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Well, hello there. 
It's WBAI New York, and it's 7 o'clock time once again for another edition of Off the Hook. 
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. 
One day long for the best, it's paid for worse. 
I hope that's understood. 
One day long. 
We'll be right back. 
And a very good evening to everybody. 
The program is Off the Hook. 
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening. 
We're joined tonight by Kyle. 
Yeah. 
We have Rob T. Firefly. 
Good evening. 
We have Gila. 
Good evening. 
And we have Alex. 
Hello, hello. 
All right. 
Well, I hope you're all having a nice evening tonight because it's going to get a little dark. 
We have some breaking news that we just found out about not too long ago concerning our friend Virgil Griffith, who has been held in prison for low these many months and, in fact, has been going through hell since 2019. 
Briefly, this is the case that we've talked about a number of times on this show. 
Not nearly enough because when you're dealing with legal cases, you have to kind of temper your remarks. 
You don't want to influence things. 
You don't want things to come back and hurt the people that you care about, that you're trying to help. 
But really, it's gotten to the point of being a Kafka novel. 
It really has. 
The case, briefly, is that Virgil went to North Korea in defiance of the Trump ban. 
He's an American citizen. 
Trump said American citizens are no longer allowed to go to North Korea. 
I think in 2017 he decreed this. 
Never before been the case. 
I went to North Korea. 
Many friends I know have gone to North Korea. 
Why? 
Because we can't go to Mars. 
That's why. 
It's a different planet. 
It's like going to a place where gravity doesn't work. 
It's the most bizarre, unusual, crazy place. 
And Virgil is one of the most curious people that I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. 
Both meanings to the word curious. 
He is a curious person in that he's odd and eccentric and kind of a misfit. 
But he's also somebody who has a very keen sense of curiosity, as many of us in the hacker world do. 
And, of course, he couldn't resist going. 
And it was easy to go. 
You know, you didn't have to tell the State Department that you were going to North Korea, especially when you live in Singapore, which he did. 
But he decided to ask anyway and was surprised when they said, no, you can't go. 
And then he made the mistake. 
And he knows this was a mistake. 
It was a big mistake. 
He went anyway. 
But we all thought we all thought that the worst that could happen was he would be fined or he would maybe lose his passport. 
That's the worst case scenario. 
Instead, the U.S. 
government has come down on him like he is an enemy of the state, like he is somebody who is Kim Jong Un's best friend. 
And believe me, Virgil is not somebody who sides with a dictatorial regime or anything remotely undemocratic or anti-human rights. 
I mean, it's just it's the height of absurdity. 
Anyway, so he has he had been held in in federal prison, was finally released to the care of his parents right in time for the whole covid outbreak to to start happening. 
And he wasn't allowed to to use the Internet and get this. 
He wasn't allowed to do anything involving cryptocurrency because the feds are so afraid of cryptocurrency. 
They think I don't know what they think is possible here. 
But they they thought that Virgil plus cryptocurrency could equal complete mayhem. 
So part of the conditions of him staying out of prison was that he has to stay away from from cryptocurrency. 
OK, great. 
No problem. 
Until his lawyers told him, we need you to pay us, please get the money from your crypto account. 
And that right there, following his lawyers advice, doing what they told him to do, which they admitted in court is what is what happened. 
They said it was OK. 
They said it wouldn't be a problem, wouldn't be a violation of any court order. 
And well, the federal government thought differently and threw him into prison where he's been since. 
Since this summer for something that was not even his fault, he was simply doing what his lawyers told him to do now. 
OK, so. 
Then you fast forward to September when his trial was supposed to begin. 
That's when you get your day in court. 
That's when you get to stand up and say, OK, your honor, this is this is what I did and why. 
And this is what was misunderstood. 
But here's the thing, and I think a lot of people might not understand this when you are accused of the most heinous of crimes, i.e. 
siding with a horrible regime like North Korea and working against your your own red, white and blue country. 
People start to believe that. 
And when people start to believe that, you start to worry about what the jury will be like, because it's very easy. 
You know, the federal government has a very impressive record of convictions. 
Alex can can correct me, I'm sure. 
But I think it's well over 90 percent. 
And when you're faced with that, we've seen this with with Kevin Mitnick, we've seen this with Bernie, we've seen this with fiber, we've seen this with hundreds and hundreds of people over the years that have been faced against this incredible, incredible adversary known as the the federal justice system. 
You can't win. 
You can try. 
You can try to have your day in court. 
But here's the thing, if you have that day in court and it doesn't work, which is very likely not to, you wind up going to prison for much, much longer than you would if you simply take a deal and plead guilty. 
And that's why he pled guilty in September. 
I mean, that's that's my impression. 
That's not him saying this or anything like that. 
He's been nothing but remorseful and contrite. 
But I understand why somebody would feel compelled to. 
It does not mean that he is the person that they said he was. 
So anyway, that is what happened. 
That's the last thing that happened, actually. 
He pled guilty and was awaiting sentencing. 
And that sentencing was supposed to take place in January. 
And then it was postponed by his legal team. 
They postponed it until February. 
You know, the whole thing is crazy because here he is sitting in prison for months waiting to find out how long he has to sit in prison for. 
For a crime, which honestly is the most absurd, ridiculous accusation that I've I've heard in many, many a year. 
And I've heard a lot of crazy accusations today. 
Today, today, actually, a memo was written a couple of days ago. 
Today, it was it was granted by the court. 
I'm going to read what it says. 
It's addressed to the judge. 
We and it's from Virgil's legal team. 
We write respectfully to request that the sentencing hearing in the above matter be adjourned from February 2nd to April 7th or April 12th, 13th or 14th of 2022. 
I mean, I guess those are the days they're free. 
We further request that the court order that the deadline for the defense's sentencing submission similarly be modified from January 18th to March 4th and the deadline for the government's sentencing submission be modified from January 25th to March 18th. 
Without the additional time, despite our diligent efforts, we will not be ready for his sentencing due to circumstances beyond our and our client's control. 
We have conferred with the government who does not oppose this continuance request and is amenable to the proposed deadlines. 
This is our second request for an adjournment. 
We make this request. 
And listen carefully to this. 
We make this request because since mid-December, we have been unable to visit with our client at the MDC due to COVID-19, despite repeated efforts to confer with him. 
And we are uncertain when that will change so that we can work with him to prepare for his sentencing. 
Before Christmas, Mr. 
Griffith contracted COVID-19 and was subsequently held in isolation for approximately 10 days. 
Counselor was unable to have any contact with him during that time. 
We were not allowed to visit or schedule video or telephone calls. 
Despite Mr. 
Griffith having since been released from isolation, there have not been any in-person attorney visits permitted at the MDC due to the COVID-19 outbreak at the facility. 
In addition, we have repeatedly tried to schedule calls with him, despite the facility not permitting call or video conferences without explanation. 
It was not until this Tuesday, January 12th, that we were able to have a telephone call with him. 
The prosecutors helped us secure this call, for which we are greatly appreciative. 
It is worth noting that the MDC's lockdown has also resulted in significantly reduced food rations, extremely limited opportunities to shower, lack of any time outside, and delayed access to necessary prescription medications for Mr. 
Griffith, imposing significant hardships on him. 
We do not make this request lightly and wish it was not necessary. 
All told, we have not been able to visit with our client in person since December 15th, 2021, and have not been able to see him via video since that same day. 
Accordingly, Mr. 
Griffith respectfully requests the court to grant this request for adjournment of sentencing and the proposed briefing schedule. 
As always, the undersigned are available to answer any questions the court may have. 
That was granted today. 
As if it was some kind of a favor to Virgil to delay sentencing another few months. 
And the bitter irony of this is that because they are unable to meet with him, he has to spend more time in prison waiting to find out what happens to him. 
Because they won't let his legal team even speak to him. 
This is America. 
This is what's happening right here in this country. 
I never thought this kind of a thing would be possible. 
But it's insane. 
How long does this go on for? 
How hard are they going to make it for him to simply survive as a human being? 
They gave him COVID. 
They cut him off from the world. 
They put him through the equivalent of torture. 
And he's not even at the point of finding out how does this end? 
For going to a country that Trump said you're not allowed to go to. 
And for answering questions about cryptocurrency. 
For talking about technology like we all do. 
For saying things that all of us are saying, all of us are reading about on the Internet. 
You know, I want to share with you a story that also came out in the last couple of days about North Korea. 
Do you know North Korea stole nearly $400 million in cryptocurrency in 2021? 
Particularly Ethereum. 
Do you think they needed Virgil to do that? 
He was basically figuring out what they were up to, what they were doing, how this would work. 
And probably there would have been an article in many journals about this. 
And guess what? 
I'll bet it would have stopped. 
I'll bet it would have been fixed. 
There are massive holes that would have allowed them access to all this money in violation of sanctions. 
And the person basically speaking out openly about this is defined as the problem. 
It's insane. 
And I also want to read a little bit of another story, completely unrelated to this, having to do with Elizabeth Holmes. 
You might know that name, the Silicon Valley startup founder. 
She was convicted of fraud this month. 
She was found guilty on three counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, facing a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for each count. 
She lied to investors about her company's abilities so she could raise money for that company. 
And her trial was last September. 
Found guilty this month. 
Do you know when she's going to be sentenced? 
September. 
September of this year. 
Nine months. 
Nine months from when she was convicted. 
Do you think she's in prison? 
No. 
She's enjoying life on the outside. 
Someone who did something far worse than what Virgil is accused of. 
Well, I guess the way they're accusing him, they're trying to make him into some superhero villain. 
But I maintain that somebody who lies, which Virgil has never done, and steals, which Virgil has never done, is a far worse person. 
Do I think everybody should go to prison who commits a crime? 
No. 
But this, seeing a wealthy Silicon Valley founder being found guilty of a crime, is basically given every opportunity to live their lives. 
Whereas Virgil deemed an enemy of the state as literally being tortured in a federal facility right here in New York, given COVID, kept away from any human contact, having food rations cut for some reason, not being allowed access to medication, not being allowed access to attorneys, and we're supposed to say thank you for allowing him to sit there for another three months before being sentenced. 
You know, there are so many words I want to use right now, but because we're on the radio, I can't. 
But this, this is just too much. 
This is the breaking point. 
You know, we've talked about the injustice of this case for a number of years now, but we've held back. 
I think that time is over. 
I think it's time, even those of us who think that what he did was, was a threat. 
I mean, we all believe what he did was wrong, and he's the first to say that. 
But it was a mistake. 
If you think there were ulterior motives behind it, I think even those people would start saying, okay, you know what, enough. 
Enough. 
In the Kevin Mitnick case, we always had to battle the people who said, but he broke the law. 
Yeah, he did. 
He broke the law. 
How much is too much? 
How much prison time do you give somebody who broke the law? 
At what point do you say, we're human beings. 
This is wrong. 
This is the crime. 
How do we treat this person? 
I think we got there. 
I think we're at that stage. 
You know, E, it occurs to me that his alleged crimes produced no victims, whereas in the Holmes case, there were probably a lot more people that were victims. 
Of course. 
In fact, in this case, I would argue he is the real victim here. 
He's the only victim. 
Everything else... 
He would never say that. 
No, he wouldn't say that. 
But he is being not entitled to a speedy trial or access to vital things. 
Well, he pleaded guilty, so he doesn't get a trial. 
He doesn't get that. 
I'm sorry, but... 
And he understands that. 
He understands that. 
The sentencing process. 
And he feels terrible about what he did. 
He knows it was a mistake, but it was a mistake. 
It wasn't a plot. 
It wasn't something that, as you said, there were no victims. 
He wasn't plotting to hurt somebody. 
In the Elizabeth Holmes case, you know what? 
She was plotting to hurt somebody because she stole. 
She lied. 
And was found guilty for it. 
And should, you know, make it right. 
I agree with that. 
But, you know, depending on how you treat people in situations like this, it says a lot about you, and it also determines the path they're going to take. 
When I got into trouble decades ago, you know, I was basically in a situation where, according to the FBI, who, by the way, never trust what they say. 
Never trust what they say. 
They told Virgil, you know what? 
This is not a big deal. 
We're not going to do anything about you going to North Korea without permission. 
And it was a complete lie. 
In my case, they said, yeah, you know, we can send you to prison for over 50 years for what you did. 
And, you know, I stood before a judge and explained what it was exactly that I had done to compromise computer systems. 
And I explained to the company what they could do to fix things. 
I explained to the FBI. 
I was treated fairly. 
I was treated very fairly. 
I had to pay a small fine. 
I don't think I even paid a fine, actually. 
I think it was just for the computer time. 
I had to pay a few hundred bucks and was on some kind of supervised release for a number of months, which was expunged. 
And everything I've done since then has been a result of being treated fairly. 
It could have gone in a different way. 
And today, it probably would have gone in a different way. 
And I would be a different person. 
I would not have any of the opportunities that I've had. 
I would not have had any of the successes that I've had. 
And who wins? 
Who wins when you do that to people? 
Alex, I know, I know there's something you want to say as well. 
And as a lawyer, you must recognize my frustration with the way the legal system works sometimes. 
But you have a much keener understanding of why it works that way. 
But I know that you feel the same way as far as just the injustice of this, the way Virgil has been treated throughout. 
But this especially, you know, being pushed back because there just isn't time for you. 
It's just awful. 
Well, the whole situation is really absolutely horrendous. 
And, you know, I want to reiterate something I've said on the show before, which is that, you know, my hands are tied to a certain extent in terms of what I can say because I am and my firm is assisting in some capacity with respect to the defense. 
and in particular with the forthcoming sentencing that will be happening now on April 12th will be the sentencing date for Virgil. 
But I will also say this, that we were only engaged to assist Virgil after he was remanded back to prison for violation of the bail condition and accessing his cryptocurrency account. 
so that what happened before we got involved, that happened actually right before I had joined my current law firm. 
So, in any event, one thing I should clarify to Emmanuel is that Virgil's offense is being treated very, very seriously because it's not really about having traveled to North Korea. 
What the government had alleged here and Virgil had pleaded guilty to this is essentially a violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which is the sanctions that are imposed on North Korea. 
Now, coincidentally, that was the same statute that Trump had used to try to ban WeChat and TikTok through executive order in the United States the following summer. 
So, this statute has got, I think, some issues to begin with, but I think that we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Virgil did plead to that. 
You mentioned a whole host of issues and concerns that go into whether or not somebody pleads guilty, and I think that, look, that's absolutely correct. 
And what's happened here with Virgil and his treatment in the MDC is, frankly, it's just not great. 
It's horrible. 
It's abhorrent. 
I mean, he's in the same facility that Ghislaine Maxwell is being held in, as we speak, and others. 
A lot of other people that have done terrible, terrible things that are magnitudes and light years worse than what Virgil had done. 
But all of these conditions are affecting all of those people, every single one of them, not just Virgil either. 
And so, these terrible lockdown conditions that are happening at the MDC, you know, we call every day and try to figure out if they're going to allow legal visits again. 
And every day we get the same answer, that no legal visits aren't permitted, and we don't know when they are going to be permitted. 
And so, you ask, well, what should we do? 
And I say, well, call back tomorrow. 
Maybe tomorrow will be different. 
So, we've had very, very limited contact with Virgil. 
That said, here's a man who is really, really resilient. 
He's trying to do his best. 
He's keeping his spirits high as much as he possibly can in these terrible situations, and he's making the most of it. 
He's helping people. 
Over there. 
Trying to help them figure out what they can do once they get outside. 
Now, he's being Virgil. 
He's being himself. 
He was running Dungeons and Dragons games. 
I mean, he's doing the things that he can do to help other people while he's in there. 
And I think that goes to his character. 
It goes to, I think, the power of his spirit. 
It is, to my mind, indomitable. 
So, no matter what he's going through here, Emmanuel, we're talking about a strong human being who's going to get through it. 
It's not fair. 
It's not right. 
But, you know, I know I speak for the wider defense team, too, that we all really care for him very, very deeply. 
It's incredibly upsetting for me emotionally to go and see him sometimes because I just hate the fact that he's in there. 
I mean, here's a man, and not that, you know, education has anything to do with proportionality of punishment, but here's a guy who has a tremendous talent. 
He's a great mind. 
He has a PhD in neuroscience from Caltech, understands the world of blockchain, cryptocurrency, information security. 
He's an extraordinary human being. 
He didn't hurt anybody. 
He didn't do anything that harmed anyone, and yet, you know, he's going to be, he's looking and staring down the barrel of between, I think, 63 and 78 months is what the plea deal had called for. 
And so I will reiterate once again that we should use this time, this additional three months, that the defense did request this additional three months to help prepare for the sentence, help prepare a very powerful sentencing memorandum to hopefully convince the judge that leniency should be granted to Virgil in light of all of the circumstances, in light of his character. 
So once again, I reiterate that if you know Virgil, if you have anything good to say about him, if he helped you out in any respect, please get in touch with me. 
There's lots of ways that you can contact me, either through this show, through oth at 2600.com, or my email address aurbelis at croll.com and I'd be happy to speak with you about drafting a letter of support that could eventually and possibly go into the sentencing memorandum and go before the judge and make a measurable difference in terms of what Virgil is ultimately sentenced to on April 12th. 
And the whole world is watching this case. 
This is a very, very unique case both for people that work in cryptocurrency, people that work in blockchain, people that travel overseas, for academics that go and speak at conferences overseas so that the ramifications of this case are very, very far ranging and we all hope and I know that a lot of people are coming together to support Virgil as I know you are, man. 
Well, I do have to disagree with one thing slightly that you said as far as the punishment not being proportional to education. 
I think it might be in this case but not in the way that you are suggesting. 
I think his education, his intelligence is working against him. 
In other words, he is not being treated better because he is educated, he is being treated worse because he is educated, seen as a threat, seen as a danger. 
It is like, okay, here is a parallel for you. 
You know, when you are one of these geeky kids in school, you know, somebody that the jocks don't understand, what do they do? 
They stuff you into a locker. 
It is exactly what is being done to him right now. 
He is being stuck into a locker at MDC or whatever you call the hellhole he is in because people don't understand him because people haven't taken the time to listen because people are assuming the worst. 
You know, I know he can't speak about this. 
He played guilty and I totally understand that. 
But I can say that there is no way in hell that the person I know would help a regime like North Korea would try and make the sanctions against them go away. 
What he would try to do is figure out how that system worked and show the security holes in it. 
Absolutely. 
And that's something that I would be interested in doing too. 
Or how it could benefit the widest of the population there, not some specific government program or aim. 
Yeah, well, I mean, he wouldn't redefine what the sanctions are, but he would certainly try and shine light onto something, onto a flawed system. 
And we just read, you know, they're stealing cryptocurrency. 
It's happening. 
It was happening then. 
You know, it's, yeah, okay, fine. 
Going to North Korea, that was the door. 
That was the door that allowed them to say, oh, you did something that you shouldn't have done. 
Well, let's look closer at you. 
And it led to far worse things. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
And I think what we're seeing here, you touched on it with the fact that, you know, in the Mitnick case, in the Bernie S. 
case, in so many cases with people we know and people we know of and have been talked about over the decades of this program, we have seen people sentenced excessively, treated excessively poorly because they did things that the general public doesn't understand. 
This is right up there with Kevin Mitnick not being able to use a touchtone phone or them fearing that he's going to whistle into the phone and launch nuclear missiles somewhere. 
Because cryptocurrency, right now, it's a very mysterious thing for most people. 
Some of us understand how it works. 
Some of us have an inkling. 
For some of us, it's just something that keeps showing up in the headlines and seems scary. 
It's a mystery and it's everywhere. 
And it is a headline-grabbing thing right now that you can say, well, this guy was giving cryptocurrency information to the enemy, to North Korea, when in practice, I don't think he would have been telling them anything they couldn't have looked up on Wikipedia. 
But he is a scapegoat. 
He is being punished because he is playing with something mysterious and people are not sure what kind of mysterious powers he has around it or what kind of mysterious powers he's granted to other people. 
And he's suffering as a result. 
And it's unfair. 
It was unfair in Kevin Mitnick's case. 
It was unfair in Bernie's case. 
It's unfair in this case. 
And just to illustrate a little bit the cryptocurrency connection, the reason he had gone to North Korea, actually the reason he went to North Korea was curiosity like I described before. 
If you're not curious about a place like that, I don't understand you because it's just so bizarre and weird. 
and the way I've described it has inspired other people to go there as well, not to support the regime, to see this completely alien different society and kind of shudder a little bit because it's so scary. 
But he went there because they were having a cryptocurrency conference in Pyongyang, in North Korea. 
Now how bizarre is that? 
And as somebody who is into cryptocurrency, who actually understands the mechanisms of it far more than I ever could, he wanted to see what they were up to, what they were saying. 
And one of the things he was accused of was answering their questions, answering their questions because somebody at the conference asked him a question and he had the audacity to answer the question. 
Two things, as Rob said, you can find this information on the internet very, very easily. 
And two, when you're in North Korea and somebody asks you a question, you really should answer it because being rude in North Korea, that can be a danger to your life. 
And he was well aware of that. 
It's ironic because, you know, when he went there, we were concerned that he would say something in his honest way that might offend them and he could wind up in a North Korean prison. 
What an idiot I was to believe that was where the threat was. 
The threat was here. 
The threat was in this country all along. 
And I can only imagine the mileage that the North Koreans are getting out of that, which is simply insane. 
Yes, Alex? 
the issue of having answered questions is a bit, I guess it's a bit nuanced in a sense, because when you're dealing with this IEPA statute, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, there is essentially a carve-out or something known as the Berman Amendment that essentially notes that the First Amendment still protects you while you're over there. 
And if you're talking about information that would be publicly available, for instance, like a gumbo recipe or something that is available through Google and is in a set form, the fact that it's a gumbo recipe that's set in a form on a page that is static makes a difference in terms of whether or not you have violated the law, whereas if you just answered and gave your own off-the-cuff gumbo recipe that was transferring knowledge over to North Korea, there could be a different outcome. 
So there are all these bizarre nuances with this particular statute that make it very difficult for somebody to know whether or not they are crossing a line. 
Exactly. 
Alex, do you think the average person knows any of that? 
No. 
I don't. 
Do you think if he had been told this, that, you know, if you continue to try and figure out this system, you might be in violation, you think he would have continued? 
It all came as a big shock to everybody. 
It's easy to say now that, oh, you violated this and it's clearly written here. 
The average person has no conception of that. 
And it's crazy to think that they have this Lexis Nexus database inside their head that's going to tell them exactly what they're doing wrong at any particular moment. 
And, you know, I was completely floored when they came after him the way they came after him. 
Like I said, I thought the worst that would happen would be some kind of a fine for traveling to the country or losing your passport, possibly worst case scenario. 
Nobody has ever, ever gotten into this kind of trouble just for going to North Korea and for answering questions and for trying to figure out how a particular system might be able to be compromised. 
Hey, that's what we do. 
That's what we do on this show. 
That's what we do in the magazine. 
That's what we do in the conferences. 
So where is that line? 
At what point do you know that you've crossed the line and you've done something now that's triggered some kind of crazy legal response that will wind up throwing you in some dungeon someplace for years at a time and get subjected to deadly diseases and horrible conditions? 
You know, there's just so much here that is new to me that I didn't think was a reality that was so close to us. 
This is the same federal government that was opening up communication and diplomatic ties in the previous administration with North Korea and where prior to even those overtures of diplomacy, official diplomacy, yes, from a president literally going there and shaking hands with the North Korean leader. 
before that, there were plenty of excursions of media and tourists alike, even former basketball stars promoting their own crypto coins, you know, wearing t-shirts. 
And I mean, this was not unusual terrain for visitors of North Korea. 
And I just, I find the real paradox in then sort of relaxing of official ties under the previous administration while at the same time imposing this upon other Americans. 
So the leadership and president gets the glad hand there, but anything like stuff before that, even under a warming of relations, is forbidden now. 
It's very, very odd to me. 
And every year, basically pressure is being put upon the administration to rescind. 
that ban of travel to North Korea. 
Because, you know, it's a crazy regime, but we're not supposedly a crazy regime where our people are allowed the right to travel wherever they wish. 
And it's just something that is so unusual for us to have to fathom as a reality. 
So that right away, I mean, that's the starting point of all of Virgil's troubles. 
But there is more to this case. 
And like I said, we just found out about this before the show. 
And again, Alex, can you give out the information if people who want to help can do so? 
And then we'll move on to some other topics tonight. 
Absolutely. 
And I want to repeat myself yet again, that one of the ways in which you can help here, and we do have an opportunity now, given that there's about three months before Virgil's going to be sentenced, is to draft a letter of support. 
If you know Virgil, if you know of his character, if you've been in contact with him and he's made some kind of difference in your life, a positive difference, a change, he spoke to you at a conference, gave you a kind word, whatever it is, if you have something to say about him, we would love to speak with you about drafting a support letter. 
And you can contact me through OTH at 2600.com if that's easy, if that's easier for you, or you can email me directly at my law firm, which is A-U-R-B-E-L-I-S, that's Lima, India, Sierra, at the end there, at Kroll, C-R-O-W-E-L-L, as in E-C-O-L-E-M-A-L-E-M-A.com. 
And again, I'd be very happy to speak with anybody who wants to draft a support letter and provide you some guidelines, put you in touch with the wider defense team. 
I think we have an opportunity to help Virgil now with this time. 
We have to take advantage of it. 
And there will be a sentencing memorandum that's going to be submitted to the court. 
Your letter could be part of that sentencing memorandum or be referenced in that sentencing memorandum. 
And that sentencing memorandum is going to go into a lot of issues, things about the disparity of sentences between this case and others, all the different types of research that would ordinarily go into that. 
I don't want to speak too much about strategy or things that are beyond what would ordinarily be placed in there. 
But please do get in contact with us. 
We think it's imperative. 
Time is of the essence. 
And let's do our level best to help somebody who's been a friend of this community for literally decades. 
Alex, I know you're trying to put a positive spin on this by saying we now have the opportunity to help him. 
But the case was resolved in September. 
There was October, there was November, there was December, and there was January for us to be able to help by writing these letters. 
I don't understand why we need February and March and April now as additional time. 
And what happens if they decide that, no, he still can't meet with his lawyers for those months? 
Does he simply get a pushback even further? 
How long does this go on for? 
And when do we start saying, no, this isn't a good thing, this isn't an opportunity, this is abuse, and we really need to challenge this? 
Because I don't see that happening. 
I don't see us standing up and saying, this is wrong. 
It has to stop. 
It has to stop now. 
And I see a lot of emotions and a lot of gratitude towards the people that are in charge of the torture, and it's just something about this that really rubs me the wrong way. 
It's a very difficult position that Virgil is in right now. 
This time period between pleading guilty and being sentenced is extraordinarily sensitive, and that's why I think he has to tread very, very lightly in terms of what he says, to whom he speaks, with whom he communicates. 
All of this can work against him in a lot of ways, and he's got to be very, very careful. 
And he has been. 
He's been treading extremely lightly. 
He's been a model prisoner, as you have said. 
He hasn't pissed off anybody or violated any of the rules the court has set aside. 
I'm talking about the rest of us. 
I'm talking about us on the outside. 
I just think we're being a little too nice. 
Well, maybe, maybe. 
But, you know, look, to be fair, though, it was the prosecutors and the U.S. 
attorneys that did help try to schedule a conference call with Virgil's defense team while he was at the MDC in isolation. 
And I think without their intervention, they might not have even been able to speak to Virgil Land. 
But that's wrong. 
That is so wrong. 
That is so wrong. 
I mean, the fact that they were able to do it, great. 
But the fact that he had to wait months for that to happen and the fact that they can't visit him and they can't have a video conference call with him and he can't have any visitors and he's in these conditions, all of that is so wrong. 
It's terrible. 
It's absolutely terrible. 
But it's what's happening at the MDC. 
It's not necessarily the prosecutor's fault here. 
I do want to be clear about that. 
This is an MDC policy that is way beyond their control. 
They don't have any ability to determine or set policy within the MDC. 
The MDC is because of the Omicron variant running rampant through the prison system. 
And my understanding, too, is that most prisoners are not getting a booster shot either. 
So these are exactly these things. 
And then he wasn't requesting to go to the MDC. 
He was requesting to go to a much nicer place where this kind of thing wouldn't be happening. 
And that was denied. 
Well, this is intentional. 
The judge actually did agree to recommend that Virgil not go to the MDC and be sent over to the Essex County facility where he was being held prior to trial as well, which is just on the outskirts of Newark, New Jersey. 
So why is he at MDC then? 
What made him go there? 
The Bureau of Prisons decided ultimately that Virgil would go to MDC and not to Essex County, which is unfortunate. 
But Judge Castell did in fact recommend on the record that Virgil should go to Essex County and not the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. 
And nobody can override the Bureau of Prisons when they make a decision like this? 
I don't think there is an ability to do that. 
You know, it would have to probably, you'd have to contest it in a manner, I think, and find that it was arbitrary and capricious, which is nearly impossible to do in a legal setting. 
He'd be way out of there by the time you even had that case decided. 
And so it's a terrible situation that he's in. 
It's exacerbated by the coronavirus. 
It's exacerbated by the isolation that he feels and all the various factors that you went into, Emmanuel. 
It absolutely is. 
And when does it end? 
We don't necessarily know because the MDC has to get their hands around the fact that they need to get the coronavirus under control because if he cannot participate with his defense counsel, it's going to be very difficult to draft an effective sentencing memorandum. 
If they can't draft an effective sentencing memorandum, then those extra months at the MDC will be for naught because these extra months that he's spending at the MDC will hopefully make a measurable difference if we come together as a community to draft letters of support to show the world that we care about Virgil and what's happening to him. 
So we have to take advantage of this time to make sure that Virgil's continued suffering in this horrible place where he is, is not in vain. 
This is the time where we have to do it. 
I keep putting a positive spin on it, even though the situation absolutely does suck for him. 
We need to come together now. 
And we can't just complain that it's unfair. 
Let's work together to make sure that this unfairness that he's suffering through right now and continuing to suffer through actually makes a difference to a sentence because these extra weeks, and I thought it would probably be weeks and not months before the new sentencing date had happened, the whole reasoning behind this is to make an effective case to the judge. 
And that's why his defense counsel had requested that adjournment because they cannot talk with Virgil right now. 
Nobody can talk with him. 
I haven't seen him since I think it was Veterans Day. 
It was the last time I went and saw him. 
So, you know, and even then, it was a crazy situation. 
They denied one of my colleagues entry, even though he was cleared and on the list, and he had come all the way up from the District of Columbia to visit with Virgil. 
And as I got in to see Virgil, they told me, okay, well, you're going to have 20 minutes. 
You only have 20 minutes. 
Ordinarily, we would have well over an hour to speak. 
But that being said, you never know what the hell is going to happen. 
One of the guards there let us sit through this lockdown, didn't take Virgil out, made him step out for about five minutes, and then he came back, and then we were able to spend about three hours together. 
So that was great, I think, just on a personal and professional level. 
All right. 
Well, we all appreciate your efforts, Alex. 
And anyone else who is helping in any way, it certainly makes a huge difference. 
But yeah, it's a terrible situation. 
And we're almost out of time, unfortunately. 
We are going to be continuing on overtime. 
But I wanted to quickly talk about another story that is basically taking place involving COVID. 
And that is the rollout today of the website, the federal website, that allows you to get free at-home rapid COVID testing kits. 
Now, Rob, you found some indication that there might be some trouble with some of the addresses that are being entered into the system. 
What can you tell us about that? 
Yeah, a lot of people were going to the site, which is covidtests.gov. 
That's covidtests.gov. 
And there's a form there where you can fill in your address and request a shipment of four absolutely free COVID tests. 
What's been happening is a lot of people in multifamily dwellings, apartments, divided houses, things like that, have been finding that they can't order a test if their neighbor in the same building has ordered a test already because there's a limit of one per dwelling. 
And not every not every dwelling is listed properly as a multifamily dwelling in the post office or the government's systems. 
So people are coming up against that. 
There is there there they are asking that people use the USPS store, the contact form on there to get in touch with the postal service who's running this this whole thing and start a file a service request. 
And you can do that at email us dot USPS dot com slash s slash the dash postal dash store dash inquiry. 
Or you could just make your way to the postal service store, their online store and go to the contact us link, which is that. 
And you can also contact the USPS help desk by phone at 1-800-ASK-USPS. 
That's 1-800-ASK-USPS, the corresponding digits on your phone dial. 
And that's that's where things are right now. 
People some people are not able to request their free tests. 
Some people have found they're able to if they fill in the form with the first line of their address, but not the second and let the rest fill itself in. 
There are weird ways. 
So we want to hear about it. 
If you have come up against this glitch yourself and have found a way around it, please let us know OTH at 2600.com and we'll we'll get that info out there as well. 
You know, I was able to do this yesterday a day before the site was supposedly going to launch. 
I had no trouble whatsoever. 
It was very I mean, it wasn't like Obamacare when that website came out. 
This was very smooth, but it does follow the USPS rules. 
So you have to enter the address as the post office understands it. 
Now, you can't use a P.O. 
box. 
I kind of understand why, because a P.O. 
box isn't a household necessarily. 
You do have to use an actual address and you can't use a commercial address. 
You can't use a mail drop. 
You have to use an actual street address, which, you know, that might be unacceptable for some people. 
But, you know, USPS already has that information. 
I think you can put in any name. 
I don't think you have to put in your actual name. 
You just put in an email address, I believe, so that they can tell you it's on the way and things like that. 
But, you know, mess around with it and you can you can send these things to other addresses, too. 
If your grandmother needs a test, you can do that for her. 
You don't have to be the person at that address. 
I'm not sure that's the intention of the site, but it does work that way. 
But it is smooth. 
It does work. 
It's fairly quick. 
And, you know, I had no real trouble with it. 
And I usually do have trouble with these things. 
I hope people take advantage of this for real good, like, you know, not trying to do anything silly or like resell or something like that. 
Oh, God, no. 
I really hope it isn't exploited in that way. 
But rather, people get as many as they can and then distribute them, help the post office, as it were, distribute them even more widely than those limitations might set up. 
No, this is a good thing. 
I know we like to complain about a lot of things, but getting all these tests, that's a good thing. 
Can we get more? 
Yes, we should do more. 
But let's acknowledge that this is the right move and this is something we should take advantage of and help other people take advantage of it. 
And pay attention to when they expire. 
Maybe they have a little bit of a shelf life. 
Maybe save it for later. 
Whatever you need, you know, it's really going to be interesting. 
And I'm curious what people notice about them, what kind of tests they are and so forth. 
Let's take care of each other and get through the crisis. 
Write to us, OTH at 2600.com. 
We are out of here for now. 
Join us on Overtime at YouTube. 
Channel 2600 is the name of the channel. 
And follow the link that's on the top of the 2600.com page. 
Join us on WBAI next week, 7 p.m. 
Good night. 


And welcome to everybody on YouTube as we join everybody for overtime, more additional time for off-the-hook listeners to participate. 
And did we all make it? 
Kyle, you're here? 
Yeah, I think. 
And Alex? 
Present. 
Gila and Rob? 
We are here. 
We are. 
And YouTube? 
YouTube is here too. 
Awesome, wow. 
It is here. 
Couldn't ask for more. 
Couldn't ask for more listeners, though. 
I know it's kind of hard sometimes. 
There's something with YouTube, because I see it go down by like 10 at a time. 
And then, I don't know, something bizarre there. 
But interesting discussion. 
You know, I didn't want to spend the whole show talking about that case. 
But something like this comes up, and you can't ignore it. 
You have to acknowledge what's going on and realize that people are suffering. 
You've got to speak up and say something. 
You've got to do something. 
You know, the alternative of just being quiet. 
We do too much of that. 
We do too much of that as a society, where we just see things going on in front of us, and we don't do enough to try and change it, or at least voice our outrage. 
And it has a lot to it. 
We can't kind of figure it out, I think, just in our own heads. 
We have to have the discussion. 
We have to be able to converse and figure out what's really kind of going on with that story, you know? 
It's no good if you have one perception, I read it another way, and then we don't talk about it. 
We don't share it. 
We act like it's just something that someone else will figure out. 
That gets us nowhere, and then we have different understandings going away from it and have no idea, you know, how it ends up wherever it is going to culminate to. 
Yeah, absolutely. 
Okay, let's talk about something else. 
Again, though, we're going to talk about crypto a little bit. 
Now, Gila, you found this story about a crypto group that's being shamed for spending, I can't even understand that, spending $3 million on a Dune book, mistakenly believing they had acquired a copyright to produce NFTs. 
What in God's name is the story about? 
Well, I've been fascinated by this whole situation. 
They bought a copy of a Bible for a film adaptation that didn't happen of Dune, and they bought it for a hundred times the initial estimate of what it was worth. 
They paid 2.6 million euro for this book, and they said, okay, now that we've got it, sorry, I didn't mean to hate you. 
Now that we've got it, we're going to take this, we're going to make it an animated series, and we're going to open this up to as many people as possible, because they thought that they bought the copyright along with the book. 
They thought that buying this book for that much money meant that they automatically own the copyright. 
Wait, that's all they used as logic, that they had done this? 
It's so expensive, we must have bought the copyright? 
They didn't check to see if they actually were buying the copyright? 
You know, the entire thing of, hey, let's throw 2.6 million euro at something so we can make an NFT does not seem to me to be the harbinger of really good planning. 
So yeah, I think they just assumed that they had the copyright. 
Was this an antique book at all? 
I mean, why would it command such a price? 
Or was the sale represented as including something like a copyright? 
Right. 
In other words, it was misleading and they were duped? 
Best I can understand, no. 
They assumed. 
They guessed. 
The book is from the 70s. 
And what they said, what, can you scroll up for seconds? 
What they said was, now that we've won the auction, our auction, our mission is to, one, make the book public to the extent permitted by law. 
Two, produce an original animated limited series produced by the book and sell it to a streaming service. 
Three, support derivative projects from the community. 
Support as in sue for copyright infringement? 
Wow. 
That's how they're going to support the derivative stuff? 
The whole thing is very confusing to me. 
So there are 10 copies of this book, right? 
That was the Bible for stuff that, Bible for the movie that never happened. 
And you can read the book online for free. 
It all exists online. 
Wait, what movie that never happened? 
There have been a couple of Dune movies. 
Jorodowski's Dune. 
Oh, boy. 
How many times are we going to tell the same story? 
It's just, oh, boy. 
So where does this stand right now? 
Uh, unclear at this point. 
Why is it? 
They're doubling down on trying to make this happen. 
But, um... 
Wow. 
Well, did you have more information, Gillo, to give us? 
No, that's all I've got right now. 
Okay. 
Alex? 
This sounds like this was a misunderstanding, a fundamental misunderstanding about the copyright. 
Yeah, pretty much. 
A pretty big misunderstanding. 
Well, about a specific legal doctrine associated with copyright. 
And, Gillo, does this ring a bell? 
Does the first sale doctrine come into play in this case at all? 
I'll give you one second. 
Not that I know of. 
Okay. 
Because, so generally, what happens when you buy a book, right, you go where you buy, you know, 2600 Magazine or whatever, right? 
You do own the copyright to that individual book. 
Well, hold on. 
If somebody buys a copy of 2600 at Barnes & Noble, they're not buying the copyright. 
You own the copyright to that individual copy that you have. 
Yeah, but I don't think there is a copy. 
So you can do what you want with that book. 
Right, okay. 
Or that copy. 
Well, within reason, you can't kill somebody with it. 
In, like, private exhibition. 
You can't use it to start a fire. 
It's for your eyes. 
One reader at a time. 
Well, no, you can have someone peering over your shoulder. 
And you can read it to someone. 
That happened to me on the subway the other day. 
I think that's still allowed, yeah. 
Uh-huh. 
I'm sorry, Alex. 
Go ahead. 
Yeah, I mean, sure. 
You can do whatever you want with it. 
You can generate heat over 451 degrees Fahrenheit. 
You can certainly use it to start a fire. 
You can do whatever the hell you want with that. 
No, you could, but I'm saying legally. 
You can replicate it and sell it to others. 
People, please don't start fires with 2600. 
We're not encouraging that. 
Yeah, actually put out fires with them. 
Uh-huh. 
We prefer that. 
By the way, you made reference to the novel Fahrenheit 451. 
That's the temperature that I believe books burn at. 
Well, a paper. 
A paper. 
Has anyone come out with a parallel novel that's the Celsius number of Fahrenheit 451? 
Celsius whatever? 
I don't know what it is. 
Can somebody ask an Alexis device what 451 Fahrenheit converts to? 
Please. 
No? 
Okay. 
That's interesting, though, because when you publish books in different areas, there are people that localize the books. 
And so, like, the hood of a car in America might be described as the bonnet of a car in the U.K. 
and things like that. 
So people in various places understand it. 
So maybe it needs to be localized for a Celsius. 
Which is 232.778 degrees Celsius. 
Oh, yes. 
Your Alexis device is a little faster than ours because we just got the same number. 
Oh, I didn't. 
I just looked it up. 
Well, now you can look up if there's a book with that title or a web page with that title. 
I'm sure somebody has done this because every idea you think of these days, somebody thought of it last year. 
All right. 
Let's look at 233. 
I just really - I just wanted to say the association with the Internet and let's make money, like, that has been ingrained. 
And it's sadly - if you're out there and you're teaching, you know, this isn't the immediate association. 
It should be Internet and the immediate association should be information, not money. 
And I think that's where these little ventures, they're a little - they get confused. 
They think I'll just do this and then Internetify it and that will make me a bajillion. 
And then I win and everybody else will be, you know, impressed by me. 
Go ahead, Gayla. 
No, it's actually funny because their initial plan, this group of people referring to themselves as a DAO, which I didn't know what that stood for until recently. 
But that's a decentralized autonomous organization. 
So, a bunch of folks. 
And initially, they were like, yeah, we're going to buy this really expensive book and we're going to burn it and make the video of us burning it in NFT. 
Oh, my God. 
So, wait. 
They're going to spend - how much did they spend? 
They wound up spending 2.6 million euros. 
So, they have 2.6 million dollars to basically burn buying this book. 
2.6 million euros. 
2.6 million euros. 
So, it's even more in dollars. 
Let's say about 3 million dollars. 
And they're going to spend 3 million dollars so they can burn a book and take a picture of that and somehow sell that original picture for more than, I assume, 3 million dollars. 
And that was their plan. 
And you want to trust these people with your money. 
They've got the money. 
They've got the money. 
They've got the money now, but they're a - are they a cryptocurrency manager? 
Is that what they are? 
They're a group of - yeah, I think they're trying to make crypto happen or they're trying to make NFTs and things like that happen. 
But if I could just really quickly. 
Yes. 
Kyle, what you said about monetizing things, and I'm sorry to bring it back to Virgil for a second, but that was where my mind went earlier. 
The understanding of not understanding and not understanding what he was getting out of it in this sense that we have that if you don't monetize everything you're doing, you're doing it for shady reasons. 
And that whole connection that if he's not going to get money from North Korea, then what's he doing? 
Wait a minute. 
Hold on a second. 
I thought it was the opposite. 
I thought if you were trying to monetize something, that that made you shady. 
But now if you don't monetize, that's suspicious? 
Absolutely. 
Just satisfying curiosity. 
In this big economy, hustle, put it on Etsy. 
If you have a hobby, you need to be making money from it. 
If you didn't start a side hustle during a pandemic, you have failed life. 
It's astute. 
If we're not monetizing it in the eyes of society now, it's like what we're doing right now because we're not getting paid for this. 
There is a section of society that thinks that we are wasting our time in a big, bad way. 
Oh, no. 
I'm used to that. 
I'm used to that, but to be thought of as being extra shady because you're not making money at it. 
But we are super shady. 
Yeah, but for different reasons. 
And we're chumps because YouTube gets to sell ads even though we turn that off or something and we're not monetizing it. 
They're still going to make money from everybody else on our content without us really knowing it because we agreed to something because this is the platform we're using. 
Yeah, there's so many layers and depths of what people are impressed and not impressed by. 
The important thing is to realize the power of the network and the information and, yeah, being financially stable is a goal all the way around, but it shouldn't be the point. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
And to take it back to the Dune thing here, I mean, what this book was, it was the Bible for a film by Alejandro Jodorowsky, who is a surrealist filmmaker, and it was going to be a really weird version of the film Dune. 
They only made about 10 of these copies of this book because it's a small thing. 
It's not for, you know, widespread publication. 
However, copyright law in the United States anyway and in some other places applies the instant you create something. 
It's owned by the creators. 
So the copyright to this book is still ostensibly owned by whoever put it together. 
And the interesting thing about this, I mean, the stunt where they want to mint each page as an NFT and then burn the book, I mean, the KLF did that in 1994. 
There was a movie called Watch the K Foundation, Burn a Million Quid, where a performance art group known as the KLF, the Justified Angels of Moo Moo, the Jams, a bunch of other names, they were known as the K Foundation at the time. 
And they took a million pounds, a million pounds sterling that they had made with a hit record, and they took it out to the middle of nowhere and set it on fire and filmed it. 
And that was their art project. 
So, you know, that's been done. 
There's nothing new in the art world. 
There's nothing new in the art world? 
You just said that? 
Yes. 
And I say this as an artist, as a working artist. 
There's nothing new in the art world. 
But the thing that keeps - the question that keeps raising in my mind about this is they call themselves a decentralized organization, but someone has to receive the physical book. 
So I'm wondering if this is maybe just one fan who duped a bunch of crypto bros into financing their purchase of an expensive collectible that they now have and can't obviously do the thing they claimed they were going to do with it. 
So are they just going to squirrel it away in their, you know, vault somewhere and have an expensive gloat? 
So speaking of duping a bunch of crypto bros, what's up with crypto.com? 
What's up with crypto? 
Nobody heard about this? 
It's headlines everywhere. 
Crypto.com got hacked and millions of dollars are lost. 
Nobody here knows about this. 
Wow. 
I just assumed that that was on everybody's phone. 
I put a brain filter. 
I'll find the story then. 
Can I just share one more thing? 
Go ahead. 
There is an art project book known as Celsius 233 by an artist called Philip Zimmerman who - it's about burning books. 
And you can own it for the low, low price of $375. 
And it also - there's a five-minute YouTube video that he suggests you put on in the background as ambiance when you read the book. 
Hang on. 
Phil Zimmerman, that's not the - it's not the PGP cryptographer, Phil Zimmerman. 
I think more than one person might have that name, Alex. 
It could be, though. 
Which is hand-bound using a multi-needle Coptic stitch with sewn-on hardcovers made of acid-free solid core black museum board. 
This is very intense. 
Do people ever make books out of, like, things that are poisonous when they burn as, like, an anti-burning, like, tactic? 
Okay, I got the story. 
And, of course, you know, many of us know that Crypto.com used to be owned by our friend Matt Blaze. 
And then he sold it to these people, apparently. 
And, boy, they sure have run a number with it. 
Monday, reports emerged that Crypto.com had halted withdrawals after a small number of users experienced suspicious transactions on their accounts. 
The cryptocurrency exchange has since resumed withdrawals and confirmed that its users' money was safe. 
But reports emerged later that it had lost 4.6 thousand Ethereum, which is $15 million, and was being laundered using Tornado Cash. 
I'm not really sure what any of that really means. 
And now there are reports out there saying that the loss might be as much as $33 million. 
So there's a lot of mystery, and Crypto.com is not really acknowledging what's going on. 
That's leading to all kinds of speculation and suspicion. 
Do they have insurance? 
I don't know how it works. 
I don't know how any of it works. 
They don't run on the bank at Crypto.com? 
Are there insurance policies for your crypto market or whatnot? 
It's not like the FDIC. 
What do you do? 
Yeah, it's not backed by that. 
The FDIC? 
Well, look, you know, I'll tell, say, two things. 
I do believe that there are some innovations in the insurance market right now that relate specifically to blockchain-related companies. 
I don't think there's anything that focuses on cryptocurrency exchanges, but other types of insurance policies might come into play here. 
You know, cyber liability policies in particular, maybe even something like, you know, D&O, insurance director and officer insurance, errors and omissions, perhaps. 
You know, it all depends on the contours of how these policies have been written as well as the exceptions that might be in a cyber liability policy. 
I imagine an insurance company would be very concerned about exactly this type of liability if they were going to provide any kind of coverage for cybersecurity incidents. 
Well, they would want to assess, right, Alex, and what are the details of how this was broken? 
Is this still broken? 
You know, and that's where the acknowledgement part, I think, having sparse details is hurting the situation, right? 
Yeah, absolutely right. 
And I think while you're in the throes of an incident, you have to be extraordinarily careful. 
Having worked on far too many incidents in my time, you've got to be really careful about what you say to the public. 
You don't want to mislead the public. 
You don't want to mislead regulators. 
And any kind of cryptocurrency exchange is certainly going to be concerned about perhaps like the CFPB, the SEC, the FTC. 
There's lots of three-letter and four-letter acronyms. 
Right, but saying nothing or saying too little can also be extremely harmful. 
And I think we might be seeing that here. 
Absolutely. 
You know, look, all that being said, too, though, having monitored for quite a while now attacks that are focused on cryptocurrency exchanges in the DNS and the domain name system on a daily basis, it is pretty extraordinary to see the volume and the velocity of domains that are registered every single day, whose sole purpose is to phish people with substantial cryptocurrency accounts at these exchanges and cause them involuntarily to part with their money. 
So there is a huge amount of attacks focusing on these exchanges, and they need to be really, really cautious about that. 
They need to police the DNS. 
And I think, you know, users have to be really, really careful about phishing emails, about clicking on any kind of links. 
We say this, you know, nearly every week. 
Don't click on links from untrusted sources. 
Don't click on links even from trusted sources, because what looks like a trusted source might actually be a bad actor leveraging that particular trust that is assumed between you and this other party. 
Be careful about searching for login terms when you are on Google. 
You know, make sure you navigate, let's say, to Coinbase.com directly or Celsius.com or perhaps Crypto.com. 
So, you know, there's a lot out there that is targeting holders of cryptocurrency. 
And frankly, every time I look at this, it's a little terrifying. 
We have a phone call, actually, that's been sitting on hold for a long time. 
And we didn't give out the phone number yet, so I don't feel guilty about that. 
Let's take this phone call, and then we'll give out the phone number. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Good evening. 
Hi. 
I hope you enjoyed your time on hold. 
I did. 
Before I update you on the saga of the copper line... 
Oh, yes. 
Two minor notes. 
They don't say what kits they're giving out for COVID, but the ones right now, as you're probably well aware, are not necessarily that sensitive for Omicron, but there are a couple of others that are hopefully going to be cleared at the end of January and into February. 
And since there's no way of knowing what you're going to get, I'm wondering whether it might make sense to hold off in ordering your tests until there might be a greater chance of getting better tests. 
Well, it doesn't make sense because you're entitled to this every month. 
You can get four tests per month. 
No, no, no, no. 
You're entitled to... 
Your insurance will reimburse you for eight tests a month. 
Right. 
But the system where you get four tests sent to you, that's four tests, period. 
Well, that's hard to believe. 
You're saying this is a one-time thing? 
We're never going to be able to do this again? 
Yep. 
Well, then in that case, I'd say get it before they run out. 
But if your insurance is going to reimburse you for eight in a month, then I... 
If you can navigate the... 
Well, right now, it's hard to get them. 
I'm sure there'll be more available, and I'm sure the paperwork won't be that much of a hindrance when everybody is doing this. 
Ah! 
But the other thing is, the ignition point, the auto-ignition point of paper, there is a range. 
Okay. 
And in Fahrenheit, it's between 424 and 475, and Celsius, it's what works out to between 218 and 246. 
So I guess they picked the number right in the middle of that, so that's how they got Fahrenheit 451. 
Yes, it's the flashpoint. 
Yeah, so Celsius, I imagine they did the same thing. 
And of course, now we've got to get Kelvin. 
Okay, now the saga of the copper line. 
Yes. 
No, the glass line. 
It's glass. 
Everybody sit down for this. 
It's going to be glass, I hear. 
You want to hear this. 
Gather around. 
Yes, by us. 
They bullied me, and they would not give in, and they said they had permission, and they were going to disconnect my phone line and take away my phone number. 
Wait a minute. 
Wait a minute. 
Wait a minute. 
Wait a minute. 
Where's your hum? 
I don't hear your hum. 
There's no hum because they switched me to files. 
Oh, my God. 
You've changed. 
She's a whole new... 
Wait. 
She's gone. 
This is not... 
Oh, my goodness. 
I don't recognize it. 
Yeah. 
Wait. 
You're no longer analog. 
You're no longer copper. 
It sounds wonderful. 
It sounds too good to be true. 
You're calling us from the future. 
You know the box that they're supposed to give you and the battery for if the electricity goes up? 
I have not gotten that. 
Is it coming? 
Supposedly. 
We'll see. 
Won't we? 
Okay. 
Can you describe how your new line is different from your old line apart from the fact that people can now hear you? 
The hum is gone and not missed. 
But last week, I was not able to call in. 
Partly, maybe you weren't on last week. 
No, we were. 
But even if you had been on, I couldn't have called in because not only was my computer broken, but a few minutes after they switched me from copper to Fios, they came two days earlier than the time and date agreed upon. 
Those bastards. 
They surprised me two days early. 
Wow. 
I had canceled once because I had a possible symptom of COVID, and then I guess they decided to jump on me the second time. 
A few minutes after the technician left, the phone system quit on me. 
It said no line. 
So I was without computer to communicate, and I was without phone, and a delivery person was kind enough to call Verizon on their cell phone, and Verizon said, because I'm disabled, the medical escalate, someone would be there in four hours. 
Well, of course, someone was not there in four hours. 
I stayed up later and later and later and later, and more than 16 hours later. 
They came back, and they said something had come unplugged. 
They accused me of unplugging it. 
I didn't know where this box was. 
Hang on. 
They said it was in the living room. 
It was not. 
You're saying a matter of hours after you got your Fios line, it failed? 
More like minutes. 
Oh, boy. 
Kyle, go ahead. 
I heard when you were going through it, did you say that you were forced to switch your phone number? 
Do you have your original phone number? 
Don't give it out or anything. 
I was not forced to switch my phone number. 
I was told if I did not give consent to switch from copper to Fios, they would cut off my service, I would stop being their customer, and I would lose my phone number. 
And what a shame that would be. 
Yeah, they put the real pressure on you there. 
So you sound good, and because you went along with what they said, reluctantly, you do have your original phone number, so that isn't a mess as far as your contacts and people trying to get a hold of you, right? 
This is true. 
As long as the phone line doesn't go out on me. 
Or the power. 
As long as there's no electrical failure. 
Right. 
If your power goes out, you'll have maybe a few hours on Fios. 
I'm not sure how many hours, but we'll see. 
There's a blizzard coming, right? 
So we'll, you know. 
This is what you... 
What is coming? 
A blizzard hurricane thing is coming, I think. 
One of those combination storms. 
Someone should find out if people have hooked up solar panels to their Fios box. 
That's a good idea. 
If I didn't say that before, that's a good idea. 
It's a project. 
Somebody's probably done it. 
What if, you know, as part of our responsibility running the local copper phone lines, we also volunteer to go out. 
Well, not volunteer, because they'd pay us for this. 
We go out and we install solar panels on everybody's Fios line, so that they can also get the same reliability that copper lines used to afford. 
In power failures. 
Well, if you're going to do that, may I be the first person in line because I'm disabled? 
Yeah, I guess you can move to the front of the line for that as soon as we figure out how to do this. 
Yes, we have you down. 
Because I asked first. 
Yeah, she did ask first. 
You're there. 
Very important customer. 
Rob, did you have something? 
Oh, you're muted, Rob. 
I see your mouth moving, but you're not saying anything. 
Sorry about that. 
I just wanted to speak really quickly to the caller's point about the COVID tests available. 
The at-home tests are what's known as the rapid antigen tests, which are the ones that are available in stores for you to do at home. 
And the FDA has approved a handful of brands of antigen tests. 
They're up to their standards for accuracy. 
And those are the ones, obviously, that the government is sending out. 
They are slightly less accurate than what's known as the PCR tests that you would go to the doctor's office to get, because those require a sample to be swished around in a laboratory and have a bunch of science done to it. 
So you're not going to do that at home yourself. 
But these are the tests that are available over the counter. 
Well, sometimes they do not pick up infectivity of people with COVID with no symptoms. 
The current FDA guidance calls for certifications for a rapid antigen at-home test, calls for a minimum sensitivity, meaning fewer than 20% false negatives. 
That's when you do have it and it says you don't. 
And a minimum specificity of 98% or fewer than 2% false positives. 
That's when you don't have it and the test says you do. 
So there is a very small chance of getting a false positive. 
We have our own Dr. 
Fauci here. 
We've got all this information, Rob. 
From the FDA, from their own site, all this stuff is searchable there. 
On the negative, but they have not been cleared yet. 
Well, the ones that have not been cleared yet are not the ones that the government is sending to your home. 
Yes, I know. 
I'm just hoping maybe if I wait until after they've been cleared, some of them will be bought by the government. 
Do you have to say it that way, Rob? 
The test that the government is sending to your home? 
That sounds so ominous. 
I mean, for God's sake, this is a good thing. 
We're getting tested to see if we have a damn disease, you know? 
I don't think it sounds ominous, what he said. 
Well, okay, fine. 
I'm sure there are people who disagree. 
But, all right, well, I hope we've answered some questions and raised even more. 
We have more phone calls coming in somehow, even though the phone line's not free yet. 
Our phone number, which we haven't given out yet, but thank you for calling and congratulations on your new line. 
Let's try to look at the positive aspect of this. 
Thank you. 
And enjoy. 
Thank you. 
Are you able to take more than one person at the same time yet? 
No, we can't. 
The actual phone line, the phone device won't, but another call did come in and is currently being transferred. 
Well, we can't because they transferred somewhere else. 
We can't get them back. 
We don't know where they are. 
Theoretically, the way it is now, we're doing one at a time. 
But theoretically, we could maybe coordinate some more sophistication to it. 
But we've kept it basically as simple as possible to come at people with our guests slowly instead of having a flurry like we used to. 
Okay, you know, in all that time, we've gotten three phone calls of other people that are trying to reach us and have been transferred into Neverland. 
So thank you for your call. 
We're going to free up this line and hopefully get another call. 
Good night. 
Our phone number, which we're giving out for the first damn time, is 802-321-4225. 
802-321-HACK. 
But obviously, those people already knew that. 
Either that or their telemarketer is calling us right now. 
802-321-4225. 
So when we actually hear the audible bell ring, that means one of those calls has made it through. 
Otherwise, we just see it on caller ID as they zip by and go orbit the sun somewhere. 
And maybe we get them on the way back. 
Yeah, so I think we're getting a call right now. 
We're actually getting two calls, but I think one of them nosed in the head. 
Let's see who's out there. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Go ahead. 
Hello, this is Bill from Missouri. 
How you got tonight? 
Pretty good. 
Pretty good. 
How are you? 
I'm hanging in there. 
I got a couple things I want to talk about. 
Okay. 
Accessibility for people. 
Well, I've lost my eyesight recently. 
You lost your eyesight? 
I'm sorry? 
You say you lost your eyesight? 
Well, yeah. 
I can still see. 
It's all blurry and there's spots everywhere and I can't really read and things like that. 
And when it comes to computer screens, you might as well forget it. 
I can't really navigate that well. 
Even when I zoom into web pages and everything else, it's still so spotty and everything. 
Well, hang on. 
Have you seen a doctor about this? 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
They put me on disability over it. 
Okay. 
All right. 
And are they treating this however they can? 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
They're trying to. 
But anyway, I mean, it's the thing that's really aggravating about this is when you try a screen reader, it wants to read out everything, like all the HTML code. 
Yes. 
Like, you know, div one and everything else like that. 
I'm not sure why they can't just, you know, alter it to omit that. 
Of course they can. 
They just haven't. 
They haven't. 
They haven't. 
But they can. 
Yeah. 
And when you try to do forms, right, when you try to fill stuff out, when you try to zoom in and everything to try to read it, it doesn't scale right. 
So it's just basically pointless. 
I have a little, there's a little zoom function on my iPad that kind of breaks the iPad every time I use it. 
It works kind of decently, but it's no better than what's going on with the computer. 
Well, you know, I think what you should do is I think you should let us know the names of the apps or software that you're using. 
And then once we make that known, either they'll be shamed into fixing it or somebody will write in and say, this works better. 
Try this instead. 
Yeah. 
Like Firefox and Chrome and Edge is what I've been using. 
Like the built-in thing with Windows 10 now where you can increase the font size, it'll do it on most apps, but nothing like stuff I like used to doing like Photoshop and stuff like that in Blender. 
I know there's some settings in Blender where you can increase the font size, but it doesn't scale right either. 
There's so many little tools in Blender too, so you really need something that can help you get right in there to see exactly what you're clicking on and adjusting. 
Yeah. 
Yeah, because I know my shortcuts and everything for the most part. 
That's cool. 
I've been wanting to get my Odyssey out and I want to kind of model a beach. 
So because Windows 10 has got this virtual reality thing where you take an STL file and it'll read it as a VR environment. 
Awesome. 
And like, you know, I just want to get a Sunlamp before I can't drive or anything like that anymore. 
I want to get a Sunlamp and just like sit on my recliner, you know, put on some suntan lotions and put the Odyssey on and just get out to some tunes. 
Yeah. 
Uh-huh. 
Hang out on your beach. 
That's so cool. 
That's a great idea. 
Put the fan next to me. 
I have the wind and everything. 
You got it. 
Shoot. 
You can play music. 
Do all kinds of cool things. 
Listen to an audio book or listen to a podcast? 
No, I want this. 
Oh, yeah. 
I just got finished listening to Neuromancer. 
Oh, wow. 
Good for you. 
Wow. 
Oh, yeah, man. 
I mean, it's just, the Matrix was a total ripoff of the whole book. 
Of course it was. 
Of course it was. 
It kind of ended real abruptly. 
I mean, you got Case there in the room and the last thing he sees is Molly and he hears that laughter and then next thing you know, it goes to black. 
So, I'm going to get Mona Lisa override and what's the other one? 
Zero. 
I forget what it's called. 
Zero. 
Count Zero. 
I think. 
Is that what it was? 
What was it, guys? 
I'm sorry? 
Count Zero. 
Count Zero. 
Count Zero. 
Oh, Count Zero. 
Yeah, that's it. 
Yeah, to see what happens next. 
But, yeah, I'm trying to figure all this out. 
I mean, I go to the doctor next week and hopefully they can give me something to, they put one shot in my eye to try to get the swollen down from the optic nerve. 
Yeah. 
And I'm hoping they'll see some improvement to keep doing that to try to get the vision better so I can finish up my classes for last semester. 
Yeah, you were telling us about that. 
That's so crucial. 
Keep up with that and hear what they have to say. 
Yep. 
Well, also, did you hear about the kids starting up book clubs for banned books? 
No. 
Because of this CRT crap they've been signing into law and everything? 
So there's like eighth graders starting their own little book clubs at bookstores and reading the books that are on the naughty list for the schools now. 
Uh-huh. 
Like in CRT and stuff like that. 
And I thought that was kind of cool. 
That's real life hacking right there. 
Absolutely. 
Just getting around to, yeah. 
Yeah, definitely. 
Rob, did you have something? 
Yeah. 
First of all, caller, I'm very sorry to hear about what you're going through. 
Do you know if there's a, you know, and forgive me for asking and feel free to decline to answer, but I'm wondering if there's a prognosis. 
Like, do you know if this is a temporary or a permanent condition? 
It's diabetic retinopathy. 
Ah. 
Okay. 
I'd like to point you, and you may have been pointed toward this already by someone who works with you, but I'd just like to give a shout out to the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled. 
It's a function of the Library of Congress, and you can get more information at loc.gov slash NLS for National Library Service. 
And what this is, is it's a network of libraries all over the country that have material available in audio book format, in braille format, in large print format. 
And it's a free library. 
It's a free circulating library. 
Books get sent to your home. 
You send them back when you're done. 
They send you a digital player for playing talking books. 
And there is a network of libraries all over the place that have these digital talking books available to you. 
And the whole thing is free for the user. 
It's tax supported. 
So you might be interested in checking this out, and anyone else listening who is or knows someone who's a person who's blind or visually disabled or reading disabled or in some other way disabled where you can't physically read a book in the usual manner, loc.gov slash NLS. 
You know, there's something that I'd like to bring up, too, in this particular area. 
We have a Canadian dish. 
We watch a lot of Canadian TV. 
And they have something up there that is on every system known as descriptive video. 
So what that is, it's the same channel that you watch, except they have a different feed. 
And on that feed, when you're, say, watching a situation comedy, there is a voice that tells you what's going on. 
Sharon walks to the couch and sits down. 
We don't have that here. 
Not like that, anyway. 
We have similar services. 
But I don't think it's as easy to access as it is up there. 
Am I wrong about this? 
Disney Plus has it. 
And how do you access it? 
Well, you just, like, press up on your remote. 
Okay. 
Like your Fire Stick remote. 
And it'll have all the languages up there. 
And it's, like, beside English. 
The only reason I know this, I haven't memorized it, because I keep pressing the wrong button on my remote. 
Of course. 
When I put it down somewhere. 
Uh-huh. 
And I have to keep exiting it out. 
But it does all right. 
I mean, I can see blurry stuff going on. 
I just can't really make out what's going on. 
The colors, like, sometimes it's really dark, and sometimes it's really faded. 
Right. 
So it's kind of like that. 
I just, I really, I signed up for the Astronomy Club out here. 
Uh-huh. 
And the school I go to has an observatory. 
And as long as I'm part of the Astronomy Club, I can use that telescope, which is like a 21-inch telescope. 
Right? 
Uh-huh. 
So my big plan was to get them to teach me how to do it. 
I was going to try to, like, you know, try to find some comets or something like that, or do like a, do like a, you know, just do some observations on, like, Jupiter and the moons and stuff like that. 
Uh-huh. 
You know, it's something really cool. 
And all this happened, and I can't even do that. 
It really kind of hurts. 
It hurts my feelings a little bit. 
Yeah. 
Well, life is full of frustrations. 
I know that. 
But you can still get very involved in astronomy, you know, without the benefit of eyesight. 
It might sound like it's impossible, but people are making all kinds of discoveries all the time and not even looking at the sky. 
But it's truly an incredible time. 
Alex, I know you have something. 
Go ahead. 
Yeah. 
Bill, and speaking of frustration, I remember when you called last week, and you mentioned that you were having difficulty acquiring certain medicines and, you know, financial difficulty and whatnot. 
We were moved by that. 
And a colleague of mine who also listens to the show every week heard this. 
We had discussed offline if we thought we might be able to help you in some way. 
And we decided that we probably could help you. 
So do get in touch with us. 
We think we have, you know, something worked out that might be able to help you. 
So if you email OTH at 2600.com, I will reply, and both he and I will get in touch with you about some measure of help. 
Well, they approved my disability, right? 
The only thing I need, like SSI needs some kind of documentation about my grants and stuff I've been getting for the last year. 
Yeah. 
Well, look, don't go into it now. 
If I need anything, huh? 
Yeah. 
Don't go into it now. 
Call, you know, just email OTH at 2600.com if you'd like, and I will, I'll be in touch with you offline. 
Oh, okay, okay. 
All right. 
I think, okay. 
I think Rob has something else. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
Yeah. 
Going back to the audio description track for TV shows and films and things, there is actually a site that's put up by the American Council for the Blind, or American Council of the Blind, rather, and it's called the Audio Description Project, and you can get to that at adp.acb.org, and that has a guide to how audio description tracks work, what networks and things, and apps, and such like, have it available. 
They also maintain a list of DVDs and Blu-ray discs that have such a track on there for people to use. 
And I remember talking about a story on this program. 
I think you guys were, Ian and Kyle were traveling, and I was running the board. 
And there was a story going around about when Netflix put out a show about Daredevil, who is a superhero who is blind, and they neglected to put a descriptive track on that show. 
No one thought maybe the blind community would be interested in the show about a superhero who is blind. 
But it was quickly rectified after, you know, there was an uproar online about it. 
But it just goes to show that, like, it's not given as much thought as things like closed captioning in this country, which is pretty pervasive. 
You can get it on pretty much anything now if you turn on the television, but the audio descriptions are still not quite as widespread. 
Yeah, now, I want to know more about the closed captioning. 
It always seems to be done by WGBH in Boston, by volunteers. 
Haven't we progressed to a stage now where it can be done, you know, on a much more budget oriented, you know, where you get the money to do it? 
I'm not saying they're not doing it right. 
It seems like they're overworked. 
Also, sometimes, you know, I'm watching something that is using adult language, but the person typing the captions doesn't use adult language. 
So they're censoring out the words that I'm hearing. 
And I'm just wondering, you know, where's the disconnect here? 
Shouldn't it be a verbatim description of what is actually being said? 
And that would never happen on a relay phone call, but because it's broadcast, they censor like crazy. 
Yeah, yeah. 
Phone call, relay operator would type absolutely everything you say. 
You know, if there was like a sex call between two people, that relay operator would have to say all the things. 
They will. 
Or type all the things, yes. 
Without blushing. 
A lot of stories. 
Well, for, you know, recorded shows, as far as closed captioning goes, I'm surprised they don't hard code it. 
Mm-hmm. 
Yeah, that's a good idea. 
They should. 
Yeah, I mean, when you rip out a DVD and whatnot, you can rip it closed captioning everything as a CRT file, right? 
Mm-hmm. 
And add it back and even have time codes. 
So if you want to add in a little something, like a little commentary track or whatnot, you can do it like that. 
Yeah, VLC. 
You can work with those files in VLC. 
You know, again, Canadian TV, we were watching CPAC, which, by the way, CPAC up there means something completely different than it does down here. 
It's Canadian Public Access something or other. 
It's their C-SPAN. 
And there was a hearing being given. 
And there was somebody on the bottom right doing, what do they call it, open captioning? 
Basically, where they're doing sign language for the deaf? 
Right. 
What's that called? 
ASL. 
Yeah. 
Okay. 
So somebody is there. 
Sign language. 
Yeah. 
It's not closed captioning. 
It's open. 
It's somebody actually doing the translation right there. 
An interpreter, yes. 
But there was another person on the left doing the same thing. 
And one was English. 
One was French. 
So that's, it's really amazing to see all the ways that people are being included, which is something that I think we still need to work on here. 
Yep. 
Being bilingual is like a dirty word in this country. 
Isn't it? 
Yeah, that's true. 
It seems that way. 
There's no official language in America to begin with. 
The Founder of Arts didn't want it to begin with. 
And if you like took all the languages that are actually spoken in America, including Native American languages, there's like hundreds of them. 
At least. 
At least. 
I mean, it's just, I mean, I grew up in Virginia and people were just amazed that people spoke French down in Louisiana and stuff like that. 
Mm-hmm. 
Yeah. 
Absolutely. 
And they're amazed that there's so many people that speak Spanish out in the West and everything. 
And it's like, well, you know, there's more to, there's more to things than just what's outside your front door. 
Mm-hmm. 
I kind of went on a rant because I had some people post some crazy Trump is a savior kind of stuff and like all this anti-science stuff. 
Uh-huh. 
So, I was like telling them about, you know, when it comes to stuff like the Big Bang and stuff like that, the way we figured out there was a Big Bang is because of Edward Hubble. 
Edward Hubble, back in the day, he started measuring the redshift of light of galaxies. 
So, they found a redshift that determines the direction and speed that you're going. 
So, it's not that big leap of a faith to backtrack from that point. 
The direction and speed it's going to figure out it's coming from one point. 
Kind of like having a garage with like, you know, like five cars going out from a garage. 
Each car has its own little road it goes on to. 
So, it's going on those directions. 
But because you can measure that speed and direction that car is going, you can determine which road it's going from, going. 
And you can determine which garage it's going to. 
You know what I mean? 
Interesting. 
Yeah. 
And, yeah, the only thing we can't figure out is what goes on in the garage to create the car. 
Well, now, the first telescope was named after Hubble. 
Now, we have the Webb telescope, which is going to answer all kinds of other questions. 
So, we might find out how the car was built after all. 
Well, yeah, the way that works is you take a prism and when you look through a telescope, the light from the object you're looking at goes through the prism, you know, go into a rainbow, right? 
And if you see any black lines, it means that there's some kind of gas absorbing the light. 
And the lights, the bands with the colors on it is just like being emanated from the object, right? 
And that's how they discovered a bunch of elements, too, is doing that. 
But the James Webb is going to be doing that. 
And they say it's going to be so accurate that it can literally determine the atmosphere of an exoplanet around another sun. 
Yeah, that's going to be amazing. 
That's going to be incredible. 
I mean, and that's something else, like the way we determine the distance to nearby stars is called parallaxing. 
You ever, you know what parallaxing is, right? 
Where you, okay, well, if you put your finger up to your face. 
An embarrassed silence from everybody. 
Yeah. 
You put your finger up to your face, right? 
And you close one eye, it's at one angle. 
You close the other eye, the finger's at the other angle, right? 
Right, right. 
So, you know the distance of which you're at and measuring this from with astronomy, they use AU. 
So, that's the distance from the sun to the earth. 
So, they take this measurement twice a year, every six months. 
So, like in January, they'll make a measurement. 
And then when it comes to June, they make another measurement to measure the parallax of the nearby star because it's close enough to be able to see the parallax. 
And just with a little bit of trick, you can figure out how far away it is. 
Wow, okay, all right. 
Yeah. 
That's interesting. 
And it works terrestrially, too. 
If you, like, take, like, a yard stick or a meter stick, which I prefer meters because it's easier to calculate. 
Right. 
But, and you stand at one, you stand at one end of the meter stick, you can take a protractor and just have it point out at a right angle from the meter stick. 
Have a string and a little bit of, it's something like a washer at the string, and just look at the object you're looking at and just have that string go over to, go over to angle from your eyesight. 
And you do that at both ends. 
You just do a little bit of trick and you can figure out the distance from it. 
And you can figure out the height by just, like, using the same protractor by just knowing the distance you are from the object and just using the angle where you look at the top of the object you're looking at. 
And you can just do a little bit of trig and figure out the other end of the triangle, and there you go. 
I mean, that's your, I'm sorry, I'm just rammed. 
No, just do a little bit of trig. 
Man, you know, I never walked into the classroom of trig. 
I got to algebra and that was it. 
But, wow. 
You know, you have a lot, you can teach a lot of people. 
You really do. 
You have a good way of explaining things. 
So, I hope you never lose sight of that because that's an incredibly important gift to have. 
Anything else? 
Because we have to move on to some other calls. 
Oh, no, I just, you know, thanks for listening to me. 
Yes, please write to us so Alex can definitely share what he's found out and do what we can. 
Oh, okay. 
Okay. 
If I'm running to any questions, I'll email him. 
Cool. 
See what we can do. 
Okay. 
All right. 
Well, hang in there. 
Hang in there because, you know. 
I'm trying. 
I'm just hoping this can all kind of work out because, you know, when your eyes are so blurry, you can't even watch porn. 
It kind of ruins the mood, you know. 
Well, yeah, I guess that, well, fortunately, you have a vivid imagination. 
That's the important thing. 
Yeah. 
All right. 
Well, that VR thing, I mean. 
Yeah, there you go. 
VR, you know, it's an amazing time to be alive. 
And, um, oh, oh, one more, one more thing. 
Um, the NFT stuff. 
Right. 
Well, there's this, uh, there's this TikTok woman or YouTuber or whatnot. 
But she, she's been selling her, um, she'll pass gas in a jar and sell it for like a thousand dollars this bottle. 
I think I heard about this. 
I think I tried to forget about it, too. 
But, um, yeah, well, people, it's working cause she's getting money out of it, but, um, which kind of makes me think of stuff I can do to try to fill it, but that's neither here nor there, but she, um, she got sick from eating, eating too many gassy foods, um, so she can make more, you know, uh, poot jars. 
So she started selling NFTs for, I can't remember the price, so it was like something outrageous. 
But it's like a picture of her jars. 
And, um, I was just talking to my brother a little while ago about it, and, um, I was explaining to him, you don't really own the picture. 
All you own is the receipt. 
Right? 
Yep. 
That's pretty much it, I think. 
So basically, it's like going into a CVS or a Walgreens and buying something out of the shelf, but not being able to take the thing off the shelf home, but just having a receipt for it. 
Yeah, but have you ever gotten a CVS receipt? 
They're, like, 25 feet long, so that's worth something. 
Yeah. 
Well, then, well, the hatch is about that long, so I guess it fits. 
Yeah. 
You can do all kinds of things. 
Great hearing from you. 
Yeah. 
Please keep us updated, and, uh, best of luck with everything. 
Okay. 
Thanks, man. 
All right. 
You take care. 
You have a good... 
All right. 
All right. 
Our phone number, 802-321-4225, 802-321-HACK. 
I can't believe we're almost through the hour. 
Boy, time flies. 
Do we have another call? 
I think we might. 
Um, okay. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Go ahead. 
Hey, hi. 
I've been listening for a very long time. 
I'm calling in from Connecticut, and this is the first time that I've called in. 
Oh, my goodness. 
Wow. 
What part of Connecticut are you in? 
So, I live in Newtown, Connecticut. 
Okay. 
We're in Southern Connecticut, pretty close to Danbury, New York State. 
Uh-huh. 
And, uh, just wanted to call and see if you folks wanted to talk a bit about some of the insurance implications of the crypto.com hack. 
Sure. 
Absolutely. 
So, it's pretty amazing. 
You know, things are pretty basic. 
I think if you are a user and you're using that service, you've got to do what most people don't do to begin with, and that's actually read the service agreement, right? 
What's the custodian agreement? 
What liability do they have for you? 
That's, like, so much more important than the insurance they have, and I think a lot of people don't do that. 
They just click right through it, right? 
Exactly. 
Yeah. 
So, like, I'm in the insurance business, and there's, like, a whole host of things to be considering here. 
So, if you are a, um, if you're a custodian of cryptocurrency, you probably have something called a fiduciary liability policy, which indemnifies you if, in fact, you are hacked or you lose funds of other people. 
There's some insurance limit for that. 
And then, of course, if you are a director, you have directors and officers insurance, which pays for if you're sued. 
Let's say you might be publicly traded, could be part of a class action. 
You'll have resulted insurance for that consideration. 
Or maybe you're a vendor, somebody who actually was in charge of helping you set up your operation. 
Those folks have E&O insurance who would cover you for things like, you know, setting up kind of faulty arrangements or creating issues where folks could get into your system. 
But none of those things actually really matter in the end. 
I think what matters to me is if Crypto.com is a real organization that wants to have a brand and grow their business, they're going to have to make right by their customers no matter what happens. 
So, whether they have insurance or not, they're going to have to reimburse those people whose accounts were potentially hacked and whose cryptocurrencies they lost. 
And that's a huge risk if so many people are now investing in cryptocurrency today. 
Yes, that's true. 
Yeah. 
Go ahead. 
Go ahead, please. 
No, please, after you. 
Well, I just would point out that this is not a small operation and they are naming stadiums after themselves, which no doubt those naming rights are, you know, from their investors and all their fundraising. 
Crypto.com stadium, where is that? 
I don't know. 
That actually exists. 
There's probably more than one at this point, but go on. 
And I just was hearing that in what you were saying about how big or, you know, how much they care about their brands. 
Yeah, I think that stadium is actually in California. 
It might actually be in L.A. 
I don't know the exact amount they paid for it, but it's, I think it's like $750 million or over a billion dollars. 
Yeah, it's in Los Angeles. 
That's a great deal amount of money in that. 
Yeah, the stadium's in Los Angeles. 
I just found out. 
What was the second thing you were going to point out? 
Go ahead. 
And that is that, you know, if you're using this custodian services and you're working with somebody who has a reputation and a brand they're going to be building, they're obviously going to write the issue, right? 
They're going to fix the problem for you. 
They're going to put the funds back in your account. 
But it actually gets to a more fundamental consideration, which is if you're going to be in that cryptocurrency space and actually making real investments in it, you probably need to be taking that cryptocurrency off the exchange and keeping things in a private wallet. 
And I think that creates a whole host of issues for many people that a lot of folks don't know how to do that. 
Or if you lose your private keys, you lose all your money. 
So this is really a nascent space, I think, for the insurance business, where a lot of folks have not solved for this yet. 
So let's say you take your currency off the exchange, you lose your keys, you lose your wallet. 
That's a big deal for a lot of folks, and the insurance industry hasn't actually come up with a product for that yet. 
So if you're in that business, this is a real opportunity, because I think this is an important part of our future, maybe not just for cryptocurrency, but for NFTs, for digital engagement, interacting in the metaverse. 
It's just a fascinating space. 
You can really get lost in this conversation. 
Yeah, I'm almost lost myself right now. 
But you work in the insurance industry. 
Yeah, I sure do. 
I have for a very long time. 
So it must be particularly interesting to you to see all these changes, and to wonder how insurance can be a part of that. 
Does the insurance world, do you think they're doing enough to keep up, or is there a lack of creativity there? 
You know, I personally think there's a lack of creativity. 
You know, the insurance business is an old business. 
It's a business that's been around since Ben Franklin. 
And obviously, prior to that, before this country was founded, I think the opportunities we're seeing are from younger folks, people that are entering the space, kind of digital first. 
They have this new awareness of where the economy is going, where people's trends are going. 
I think about a company actually in the UK. 
It's called Nexus Mutual. 
No affiliation with them whatsoever. 
But they actually create insurance contracts that ensure the certainty of smart contracts executing in the way they're purported to execute. 
So that's a brand new product. 
That company has grown from like a couple million dollars to, I think, over $100 million today in premium. 
But it's a risk that no one else is covering. 
So I don't think it's going to be covered by your traditional insurance brands. 
It's going to be done by people that you haven't heard of before. 
New people in the space, younger folks getting started in a career, kind of a digital first perspective. 
It's a really interesting and fascinating area to work in. 
You know, I think you should write an article for 2600 about this because it's a fascinating topic and I think it would generate a lot of interest. 
I really do. 
Alex, I think you had a question? 
Yeah, absolutely. 
You know, first a statement and then a question. 
And I'm so excited about this first time caller calling because it's a veritable fountain of knowledge when it comes to insurance and the insurance industry. 
And by the way, you guys, you know, the insurance capital of the world is in Connecticut. 
Do you know what city that is, Emmanuel? 
Why would I know that? 
I know a caller must know that, but I don't know that. 
If I had to guess. 
OK, you know what? 
No, I know. 
I know what it is. 
It's Hartford because Hartford Insurance. 
Right. 
I've heard of them. 
God damn it. 
Wow. 
I'm smart. 
Good guess. 
Good guess. 
You know, halfway between Boston and New York, we're going to work. 
You know, you weren't going to say Bridgeport. 
You know that. 
But anyway, so this caller, I want to ask you in particular, well, actually, one more point before I go into that. 
With respect to how, you know, the stodginess of the insurance industry and whether it's evolving and whatnot, I will say, you know, as a lawyer, what was always fascinating to me in law school was just how many really seminal cases in the history of the United States, lots of Supreme Court cases all originated in the context of insurance companies and somebody suing over whether or not there was coverage for a particular claim. 
If it wasn't for the insurance industry in this country, I really think we would have a completely different version of the common law. 
That industry has propelled so many fascinating legal precedents in American jurisprudence. 
With that in mind, caller, I'd love to get your opinion about whether this crypto.com hack would implicate and in what way a cyber liability policy. 
Yeah, absolutely. 
Thank you for the question. 
And certainly maybe the manual first. 
I appreciate the connectivity between fascinating and insurance. 
You typically don't hear those words together. 
So that's a kudos to you. 
Thank you for that offering. 
I'm surprised, too. 
And at the same point, you make a great perspective that insurance actually has always been at the forefront of technology, right? 
Technology is always kind of leapfrog law. 
And insurance really has kind of followed it in that respect as well. 
So I totally agree that you see that connectivity between the advancement of technology, regardless of the point in time you're in, relative to what's happening in the insurance industry as well. 
You know, I think of cyber liability policies is covering things like privacy and data breach, maybe system compromise, extortion and ransomware, social engineering. 
Those are kind of the main tenets I think of in that regard. 
And you probably do have some liabilities in those cases as well, right? 
You certainly do have a privacy breach, which means something different to the U.S. than it might mean in Europe under GDPR. 
So probably that gets exhausted. 
That coverage gets exposed as well. 
And that's probably a good thing as well, because a lot of cyber liability policies have a whole host of proactive and reactive services that go with them as well that just don't benefit actually the corporation, but also the people that have been affected as well. 
And that's the piece I would like to focus on, actually, which is how do you help the people that have been affected, right? 
Their information's been exposed. 
They might have lost money. 
How do you right that wrong? 
I mean, I think cyber liability is just one of those pieces within, you know, a DNO, maybe a little bit of commercial general liability and fiduciary policies that all kind of come together to find a way to solve this issue. 
But the issue overall really is a technology issue, technology issue. 
How do you make sure that doesn't happen in the first place? 
That's the tough thing to get right the first time. 
Yeah, and it seems like the insurance industry, just like other areas, will be there to, will have to sort of be able to assess what types of technological solutions and implementations were put in place. 
Or as you were first stating in the call, like the policy itself, how read up is the person who is taking advantage of the service, the user of the service? 
How much are they aware and what kind of products are available for them if they do consults, if they're a small or medium or large organization, what advice and help they get? 
And is there anything available that will cover their specific case? 
And that seems like it all has to be like really tailored or like specific to what they're using and what their exposure is. 
Yeah, I think you have to know the risk, right? 
These are unilateral contracts. 
You're not going to negotiate a special deal with Crypto.com or with Coinbase. 
You just have to know these risks exist. 
But then how do you best mitigate them, right? 
And I think one of the things you can do as a consumer is making sure you take that off the exchange itself onto a private wallet, which opens up so many other insurance opportunities through lost or stolen products. 
It's just an amazing, fascinating space. 
I would love to write an article about it for 2600. 
So challenge accepted for sure. 
Awesome. 
Wow. 
Alex, did you have something else? 
I was just going to underscore the point that I would love to see an article on 2600 about this. 
And in particular, I think being on the forefront of these issues is really interesting. 
But then also almost like a historical look back at how insurance was actually at the forefront of technology could be really, really fascinating from a historical perspective. 
And it could, I think, you know, with the readers might change their mind about the insurance industry itself, because I know that the industry is having some difficulty attracting, you know, real cyber talent here. 
And that article or maybe even a series, maybe a two part article could go a long way to changing that perception, getting some hackers more interested perhaps in joining underwriting teams for cyber liability insurance policies. 
I'm thinking also this could make a good help talk as well, because I know there'd be a lot of people attending our conference that would be interested in this as well. 
Absolutely. 
I agree. 
Well, certainly appreciate the opportunity to say hello to you. 
Thank you for allowing me to share some perspective. 
Hopefully I've allowed to give you folks something to think about, maybe give some of your listeners something to reflect upon. 
And we'll certainly connect in the future. 
So thanks for the opportunity. 
Thanks for all the great work you folks do. 
I just love off the hook and love this perspective, this conversation on YouTube. 
It was amazing last week. 
And that's really what prompted me to call in today. 
Awesome. 
Well, thank you so much for calling. 
It really wasn't lightning. 
Sorry to keep you late. 
Have a great evening. 
All right. 
Take care. 
Wow. 
You know, what was interesting about that? 
He was, he said Danbury he was calling from? 
Newtown, I believe. 
Yeah. 
He mentioned Danbury. 
I thought, we were just watching a train, a train camera, and one of the train lines, it's a diesel that goes up to Danbury. 
And we were just watching that. 
Is that the gravel train? 
No, it's not the gravel train. 
The gravel train goes up that line late at night and then comes back down and then heads out to the east. 
Okay. 
I know all of this from YouTube just watching train cams. 
But it's relaxing. 
You do a lot of writing when there's just trains going by. 
I don't know. 
I can't explain it. 
How many different ways is YouTube changing lives right now? 
It really is. 
Well, it's mostly the people running the cameras that are changing lives. 
They are. 
Yeah. 
It's not. 
They're just using this utility. 
A lot of calls tonight. 
Let's have one more opportunity before we sign off for the night. 
So the first person that calls, 802-321-4225. 
We'll talk to you and then that'll be it. 
What's the email address to submit an article? 
Articles at 2600.com. 
Okay. 
Yeah. 
We don't often say that, but that's true. 
Articles at 2600.com. 
It's how you submit an article to 2600 Magazine. 
And unlike most magazines, 2600 basically is open to all kinds of submissions from freelancers, from people out there that may never have written before or that don't think people might be interested in what they have to say. 
We are. 
If it's got to do with technology, it's got to do with the digital age or just the hacker perspective, we want to hear from you. 
We really do. 
What if I want to submit something anonymously? 
Don't sign your name. 
Okay, but what if I don't want you to know who sent it? 
You don't want me to know either? 
Okay. 
That's fine, too. 
Well, first of all, there's a bunch of us. 
I think we have a phone call. 
This is from Hackensec. 
Wow. 
Nice. 
They got the word hack in the name. 
But let me just finish this. 
We have a SecureDrop presence as well. 
And the whole 2600 staff will not know your name. 
You can still communicate with us because the way SecureDrop is set up, you can send a message and it's all disguised no matter what. 
We cannot find out who you are, but we can still talk to you about your article. 
Or we don't have to talk to you at all. 
It's up to you. 
SecureDrop.org and you'll see a list of different organizations and we're in there with them. 
Also, 2600.com slash SecureDrop. 
There's another way to get there, yes. 
All right, let's take this phone call. 
And, caller, are you indeed from Hackensack? 
Well, I'm close to Hackensack. 
But what the deal is, I'm calling to possibly help the gentleman who had the screen reader issues before. 
There is a screen reader which he may not be aware of, which is free, a very comprehensive set of software, which has been in development for about 10 years or more by a bunch of programmers all over the world. 
And you can get it by going to the website www.nvaccess.org. 
And that is a screen reader that is - I have never seen it have problems like that by reading too much or too little on the web pages because you can configure it appropriately to ignore a lot of the garbage that's on their source code or whatever if you don't want it. 
Awesome. 
Okay. 
So that's nvaccess.org. 
That's n as in Nancy, vaccess.org? 
No, nv - November, Victor, Delta, Alpha, Access.org. 
Okay. 
And it is for free. 
Awesome. 
Wow. 
You know, I knew our listeners would come through on this. 
I'm sure that's going to be very, very helpful. 
Yeah, hopefully that would help. 
And that is a very good free solution. 
And I think you'd find it quite helpful. 
And as far as - let's see, I had some other things, but it just blew out of my mind, so I'll save it for next time. 
Okay. 
I wanted to give that info out there. 
Well, thank you. 
I'm sure it will be very, very helpful. 
Thanks for your call. 
Okay. 
Bye-bye. 
Take care. 
Wow. 
Hackensack. 
There you go. 
Hackensack with the answers, you know, to help other listeners out. 
That's awesome. 
Thank you so much, everybody out there that is there with answers and help when we or our listeners need it. 
You can write to us, OTH at 2600.com. 
If you have further comments or things that you'd like to offer as far as information or experiences or stories or requests or whatnot, OTH at 2600.com. 
That's going to do it for us here tonight on Overtime. 
We'll be back again next week on WBAI. 
It's 7pm and again on Overtime at 8pm. 
We are starting to post information on the Hope.net website with updates on the conference. 
We are moving forward as COVID starts to recede. 
We're hoping that this is it and that we can finally start planning in earnest and start organizing and getting this first in-person conference since 2018. 
Wow. 
Can you imagine that? 
That's what's happening. 
Hope.net. 
That's where the info is right now. 
There's going to be more info on a daily basis pretty much at this point. 
And we'll have a lot more to say about that in the weeks ahead here. 
So for everybody, thank you for calling. 
Thank you for listening. 
We'll see you next week. 
Good night.