Welcome to Verizon Wireless.
We cannot complete your call at this time.
Please check the number and dial again.
0-0-1-8-0-0-8.
Announcement 2.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
We couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
A billy bump are the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
One day, let me know.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Joined tonight by Kyle.
Hi.
Hello.
And out in Signal Land, we have Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
And we have Gila.
Yes, you do.
Good evening.
We do not have Alex this week.
You know, I didn't get a chance to really read the email, but maybe I skimmed it too fast.
But he's auditioning for an episode of Survivor.
That's how I read it.
Okay.
Well, whatever.
We're wishing you the best of luck on that.
And I'm sure he'll be back next week.
But we have all kinds of things to talk about here on this edition of the show.
All kinds of things about hacking, technology, the future, mistakes that are being made, scandals, that sort of thing.
We have Overtime that follows this show on YouTube.
Just go to Channel 2600 on YouTube at 8 o'clock.
And you can phone in.
You can be part of the conversation.
You can hear us ramble on a bit more.
We'll be talking about hope.
A lot of people have questions about that.
I got to see the Nikola Tesla rooms at the New Yorker Hotel, which is where the conference will be.
And, boy, that was interesting.
Where Nikola Tesla lived and died in the New Yorker Hotel right here in New York City.
That's pretty incredible.
I've never seen that before.
That's the incredible part that I had never seen it before.
But, yeah, a little bit of history there.
A little bit of hacker history, I guess you'd say.
Very cool.
I look forward to being a bit closer to that chunk of hacker history.
Oh, indeed.
Okay, but we have some interesting news items here.
I don't know if you guys have been following this.
We have a couple of small stories, smallish stories, and we have a big story.
So let's start with a couple of the small ones.
This has to do with people and the so-called smart glasses, which, yeah, we've seen a few of those around.
This is a story that came from BBC about Alice, not her real name.
And she was covertly filmed by a man wearing smart glasses.
He then, believe it or not, requested money to remove the video from social media.
She contacted the man who posted the video, telling him it made her feel humiliated.
But when she asked for it to be taken down, was told that he would only remove it as a paid service.
Now, Alice is one of many women who have spoken to the BBC about the distress they have endured after being recorded and posted online without their knowledge or consent.
BBC contacted the man who filmed and posted the video of Alice.
Alice, he refused to be interviewed, but in an email said he does not seek to cause distress or harm.
Well, guess what, pal?
You're doing it anyway.
Alice was walking into a London shopping center when she was approached by a man wearing smart glasses, which apparently she didn't know at the time that they were recording her.
In the moment, I just thought, hey, this guy's just trying to talk to me, chat me up.
I was hoping that he would leave me alone eventually, but he did actually follow me.
The video was then posted on social media, viewed about 40,000 times, but Alice only found out about it after a friend sent it to her.
My initial reaction was complete shock.
He had no phone.
He didn't have a camera directly in my face.
Videos like this are often posted on social media.
Basically, this one was about giving dating advice to other men online by apparently talking to random people.
Alice contacted the BBC following an investigation which exposed how smart glasses are being used to create harmful content by male influencers after a woman from Brighton spoke out.
Now, Alice contacted the account that posted the video of her asking for it to be taken down.
She told the man who posted it that it made her feel humiliated.
And in the email she received back, he said he would remove it as a paid service.
And she says that made me feel exploited and powerless.
She added she never considered paying the money and she reported the incident to the police who opened an investigation.
But despite initial inquiries, officers weren't able to progress the investigation due to limited information.
Now, the story just keeps getting more and more bizarre.
When asked about his attempts to charge her money, the man initially said he did not require payment in exchange for removing content and was open to reviewing any situations where there had been any misunderstanding or miscommunication in specific instances.
But he did not remove the video and the thing that's really annoying here is that this guy did not give permission for his name to be revealed by BBC.
I don't understand how you can go and film somebody without their permission, without them even knowing there's a camera involved and post that, get away with it.
And yet you get to say to the people asking you, what the hell are you doing?
Don't use my name.
I wish to remain anonymous.
You get to enjoy that, but not the people that you victimize.
So I would say, BBC, you probably know who this guy is.
Let his name out.
Let's see how he reacts to being in the public eye when he doesn't want to be in the public eye.
It's one thing to film people in public or to film people when they know they're being filmed.
And they may not wind up looking very good, but if they agreed to be filmed in the first place,
that's just, you know, the hazard that you go through when you're being filmed.
Or if you're a public figure, you know, of one sort or another, okay, you're always on camera in one form.
But in this particular case where somebody is just walking into a shopping center and, you know,
you approach them with your nerdy glasses and anything you say to them now is a permanent record for everybody to see.
That's just not right.
And I see this as a possible future that we seem to be tumbling into.
Any thoughts, guys?
It may be the future, but this is also so the past.
This is a thing that has happened in so many ways because every time there is a new recording technology,
people are going to find ways to use it to be creepers.
I mean, I don't think there's really any way around it.
And I think about, you know, people who would like put early video cameras in public toilets because that's the kind of thing they wanted to do.
And people didn't know and people didn't consent to participating, but they did.
But the other thing I was thinking about was a few weeks ago, I had a doctor's appointment and they sent me to get blood drawn.
And in the middle of the blood draw, I screamed and pulled out my phone and took a picture.
And the tech said, are you OK?
And I said, I'm fine.
But there's a sign on the wall that I thought was amazing, which had a big sign on it that said no audio or video recording.
The use of any AI-enabled technology with audio or video recording capabilities, including wearables such as glasses, hats, pins, or other incorporated apparel, is prohibited in this facility.
Please disable recording and AI functionality before entering.
Wait a minute.
That made you scream?
I was so excited to see that.
That you immediately violated the rule by recording it.
No, I just took a picture.
That's recording.
This is audio or video recording.
This was a standstill picture.
I don't know.
It's too bad Alex isn't here this week.
He could wait on this.
But I think this is the thing.
You can't.
You can.
People are going to be sneaky and people are going to be creepy.
And I'm also reminded of when I lived in Minnesota and they passed a concealed carry law.
And the state policy on what you had to do if people weren't allowed to carry concealed weapons on your property was to put up a sign that had a specific font size and a specific wording that said you're not allowed to carry guns on this property.
But there was no other way to check on it.
There was no teeth in the administration.
And this, again, people are going to be creepy.
What is it that can be done to stop this?
And it's the specific kind of creepy, too, because this is a misogyny machine that is, you know, this this category of thing.
I think I think the vast majority and I don't have numbers in front of me or data to support this.
But I'm going to go out and say that my hypothesis is that this is men being creepy at women and then using that content to entertain other misogynists.
There is a huge following online for people like this who just want to see women being taken down a peg for being women and things like that.
And that sort of thing has been fueled by every sort of technology you could adapt to the purpose.
And now it's all the more it's all the more out in front because these glasses are very easy to use to to to be a creep and to be the specific kind of creep who takes who takes videos in which they intentionally harass a woman, make her look bad, make her look, you know, whatever, then put the video online to entertain other creeps.
And then try and extort the subject of the video by saying, I'll take your video down if you pay me money.
It's extortion via smart glasses these days instead of extortion via smartphone.
I mean, there were probably still are men being creepy at women and female presenting people when Pokemon Go was a thing, right?
You'd see people on the train and like ostensibly they're playing Pokemon Go, but they were taking pictures.
People were trying to upskirt on Pokemon Go.
And that's so, again, the tools may be different, but this is not new.
It's gross and it's frustrating, but it's not new.
I just wanted to add it's since the reason I mean, I've talked about it before is like a behavioral thing.
But if we're at a point where people can't use these things and don't use them in responsible or respectful ways, like a civil way in public space, much in the way you would expect people to act with any other camera, you know, asking permission or, you know, generally keeping your distance.
And, you know, don't violate people, people's space and their privacy.
But another aspect of this, it just it seems to me that there should be a recourse or people should be demanding or asking for a way to opt out.
And that would be the kind of thing that we could do in an event of like a situation where social norms aren't really enough of a guardrail than another approach, I think, is opting out.
And what I mean by that is like doing it in a sort of mechanized way or automated way where you force it in real time, because I agree these these other ideas after the fact are fantastic.
But since these are computational photography devices, what's so difficult about having some kind of signal or use some method of connectivity or a beacon of some kind that immediately blurs
or otherwise obfuscates somebody who has chosen to force an opt out on devices like these, especially in the event that we're to accept it widely and that it becomes a real hazard,
there should be a demand for this additional feature, you know, stuff like that, so that people aren't, as we're kind of theorizing, more or less powerless to really kind of abusive behaviors with this stuff.
Right. And also, you know, what Gila says is absolutely true. This is nothing new.
But what what is different here is that when somebody is caught doing this, they're not brought up on charges, rather, they're allowed to continue.
So when someone is filming, you know, a bathroom or a changing room, something like that, they usually get brought up on criminal charges for invading privacy.
This particular case, it shows up on YouTube, shows up on meta outlets, TikTok, all over the place.
And you really have to fight like hell to get it taken down. And that shouldn't be the case.
It should be something that should be easy to take down.
And if somebody is doing something like that, they should be banned from that particular site.
I think that's happened in a couple of cases. But look what this poor person had to go through to get to that stage.
You know, I think also what Kyle is speaking to is, you know, technological solutions to this.
And, you know, don't tell me there's not a technological way to detect if you are being recorded by somebody's glasses.
Or, you know, it's going to be contact lenses at some point. The technology is going to keep getting better and better.
There are good things we can do with the technology, but there are always bad things as well.
We need to be prepared for that and not just, you know, accept it.
This is the time where the reaction dictates how this will be integrated into our daily lives.
If this is something normal, yeah, we're being filmed all the time and everything we say will be used against us.
Or, no, we believe in privacy and we're going to defend it.
Yeah, pretty much. And, yep, the countermeasures angle to this is really interesting.
I'm interested to see if the clever folks out there have technical things that we can do to mitigate this sort of thing.
There is an Android app out there called Nearby Glasses.
It tries to scan for, I believe, the Bluetooth signature of these smart glasses and we'll let you know if it finds it somewhere in range.
But, you know, if you're on a crowded subway and this gadget tells you that someone nearby is running these glasses, what do you then do in response?
I mean, all any of us can do is just try and be a little more alert.
Good question, though.
What do you do at that point?
You know, being confrontational is not necessarily the answer unless you're being targeted yourself.
But, you know, knowledge is the important thing.
And being aware that somebody is up to something or that you are being surveilled either by an organization, a government, or just one creepy individual.
The important thing is to let people know that's happening.
All right.
Another interesting story here having to do with our future and what artificial intelligence is doing to us.
Well, this is a weird story.
I believe you found this one, Rob.
It's in Georgia.
It's a warning for many parts of the United States, hastily approving data center developments without first, and take note, people, updating their water systems to better monitor for severe upticks in usage.
Yeah, on Friday, Politico reported that one of the country's biggest data center developments had guzzled nearly 30 million gallons of water without paying for it.
Even worse, the water grab came at a time when nearby drought-stricken residents were warned to restrict their personal water consumption, and some reported sudden decreases in water pressure.
An investigation conducted by utility officials in Georgia's Fayette County found that the Quality Technology Services facility - it's a worst possible name they could have - Quality Technology Services had two industrial-scale water hookups that weren't being monitored.
One water connection had been installed without the utility's knowledge, and I didn't know you could do that.
You can just install - you can install a connection without the knowledge of the utility.
Wow.
The other was not linked to the company's account, and therefore wasn't being billed.
Now, QTS eventually paid about $150,000 for the water, but there were no consequences for exceeding peak limits established by the county during the data center planning process.
Frustrating residents, the county declined to find them.
They declined to find them.
Wow.
Fayette County's water system director, Vanessa Tigert, told Politico that the decision was partly because the county blamed itself and didn't want to offend QTS.
God forbid we offend QTS and the AI overlords.
They're our largest customer, and we have to be partners, Tigert said.
It's called customer service.
A little, uh...
Yeah.
All right, fine.
I'm just detecting a bit of an attitude.
Can everybody else become customers somehow?
Yeah.
So, um, notably, the main reason the water usage was overlooked is that the county is transitioning from outdated water meters to a smart cloud-based system that really is not very effective.
It's supposed to make it easier to trace leaks and other unexpected drains on the county's water system.
And I suppose, you know, if you cause leaks, then you'll trace them.
So, yeah, okay, there's a win.
Uh, Tigert also told Politico that the county failed to notice, uh, the water usage because it's understaffed, explaining that the only worker available to inspect meters is spread pretty thin.
It sounds like a you problem, uh, basically turning into a all-of-us problem.
Um, but, uh, this is something that's being reflected all throughout, well, the world, actually, where these, um, data centers, AI companies are using a huge amount of resources and, uh, either not paying for them at all, uh, paying a very minimal amount for them, or paying for them and wasting them and basically making everyone else suffer, uh, just so we can have our jobs replaced by artificial intelligence.
Or am I being too critical here?
This story is fascinating.
I mean, the whole, the whole idea that you could, um, imagine you or I or any company we control accidentally using and not paying for 30,000 gallons of water and, uh, or 30 million gallons of water, rather, during a drought and not getting in trouble for it.
Uh, that, uh, that, that, that is fascinating to me.
And this whole attitude that, um, the, the county said, well, they're our partners and we have to keep them happy.
I mean, I've been in an abusive relationship before a girl that he doesn't love you get out.
And this is, uh, this is, this is, this is amazing that, uh, this is even a thing, but it is.
And, uh, you know, local governments have gone in on this, uh, whole, let's build the data centers because AI will someday be a thing that works attitude that is fueling this stuff, um, is, is going to backfire in spectacular ways.
And the thing that it was making me think of was this meme that I saw going around last summer, which said, it's so cool that cities are like, pretty, please only turn on your AC if you're actively dying and don't go below 79 degrees.
While the AI nobody asked for is given half the power grid to make images of a hot girl with five boobs.
And so last year, the electric grid this year, water is AI going to suck up all the oxygen next year.
Don't give it ideas.
Well, in a report on Monday, uh, some entity known as the information, uh, explained why the water supply question is a problem for the entire AI industry to solve, not just data centers, uh, which, uh, are already finding ways to reduce and reuse water, uh, citing research from a water technology company called Xylem.
The information reported that the water toll of AI is far greater at semiconductor factories and the power plants, electrifying chip making and computing than at the data centers themselves.
Although it seems to be high, although it seems to be high just about in all those places as a hyper scale data centers from tech giants like Meta, Google, Microsoft, um, perhaps increasingly rely on power for, um, uh, for cooling.
The demand for water to cool down power plants will explode.
Uh, according to experts, it doesn't help that 40% of data centers and 29% of global chip fabs are built in water stressed areas.
Over the next 25 years, AI associated water use will more than double.
So we have some real problems ahead of us if we don't do something about it.
And I don't see enough being done about it.
No, indeed.
All right.
Uh, so the big story, uh, which I'm sure many people have heard about is this, um, this school app known as canvas.
We've all seen this in the news, right?
They were, they were, they were hacked.
They were hacked bad.
Uh, and, um, they wound up having to pay a huge ransom amount, uh, which we don't know the, the, uh, the total of, uh, to get data back.
Um, I'm ignorant about this.
I have no idea what canvas.
I mean, I know everybody uses canvas schools everywhere.
Use canvas hundreds and hundreds of millions of students apparently are affected by this.
Does anyone have a clue as to what canvas is used for?
Um, to my understanding, it is so a popular cloud-based hub for schools.
So it's, I think there's grades and there's tests and there's notes.
And especially as, you know, people are moving, schools are moving to more remote learning.
I saw a stat that 41% of universities in this country are using in structure and just the parent company of, of Canada.
Right.
Okay.
And hundreds and hundreds of K through 12 school districts across the country and around the world, actually.
And you can have your class notes and you can, uh, a learning management system.
This is from the instructor website gathers all course content, daily lessons, assignments, tests, and quizzes, feedback, and grading.
In addition, it handles student educator communications and serves as a place for instructions with learners to meet visual, to meet virtually.
Can I ask a question?
Why?
Um, well, I mean, by, by that, I mean, uh, did we lose the ability to do this?
Because, you know, when, when I went to school, um, we were able to do all that and we didn't need some company remotely someplace doing it for us or telling us how to do it.
You know, teachers knew how to, how to grade papers.
They knew how to, uh, uh, give instruction.
Students showed up and asked what, I mean, what do we need canvas for?
I don't get it.
I think part of it is remote learning.
I think as, you know, schools have been pivoting to remote learning as they've needed to.
And even now when kids don't get snow days anymore, cause it's just remote learning.
Yeah.
But I mean, I think another aspect of this is this seems like the exact sort of thing that, uh, somebody with a hot crap tech company could, uh, go up to a school district and, you know, sell to them.
Like, uh, you know, Springfield being sold the monorail and, uh, say, you know, this is going to change everything.
This is how you do everything.
Hey, that monorail would have worked.
Okay.
If, if they didn't let it fall apart.
Yeah.
But, but like, let's tie every single thing you do as a school through this other platform that you don't have direct control over and let's, uh, let's have all these other schools use it too.
Let's centralize everything in one company with one point of failure.
And now we're seeing what happens the way you say it, it's obvious how bad it is.
I'm just wondering how do instructors and school districts and everybody not see that, you know, as, as inevitable, something bad is going to happen.
You're giving up something that, you know, basically should be handled locally, not, not on a national or international level.
I just, I don't see the advantage.
I'm really trying hard to see it.
But Emmanuel, if I had to guess, I would say you have not bought into the outsource everything, throw some money at it and let someone else take care of it mindset that is really taken over so much of the capitalist structure of this country.
And if everything is, you don't need to have your own IT staff, we're going to take care of it all for you.
And a monthly subscription fee is going to cost a lot less than salary and benefits for an IT staff.
You're going to say, Hey, this is an opportunity to save a lot of money.
Not thinking for a moment, the kind of security and functionality you're going to be trading away for that financial savings.
And also in this day and age, when education is something that's vastly underfunded, teachers are paid a pittance.
The job satisfaction in education is, I think, at a low.
Saving all that money wasn't supposed to solve those problems or address those problems.
It seems like it never does.
It never does.
They weren't going to use it to pay teachers.
So then why do it in the first place?
If nothing's going to improve, you know, did you believe that things were going to improve when they, when they, when they cut funds?
It never works that way.
Kyle, you had something.
Go ahead.
I was just thinking, um, it's partly probably a liability thing or just that the convenience of such a mixed environment of devices and, um, needs from the student body.
And then of, of course, all of the other things operationally that the school is managing and maintaining for, uh, reference, uh, materials in the library or, uh, teachings, uh, systems and, and, and other things that are going on.
Um, um, um, um, um, um, uh, um, the demands of this build.
Um, um, uh, um, um, the demands of people that want to check their grades from the web or from home or on a, a phone, um, I think can seem maybe desirable.
to hire away these services when you have a kind of limited capability and you're already managing
a lot of other stuff on campus and you have these devices coming and going that need to be able to
access some of the information that you're coordinating through the operational infrastructure
but a lot of it can be kind of processed and made in kind of a really convenient dashboard for people
that log into it from afar like a student or a parent checking grades or something like that
but it's I think that they're just cramming all of these features in and packaging it like was said
from a hot educational tech company that that gets a lot of contracts and then other schools say
okay that's what they're using let's just handle this the way other institutions or districts have
set precedent with and it catches on and then becomes a dominant provider for the for these
kinds of services and stuff look I'm not opposed to dashboards I'm not but why do they all have to be
connected why do you have to have where where there's a compromise in the system everything
is affected why not just have an isolated you know compromise that you fix in that particular area
this way you know hundreds of millions of students were affected by something that you know could have
easily been fixed if it was isolated to say one school district yeah and that that's the advantage if
they were doing it themselves and had say they had the resources used a small contractor some
custom system or or like maybe the other end of the spectrum some kind of like uh uh open easy to use
uh customizable uh and uh maintain well-maintained project that any school could use wow you know
that would be great too and it would be something that could be deployed um in that as I was kind of
illustrating complex environment at an academic situation uh and still um be insulated or or
otherwise um not a burden uh somewhat safe to use but not a part of like these big cloud providers that
in the scenario I was illustrating would be um this rapidly growing educational tech company that's
once once once they do it in one state or one district or one um uh region they're gonna deploy
it in just like uh an assembly line you know they'll do the same thing so then if something is set up
wrong and it's it's all based on that or it's all um failing a certain sort of uh security step
then it's all then as you've stated like totally vulnerable and that's just the the hazard of
trusting one entity and at such scale so go ahead well so I was thinking about a couple of things one
of the things I was thinking about while Kyle was speaking was how many parents now need that moment
to moment whenever if I wake up at 2 a.m. and want to know how my kid is doing in school this way I don't
have to reach out to the teacher I can just hop onto this system but the other thing is are these
tech companies are they educational tech companies or are they tech companies that are putting on
an educational costume to try to use the same solutions that work for multinational organizations
and try to say well if it works for I don't know meta why wouldn't it work for
Franklin elementary school yeah that's the crux of it totally like how how in-depth and um who's
who is giving this a stamp of approval um yeah it may look like it works but is it well audited is it
well understood how it's functioning um and working in in different scenarios um and if it's just
kind of the bargain choice you know maybe there's a couple red flags in that being the choice uh and
there should be um maybe a greater a little bit more pressure from the people that are using the
stuff e.g you know students faculty uh parent teacher organizations they have a say in how this
stuff's procured and and because they have to use it and if it you know if something breaks or if
something's um uh incorrect and flawed they're they're at the mercy of it and this is people
trying to matriculate trying to have a you know work on their academic career and and you're
disrupting that ostensibly i just don't get how you know you wake up at two in the morning wanting
to know what grade your kid got wake up your kid and ask him that's a lot easier than than uh expecting
some some global uh corporate entity to be able to tell you and get it right and care they don't
care that's that's a guarantee you know going to school is um uh it's a community thing it's a local
thing it should always be a local thing i'm reading the the description here what canvas uh uh does uh
it's where schools post assignments messages grades class updates exam instructions when did you
stop being able to do all that you know one-on-one in the classroom why even have classrooms anymore
you know why not just let this corporation take care of everything what do you need teachers do you
need buildings it's you know it's really pretty pathetic that this uh unless unless this whole thing
is part of a class that we're learning that doing something on this level is bad it's wrong and we
should never do that again maybe that is what this is all about maybe that's the lesson
that we are all supposed to be learning right now well done canvas all right you taught us something
valuable and everybody cancel your damn canvas accounts and go back to teaching kids face to face
canterbury university i believe they're in new zealand uh they were able to avoid all of this
um yeah the students at canterbury university were unaffected because their institutions opted for an
open source platform instead in effect keeping their data in-house rather than relying on a large
international company to host their platform imagine that wow uh this um uh student asher uh
wilson goldman has two weeks left to finish his master's degree he's a student at victoria
university of wellington uh doing a master's of public management part-time while he works full-time
but that all came to a halt on friday morning when education platforms worldwide shut down
worldwide think about that victoria uses nuku as a digital learning platform which is driven by canvas
which is run by instructure and all these crazy words they they make up uh and that was targeted in
the hack by a hacker group of known as shiny hunters uh at least one education technology expert
considers it the largest education security breach in history don't think it won't be on the test it
will be uh canvas powered platforms shut down around the world including nuku uh which means that
wilson goldman and millions of other students had have had to put their semesters on pause many of which
were about to wrap up uh wilson goldman says the earliest he expects to have nuku back is next week
uh that's after an assignment is due which has to be submitted via nuku oh boy other students have
drafts of their papers or notes stored on the down platform why didn't you write it on your own damn
laptop why are you storing it in the cloud somewhere and staff emails from the university of auckland
associate dean of teaching and learning andrew luxton riley does everybody there have hyphenated names i
think they do um says they they have no estimate for recovery time it could be hours it could
potentially be days instructure was able to get most of canvas up and running again on saturday
wilson goldman says it's not the educator's fault he's more worried about their well-being at the moment
but that of the decision makers who signed up to a multinational provider like instructure yes amen on
that instructure has been hacked before last week by the same hackers yeah how about that it says
rather than contact them instructure did some security patches before the latest attack
uh and that's offensive too to the people breaking in instructure said last week it does not believe
passwords financial records or government ids were part of the breach whoa that's a relief i guess
uh wilson goldman says lecturers have been compelled to use software developed by an international company
which couldn't care less about victoria university when things go wrong uh he thinks we'll be lower on
the priority list and flagship universities such as harvard and stanford which were also affected
and you know what kindergartens were affected as well although i don't know what kind of assignments
you're giving to kindergarten kids that have to be in the cloud but whatever uh instructure bills
itself as the most visited education website in the world yeah it's being visited by hackers all over
all over the planet because you're you're a wide open target and uh easy to uh to compromise
apparently uh they claim more than six million concurrent users by users i believe they mean
uh um institutions because they have hundreds of millions of students uh many of these users were
involved in last week's international data breach uh shiny hunters posted a pay or leak demand
threatening to leak information from certain universities unless those universities paid a sum
uh the information in question including log included login credentials used by students and staff
to access the learning platform messages materials stored on the platform other academic data um
yeah so um that's an indication of how serious it is to those institutions that were victimized by this
um but uh again if if if you use something that is um uh not a service like that the odds of you um
uh being victimized well they they it's it's much lower open source approach basically means the data
is kept in new zealand in this particular case under new zealand law and since each database is isolated
a breach in one area can't spill over into another customers have direct control of their data
that's um that's um for people who use or institutions that use um a server or a service known as
moodle m-o-o-d-l-e it's an open source program meaning anyone can download the code and run the
operation if you don't have the expertise or time to do that you can hire a company like new zealand's
catalyst to do the technical work but the server is still yours to customize and i think that is the
key here that um it's it's locally run and each server has its own policies its own staff running
it its own uh rules and you're not subjected to something like this common sense and i'm surprised
that so many of these institutions don't seem to um to exhibit that now the question of um these shiny
hunter people uh first of all when when you break into a system and you demand payment to uh release
data or uh uh give access back that is not what hacking is hacking is figuring out you know the
the weaknesses absolutely and um uh you know teaching a lesson like this sure that's uh that can be
considered an element of hacking but the greed of wanting money in exchange that's that's where you leave
you know this is something that um uh is it is not a uh uh something that is um um worthy it's something
that is um worth uh yeah it's not really a noble uh uh no no that's honorable way yeah not honorable no
it's to behave but you're lording something and and yeah it's important that we learn this lesson
and i think it's an important lesson to teach and i you know i wish shiny hunters have simply
taught the lesson and said okay don't do that again here's your data back but here's the thing
uh we're not finding out how much they were paid to give back the uh 3.5 terabytes of data
this 3.5 terabytes of data they didn't have another copy of it they needed shiny hunters to give them back
the data you know and they've given them back the data okay so what makes you think that data is now
secure uh they they they proved that they deleted it how does that look how do you prove you deleted
something i i never understood that they could still have a copy someplace you will never know
once once the data is compromised it's compromised you have to change your passwords you have to
assume that everything that has been said in that data is is there for the public to see at any time
the time of their choosing uh you can never trust uh people who hold something for ransom you know if
in the case of people being held for ransom yeah you get the person back and that's great
uh but with data you can make copies and it can go anywhere and it can be used against you and it's
great if you get the data back but you should have had the data to begin with i don't get how you don't
even keep a copy for yourself there were just so many lessons to learn here and you know i i just wonder
how the students are processing this you know people in in in middle school high school they're seeing
their institutions fall apart because of these super poor data practices you know just abandoning
common sense and um these are the people that are teaching you i i think uh there needs to be more
teaching going on and not for the students rob my favorite aspect of all this is the quote unquote
resolution because yes the the criminals doing this did get paid off they they won their blackmail
money and uh in a statement from instructure um where they're talking about how sorry they are that
this happened and trying to reassure their customers um they post on their site instructure
reached an agreement with the unauthorized actor involved in this incident as part of that agreement
the data was returned to us we received digital confirmation of data destruction parentheses shred
logs and we'll get we'll get back to that we have been informed that no instructure customers
will be extorted as a result of this incident publicly or otherwise and this agreement covers all
impacted instructure customers and there is no need for individual customers to attempt to engage
with the unauthorized actor so basically they're saying yes we paid off the professional blackmailers
and we have their word on the honor system that they're not going to use their professional
blackmail material to do more professional blackmailing um you know shred logs that's meaningless you
know you could show someone a screenshot of you saying you know del whatever file that doesn't tell
you if they've got another copy of it on another drive somewhere and if you're a professional
blackmailer and you've got this zip file that just won you an untold zillion dollars of money from uh
from from instructure here you know are you just going to delete that or are you just going to keep
that in a drawer in case you want another zillion dollars someday it's fascinating to think about this
all being down to the honor system of well they said they won't crime on us anymore well again you know
this company shows no common sense whatsoever so why would they exhibit it here when it comes to trusting
people who who took your data and held it hostage but you know that that's just okay i can sort of see
now they're hopeless you can just get them to do anything you want um what what uh shiny hunters did
like i said before it needed to be done to to prove a point that wasn't the reason they were doing it
unfortunately i wish it was because this is such a valuable lesson to be taught that this is a bad idea
and this is why it's a bad idea and i guess you know they feel that their efforts should be compensated
in one form or another i'm not going to get involved in that but when something like this
exists when when everybody is is convinced to abandon your your local institutions and trust some
faceless corporation someplace i think it's on everybody with a brain to figure out how to compromise
that and to display that to show that and say this is a bad idea this is why it's a bad idea
and um i just don't see that lesson being learned i see these institutions going right back to what
they were doing and it's going to happen again whether it's shiny hunters or somebody else you know
they're still making the same mistakes and it's not just schools it's almost everything you can imagine
we have to take a good look at you know the changes we're making with technology and make smart changes
not stupid changes over and over again where we just trust these uh these these monoliths to do
everything for us what's the matter with us doing the work ourselves with us deciding the policies
ourselves with dare i say it things being different from one place to another you know this school
district does something this way this one does it a different way this one teaches this class this
one does not you know they basically there are different interpretations of of history of uh um of
language all kinds of subject material that is what makes us unique and that's what makes us learn from
each other but when everything is is is uh just homogenized and uh given to to uh this this
instructor entity whatever it is i mean who are these people does anybody know who they are what
are their qualifications do they have any you know this is what's deciding what what our children learn
what what people in college are learning it's nuts it's madness and uh for that reason i'm glad it
happened i really am i'm glad this happened give them a black eye show them that this is not the way
things should be and any school district that that runs back to them they deserve what they get
you know you're not learning the lesson you should have to repeat whatever year you're in that's how
it works also shiny hunters is just one organized crime group doing this sort of thing there are
countless others and now all those other ones know that uh here in structure is uh you know has a
history of paying the money and you know so they're this this company this uh this product is going
to be on all of their radars now well you know we should have the right to know how much money was
paid you know i i think anybody who uses this particular service and i'm putting that in air quotes um
they deserve to know how much of their money was used uh to to uh address this mistake this massive
mistake and uh i think any any um institution should have the um um the option to cancel whatever
contract they are in based on i guess what is new information to them not new information if you've
been listening to this radio show uh speaking of which uh you won't be able to listen to this radio
show very much longer because we only have a minute left uh but you can write to this radio show
oth at 2600.com oth at 2600.com you can also uh hear us continue the conversation and take phone calls
where we'll be talking about the hope conference and all kinds of other hacker issues um that'll be
on youtube at 8 p.m eastern time it's about 10 minutes from now uh just go to channel 2600 channel
2600 on youtube or click on the link that's on the 2600.com web page also um if uh you can support
wbai where this radio show has aired since 1988 uh that would be great keep us on the air keep us
going keep us uh saying all kinds of things uh without fear of censorship um go to wbai.org
or buddy.wbai.org or give to wbai.org pledge whatever you can afford and um we look forward
to seeing you again next week on these airwaves here at 99.5 fm and please continue to listen to
wbai as you'll find all kinds of interesting programming throughout the course of the week
see you at eight o'clock on youtube see you next week here on wbai good night
come on come on i see no changes wake up in the morning and i ask myself
it's like worth living should i blast myself i'm tired of being poor and even worse i'm black my
stomach hurts so i'm looking for a purse to snatch cops give a damn about a negro pull a trigger kill
a nigga he's a hero get it back to the kids who the hell cares one less hungry mouth on the welfare
first ship them dope and let them dealer brothers give them good step back watch them kill each other
it's time to fight back that's what hughie said two shots in the dark now hughie's dead i got love for
my brothers but we can never go nowhere unless we share with each other we gotta start making
changes learn to see me as your brothers that are two distant strangers and that's how we're
supposed to be i couldn't double take your brother if it's close to me i let it go back to what we
played as kids but then change that's the way it is come on come on that's just the way it is
things will never be the same
that's just the way it is
oh yeah
that's just the way it is
things will never be the same
that's just the way it is
oh yeah
i see no changes all i see is racist faces misplays hate makes disgrace to racist we under i wonder
what it takes to make this one better place let's see race the wasted take the evil out the people
they'll be acting right it's both black and white and smoke a crack tonight and the only time we chill
is when we kill each other it takes guilt so we real time to heal each other and though it seems
ever since we ain't wrecked to see a black president it ain't a secret or concealed effect the
penitence we back and it's filled with blacks but some things will never change try to show
another way but you're staying in the dope game now tell me what's the mother to do being real
throw the bill to the brother and you you gotta operate the easy way i made a g today but you
made it in a sleazy way selling back to the kids i gotta get paid well hey well that's the way it is
come on come on that's just the way it is
things will never be the same
that's just the way it is oh yeah
that's just the way it is
things will never be the same
that's just the way it is
oh yeah
we gotta make a change
it's time for us as a people to start making some changes let's change the way we eat let's change the way we live and let's change the way we treat each other you see the old way wasn't working so it's on us to do what we gotta do to survive
and still i see no changes can't a brother get a little peace it's war on the streets and a war in the middle east instead of war on poverty they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me and i never did a crime i ain't have to do but now i'm back with the boss giving it back to you don't let them jack you up back you up
you gotta learn to hold your own they get jealous when they see you with your mobile phone but tell the cops i can't touch this i don't trust this when they try to rush i bust this that's the sound number two you say it ain't cool but mama didn't race no fool and as long as the state block i gotta stay strapped and i never get to lay back cause i always got to worry about the payback some book that i roughed up way back coming back after all these years
things will never be things will never be the same
things will never change


And welcome everybody to...
What is this? Oh, Off the Hook Overtime on YouTube. That's what it is.
Manuel here. Kyle, you made it over there.
Hi. And out in Signal Land, we have
Gila and Rob. We are indeed here. Yes.
Are we in fact on YouTube? We are on YouTube. Well then.
Do we hear us on YouTube is the question. Well, how will we be on YouTube if you didn't hear us on YouTube?
That's how you know we're on YouTube. Our video started, but our sound had not started
until just now. We don't have video on YouTube. We just have a picture.
Yeah, but the picture was up. The other interesting thing is that I find that the delay
is longer on Rob's computer than on my computer.
Which is weird because they're right next to each other. Well, maybe
one computer is better than the other computer?
Possibly. Can you mute us though? Because this is driving me crazy. Thank you.
Okay. You are muted. I don't know how you're going to tell us
to unmute you though. I didn't think
that through. But maybe
you could call us
or send a postcard or something
or just wave frantically because we can
see you. And Kyle, you're making
a sour face. Why is that?
I just hope it's not our configuration. We'll run
some more tests. Do you think it's something that we did
on our end? No, nothing's changed
since the last
time we were
reconfiguring. But I will
take a look when we have some free time.
Do you think the listeners might be responsible for this?
I don't know, but I think we're set to go. I think
no, no, no. We're just
always improving things. They're waving at us.
Okay.
Guys, you're back up.
We are indeed. What I meant
was asking Rob to
mute the YouTube stream so that
we weren't hearing us live and with
delay because that was driving me absolutely
bad. Yeah, why would you want that?
I didn't. No, that's awful.
So anyway, I hope we didn't
defend Canvas or whatever they're
called too much. But
in a way, I kind of hope we did because
they really, they need an ass
kicking here. I just cannot believe
that. I can't believe that kind of a
thing exists and I can't believe they just ran
it so badly that this would
happen. It's just, I get
impatient with stupidity
of that nature.
Is there
stupidity of another nature with which you are not
impatient? Well, you know, yeah, it's
all a question of degree.
Like, you know, if you screw something up,
yeah, okay, you screw something up, you mess up
your own life. But when you're messing up
hundreds of millions of people
just trying to learn in school,
you know, there's no excuse for that.
You were entrusted to get something
right, something which I don't think ever
should have been done in the first place. This
proves it.
And I don't see them doing anything
differently. I'd like to see what they're
going to do differently and how
maybe they're going to encourage, they're
never going to encourage schools to run
things locally because there goes their
business model.
So, yeah, we open the door for this kind
of thing.
You can't be surprised when this happens.
Why is that funny?
It's not. I'm laughing at something else
and I'm going to tell you what that is.
So, I would like to begin by saying
greetings to the 40-odd people who are
with us right now.
And the thing that made me laugh was when
at Sarah B4513 said, I went straight to my
professor friends and told on Eric.
And told what?
Told on you.
Oh, that's great. Okay.
Well, and that was why I giggled.
Maybe we leave the chat to the side and
we read the chat only once every couple
of minutes or something.
What is burning in your neighborhood, by
the way? I just hear nothing but fire
engines going by.
Yeah, things are really heating up here
in Queens.
No, the whole hour there have been fire
engines going by.
There may actually be something of
significance going on nearby and there's
not much we can do about that.
Well, make sure your building isn't on fire.
That's one thing you can do.
So far as we know, it's not.
I mean, our smoke detector hasn't gone off.
We don't smell any smoke.
Also, though, we do live a couple blocks
away from a hospital, which came in very
handy a few months ago.
So it could be ambulances, too.
That's not an ambulance.
That's a fire truck.
I know fire trucks.
I grew up in Queens, too.
I wonder if we could find something.
Hang on.
Hang on.
Hang on.
Stick your head out the window and yell
what's going on out there.
You know, that's what you do in Queens.
Every time I stick my head out the window,
a pigeon disgraces me.
So I don't want to do that.
But hang on.
Let me check in on the subreddit.
Wait, there's a subreddit for your block?
Not for our block, but for our area,
our neighborhood.
Really?
OK.
But in any case, there is exciting stuff
going on all over the world.
And I want to hear about some of it
from our listeners.
Yes.
Yes.
And we're opening it up also
because a lot of people have been
emailing us with questions about hope.
And we just have so little time on the radio
that we figured this is a good clearinghouse
for information if people need to know anything.
We are processing a huge amount of talk submissions
that came in before the end of April.
There are more that are coming in now,
but we're not processing them just yet
because we're still dealing with the many dozens
that we have before April 30th.
And we will be announcing some of those talks very soon.
There are all kinds of other things, too.
We will be announcing how you can be a vendor.
There are workshops.
There are villages.
Kyle and I were at the site last week.
In fact, a bunch of us were at the site last week.
And it's just, it really is amazing.
It really is something to go there to the New Yorker
and just see the possibilities
of what we can do with the place.
And I really hope that everything works out,
that people have fun there.
I know we're hearing from so many more people
that want to come back to hope
who haven't been to hope in a while
because, well, you know, nothing against Queens,
but apparently it's hard to get to for a lot of people.
And this couldn't be easier to get to.
It's a block away from Penn Station.
It's right in the middle of Manhattan,
steps away from Times Square.
There's all kinds of things you can do all the time.
And it's kind of a return to what Hope started as,
which is basically the same neighborhood,
just a different hotel that has since been torn down.
This one has not.
And this particular hotel,
they really seem to value their history.
They have a museum in the hotel.
They have Nikola Tesla's two rooms with plaques,
and you can actually stay in those rooms.
In fact, we're going to have those rooms for the conference.
Not sure who's going to stay in them yet.
But we're going to do something like that.
We have all kinds of fun activities planned,
and we're open to all sorts of ideas.
All of the information so far on the conference
can be found at hope.net.
We are adding more material.
We're going to add more things about the neighborhood,
about the hotel, and of course, about the schedule as well.
We do need people to spread the word
because people want to go to this thing.
We hear that all the time.
Our ticket sales need to be improved
if we're going to keep doing this,
if we're going to do it again.
Going to Manhattan is not cheap.
There's a reason we went to Queens,
because Queens was much more affordable.
This involves a significant investment,
and in order for that to pay off,
we have to have a significant number of people show up.
And if that doesn't happen,
well, it's a great way to go out, I guess,
but we don't want that to be the case.
So please, if you're holding back,
thinking that you'll buy tickets at the last minute,
we are going to be imposing a limit,
which hopefully we reach that limit.
And if we don't reach that limit,
I can't imagine us not reaching that limit,
but if we don't reach that limit,
then it means that we won't be doing well,
and there's no reason to do that again,
because we'll just be taking a bath.
So please spread the word,
come up with ideas, email us,
let us know your thoughts, opinions.
This is a great event.
It's going to be so much fun.
Summer in New York City,
it's like nothing else.
And if it's anything at all,
like the previous conferences,
it's going to be so worth it.
It really will be.
Kyle, did you have something?
Yeah, just we want to keep the momentum up.
That eventuality of, you know,
not reaching as our goals for this time around
could just put things on hiatus
or slow them down in ways that
I just don't think matches
the amount of enthusiasm
and the momentum
and the sort of need, I think,
to express ourselves,
to hear what others are saying
at this particular time
with our area of interest
and our affinity group.
So I would just encourage people,
if you want to help buy a ticket,
another close second way to help
is spread the word.
Really, really help us.
There are so many problems
with the sort of current state
of social media
and media fragmentation in general.
And we're not really
the sort of large, flashy event anyway
that would be taking out
big billboards and stuff either.
So we're just going to do more
of what we always do anyway,
which is a lot of grassroots,
a lot of word of mouth.
So that's something
that everybody can do.
So if you want to help,
those two ways
are really phenomenal ways
to support us
and share a story,
get people excited
and think of ways
that it might help you
to be around like-minded
or people from other fields
of interest and expertise
that you could have
have in your proximity
and collaborate with,
challenge,
maybe talk about
and edify one another
with different ideas
and vantage points
for issues
or for particular projects
or capabilities
and innovations.
all of that stuff matters
and your participation
in the ways I've described
and others
are so crucial
and never something
that we take for granted
or that we want to see
diminish.
This is a moment
to stand for something
and this gathering,
getting everyone in a room
and presenting
and sharing ideas.
That's what we're committed to.
That's what we like to provide
and the magic is
what you bring to it.
We are so lucky
to be able to do this.
I feel the same way
when we do a radio show
on WBAI.
We are so lucky
to be able to transmit
from Midtown Manhattan
to three or four different states
from New York City
and of course
around the world
on the internet
but just to have that,
to be able to have
an audience
of radio listeners
which is very unique
from internet listeners
as internet listeners
are great as well
but when you're a radio listener
nobody knows
you're a radio listener.
It's completely passive.
It's anonymous.
You're not being tracked.
You actually can turn on a radio
in your car,
in your house,
whatever
and it's a tie-in
to something
that's been around
for over 100 years
and I think that's amazing
just to be able to do that
when you consider
how many radio stations
there are in New York City,
how many people
are on the radio
at one particular time.
It's a relatively
small amount of people
so it's a real privilege
to be able to do that
and to be part
of that community
and you as a listener
you're also a part
of that community
and you might hear
people saying
yeah radio is dead
well if radio is dead
what's it being replaced with
is Spotify really something
to be proud of
is that really
you know better
than something
involving interaction
talking to somebody
on a call-in show
or hearing something
said live
from a studio
I think that
there's a certain magic there
that I hope
that we hang on to
we don't let that
disappear
like so many other things
are just thoughtlessly
disappearing
it's one of those
priceless things
but also
you know
the conference itself
having that
in the middle
of Midtown
New York City
well when we
had our first conference
back in 1994
that came
after a few of us
had been to
some European conferences
I'm thinking of
Galactic Hacker Party
I'm thinking of
Hacking at the End
of the Universe
both in the Netherlands
and they were
amazing conferences
there were no conferences
like that
in the United States
at all
there were
conferences like
SummerCon
and the first couple
of DEFCONs
were very very small
we're talking about
you know
75 people at most
and they had
their own unique charm
but the conferences
in Europe
they were huge
they had a thousand
people or more
and you just realized
how big
the hacker culture
actually was
and how it was
it was starting
to unite
we were meeting
people from the
Chaos Computer Club
in Germany
and people from
all different
European countries
and some people
from Asia
were showing up
it was amazing
but the one thing
everybody said
everybody from the states
everybody from Europe
everybody that we met
couldn't do this
in the United States
wouldn't work
there are all these
reasons why
it would fail
all these reasons
why it would be
kept from happening
well you know
the thing about
the hacker culture
is that
we don't like
to be told
we can't do things
we don't like
to be told
about rules
we don't like
to be told
things are impossible
so when people
say that
it's like waving
a red flag
basically it's
telling us
okay you know
you're being
challenged here
and so a bunch
of us set out
to figure out
a way to do it
anyway
and not only
did we do it
anyway we were
able to find
a place
in the middle
of New York
City
you know
the biggest city
the most energetic
city
the most expensive
city
and yet
we were able
to find a place
the Hotel Pennsylvania
where we could
pull this off
and we knew
about this place
through our
connections
in broadcasting
where certain
conferences were
being held there
and we figured
why not give it
a shot
and that's how
Hope got started
in 1994
at Hotel Pennsylvania
and it you know
it lasted
until Hotel Pennsylvania
was demolished
well actually until
COVID
which led to the
destruction of the
hotel
and then
yeah you know
you can't find
another Hotel
Pennsylvania
that's a one-time
thing
so that's why
we wound up
in Queens
at St. John's
University
and we were
lucky to have
that
it was a
different environment
we knew we
could never
go back to
Manhattan
again
couldn't possibly
afford it
it was
impossible
it was
impossible
well guess
what
they said
it was
impossible
again
so we
did it
again
we found
another
place
and
I think
this place
is going
to work
out just
great
I really
do
I'm excited
about it
and anyone
who's been
to multiple
hopes knows
even when
they were
all at
the Hotel
Pennsylvania
no two
were the
same
there was
always
just a
bit of
an evolution
a bit
of a
you know
progress
in vibe
and you
know
changes in
the event
things added
things tried
things that
didn't work
out left
behind
new things
tried out
and it's
always been
this process
of continuing
to grow
and learn
and you
know
anything's at
its best
when it's
still open
to evolving
yeah we're
not going to
have the
exact same
hope we
had 20
years ago
but I
am really
interested to
see what
hope looks
like in
2026
well we
always like
to you
know mix
it up a
little bit
and give
people things
that they're
not expecting
for instance
just with
with the
name itself
you know the
first hope
was just
hackers on
planet earth
and that you
know it was
a one-off
we didn't
think we
were going
to do
something
again
and then
people said
hey why
don't you
do it
again
so you
know beyond
hope it
was the
logical name
for the
one that
happened
three years
after that
and then
another three
years passed
year 2000
why 2k
so we figured
why not
H2k for
hope 2000
we had
an acronym
within an
acronym
you know
that's
that's
something
people
weren't
expecting
and then
we went
biannual
after that
every two
years
so what's
a logical
name for
the one
after H2k
H2k
2
that was
2002
and of
course everyone
expected
2004 to
be H2k
4 or
maybe H2k
3
but no
of course
it was
the fifth
hope
and then
then we
had the
fun of
when the
hotel was
about to
be torn
down the
first time
having the
last hope
and then
explaining that
by the
last hope
we didn't
mean it
was going
to be
the last
hope
we just
meant it
was the
most recent
hope
and then
the next
hope
was called
the next
hope
and that's
when people
realized you
cannot depend
on us
for a
naming
convention
because we're
just going
to mess
with your
mind
the most
recent hope
was hope
16
and so of
course the one
after that
is hope
26
so don't
try and
predict what
we're going
to do
next we
don't know
ourselves
yeah so
any questions
or statements
about hope
please feel
free to call
us when we
open up the
phone line
in just a
moment Kyle
you had
something
I'll just
add that
like the
adaptability
of it
a lot
of it
is about
you know
what kind
of interest
and what
different
types of
projects
and things
we're
emphasizing
and of
course the
constraints
with venues
and different
things
so I just
want to
encourage
people
share with
us
you know
sign up
for the
volunteer
form
tell people
or let
us know
about
a vending
idea you
have for
a table
or a
workshop
idea
or you
know other
things like
that like
there is so
much
things so
much capability
that I've
seen come
from a lot
of the talented
people listening
and our
readers and
the wider
hacker world
out there
and New
York and
of course
America
and
anybody
else that
joins us
I just
I want
people to
understand
that we
really can
do all
kinds of
stuff
anything
I mean
it really
is about
I mean
if you can
imagine
you know
a thing
we would
be able
to do
it's
certainly
possible
it's
the
idea
translating
into
action
is the
hard
part
and I
think that
anybody
who's
been a
part of
something
like this
like we
don't want
to be
just like
we want
to keep
it exciting
we don't
want to be
a trade
show
we don't
want to
be
you know
not trying
things
of course
the peril
is some
things don't
work as
Rob said
we redirect
we just
want to
focus on
the basics
and we
might
you know
do a
couple
things
differently
just to
make
things
easy
in this
being a
new
space
but
once
we're
familiar
I think
we'll
be able
to get
some
routine
to it
and
yeah
that's
all I
wanted
to say
is that
we really
can put
anything
together
for something
like this
but it
does take
scale
like we
definitely
need an
audience
to be
able to
you know
meet the
meet the
the numbers
and and
and requirements
for for
doing it
the way we're
doing it
in Manhattan
but I
think that
the trade-off
is so
many different
people can
join us
and we
can we
can you
know have
fun with
the space
have fun
with the
neighborhood
places that
are around
have all
kinds of
activities
and get
togethers
and meets
going on
excursions
whatever that
is there's
there's been
that kind of
stuff in the
past you
know tours
of of
New York
tours of
different things
that people
organize around
hope so
we're totally
open to it
but it takes
action it
takes self
direction
and coordination
so we really
need people
to kind
of get
their energy
and momentum
together and
and really
let's all
sort of push
for those
things that
we want to
see and
move in
that direction
yeah I
mean there
are so many
things that
we can be
doing this
summer you
know if you
have a space
in Manhattan
a Nova
space in
Manhattan
that wants
to have
some kind
of party
or something
like that
we can we
can definitely
be a part
of that we
can promote
that we
can do all
kinds of
things at
the hotel
Kyle's
mentioning
volunteers
yes we
need volunteers
this doesn't
happen without
volunteers and
there's a
volunteer tab
on the
hope.net
webpage
there's a
forum a
very short
forum to
fill out
there we
need all
kinds of
help both
at the
conference and
leading up
to the
conference we
certainly can
use people
with social
media skills
because we're
not that good
at that we're
not that good
at promoting
ourselves we're
really you
might have
noticed that
we're very
bad at that
so you
know all
it takes is
one person
who's good
at tiktok
or something
like that and
that changes
everything we
have a
lot more
people being
a part of
things as
well there
are so
many ways of
getting involved
the hotel
itself we
have discounted
rooms that
are at prices
that you do
not see in
New York City
in Manhattan
you don't even
see in Queens
and Brooklyn
anymore so it's
really good to
have that the
hotel is very
supportive they're
very eager to
have this this
conference happen
there and
there are if
the rooms appear
to be sold
out check
again the day
after because
what they do
is they add
rooms after they
sell out and
they have been
selling out on a
daily basis so
go to the link
that is on the
hope.net web
page under the
venue section and
if you can get a
room then get a
room and and
and you'll you'll
you'll have that
at least waiting
for you you won't
get billed until
August so don't
worry about that
and yeah any
other questions or
thoughts or things
that you have ideas
to get involved
with anything is
possible anything is
possible and we
hope that this
conference really is
the beginning of
something something
brand new yes
Gila go ahead a
couple of questions
to convey someone
asked when if
there's any
information a
sneak peek about
what kind of talks
we could look
forward to maybe I
said hang tight
information coming
soon.
but awesome
talks people
have people have
really outdone
themselves as far
as putting together
interesting discussions
subjects things of
expertise and it's to
me that's the most
inspirational thing
when we see you
know a couple of
hundred talks talk
submissions coming
in of people that
really really really
want to speak at
hope and know what
they're talking about
and we don't we
don't have requirements
where you have to
have a degree or
certification or
something like that
we do get a lot of
people that that
have very impressive
credentials but we
also have people who
are in high school
giving talks which you
know and they're good
talks too and they'll
be up against a college
professor or a CEO or
even a government
official there are all
kinds of people that
show up for these for
this thing and you know
the reputation precedes
it so you realize how
much it means to people
and that just makes you
want to try all the
harder so I really hope
people realize that and
again you know we
didn't mention this
either if you cannot
absolutely cannot make
it to New York City in
August we do have our
virtual tickets which
also go a long way
towards supporting the
event so please check
out that option as well
no matter where you are
in the world you can be
a part of hope
question number two is
the hope app going to
be back I don't see
why not it's a little
early it's it's still
May but yeah I mean
that we had that last
time right so if we
had it last time we
will have it this time
yeah we've had a
recurring volunteer and
I think when we start
talking schedule and
we'll maybe get a
couple more requests
for that we we tend
to either get in touch
or they get in touch
with us but there's a
lot of attributes of
hope that just sort of
assemble like that as
we put together the
different elements but
we'll definitely make
sure we we reach out
and get people working
on that or or give
them that what whatever
they need when we get
to that point the
important thing to to
point out is that we
have a lot of
challenges this year we
we lost Greg tragically
and Greg did so much
for the conference and we
have to basically come up
with three or four people
that Greg was and I
know we can do it but
it's it's it's it's
difficult it's hard we
also found the new
venue fairly late in the
game usually we're
promoting the conference
in the later part of the
year before and we
didn't have this lined up
until was it March of
this year so we have less
time to work with more to
do and our first time in
a new venue is always a
challenge so that is why
it sounds and it's true
that we're floundering a
bit because we have so
much being thrown at us at
once and you know in
addition we have other
things that we do we we
work on the magazine we
work on the radio show
where we have lives we
have all kinds of other
things wait wait wait
wait wait wait we have
lives some of us might
yeah we're experimenting
with having one can you
go can you elaborate on
no I can't I haven't
had one yet are you are
you sure talking about
the same people I don't
know I don't even I don't
know people at all let's
give it more two more
things one is from at
swoop to who says saw
this was live been
incredibly busy just
wanted to thank everyone
for all of their hard
work a hard track for
the Midwest with current
gas situation I will
check out the virtual
ticket thumbs up and a
question from me which
is are we going to take
phone calls yeah we are
as soon as you stop
giving us questions
yeah I'm ready
we welcome the
questions no the
questions are cool but
yeah we're ready to roll
with those we'll get the
line connected who wants
to give out the phone
number and let me point
out that when you say
the last digit and it's
correct the phone line
magically becomes active
okay I think we can both
do this the phone number
you want to call is
United States phone
number 1802 321 4225 and
hang on the damn button
didn't work okay no it
worked and then it undid
itself and now it's
working okay 802 321 4225
yes that are that is our
phone number 802 321 hack
and hopefully we hear the
phone ring fairly soon and
yeah excellent and while
while we're waiting for
that phone to ring I want
to thank everybody who
helped WBA I reached their
April fundraising goal last
month the announcement was
made that the fundraising
goal last month was met but
of course the fundraising
campaign is ongoing we
don't stop receiving bills
just because it's not April
anymore but I think we like
blew past the goal by like
10 percent or something
which is just insane it is
people power people power
always always helps in the
end okay rebel we have you
on the phone line now let me
just ask you a question
before you start with your
soliloquy here you called us
last week on the radio
station correct yes and that
was and then I called somebody
called again which was
probably AI that okay that
invoices me all right now the
reason I believe you is that our
caller ID was not working for
some reason so we're going to
take you at your word because
we've known you for a hundred
years so what's on your mind
this week
let's see I agree you were
talking on the radio about
people having their own
computers and they are not
dealing with the that's why I
don't like cloud computing and
you know companies that you
know who dealing with apps and
you know depending on you know
other companies for their data
sources you know I you know we
should go back to the well I
I guess they could call it
days of mainframes and or main
computers like as you call it
these days where computers are
at you on your location you
know the place I worked at
messenger service they had a
computer on their location it
was a like a like a PC server
type of a thing with six or
seven you know PCs connected to
it I mean you know it's okay to
have something in the cloud or
something remote but yeah have
something local as well in case
that goes away
right and um let's think um and
then like telephone systems are
in the car like that people don't
have pbx's anymore well I mean
centrix was kind of a cloud thing
wasn't it
um well no I mean we had a
centrix system at our other
radio station and uh it was
pretty much yeah you know okay
uh the the hardware was in the
central office so I guess that
could be considered the cloud but
there was a lot of hardware
locally as well you needed both
oh okay I didn't know that yeah
I didn't know that you needed both
well you needed the instruments you
needed uh uh the circuitry to be
working uh there's a lot of
mechanical clicking going on
well I mean you say you needed
both I mean the central office
the switching element was at the
central office
yeah so like they have like
voice over ip phones
I guess you know rebel a good way
to um uh to parallel it look at a
payphone
uh you know a payphone run by the
phone company
its intelligence could be said to
be in the cloud because it was in
the central office the thing telling
you to deposit a quarter was not in
the phone itself
cocots on the other hand customer
owned cone operated telephones the
intelligence was in the phone so
it kind of went in the other
direction it went from having uh
something in the cloud to not being
in the cloud with with the newer
technology
well I mean I guess you could
describe the cloud I mean but it
was kind of not cloud like well you
know it today where another company
is running you know serving you where
this is like the phone company is
still serving that payphone yeah same
company is still serving
wbai or whatever
so well centrix was the same thing
that was the phone company as well so
uh yeah it's
well yeah so it's not the cloud it's
the phone company serving you who is
another
company uh serving not only you but
other people
then that was that's kind of the
claim you know what I mean
right right it was remote technology
that we were using
can I ask you a question rebel you
know you're somebody that has been
active with phones for a long time
uh in this day and age which is uh
20 26 now my god
uh do you still have a landline
you know what I don't oh my god
and I'm literally like can you do I
got rid of it but I think I want to
get I just call Verizon actually and
ask them what I would take to get a
wired line the regular wired line
phone if you don't have anything
like if you don't have call right
if you just take like an old like
I don't know trim line phone or you
know phone from like the 80s or
something plug it into a well they
they come out and they have to
install it that's like 150 dollars
that the wire and the jack and all
that and then you have like 50
dollars a month to have the service
and then you got to pay for your
phone call if you want the basic
service so if you don't want the
files if you don't want the internet
or the tv you just get just more
expensive and you want to do star
69 or any of those features oh star
69 is like a dollar 50 now or you know
that's insane that's insane and I think
they want it that way I think they want
to discourage people from having
landlines that's what I thought I was
thinking but I just want to have one
just to I mean I don't know just to
have another second but then again you
know I have a cell phone I have you
know everything's here and everybody
you know the number and it's it's just
and more efficient here's a crazy
idea what if uh landlines were just
free and everywhere would would you
have one in your house then you know
it's just a backup you only use it when
you need to but it's always there
but I know it's going to cost money I
know someone's got to you know pay for
the upkeep but it's an important part
of the infrastructure I think
right but I mean business what do
businesses do you know that the
businesses are not mobile they have a
store or a business that's you know
there and they need phones tvx or
whatever I mean there's tvx is in the
cloud which is I guess it's kind of
like screen sharks yeah well you know
you you see a lot of businesses with
917 numbers which usually are cell
phones right yeah that's interesting
they did I mean it's like the phone
you know and also people call and
there's these like scans like you know
like of uh whatever um they text you
now they text you saying I'm from
Charles Schwab uh I have a great
investment opportunity or whatever and
it's like from some uh the number in
Michigan or something but you know of
course when you call it it doesn't work
how are they texting why why are you
calling it you can ignore it if it's a
text you don't have to I get because
I'm not calling it from my phone I'm
calling it from another phone of
course well it doesn't matter how
many phones you're using the point is
you know a text message you don't have
to even acknowledge whereas if you pick
up a phone and it's some annoying
telemarketer it's a lot harder to get
off the phone without saying something
regrettable well that you know I had
that call today also you know someone
called you saying oh did you would you
like to publish a book do you have a
book you like published I mean like
it's like a book publishing scam now
when's the last time you got you got an
actual phone call that you picked up
and said oh hey and you had a
conversation when's the last time I
got that yeah obviously I got that I
mean I know a lot of people don't a
lot of people can't remember the last
time they've been on a phone call well
you know the thing is that people these
telemarketers are scammed they call you
from strange numbers so much that when
a legitimate person calls that you're
expecting and then you're like you don't
want to say hello you you you know I
don't answer whatever you know and they
say hello is this uh Richard oh yes I
you know hi yes uh-huh who is this I
prove that you're who you say you are
and after like five minutes of that
either they hung up we finally get the
conversation started right or they have
that annoying follow now you call people
and they say please say your name after
the tone and we'll see if the party wants
to talk no that's great too that's that
that's pretty awesome I mean it's like
that's what we do and now we get people
that call with fake voices that imitate
you
I mean wow I just don't know what's
going to happen next I mean this is why
I want to I mean some places are getting
rid of the wired like they're not even
installing a wired line phone anymore like
I think in California or someplace in
Florida or something they're not even
offering the local phone can't even
offering wired line phones mm-hmm yeah
yeah it's like just like you know like
people are not using guest cars that
use gasoline anymore anyone else want to
complain about society or is just gonna
be me and rebel come on guys I'm still
thinking about rebel publishing a book
rebel please publish a book yeah you
should no I was I was thinking of you
and I when I when I asked me that I was
thinking of you and I said you know I
don't know what to tell you I was
thinking of you know 2600 you know
that's a publisher you know while books
are still cool before they get get
eliminated yeah well you had the kindle
and the nook and all those kind of
e-readers or whatever yeah yeah I mean I
I have something on my computer it's the
bell system from 1992 and 96 the tops
technical manual traffic operator
position technical manual like when you
dial zero it's really complicated like
they're just telling you how it like
hooked up and networked and all that I
mean I should like maybe go like print
it out and bring it to hope or
something yeah you should or scan it or
something they might need that I
actually I think I emailed it to you I
think I even sent it to you well who
knows what I did with that well all
right rebel and this has been fun and
any any other concluding remarks where
we open up the phone line to someone
else no I mean I like to like take like
computer terminals or like even PCs and
like network maybe there should be a
networking thing at hope like where
people you know learn how to like
network different things like like a
local area network at home I mean a
wired local area no there's nothing we
can't do yeah we'll bring lots of cable
yeah what we'll have extra cable we'll
have lots of cable yes we will so yeah
you can connect it all yeah I mean I
don't know but I'd like to you know be
the one who volunteers that that that you
know at the front desk or whatever you
know help people get around help people
get around the neighborhood yes because
there's so much out there and you know
if you're coming to New York City I'm
speaking to other listeners if you're
coming to New York City for the first
time I can't think of a better way to
see New York City than through the
eyes of hackers and you'll just be
amazed at what the city is like how
it's not at all the way people have
described it to you and that's just
the amount of fun and how friendly
people are it's it's just it's magic
they should make a I think I should
make a little private commercial for
hope you know like a like a 30 second
like private commercial why didn't we
think of that and air it during the
suit while the Super Bowl is over but
you know you know during something but
get it out there yeah you can take care
of that for us we do AI well they don't
have commercials that's the thing well
that's true yeah I don't know just like
get an overhead projector with some
transparencies and use like a pointer and
stand in front of it and just get a phone
and record yourself and you just share
different things your points kind of
like a analog style yeah we just got to
get the word out somehow you know get
the word out to to newspapers magazines
radio television the sky all kinds of
places where people are looking
leaflets graffiti people you know like
you know like from the mainstream media
oh the press people show up they always
want to you know show up to the
conference but they don't help spread
the word about the conference and
that's what we really need well because
I mean obviously you gotta pay to do
that but I'm talking about maybe like
making something and putting it on like
a Facebook page or you don't have to pay
to have a an article written and you
shouldn't have to pay for that and many
of these journalists get in for free
too so you know it's it's basically we
want the conference to actually have a
lot of people that want to be at the
conference and that's that's why we do
it that's that's the whole reason
all right rebel it's great hearing from
you and we will hear you hear from you
again in the future not tonight though
no I must see AI calls yeah if somebody
else calls we know it's not you right
all right have a good night and we will
see you in the future 802-321-4225 is
our phone number 802-321-HACK we have a
question do we do press releases do we
do press releases the question is do you
guys do press releases we can write
press releases the question is who will
read the press releases you know I'll
tell you a story last week last week last
year I was involved in doing a Canada
Day celebration in this country which
nobody else was doing July 1st and we
sent press releases out to every TV
station every radio station every
newspaper every magazine we could find
and we did not get a single response from
anything in the United States in Canada
however we got all kinds of responses and
I was on as it happens on the CBC national
network and the thing is we didn't even
send it to them we were going to send it
to them but we hadn't gotten to them yet
before they got to us that's how good they
are that's how much they pay attention in
this country I don't think they pay
attention anymore and that's sad that's
really sad but if if we know of
journalists that will actually read
something and you know do some
investigation and you know do some
reporting and and asking questions
interviews things like that yeah let us
know we will we will definitely get
them you know the press release we will
write as many press releases as we
possibly can we have a lot a lot to
boast about to send out news about yeah
we do regularly write news stories and
publish them on the web and make other
sorts of announcements and and small
ads available and in other ways when we
publish we have a phone call yes it's on
the line yeah okay good evening you are on
off the hook over time go ahead good
evening gang Tim in Connecticut how are you
guys good hey Tim in Connecticut how you
been hi very well thank you very much I
hope everybody else is good Tim I'm sorry
that we won't be able to meet you in the
dive bar in Queens this summer however
I have good news we can meet you in a
different dive bar in Manhattan there
you go I'm sure everybody will know about
it before with the time comes you know
we discovered last week actually Kyle
you when I saw this one block up from the
hotel is an Irish bar which is great
because that's you know where people
congregated by Hotel Penn was in the
Blarney Rock which is no longer around
and this was what's it called Kyle it's
got a weird name well I'm I saw an Irish
flag I we didn't go in we have not set
step over the threshold in the place but I am I
at first was confused by the name it's it's
the tailor the tailor we thought it was a
tailor because it's in the garment district
that's right and they had a thread and needle in
their logo but it also said a public house
which immediately I realized okay that
that's a venue of sorts we have not been
in there we don't know anybody we stuck
our heads up to the window and there were
people in there and they were they were
drinking it's a great large space I believe
a horseshoe sort of bar I think they have
two levels in there I think it looks like a
fantastic place to to grab a drink to to
meet some people and step out from from the
event what's there are other places around
but what's funny is it's literally one door
up from the WBAI entrance back when we were
on 35th Street it's literally one door up
from there wasn't there when we were there
but you know even if this isn't a good place
I think it is a good place but even if it
isn't there's another good place a block
away so there's so many yeah it's an
incredibly busy part of town yeah we're
really interested in what people shot yeah
absolutely it's worth a shot definitely
check it out we will definitely take
pointers or tips from people that are
familiar with the area or that go to places
that they like and and turn turn everybody
on to them and and yeah we'll take those
referrals for sure and and share them with
other attendees you know if we make a list
of of top spots to go to but they're they're
really it's it's so endless there and anguila
is raising her hand go ahead i am because
there is a place that i've always wanted
to go that it turns out is one avenue away
from the new yorker hotel okay it's called
break bar which direction ninth or seventh
ninth okay a little bit to the west yes a
little bit to the west break bar is a bar where
uh they have very disposable glassware and
the idea is you drink and then you throw your
glass at the wall okay i could get into that
you can also buy a a bucket of empty bottles
you can buy beers and then drink the beers and
throw the bottles can you throw the bottle
before drinking the beer let's say you don't
want to drink too much no so you can get
empty bottles and like it's i've always wanted
to go here and it is a block away from it's
it's a long block but it's a block away from
the hotel let's say i have my own bottles can i
bring them i don't know i i don't know if the
rules about bringing in your own glassware the
same as bringing in your own alcohol there's no
recycle fee or something on your bottles
i don't know if every if every drink has an extra
five cent subcharge on it because i want to go
in there with a plastic water bottle and say this
thing's broken because it's not breaking
well just the catharsis of throwing your bottle and
smashing it i think is maybe worth more than five
cents in terms of positive effect on your mental
health and they are open till 4 a.m thursday friday and
saturday night i think we're gonna get some
outings for this that was actually really that was the
same hours for the other bar um i have a feeling a lot
of places are open till so we found all this
activity on the same block that the hotel is on
and there's so much more around it it's gonna be
awesome
i am i am teetotal i never drink but i'm going to
the bar with you man you love going to bars with me
don't even front yeah you don't have to drink to throw a
bottle i'm calling up yeah go ahead i was wondering if
anybody else has seen a little thing that i've noticed lately
where my phone won't ring but i'll have a voicemail
that happens voicemail is just a regular old cold call
i don't know how they got the voicemail into my voicemail box
for verizon but it's so weird you know my no nothing on the
caller id just all of a sudden you have a voicemail
is this is this a cell phone or a landline
cell phone well uh one of the reasons could be that you have uh sucky service
and that you just you know lots of times
uh i don't get a call i get a voicemail from somebody i'm expecting a call from
because for whatever reason that moment i'm not getting a signal i don't know it
looks like i have a signal but the call itself just goes straight to
voicemail that happens a lot
and you and you don't see anything in your call log
no because the phone doesn't actually ring it just goes to it's like your
phone is off or it's like you have no service
because for that that split second you don't another way to do it uh if if two
people call the exact same time uh one person will get through one
person will go to voicemail that's a good idea yeah i mean i've set up
voicemail systems over the time and i know that if i have the administrator
password i could leave one voicemail for everybody
and i was kind of wondering if maybe somebody was hacking their way in that
way but it's verizon yeah wow yeah that's uh interesting though uh that
that definitely can happen yeah my phone is hardly ever off
i mean if it's off some i'm probably uh passed out dead or in the hospital or
some other thing or run out of battery they they the phones do run out of
batteries yeah i mine doesn't only because i just keep it
charged all the time it'll it'll die eventually i'm sure
uh-huh all righty well that was the only thing i had uh plus i'm sure all these
bars will be in the orientation at hope right
uh yes uh we'll let people know about them and also don't forget the tiktok
diner in the hotel which is open 24 it's open 24 hours a day and it has a
full bar in it and for you know if that's important to people it's it's
right there and disco fries disco fries too yeah they have that
it might not be important but it's very very um
necessary sometimes well we want to just have options for people and i know that
was an issue in queens because we were on a campus that was a dry campus
uh yeah so yeah you know it it can it can but the other the flip side of that
is uh you know we didn't have any of the problems that we had late at night
with drunk people and i don't want to have those problems
uh in the future absolutely yeah all righty i'll get off the line let
everybody else call in all right good hearing from you great night yeah good
to hear take care have a good one guys bye-bye
bye tim from connecticut there um yeah so uh all of that we we found this
tonight uh bnh isn't bnh on that block too
uh the the best electronics in the world somewhere somewhere there yes but as a
friendly reminder they will not be open on saturday
or friday friday after what three o'clock so but you know if you get there
i mean it's august so shabbos is like you know late but
and then yeah there's always sunday half time there's always sunday there's always
sunday but you know just don't be surprised
if people are like i'm gonna go to bnh oh it's closed why is it closed on
saturday afternoon sorry there was this is one of my favorite stories in the
whole entire world there was um a kosher bagel establishment in our
neighborhood and people basically review bombed their
yelp page and they're like i want bacon on my bagel why can't i get
fucking bacon in this place this is bullshit i want bacon and it's
like you're in a kosher bagel place you can walk two
feet down the street and get something else they've actually given up their
supervision they're no longer kosher they're also no longer good not that
they were good before but like so yeah do a little research before you get
matt is all in was that one person who had an issue with this or was it a
bunch no it was a lot of really stupid people yeah this is a place near the
long element road station uh in town and i've never had had bacon on a bagel
i've never had that i never thought that you've never had a bacon egg and cheese
on a bagel no
ew why would i do that i've had that but that is stupid petty because there are so
many other things that are kosher deli you could get on a bagel that would be
fantastic yeah well you know going back to bnh it's
uh funny because like i've worked in media production here in our city
and one thing that the entire media production in new york city knows
you know even if even the ones who aren't jewish they know about you know
shabbat because the the main place to go for an emergency uh piece of
equipment that you need will not be open friday night or saturday and you know
that is well understood yeah i better believe though yeah it'll be uh
something i'm sure um people working on uh av or other aspects of the event
will um pop by during setup during the week
that's why we set up on thursday yeah exactly wednesday thursday when people
are getting into town they're like oh yeah i might need that thing and i can get
it here and that that was a uh recurring um feature or um amenity is having that
right around the corner from hotel pen so um another familiar thing that we will be
availing ourselves it's even closer now it's even closer yeah yeah totally totally
but those things are um part of this that will be like kind of leaning on
stuff we hadn't had uh but is in actual recent memory for a lot of organizers a lot
of volunteers a lot of attendees so um those are actually kind of comforts in my
mind 802-321-4225 i'm gonna keep the phone lines open for a couple more minutes
ready yes if anyone has anything else they'd like to say please uh feel free
and what it's still going on in your neighborhood whatever this calamity is
so i did emmanuel to find out what is going on i reactivated my citizen account i hope
you're happy oh honey you know stay in the light that citizen app is terrible because
apparently people can use it to know where you are i didn't know this because i had it
on and someone said oh you're in the city what the fuck how do you know i'm in the city because
my the citizen app was ratting me out so i deleted it and i will never use it again
so it appears that there was a report of a smoke condition a couple blocks away i can't find
anything newer um thanks for checking for it to still be going on uh what two hours later i would
also like to mention that i'm going to be deleting signal not signal citizen from my phone again right
now yes wow can't happen too soon is that because of what i said or it's for another reason well it's
also always been garbage it's the uh you know find out how racist your neighbors are app find out how
racist and narky your neighbors are why do you need an app to find that out i mean it's pretty
obvious that's true but if someone in apartment like uh w uh whatever on you know some other floor
of your building is quietly seething because people of color exist you don't hear about it unless you're
on the same app together and they give their apartment number out could be and fun fact
they now have a premium thing where you can you have to pay them to look at old incident reports
why would you need to look at old incident reports i don't know maybe like a sinkhole appeared in the
middle of the street two months ago and you're like hey i wonder how this is but you have to pay to
find out about the sinkhole in the middle of the street citizen is bullshit we can be good citizens
without the citizen app that's what i say all right oh i like that takeaway same thing with
netizens all right we have a phone call and this will probably be the last phone call good evening
you're on off the hook over time go ahead uh yes i just wanted to um you were talking about promoting
the event the uh event yes now i wondered if you've considered you know they're like new york
youtube channels like new york related youtube channels have you considered you know approaching them to do
some promotion of the event uh what kind of what kind of youtube channel i'm not familiar with them
well well there's there is there's a lot of thousands of them but basically you know for a small fee
and it's a very minuscule amount of money because i've used some of them maybe 100 bucks 150 bucks
they like run an ad like run ads for you on their youtube channel they have no use of subscribers
and stuff like that and they put the word out for your you know for the event wow well if you know of
any specific ones uh you know shoot us email something and we can look into that for sure
okay then i will do that yeah because there's a few of them that have the type of audience that would
attend this event that would be great yeah just reaching people is is the main challenge
yeah and uh and the other thing i wanted to mention was um i cut off my cable today
and i wondered if other people have done so like i don't have any useful cable anymore i just use the apps
and i just wondered if other people still have cable tv like is that still a thing do people still
have cable yeah people do uh but more people are are cutting the cord as it were but the thing is you
know you're using streaming services i imagine in place uh and they they add up too and before long
you you're spending the same amount on the streaming services and you're not getting local tv anymore
yeah that's the thing yeah local tv you don't get local tv but everything else pretty much
you know i find a little use for it and i always wondered if other people still have um
you know people still have cable tv i mean it's kind of going out just like the phones it's like
the landlines yeah you know yeah yeah you're absolutely right with that and i would say the one
other thing you could try and i can't say it's great but over the air tv is still um worth having
if you are um removing cable and want some kind of local feel it would be a lot better local channels
to be a lot more desirable and maybe a lot harder to uh cut ties with uh if there were less ads in it
yes the local information local content it's great but it's been supplanted by like even the very
channels you're describing uh or recommending we check out um but over the air is compelling too
you can get public tv and get other some good programming that's not as i had said about local
local channels on cable subscriptions chock full of ads yeah oftentimes you can find a channel over
the air that you can't find anywhere else it's not on cable it's not on satellite uh and uh that that's
why it's worth it for everybody to get an over the air antenna and just you know see what's available
to you it's nothing like you know it used to be with analog tv where you could get all kinds of
distant channels and a lot of local ones uh the signals are a lot weaker they're a lot more um
uh restricted uh but you can still find some interesting things sometimes and of course it's free
yeah we got an updated box um and uh wired it up with a very very old like flat square panel
and i can get pretty good you know pretty good stations from from a distance um and you know
it's all based on where you are and the reception and kind of orientation you got to play around with
it i suspect and i've looked at this as well there are much better uh digital antennas i know people
that only use that don't have streaming don't have anything else but they are um fanatical about
over the air digital and have really elaborate antenna setups and swear by it like they they
love it and ads and all but um if you've lost that um with just streaming stuff um you could
experiment with what is uh being broadcast digitally and fill in is all i'm suggesting because it's fun to
play around with it's a good uh backup setup too if um you want to get emergency information
um not that it you know won't be susceptible but it's a step up uh or a sidestep from am radio in an
emergency if you need to get information and streaming sites of course aren't going to be
localized enough for that yeah and i have another question an unrelated question there's an old show
that used to air on wbai it's called the computer show do you know if it still is anywhere the
personal computer show yeah that used to be on right before us and sometimes right after us uh and
they were canceled a number of years ago but i know they were on a different um uh network online
gila do you happen to know what what network they were on they're now um a good old-fashioned podcast
um found them on podbean with today's episode um they were on today they were on today they were on
in fact today um yep they've still been dropping uh wednesday at uh 6 p.m which is you know the time
they historically had on no that's that's earlier than they were i think they're getting a little
earlier um they were i think seven or eight or nine we ran they were they moved around a little bit
they were before us for a while they were after us for most of the time i think also apparently
they were streaming i'm sorry go ahead i was just wondering what the name of the podcast is what
was the name of the podcast it's the personal computer show same same name okay same thing um
apparently also they can be found on prn um that was the original that was the original switch i
thought they made from wbai i i didn't know they were still on there um apparently they've got a lot
of people who used to be on wbai there was there was an exodus yeah yeah i hope that answers your
question yes that is definitely thank you so much sure yeah and uh if you're if you're interested in
them uh go to pcradioshow.org online and uh get in touch with them they're you know you've got all
the info on there about who makes it uh who's who's around yes i will do that thank you y'all have a good
night all right take care thanks and that's going to be our last call for tonight and are you okay over
there um yeah we're recovering i'm so sorry it's okay uh oth at 2600.com is our email address for
anyone who wants to write to us um i guess we're um we're done for the night right yeah this is this
has been a good night a good evening a good hour a good two hours by the way i got a text uh alex is
not um uh auditioning for a survivor i'm sorry about the misunderstanding and i'm sorry to the
people of survivor that are apparently very upset at that uh that he would have done well i think i
think so i mean just there's so many pluses you know in his favor for that doesn't have to do it
wednesday at 7 p.m though no but i'm in a stepping stone on his uh way to his dream of uh being on road
rules oh boy that is the dream well if you're on road rules apparently you can become the secretary
of transportation all right enough uh oth at 2600.com we'll be back on bai next wednesday 7 p.m
and here on youtube at 8 p.m and um more info on hope.net for the hope conference please get involved
and uh get your tickets while you can get your hotel room spread the word it's going to be awesome
and we should have some uh some news about speakers in the next week or two and uh we look forward to
seeing all of you awesome all right good night