in different places, so they're not, they're not helping.
What were you going to say, Kayla?
Sorry, our arms are not long enough to help.
I know.
Um, as a quick note, um, I was looking while the last caller was talking about it and Tim in Connecticut asks, yes, there do appear to be more rooms available at the special hope rate, which includes local long distance and international calling.
Didn't mention that, yes, free phone calls to anywhere in the world from your hotel room.
I didn't think that was a thing, but apparently it's a thing at the New Yorker hotel.
Now, I don't know if that applies to like things like in Marsat and, and, you know, the super expensive, uh, phone call.
I'm sure it doesn't apply to 900 numbers if they still exist.
Do 900 numbers still exist?
You remember those, right?
Why do you ask me?
I'm like, I call 900 numbers all the time.
But do they still exist?
Do people still call sex lines?
Is that a thing?
You know, $5 a minute.
Do you remember that?
Does anybody remember that?
Am I crazy?
Oh, yeah.
Okay, no.
$5 for the first two minutes, 25 cents each additional minute.
And ask your parents permission before dial it.
There was the 970 exchange locally, 976 with a dial it service, 540 and 550.
What happened to all these exchanges?
I don't dare call them, but I'd like to know.
The, I found something from the FTC about complying with the 900 number rule.
It's from 1992.
Yeah, you see, that's the thing.
1992.
It's not updated.
Rebel, this is where you can help us.
Rebel, why don't you call a bunch of 540 and 900 numbers and whatnot and get back to us on that.
I'm thinking of this, this is like a one person musical of like being conflicted about calling old numbers.
What does it all, what does it all become?
There's at least like two or three like angsty solos in there.
But yeah, it's a real like walk down memory lane because so many of those things have become like just passe or totally forgotten.
And people don't even really understand that they're still there.
People that run them don't even know that they're still there in many cases.
You know what's cool is getting really old phone books from say the 1960s or 1970s and seeing if anyone in there still has the same phone number.
You might find your grandparents in there.
You know, it's really incredible.
They had so much, so much knowledge.
Are there phone books on auction sites?
Can you just, you could just like.
You can buy phone books on eBay.
You can buy them.
Yeah.
Wait, how much is an old phone book?
It depends on what the person thinks they're worth.
It could be, it could be a dollar or it could be $50.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
What makes a pricey.
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
A Manhattan phone book is worth more than an Iowa City phone book.
How about how do you rate them?
Is this like condition?
Hi.
Yeah.
Hi.
Hey, what's up?
Guys, this is riveting.
It really is.
You sound cranky too.
I'm picking it up by association.
Are we done?
Are we good?
We don't know how to disconnect.
All right.
You made me say it.
We don't know how to disconnect.
We're stuck here.
We're all stuck here.
So we might as well make the best of it.
This is our life now.
That's right.
That's the right attitude, Rob.
You're stuck with us.
I'll get the first watch you pick up at midnight.
Until I finish my drink.
I will not click this mouse.
And Alex, we haven't forgotten about you.
I'm just waiting here.
I need a drink after this.
What's amazing to me is people seem to love this show with all of its faults and glitches and things more than the normal shows.
Then we have to have more faults and glitches that people have spoken.
I guess so.
You too.
Yeah.
We're making pasta later.
That's our plans.
That's right.
We're going to be making like 2 a.m. pasta.
Like spicy pasta.
That's the best one.
With like a hell of a lot of chili flakes and garlic.
Mm-hmm.
That sounds low.
This one's really good.
Yeah.
We're on the way.
Some lemon zest.
Lemon zest.
Some parsley.
Yeah.
The parsley really makes a difference.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, I guess.
It's been fun.
Yeah.
It has been fun.
It's been awesome.
Hopefully, we've added something to the library of Off the Hooks.
And yes, we're going to have the entire episode of this YouTube Overtime available on 2600.com.
Not on YouTube.
So, if you're listening to this on YouTube, you've missed something.
Because there was that whole point where we weren't on YouTube.
And yet, we were still talking.
That was so real.
Won't this version also have the audio that was supposed to be on the radio?
Well, okay.
The radio show is a different file.
And there will be two files, I believe.
Jens is probably busy working on that already.
And we'll have what we did and what went out over the air.
I'm not sure how different that is.
And all it really is is a section where somebody at the station realizes that we're no longer there.
And you hear music fade up.
And then music fades down.
And we come back.
And that's pretty much it.
If that's the kind of thing you're into, then you'll want to hear that particular excerpt.
And otherwise, just listen to the radio show as it's intended to be.
Well, could there be a version of the file that has the missing audio?
That's the question.
Yes, that's what I just said.
The file that we are putting up is going to have missed audio.
Oh, it's going to have that.
Oh, I see.
Because it's recorded locally.
What you might get from WBAI's archive would be the sort of authentic, I guess, what went out.
And we're going to have that excerpt.
We will have that excerpt as well.
As is our routine when we do this.
Okay.
All right.
Well, that's exciting.
Yeah, it is.
We'll be back in action.
And we'll have even more to say if you hack something in the intervening week.
But until that time.
Yes.
And our email address, OTH at 2600.com.
That's 2600.com.
We hope to hear from you.
And please get your help tickets if you haven't already.
Book those rooms while they're still available.
Hope.net has all the info.
And we're looking for volunteers, too.
So be sure to check out the volunteer section.
And help out in whatever way you can.
Because that's what makes it all possible.
But be specific.
Oh, and also.
And enthusiastic.
We're looking for more speakers.
We have a bunch already.
But if you have a talk you want to give, go to the speaker section of the website.
And we have our early submissions that will be going until the end of April.
So we will be accepting talks after that.
But the early submissions get priority.
So if you have something that you wish to share, submit it by then, by the end of April.
Also talking about the end of April, we are still giving a portion of our ticket sales to the EFF for the rest of the month.
10%?
10%.
Yes.
So, and that's only happening until the end of April as well.
So if you want your ticket price to count for a little something extra to defend digital rights, to get your ticket orders in this month.
That's right.
And EFF will be at the conference giving various talks and things, as always.
And it's going to be a blast.
It's going to be fun.
August 14th through 16th.
All right.
We're out of energy, out of time, out of patience.
I'm sure everybody else is as well.
So we'll see you next week.
Write to us at OTH.
At.
Try that again, Kyle.
Write to us at OTH at 2600.com.
You know, I gave a serious version of that.
2600.com for more details.
Yes.
Good night, everyone.
Bye.